In the early morning hours of July 28th I took a plane from Birmingham International Airport to Alicante with two friends, Peter Krauskopf and Timm Sonnenschein. The flight was very smooth and we touched down just after breakfast to blue skies and warm weather. A secret place... Catching a bus into central Alicante we walked along the beach to board a train that would take us up the coast to Villajoyosa, a small town that was to be a two-day resting place before entering the Guhyaloka, a 'secret realm', from where we would not return until summer was but a vague memory.  | | Padmakumara |
On the train we met with some young men from Cardiff who were eager to get to Alicante and the sun, sea, sand, and I presume sex, that lay behind their anticipating demeanours. I found the irony of our disparate journeys amusing. People board trains for very different reasons! A new beginning... Whilst in Villajoyosa, Timm, Peter and I met with others who would also be on the 16-week course. On the morning of Friday July 30th we took a taxi to Font de Larc, a climbers refuge above the village of Sella. From here we were collected, along with our bags, and taken up the winding , rock-strewn and riveted road to Guhyaloka, a Buddhist retreat centre set amongst limestone rocks, 2,000 ft. above sea-level. This was to be our home for the next 16 weeks. Not only was it to be our home, but something very special was going to take place while we were there. We would have our Buddhist practice witnessed and join the Western Buddhist Order. This would entail becoming a Dharmachari, or 'fairer in the Dharma' (the Truth), and include receiving a new name. I may have entered the valley as Guy Potter but I would leave it as someone else, someone new.  | | Padmakumara |
This new being is Padmakumara. It means The (red) Lotus Prince and although I have been back from retreat for over two weeks now, and was given the name almost two months ago, I am only beginning to look into what it means. Padmakumara is a myth, and as such it will unravel as my own life unravels, for although I have returned from 16 weeks of retreat my practice as a Buddhist and as a Dharmachari is only just beginning. Living in harmony... My time out in Guhyaloka was intense, rich, and magical. It is impossible to give you but merely a flavour of what happened there. In a dry landscape of rocks and Pine trees we meditated and performed many rituals of deep symbolic significance. Living and working together in a harmony guided by Buddhist ethics has left a deep impression upon me and which I have never experienced before: I even wonder if I will to that degree in future. I did struggle with my health whilst there and did wonder whether to return home in the early part of the retreat. I am very pleased that I didn't and it is thanks to the support of my brothers that I was able to remain until the end. A Buddhist way of life... The retreat does not serve the purpose of just joining the Western Buddhist Order. We were there to deepen our Buddhist practice. This meant leaving behind much of what we are attached to, much of what we are familiar with. This is essential if we are to understand ourselves as somehow more than our likes and dislikes, more than the films we watch, the clothes we wear, the work we do, the car we drive, the food we eat, and so on.  | | Guhyaloka sunset |
The whole retreat was set up to loosen our attachments to these things that are merely the surface of who we are. As such we gave up our clothes and wore robes for the retreat, we conducted meditation and devotional practices that seek to release us from the urge to find happiness and satisfaction outside of our own heart and mind. We studied the Buddha's teachings as expressed in different ways at different times in Buddhist tradition, and we even had a day where we exchanged with someone else, eating and drinking as they did, reading the books they read, exercising as they exercised, sleeping when they slept and so on. This was all done for a simple reason, to understand that the differences between ourselves and other people that cause us to struggle and create conflict, are not fixed and unchanging, indeed they aren't ultimately real. A deeper meaning of life... We are beings in change and each moment is an opportunity to open up to the fact that our own best interests are served by engaging in activity that helps everyone. So often we see other people, situations, indeed life itself as hindering our own happiness, but Buddhist practice is the attempt to see this as a game that we ourselves choose play.  | | Padmakumara |
We play it because we are ignorant, we hold a view that somehow we are separate from everyone else, somehow separate from the rest of life, but we only need to consider the meal in front of us at dinnertime and the clothes we wear to glimpse a sense that actually we are interconnected and interdependent. The joy of life and harmony... Seeing and understanding this more and more deeply is how we can become free, how we can become happy. It is seeing as the Buddha saw. On the retreat we all explored this truth of interconnectedness, tried to let go a little from our self-preoccupation and hard-heartedness. We tried to see the joy of a life in harmony, in which difference is not the cause of conflict but the passport to mutual happiness and peace. The work is far from being done. It has been described by the Buddha as a struggle, yet it is to this path that we, that I, as Padmakumara, continue, moment by moment. The efforts of my time in Guhyaloka will hopefully live with me for a long time, inspiring and guiding me as I make the decisions and choices that are asked of us all. Following the Buddhist path... I have chosen to do this because I believe the Buddhist path to be a human path, open and available to all like a personal invitation, regardless of skin colour, class, nationality, wealth, and so on. I believe that human happiness is to be found in following this path, in engaging in this struggle, and I have committed my life to it. May there be peace. Padmakumara
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