The Vajrapani Buddhist Meditation Center is located off Mills Avenue, just a block behind Paradise bar. But step inside the modest cinderblock building and you're transported to a space of calm, welcoming spirituality. A golden Buddha dominates the main room, and other statues and shrines give the space an exotic appearance. At the Sunday morning intro class, attendees sit in chairs or on floor cushions, but all rise to greet Kadam Ricc Bishop, the senior lay teacher at the center.
A beaming Kadam Ricc climbs up on a small platform and assumes the lotus position. For the next 75 minutes he guides two to three dozen peopleâ┚¬â€Âsome regulars, some first-time visitorsâ┚¬â€Âin meditations and teachings. Afterward, everyone shares in delicious soup cooked by Kadam Ricc's partner of 37 years, Pat.
The Vajrapani Center is one of a half dozen independent centers in Florida following the user-friendly Kadampa Buddhist tradition founded by Venerable Geshe Kelsang Gyatso.
One of the oldest, the Parbawatiya Buddhist Center, is in Safety Harbor (meditationintampabay.org). A beautiful new Kadampa International Meditation Center and Temple for World Peace recently opened in Sarasota (meditationinsarasota.org).
Kadam Ricc spoke with Watermark on a Sunday morning before one of the Vajrapani Center's intro classes (meditationinorlando.org).
Watermark: There are lots of misconceptions. What is the essence of Buddhism?
Kadam Ricc Bishop: The essence of Buddhism is to increase our wisdom, our good heart and our inner peace. All of the Buddha's teachings take us to those three places. Without increased wisdom we won't understand karmaâ┚¬â€Âthat our actions and intentions create results that lead to future happiness or suffering.
Without increased good heart, we'll continue to act with selfish intentions. We do this habitually, and trying to satisfy our wishes and only our wishes inevitably leads to problems… in our relationships and in society. With increased good heart we'll wish for others to be happy, and that will protect our intentions and our actions.
Without increased inner peace, outer peace in this world is impossible. No matter how hard and how many people are working for peace, as long as we're all saddled with selfish and unhappy minds we'll project that into everything we do… even if consciously we don't want to. Geshe repeatedly gives the message that if each one of us finds inner peace, we'll have world peace. In fact, we won't have anything to work towards.
Is it accurate to call Buddhism a religion?
Like everything, it's empty… unless we give it meaning. That's one of Buddha's ultimate teachings. So it depends on how you define religion. If you believe religion is based on a creator god, then no… Buddhism is not a religion. Buddha never said whether a creator god exists or does not exist. He said that until we uncover our own mind and discover who we are, we can't answer these questions. And if we attain and fulfill our own inner potential, we won't have these questions.
There are Christian Buddhists and Jewish Buddhists. How does that work?
Well, I can't really say from their side. But from Buddha's side, it's perfectly fine to take his teachings in whatever context you can best understand them, and even use them to reconnect with your spiritual practice. A Catholic priest once told me he finds Buddha's teachings and meditation methods to be wonderful ways to increase good qualities. Another Catholic priest told me Buddhism was the work of the devil.
What's the difference between meditation and prayer?
Buddhists pray, but in Buddhism we ask for blessings or what could be more accurately characterized as mental inspiration. We're saying, â┚¬Å”Inspire me. Remind me who I really am.â┚¬Â We pray for the mental conditions of confidence to fulfill our path, faith in our own potential, and a belief that we can be something more than we are.
We get caught up in our ordinary lives, and we start to view ourselves as ordinary, limited beings. But in the Sutras (teachings), Buddha says repeatedly that there's nothing ordinary about us. We need to be reminded that we have these potentials and qualities.
One of my favorite Sutras says that right now we use the potential of our own mind as though it were the size of a pea, when actually our mind is larger than the universe.
In Western religions it seems that prayer is often a request to be cured of flaws or forgiven sins.
