A Window into a Spiritual Community

Here’s my ideas for the LBC website. I know a new LBC website is currently in the works, and I don’t know what is planned for it, and perhaps it’s too late to influence it, but here are my suggestions:

It’s hard to overestimate the  importance of having a good website, and the opportunities created by having a great one.  People practically live on the internet these days, for many it will be the first point of contact. I think the LBC website should be a window into a spiritual community– it should feel alive and current, plugged in to a wider network- because that”s what the LBC is- it’s not a nightclass centre where courses and classes are held.   Beginners classes will probably need to have a prominent place on the site quite rightly, but it shouldn’t be too hard to scratch beneath the surface of the ‘LBC‘ and find ‘Sukhavati‘.

Blog on Current Affairs

On the website I think there should be a blog featuring a Buddhist perspective on contemporary events in current affairs, politics, the news etc. I think if Buddhism is to be taken seriously as a force in our society, which I assume is what we all want, it needs to be seen to offer new ways of dealing with the problems that face the world. I think this would be an engaging way of communicating the Dharma. The posts on the Blog should be by Order memebers who have a talent for this type of thing, and to my mind should not allow for anyone to make comments underneath- unless they are vetted first- as often people put very stupid or unkind things on them. Vishvapani, with his ‘Thought for the Day’ is already doing this on radio 4- perhaps he could be invited to post on this Blog, as well as other senior order members in the movement.

History

I think it would be great to have an account of the history of the LBC Mandala, particulary focusing on the building project and all that came out of

LBC Before Building Project

that as well it’s broader context in the Triratna movement and in relation to Bhante. I these could make some very stimulating pages- with photos and accounts from people like Subhuti and Atula. I think it should also include a link to Bhantes inaugural talk “Authority and the Individual in the New Society” (here) which I think is still very relevant today. Doing this would again show how the LBC is more than a typical organisation.

FAQs & Ask a Buddhist 

FAQs would be a good feature to have- it can answer questions such as: “Is Meditation about making your mind go blank?“,  “Was the Buddha Fat?”, “Is the Buddha a God”  and all those other questions the answers to which can clear up common misconceptions, and again, is a snappy accessible way of teaching the Dharma.

There could also be a “Ask a Buddhist” section where people send in their questions on life, problems, meditation,  Buddhism etc. and they are answered by a suitable Order Member. I met a Zen Abbot from a Monastery in Boston, Massachusets when I was in Italy. He gave me a link to his page “Dear Abbott” (here)  (in America there is a famous agaony aunt page called Dear Abbey) which is worth a look at to show you what I mean.

Images & Words

The argument that the movement tends to emphasize the calmness, retreating from the world, peacefulness at the expense of the dynamism, transformation and radicalism of the Dharma is probably quite familiar to people in the movement. Vajragupta gave a good talk (here) which included him reporting back from some research he’s done looking at the movements websites which backed this up- most of the images and words used were about calmness, peacefulness etc.  The more peaceful images should be balanced out with images of dynamism, of transformation. I think more use of the Bodhisattva image would help in this area, as it would subtly communicate the more proactive aspect of Buddhism, as opposed to the more ‘static’ Buddha image that we usually see. (I will give a fuller account of how I think the Bodhisattva Ideal/ Image can address the imbalance in the image of Buddhism has in a future post).

Alive and Current

As I said earlier, I think the website should feel alive and current- this should not only be reflected in the content, but also in the look of the site. A main image that changes would be a good thing to have.  I think a modular website would be better as opposed to the list style.

As much embedded video and audio clips as possible would also be welcome. Using animation and films would be a very exciting direction to go in- RSA do some interesting animation that condense long and complicated talks into animations (here) for example. Headspace, who teach meditation have also done some good animation about meditation (here) Film-making and animation is a topic I will go into in a later post, which will talk about how having a film-making / animation community around the LBC, however germinal,  could create a lot of interest. The results from this could showcased on the website. Animation is a particular interest of mine and I think this particular artform  has great potential for communicating the Dharma.