An important message from Spiritual Director, Venerable Tejadhammo
Dear Friends,
I hope you are staying safe and well.
Much time has passed since many of us have seen each other face to face. With the closure, sale and loss of Sangha Lodge, our home in Lewisham for many years and the devastation of the COVID pandemic all of us have experienced the reality of Anicca and Dukkha.
Personally I was deeply saddened by the loss of Sangha Lodge, the absence of a venue for our Dana Days and teaching and a place for us to be together to encourage each other and enjoy each other’s company and friendship. I missed greatly seeing each of you in person and hearing how you were doing.
The loss of our annual Food Fair (established a long time ago by Molly and KK Lim) due to new government regulations was also another blow to all. We tried continuing teaching via ZOOM and Meredith Tan did a marvellous job of organising this during COVID. We had many wonderful & generous “visiting” teachers at this time. My own experience of serious and debilitating illness and four attempts at spinal surgery over those years has also meant that I was largely unable to contribute to teaching or perform my hospice, hospital and jail work.
During this time we have made substantial renovations to our retreat centre Vejjasala under the direction of our architect friend and member David Wilson. These renovations which followed the catastrophic bush fires have now been completed. The result is a truly wonderful retreat for our members and friends. We are slowly trying to re-establish our connections with old members and friends through trying to hold Dana Days at the Buddhist Library and attempting a renewal of the teachings. Retreats are being conducted more regularly at Vejjasala these days.
These have been sad, difficult and hard times for all of us I think.
I am writing to you to ask that you take part in our survey to tell myself and the present committee what your views are on what you would like myself and the Association to do for you and what you think we can do to bring life back into our group. Fortunately, my health is finally turning a corner for the better after the last spinal surgery. I will be offering a retreat in November this year and hope to return to a more regular teaching schedule very soon. So many of you have put in an enormous amount of effort over many years to establish the Association it would be very sad and disappointing if that generosity and effort were now to come to nothing. Personally I feel a very strong sense of duty to all of you who have worked so hard in the past and acknowledge that my inability to fully participate over the past few years has not been helpful at all.
I am asking therefore that you please take this opportunity to try to complete this small survey, let us know what we can do and how we can continue to offer the Dhamma which is beyond price to each other and the wider community. I really look forward to hearing from you.
Wishing you every blessing of the Dhamma now and always,
Bhante Tejadhammo Bhikku
