By Owen Cole

Owen Cole was asked by Lama Zopa to take over the Maitreya Project in July last year. He has worked as a journalist in Australia for the last 20 years and first met the Dharma at the 1978 Kopan course. Since then he has held various positions in the Australian centers including spiritual program coordinator at Tara Institute, assistant director of Vajrayana Insti­tute as well as running that center’s cleaning busi­ness. He has made a number of trips back to India in that time including numerous stays in Bodhgaya.

An old destitute man called Munshi has become an important part of our organization’s project to build a large statue of Maitreya Buddha in Bodhgaya.

Lama Zopa Rinpoche and Kirti Tsenshab Rinpoche were on pilgrimage in the holy place of Rajgir when they saw Munshi begging. He was wearing rags, emaciated and so weak he could only crawl. Lama Zopa said he should be looked after at Root Institute, our center in Bodhgaya, so Munshi lived there until he passed away in July last year.

Munshi typifies the problems of the state of Bihar in which Bodhgaya is located. Once a center of power and wealth in India, it is now one of the poorest states in the country with 40 percent of the population living below the poverty line of a little more than $US5.50 per person per month. It’s a state where the illiteracy rate is a staggering 70 percent and where laborers earn about 65 cents a day.

Our organization is going to spend an awful lot of money on a statue of Maitreya Buddha in this state and the message has come from His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Lama Zopa and local officials that we can’t neglect the poverty of the local people. The present and future state of the people are perhaps what Lama Yeshe had in mind when he suggested building a large Maitreya statue in Bodhgaya to repay the kindness of India for being the home of our religion.

This widespread poverty is something our organization is trying to alleviate. Firstly, in the short term the Maitreya Project will provide much needed work for the people of Bodhgaya and in the long term will increase the level of tourism and the numbers employed in the tourist industry. But equally impor­tant, our organization has a number of social work programs in Bodhgaya.

Munshi is just one person who has benefited from these programs. He was the first guest at a home for the destitute for which land has now been purchased. Lama Zopa Rinpoche has boundless enthusiasm for this project and wants it to start operating as soon as possible. Adriana Ferranti of our organization runs another social work project in the area, the Maitri Leprosy Centre. It has already cured 80 people and is treating 300 others.

In addition, Root Institute has been running a number of grassroots community programs in poor villages. They include training in bag making and sewing, sinking wells and irrigation works, a project to improve the quality of local dairy cows and a reforestation project. These programs are being undertaken in villages in which almost 8,000 poor and lower cast people live. These activities are the spirit of Maitreya at work and help ease the physical deprivation of the people. In fact, the name Maitreya comes from the Sanskrit “maitri” which means loving kindness towards all.

But Rinpoche says the suffering of disease, poverty and despair in poor countries comes from non-virtuous actions [from former lifetimes] so helping people to avoid such action is the most effective way of ending their suffering.

“If one has the capacity, one should help the poor by giving them food and other things but will that alone change their mind, transform their mind to Dharma by understanding attachment, good heart, bodhichitta and so forth?”

“Even if you gave millions of dollars to each person it would probably create more problems for them. That alone doesn’t change their mind, it doesn’t change their action, they don’t stop creating negative karma so they continually create the same cause of poverty.”

Stopping the causes of suffering depends on the teachings and the existence of the teachings depends on the existence of holy objects such as statues, scriptures and stupas, Lama Zopa says.

Hundreds of people, including many poor Indians, visit Bodhgaya every day and Lama Zopa explains just seeing a stupa or statue helps purify many causes of future suffering such as poverty, disease, etc. and creates the causes of enlightenment. “in this way such a statue can help bring peace, not only to the individual, but to the whole world” Rinpoche says.

We don’t have the karma to see the Buddha so for us he is represented by statues. Also, praying to Maitreya Buddha and making offerings to him helps create the karma to meet the future Buddha when he appears on earth according to Rinpoche. It helps create the causes to become a disciple of Maitreya Buddha and hear his teachings.

When I asked to do this project I didn’t think it was one of our people-oriented undertakings, but I was wrong. In a short visit to Asia for the project I’ve met many people who have shown me the energy of Maitreya’s universal loving kindness.

In India there was Adirana who treated the ulcerated toe of a leprosy patient with such love and care that the wound could have been on her own foot. I was afraid of even touching the toe for all the reasons that have seen people with leprosy rejected from society throughout history.

There is the director of Root Institute, Kabir Saxena, who tries to fulfill even the most unreasonable request and always tries to see the argument from the other’s point of view.

There is the rich businessman, Mr. Bhansali, whose family trust funded an eye camp in Bodhgaya which has saved the sight of 60,000 people over the last eight years. The camp performed ten thousand cataract operations over 16 days last Novermber and he says: “If I see someone in a miserable state and I can make them happy, then I also become happy.”

There is Dr. Asani, the head surgeon at the eye camp, who has been a volunteer at the camp since it started. The reason is his mentally retarded daughter. “When she was born our family was rich and had medical skills, but I saw they could do nothing to help her so I thought, “Why should I run after money?” Perhaps, I hope, that by doing this work, God will one day provide a solution.”

These people are small examples of the joy and love of Maitreya Buddha living in a world that often seems to lack such qualities. We will be working with thousands of similar people to build a physical symbol of this energy of loving kindness towards all. This statue is a symbol of spiritual hope that in the long run the human race can make it.

We have made a detailed submission to the Government of India state of Bihar – in which Bodhgaya is located – for a plot of land in the heart of Bodhgaya. It is an ideal site and we are awaiting the government’s decision.

Lama Yeshe always envisaged that the statue would be in beautiful surroundings and we have designed a park around the statue conducive to bringing tranquility to the mind. Bodhgaya is also a holy place for Indian Hindu pilgrims who make up a majority of the visitors to Bodhgaya. The surroundings will cater for their needs as well as those of Buddhist pilgrims who want quiet, shaded areas for contemplation.

There are two main areas of the project currently being worked on.

1  Design and construction

We are investigating many construction techniques – from those used to build large Buddhist statues in Asia to the “world’s largest troll” in Norway. Our statue has to combine the dura­bility of modern construction techniques with the centuries old skill of religious artists from the Indian sub-continent. It has to last a long time in a harsh environment.

2  Money

We already have a good working capital thanks to the tireless efforts of Lama Zopa and kind benefactors around the world. However, our organization will have to raise more money to complete this project than it has ever raised for any other single venture. People with fund-raising skills have offered their help and we are working on plans for this huge fund-raising task. It is hoped to have brochures printed shortly in at least English, Chinese and Japanese.

The Maitreya project will involve a large amount of money so proper auditing procedures are being put in place to ensure all the money donated is used for the purpose for which it was intended. Financial accountability is a priority of the project. Maitreya project budgets are submitted to the FPMT Board of Directors and the spending is monitored by them. The FPMT’s computer accounting system, C-BOOK, has been set up in the project’s central office.

A project as huge as this requires people with many skills and the offers to help from those within our organization has been encouraging. These skills include architecture, landscape de­sign, accounting, engineering, fund raising, graphic design, photography, computers and public relations not to forget those many practitioners who remember the project in their dedications.

If you want to know anything more about the project or have a skill you would like to offer please write me, Owen Cole, at 1 Grove Lane, Lilyfield, NSW, 2040, Australia. Phone and Fax 612 818-4754. If you live in Australia, you can send donations to this address, making cheques payable to Maitreya Project.

From elsewhere, please send your donations to FPMT Central Office.