Amala Wrightson Former punk Charlotte Wrightson - who once played naked except for a coating of yellow paint at the Nambassa rock festival is now 47-year-old Zen priest Amala Wrightson. She established the Auckland Zen Centre, a collection of three draughty rooms at the former Sanitarium Factory in Royal Oak. Here some 40 practitioners - ranging from Westerners, Asians, Eastern Europeans and Americans - take instruction from her. A further 300 subscribe to the groups mailing list.
As is the case with many people who have adopted Buddhism, Wrightson's transformation began when she was in her 20s and faced her first big life challenge. She was raised an Anglican, and her then boyfriend, now husband, poet Richard von Sturmer, had gone on what was supposed to be an exciting trip to Italy to study at a reputable theatre school. "But it sort of ended up being a crisis year. We had trouble finding a place to live and we ended up in a cold room looking after the son of the theatre director.
Richard got writer's block and suffered from insomnia," she says. "That made us realise we needed to get a bit more sorted out in terms of our ability to cope with things."
By chance one of the books they took with them was The Three Pillars of Zen. It precipitated a trip to Stockholm to hear author Roshi Philip Kapleau speak and that led Wrightson to her first three-week retreat in 1988. For the former punk the routine was strenuous; participants rose at 4.30am: their meditation and work was conducted in silence, interrupted only by simple meals until they fell into bed at 9.30pm.
But the intense singularity of the experience opened up her mind. "I remember going into the dormitory bathroom to brush my teeth and turning on the tap and hearing the water as if for the first time. I realised how much noise there usually was in my mind, that normally I don't live or experience my life.
"Just a little thing like that gave me faith to keep going. It's not always like that - often it's just a struggle - but I got a sense of how effective the practice was."
For the next 15 years, Wrightson and her husband lived between New Zealand and Roshi Kapleaus centre in upstate New York. In 1999 Wrightson became a Zen priest, making the study and teaching of Buddhism her life's vocation. Being a priest means she can remain married because unlike nuns she has not taken a vow of celibacy. She returned to New Zealand in 2003 to establish the centre.
Wrightson acknowledges there are varying levels of dedication from those who say they are Buddhist, but says most of her students are seriously studying the dharma (Buddhas teachings). "Zen is not as exotic as other traditions because you basically get told to go and sit and face a wall," she says. "The emphasis in Zen is on direct experience not the theory."
Buddhism, she says, has benefited her enormously. "I'm able to stay on an even keel through life's ups and downs. More able to really be with other people and help other people, I hope. I have a little bit more clarity and direction." Yet her decision to dedicate her life to the Zen path hasn't come without sacrifices - the hardest, she says, was the decision not to have children. "I couldn't have done what I've done if I had them. You can't do everything. There are points where you have to leave something behind."
Hugh Kemp is a Victoria University student who is writing his PhD thesis on Buddhism in New Zealand. A Christian who was raised in India, he recently traversed the country interviewing Buddhists from all walks of life to find why it appeals to such a diverse range of people.
He says immigrants find some degree of cultural solace in the traditional Buddhist rituals, as well as an identity which connects them to their country of origin. Those who have converted to Buddhism are largely Pakeha (although he notes there are 1836 Maori Buddhists), baby-boomers in their 40s and 50s, many of whom have a "cut and paste" approach to the beliefs rather than wholesale adoption of its teachings. It is possible to blend Buddhism with secular life and other religions; there are, for example, Jewish and Catholic Buddhists who see the dharma as an additional facet to their lives, not a contradiction.
"[Converts] especially use meditation as a tool to cope with the crazy mixed-up world we live in," Kemp says. "A lot of people also told me that they find that it gives them an opportunity to take responsibility for their own spiritual development, unlike some other religions - and they also like the fact there is no over-arching hierarchy."
He believes the seeds of Buddhism's growth began with travellers to Asia during the 1960s and 70s. "My hunch is that Kiwis travelling through Asia had an exotic attraction to Buddhism. As a mindset, New Zealanders are curious and like different-ness. Also we tend to support the underdog, hence the anti-nuclear thing with the US and we also think Tibet should not be bullied by China." He believes that among the attractions of New Zealanders to the Dalai Lama's Tibetan tradition, there is a strong political nuance. Many also talk about the charisma of the lamas.
Simon Harrison is a case in point. He was instrumental in bringing the Dalai Lama to New Zealand this time, the culmination of a dramatic meeting as a 22-year-old with a Tibetan lama.
It was 1976 and Harrison was studying pure mathematics at Oxford University. As a mathematician he always had a question about how love, compassion and altruism fitted into logic so a friend took him to a Buddhist centre. There he learnt its logical basis but "on the last day [a Tibetan teacher called] Lama Yeshe came up the path. I was on the lawn and he simply said 'good morning' and that was love and compassion without needing any explanation," he says. "Meeting Lama Yeshe was the point at which I could never let go and it has sustained me since."
This is the essence of the lamas' significance in Buddhist practice - the simplest of exchanges can have a resonance beyond the ordinary. For Harrison, the seemingly mundane conversation became something much more significant; Lama Yeshe seemed the embodiment of goodness.
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