The Founding of the Bodhichitta Foundation
What were the conditions which led Ayya Yeshe transforming her monastic life from being focused on the inner spiritual journey, to one that would now serve the wider community? In our recent podcast conversation, she tells the story of how she began to formulate the Buddha’s teachings in a deeper manner.
“It’s a myth to say that monks and nuns live in solitude all the time. They actually meet with lay people every day when they have a meal!”
“Although our own spiritual practice is very important, and seclusion is necessary - it's the building block, the foundation stone of Buddhist practice - communal practice is often underestimated and misunderstood. Westerners have just taken this insight [meditation] practice and left everything else: ethics, altruism, community, which were naturally there as part of Buddhist practice. The Buddha spent many months of every year on the road teaching different people, encountering different people, and different people would come to the monastery every day. So, it's a myth to say that monks and nuns live in solitude all the time. They actually meet with lay people every day when they have a meal! They're completely dependent upon lay people. If they lose that connection, Buddhism will disappear in that country.
So, I started a charity, because at first, I was just chanting and giving people blessings in India, but somebody put a dying baby in my lap, and it had diarrhea. It was like a little skeleton, and they were like, ‘Please pray for this baby.’ And I was thinking, ‘This is not upāya; this is not ‘skillful means.’ This baby doesn't need just prayers; this baby needs a two dollar tablet that will save its life. And I, as a person with white privilege from a wealthy country, have the ability to do this.’ I just realized it was patronizing to teach people about spiritual things when they were basically starving and didn't have basic human rights or education.
So, I just realized, ‘Okay, this garden bed of human beings needs more nourishment. Let's lift their survival and their education and their human rights situation. And then, they can think about spiritual teachings and practice.’ And that's how the Bodhichitta Foundation India started.”