I think that kind of prayer starts from a contaminated place; a belief that, â┚¬Å”I am flawed, and I need divine help to not be flawed.â┚¬Â What Buddhists believe is fundamentally different. Buddha saw that no living being is flawed in any way. But he also saw that all living beings suffer from negative minds that lead them to negative actions and thus pain in their lives.
Do you see the difference? One says, â┚¬Å”I'm flawedâ┚¬â€Âsave me and care for me.â┚¬Â The other says, â┚¬Å”I have compassion for myself and others because I understand that we all suffer from negative states of mind.â┚¬ÂÂ
What was your spiritual background, and what drew you to Buddhism?
I was raised Catholic and never had any interest in eastern religions. But when I was 18 I went to a museum exhibit with my partner, Pat, and I stepped in a room where there were something like 40 different statues of Buddha, all in a row. It was so beautiful, and very peaceful. And there was one Buddha with cloth draped over the front that had worn away. It was a â┚¬Å”Wishing Buddha,â┚¬Â and a sign in front explained that if you rubbed it and made a wish it would come true. I was an obnoxious young adult and my intention wasn't pure, but I rubbed the Buddha with my thumb and said, â┚¬Å”Show me wisdom.â┚¬Â Four days later, Pat brought home a bunch of books from a thrift store. He dumped them out, and right on top was a book called This Is It, by Alan Watts. It was a Buddhist book. I read it and it felt like I was encountering beliefs that I already held and that I didn't know anyone else shared.
So for the next 20 years I practiced Zen Buddhism. And then about 12 years ago I encountered the Kadampa tradition, where Geshe has completely removed all cultural bias and presented Buddhist teachings in a context of busy modern lives. When I encountered his teachings, it completely opened up Buddhism for me. Since then I've been on retreat with Geshe at least 20 times. I'm getting ready to go again.
How did the Orlando center come to be?
I'd been studying the Kadampa tradition with a teacher in Tampa, and in 2000 I went to my first festival in England to take teachings directly from Geshe. When I got back, someone in Orlando had submitted a written request for teachings. A Buddhist teacher cannot teach unless there's been a request, and when a request is received it's important. You have to try and honor it. My teacher, Kaddam Lucy James in Tampa, asked if I would consider doing a little branch class. So it started on Thursday nights in that little garage at Spiral Circleâ┚¬â€Âa room that has seen so much spiritualityâ┚¬â€Âand it just grew.
When you look around at this beautiful center and you realize that it started with just me and a box of books in the trunk of my car and a portable shrine that I would set up at the Spiral Circle, it's remarkable. All of this has come about solely through the kindness and good intentions of this community. No one receives compensation of any kind. Everything you see here is an expression of the love, wisdom and compassion of the people who come here. It's manifestation of their spiritual realizations.
How would you describe what goes on inside this building?
Here at the Vajrapani Center we want to be able to offer Buddhist teachings across all levels of interest. Geshe has designed three spiritual programs. The general program, which includes classes on Thursday nights and Sunday mornings, simply gives Buddhist teachings for a happy life. Buddhists and non-Buddhists can apply these to their lives. We also offer foundation level classes, which are a more serious study of the Sutras and the Buddhist lifestyle. And finally we offer the teacher training program for those who've shown a capacity for dharma (understanding) and want to take it to that level.
What does Buddhism offer members of the LGBT community?
I can only share my experience. I've always been a spiritual person, and like a lot of gay people who have spiritual inclinations, I was kicked around a lot. Every time I found a spirituality that I thought might give my life some meaning or fulfillment, I would encounter some sort of negative bias.
In Kadampa Buddhism and in Buddha's teachings, concepts like male, female, gay and straight are considered empty; they're empty of existence separate from our minds. So all of us exist in a state of pure potential, and we can choose to fulfill that potential and have a happy and meaningful life, have good relationships and be proud of who we are on our spiritual quest. Kadampa Buddhism doesn't ask us to hide who we are, or adapt who we are to someone else's teachings. We are instead guided to express who we are in our spirituality.
You can be a gay Buddhist. I'm an openly gay resident teacher in a qualified Buddhist lineage tradition. That's amazing.
