Buddhism Today blogs

At our last Young People's event in Nottingham Jinaraja came to talk to us about what it was like to be a young Order Member. The week before four of us had driven to Padmaloka for the day for a mixed day retreat and listened to Padmavajra give a talk about being a young OM with a strong message of taking responsibility (an amazing talk and has been recorded). Jinaraja had a very different story to tell in terms of his beginnings. He grew up in Easterhouse a massive council estate in Glasgow and told us of the violence and poverty he experienced everyday. It wasn't long before he began to question what life was all about and told us of a drunk man he saw one day who slured "I was born in Easterhouse and I'll die in Easterhouse" Jinaraja decided he needed to get out. He heard from a woman he worked with of a guy who had given up his well-paid job to be a buddhist and  Jinaraja went along to his first class. At this point he was only 19 years old. Soon after he moved into the mens community and experienced the joy of going for a walk without the threat of being robbed/beaten up etc! The community lived in a dilapidated old house, there was four in a bedroom with saucepans around the room to catch the rainwater and they just slept on mattresses with sleeping bags. At 6 in the morning one order member would go downstairs and put on tibetan trumpet music as loud as it would go and that would be the alarm! At 21 Jinaraja asked for ordination and got ordained at 23. He told us of the amazing Glasgow Buddhist Centre retreats where they would find huge fallen trees and drag them into the shrine room and that would be their shrine! 

 

It was incredibly inspiring to hear about a young person's journey towards ordination and beyond and I encourage you to ask your local veteran order member to reminisce about the good old days! 

 

  Jinaraja (right) with Sahaja