Atarikusala: Bhante, at the end of the higher ordination of the four Czech monks on 13th January, you spoke in your address about two things especially. First, you stressed the importance of the event for the development of the European Sangha; second, you explained at length the connection to the Mahāsi tradition. Who helped to make the connection to the Myanmar tradition of Mahāsi Sayadaw?
Kusalānanda:
The greatest contribution to connecting European Buddhists to the Mahāsi
tradition was made by my German teacher, the Venerable Nyānaponika Mahāthera.
Ven. Nyānaponika described the Mahāsi method of mindfulness and
insight meditation (satipatthāna–vipassanā)
in his book The Heart of Buddhist
Meditation. The book appeared first in German in the 1950s but was
understood only by a few. It contains practical instructions how to meditate,
the first such instructions ever found in any Western language. Even more
important, though, is the fact that from 1971 Ven. Nyānaponika helped me
conduct meditation courses for German speaking people from Switzerland, Germany
and Austria. These were short weekend courses to introduce people to the methods
of sitting and walking meditation, as well as longer intensive meditation
retreats conducted in a similar way as in the Mahāsi Sāsana Yeiktha in
Yangon.
Several times since 1977 I
invited Sri Anagārika Munindra to Switzerland to teach the Mahāsi
method. He taught in English and I translated into German. In 1977 I founded
there the Dhamma Group, an institution to mediate Buddhist meditation to the
European public in a more official way. The Dhamma Group invited several
meditation teachers, some of whom, besides teaching the traditional mindfulness
of breathing (ānāpāna–sati), also taught the Mahāsi method of observing the rising and
falling of the abdomen. The first invited teacher was Venerable Piyadassi Mahāthera
from Sri Lanka, the second Joseph Goldstein from America, the third Ruth
Dennison from Germany.
The main link — connecting
European Buddhists to the Mahāsi tradition and to Myanmar Buddhism in
general — has been Ven. Sayadaw Dr. Rewata Dhamma, with whom I have been
cooperating since 1975. Bhadanta Rewata Dhamma has conducted and continued to
conduct meditation courses in Mahāsi style in Switzerland and also seminars
on Abhidhamma. The peak of this development is, without doubt, the Mahāsi
Sayadaw’s visit to Switzerland in 1979. There Ven. Mahāsi Sayadaw
conducted his single meditation course on European soil — as I reported at
some length in my speech after the ordination of the ACES monks at the Mahāsi
Center, Yangon, in January 2003.
AT: You have mentioned several outstanding monks. What is their relation to the emerging of Āyukusala Central European Sangha (hereafter abbreviated as ACES)?
KA:
The word Āyukusala was
used by Venerable Nyānaponika from the early 1970s to designate my approach
to mediating Buddhism to Europeans. He liked my stressing of the Dhamma’s
contribution to successful coping with everyday life (āyu–kusala)
in other ways than the part meditation plays in it. This approach was also the
theme of the interview between Ven. Piyadassi and myself broadcasted by Sri
Lanka State Radio on Vesākha Day in May 1977. Venerable Dr. Hemalawa
Saddhatissa, the Head of the London Buddhist Vihāra, was very much
interested in the Āyukusala
approach too.
There were three outstanding
Myanmar monks who highly appreciated the use of Abhidhamma in Āyukusala. Venerable Sayadaw U Thittila, the translator of the Vibhanga,
endorsed my showing how to use the Abhidhamma paradigms in Insight Meditation
— as this had not been at all a matter of course up till then. Venerable
Sayadaw U Nyānissara expressed his praise of my using Abhidhamma as the
basis for training psychotherapists and counselors. When we met in Oxford,
Abhidhamma–based Satitherapy was not yet internationally known. The techniques
of this Buddhist psychotherapy and counseling have been auxiliary to my courses
on life–mastery according to the Dhamma. As I’ve already mentioned, Sayadaw
U Rewata Dhamma was the third Myanmar monk who supported the Āyukusala
approach; he was, of course, my teacher.
AT: So that was the situation during the seventies and eighties in Switzerland. But you also helped pioneer the spread of Dhamma in Czechoslovakia at the beginning of the nineties. Did you do the same there as in Switzerland?
KA: Yes, I profited from all the experiences I had in Switzerland before I left for Sri Lanka in 1983. The seven years I then spent in Sri Lanka near my teacher Ven. Nyānaponika also contributed to the success of the Dhamma in Czechoslovakia during the nineties. As always, very valuable assistance was given me by Sayadaw Rewata Dhamma. I worked in Switzerland from 1968–1983; for the same tasks in Czechoslovakia I needed only about half that time, mainly in the years 1990–1997.
AT: In the 1970s, you were the very first Western teacher of Satipatthāna–Vipassanā meditation — and also for years the only one in Europe. You founded the Dhamma Group of Switzerland, you were founder president of the Swiss Buddhist Union. You have been on the Board of Trustees of the International Buddhist Foundation in Geneva. Have you received any help from these institutions since then?
KA: There was not much help from Switzerland. My friends from the IBF helped to start its sister organization in Prague, now known as IBDF (International Buddhist Donation Fund). However, it soon became very clear that the Czechs and Slovaks had to do everything on their own without help from abroad. The Dhamma Group of Switzerland donated a computer printer, but there contact ended. Members of the Swiss Buddhist Union were very friendly to the Czech representatives at various international meetings, but I suspect that the Czechs and Slovaks were more interested in promoting their particular schools of Buddhism than in dialogue between Buddhists generally.
AT: So, how did you proceed in Czechoslovakia in the 1990s?
