My Week Volunteering at Buddhist Center in England

This past week went by so quickly! I can’t believe I’m only hours away from beginning my backpacking adventure around Europe! I've been dreaming of this day for what seems like centuries and it has finally arrived =) But first, my week at the Buddhist Center!

This past week was filled with completely new experiences and a whole array of interesting people. My friend Peter dropped me off at the Buddhist Meditation Center on Monday morning and I had no idea what to expect. Okay well actually let’s be real, I expected the Dali Lama to greet me at the front door and begin sharing his insight and wisdom with me. As you can imagine, this didn’t happen! Amanda, the director of the center, welcomed me and showed me to my room. The center was located in Kelmarsh, a small town in the beautiful countryside of England. After getting settled in I made my way to The World Peace Café, where I would be volunteering every day for the duration of my stay.

The café follows Buddhist tradition and only offers vegetarian food. Out of respect for the residents and the center, volunteers are expected to also follow the rules – no eating meat, drinking alcohol or smoking. I was quite skeptical about the whole “not eating meat” thing but to my surprise I really enjoyed the food! (My favorite – Goat cheese, hummus & sundried tomato panini). I ate at the café for lunch and then a group dinner was prepared each evening by the residents. I worked in the café from 9:30-5 each day, dinner was at 6pm and then I had the option of sitting in on the meditation classes/teachings after that if I wanted. I ended up sitting in on three classes and I learned so much! Before I get into my experience please note that I have ZERO intention of converting to Buddhism. With that being said, just because my religion is Christianity and I don’t have any interest in converting, I think it is important to educate ourselves on other cultures and the beliefs of people that we share this world with. So, this brings me to my thoughts on Buddhism: 

• You don’t have to be a Buddhist to practice the basic principles of Buddhism

Buddhism is all about finding inner peace and happiness. It teaches that these two things can only be found by being compassionate to all living things and by treating all people equally. Now, this is just a small part of this religion but shouldn’t we all be doing these things regardless of what our religious beliefs are?

• Buddhism is kind of contradictory

From what I gathered, Buddhism teaches followers to be the best kind of human, while teaching them to not be human at all. As I mentioned above, Buddhism focuses so much on compassion, love and equality – obviously all desirable characteristics. But it also says that in order to have absolute inner peace, one cannot be attached to anything. This includes family, friends, work, education, feelings, etc. It teaches that we must not allow jealousy, anger and other negative feelings into our lives. Although it is safe to say that these types of emotions usually have a negative impact on our life, aren’t emotions -all types -  what make us human beings? And how is it possible to “detach” ourselves from things like our family, friends and our career when these are the main components of who we are? I am by no means an expert on this religion. These are just my own personal conclusions after spending a week at the center.

It was also really nice to meet new people every day. Between the residents and customers I had so many great conversations! I even got a compliment here and there ;) Norpel, one of the ordained Buddhists, is the café manager. As we were closing up one night he says “So, are you a dharma practitioner or are you just this easy going all the time?” Considering I have no idea what “dharma” is, I agreed to the ladder!

 The original plan was to have my own room but on Monday a Polish woman named Anna showed up at the center needing a place to stay. She had been working as a live in aid but the woman she was taking care of died and she was out of a job. The center is very welcoming and as long as people are willing to volunteer every day, they will give you a place to stay and food to eat. So, I got a roommate! Anna is quite an accomplished individual. Before moving to England she was an artist in the US. She holds two master’s degrees and was a professor at a Polish university before moving to America. I sensed that it was a touchy subject so I didn’t press, but I know she wasn’t in England by choice. Getting to know Anna was very humbling for me. As our lives go on I think we all begin to think we “have it all figured out.” As an accomplished adult I am almost 100 percent sure that Anna never once thought she’d find herself at a Buddhist Center in the middle of nowhere asking for a place to live because she had nowhere to go. This is just another reminder that we never know where life is going to take us.

To make this week even more interesting, I’m quite convinced that my room was haunted! I started to have weird dreams every night and then nightmares. I didn’t think much of it at first and then it started to bother me. Without mentioning it to anyone, Anna told me on Thursday that she had been having extremely violent nightmares since she arrived. I’m not quite sure if I believe in ghosts or spirits or whatever BUT I do know that the building was originally a nursing home. As you can imagine, I was so scared by Saturday night I didn’t sleep at all! I was more than happy to be leaving on Sunday!

For my last day in England Anna drove me to a beautiful park outside of Leicester. It wasn’t really a park but more so 850 acres of open land. It was absolutely beautiful!

Right now it is almost 2am and I am sitting in the freezing cold airport. My flight isn't until 7:30 and I tried to sleep but it wasn’t happening. I even put my PJ’s on! I suppose I will relax for now. Italy bright and early =)