KA:
The chief task I set myself was to start meditation courses of Satipatthāna–Vipassanā,
both introductory weekend courses and intensive two week retreats. For that I
needed an institution to shelter the work, so I founded the Buddhist
organizations called Dhamma Friends (Pøátelé Dhammy) in Prague and Bodhi
Group in Olomouc. In the years thereafter the participants of my meditation
courses founded local groups in many towns — there are more than ten by now.
Those local groups are coordinated by the IBDF. This also organizes meditation
courses and intensive retreats conducted by Āyukusala meditation teachers.
AT: Besides all this, it is well known that you have been teaching Pali and Buddhist culture at university level and also a course on Abhidhamma for psychologists. As a postdoctoral course for psychotherapists and doctors, you have been teaching Satitherapy. Are these various aspects of mediating the Dhamma as a method of life–management?
KA: Yes, I have just tried to utilize all my skills as a meditation teacher, a psychotherapist and an academic. However, most important was the second phase, training other meditation teachers, other psychotherapists and other university teachers in mediating Dhamma — each in their own profession field. Then came the third phase, which I see as the most important now — and this is the training of Āyukusala monks.
AT: This training began in 1998 when the first two Āyukusala monks were ordained in Sri Lanka. But these were not the first monks who appeared in Czechoslovakia and thereafter in the separated Czech and Slovak Republics. Which other monks participated in the Buddhist life of these countries?
KA: The first monk who gave lectures and conducted meditation courses in Czechoslovakia was Sayadaw Rewata Dhamma. I introduced him to the public and translated his lectures at the beginning, thereafter other translators took over. My chief task then became to prepare conditions for the work of the Dhamma to be performed by other Buddhist monks. While I was still the president of the IBDF, I invited two monks of Czech origin to come to Czechoslovakia — namely Tomáš Gutman and Pavel Smrèka. Gutman started out as a Theravada monk, sponsored by me in Sri Lanka during the eighties, then became a Mahayana monk in China and a Theravada monk again in Myanmar — he did not respond to the invitation. The other monk of Czech origin, Smrèka, who ordained in Myanmar as Ven. Ottama, accepted my invitation and came to the Czech Republic in 1996.
AT: As far as I know, the Czech Buddhists refused to support Ashin Ottama and he started a new group of his own in which he combines some other teachings with Buddhism. What do you know about this?
KA: The Czech and Slovak Buddhist Groups did not like Ottama’s non–Buddhist teachings such as the Vedantic non–duality and his combinations of kundalini–vipassanā. That is why they refused to support him, but he became quite popular with non–Buddhists, especially due to his sacral dancing and similar practices. Because I knew Pavel Smrèka for many years and always helped him as if my younger brother, I asked him to limit himself to the Buddha’s teaching as long as he wore the monk’s robe. I also asked all the Bodhi Groups of my pupils to give Ven. Ottama all needed support so that he could practice the Theravadin monastic rule. This was about all I could do since I was already in Sri Lanka, where I am fully occupied with the training of Āyukusala monks.
AT: Talking of Āyukusala, what is this tradition?
KA: Its aim is strictly keeping in line with the original teaching of the historical Buddha as it is preserved till today in the countries of Theravada Buddhism. Yet the ACES — that is the Buddha followers assembled in the Āyukusala Central European Sangha — are not compliant to any particular sect or nikāya of the various contemporary national Buddhist institutions. The ACES hold the Dhamma to be a skillful (kusala) way of living (āyu), as taught by the Buddha Gotama. The Buddha’s Noble Eightfold Path provides for cultivation of character and ethically handling everyday situations (sīla–sikkhā), meditation training (samādhi–sikkhā) and developing wisdom (paññā–sikkhā). This applies to both the lay and monastic orders of ACES.
AT: While the lay Āyukusala Sangha has been in existence for more than ten years, the monastic Sangha is only five years old. What do you personally consider the most important task for the ACES in future?
KA: My wish for the future is to build on what we have at present. There are now ten Āyukusala monks, one nun, more than ten lay teachers and several thousands of persons who have come into contact with the Dhamma as mediated by ACES. Well, the most important thing now is to cultivate an impeccable interaction between interested lay people and the Buddhist monks.
AT: Bhante, thank you for this interview.
is a Buddhist monk of the Theravāda school. As a Swiss citizen and also a Czech national, he speaks several European languages. He is presently living in the Āyukusala Assama in Sri Lanka, from where he coordinates the training of Āyukusala monks.
After an intensive meditation training with Ācharya Anagārika Munindra in Bodh–Gaya, India, he became a teacher of Satipaþþhāna–Vipassanā Meditation in 1967. Then during the 1970s he worked in Switzerland as a psychotherapist and professor of psychology at Berne University, when he founded the Swiss Buddhist Union and the Dhamma Group. In 1983 he moved to Sri Lanka, where he lived at first as an Anagārika then as a family father since 1987. From 1990 he taught Dhamma in Czechoslovakia, while lecturing also at the Universities in Prague, Olomouc, and Brno, founding several Bodhi Groups in the main cities of this newly liberated country. In 1997 he returned to Sri Lanka and there received ordination as Ven. Kusalānanda. He is also known as the Āyukusala Hamuduru in Sri Lanka and as the Āyukusala Sayadaw in Myanmar.
Venerable Kusalānanda mediates the Buddha’s Teaching as a practical method of life mastering, as explained in his book The Art of Happiness – Teachings of Buddhist Psychology, published in several languages under his lay name of Mirko Frýba. His latest English book is
THE PRACTICE OF HAPPINESS – EXERCISES AND TECHNIQUES FOR DEVELOPING MINDFULNESS, WISDOM, AND JOY (Shambhala Publications, Boston & London, 1995).
see more on MAHASI AND AYUKUSALA
Āyukusala Central European Sangha – ACES
e–mail: info@ayukusala.org
or ayukusala@centrum.cz
