Maitreyaraja
Manager at London Buddhist Centre in Bethnal Green
It's almost 40 years since the London Buddhist Centre opened its doors on Roman Road – a rather exotic place on this lively East End high street. The building, an ornate Victorian re station, was vacated by London re services in 1969.
It became derelict before the Triratna Buddhist Community bought the place, renovated it and opened as the London Buddhist Centre (LBC) in 1978. The founder of the Triratna Order is Sangharakshita – an Englishman who spent over 20 years in India studying with different Buddhist teachers.
He initiated a new Buddhist tradition that translated essential principles of Buddhism and adapted them to the modern world.
It's this that led Maitreyarja, an ordained Buddhist and one of the centre's managers, to the LBC 18 years ago. “I was intrigued by how Buddhism can be made accessible, practicable and inspiring to an urban modern situation," he says. After studing psychology in London, he travelled to Thailand. His intellectual curiosity and a significant meditative experience at a monastery suggested to him that there was more to life than the mundane world, and his path eventually led to the LBC. His name, Maitreyarja, means Friendly King. “When you get ordained you get these big names which you are thought to grow into,” he explains.
Seeing the centre at lunchtime as a diverse group of people flock there for the open meditation sessions, it's obvious that the LBC has achieved its original goal. It is a thriving hub where Buddhists, as well as regular and occasional meditators converge.
Over the years, the LBC has become embedded in the neighbourhood. There's the centre itself and there are the communities: two men's and one women's community are located within the building, and three more nearby. There is also a number of Buddhist businesses locally – Lama's Pajamas, a vintage clothing shop; Jambala, a secondhand bookshop; the London Buddhist Art Centre, gallery and rehearsal spaces, and The Larder, a vegetarian restaurant. They are all separate independent charities but associated with the LBC. Besides offering a range of classes for a broad audience, the LBC also runs Breathing Space, a health and wellbeing wing that provides mindfulness-based courses for people suffering from depression, addiction and anxiety, and sessions for carers.
The centre is an urban retreat but it also runs an on-site centre in Suffolk. “It is essential for serious meditators to go on retreats,” says Maitreyarja. The retreat centre is currently being refurbished but will re-open in May 2016. Until then, the regular retreats are running in other places nearby (see their website for details).
Asked about what he thinks of the immense popularity of mindfulness, Maitreyaraja sees it as a positive thing and welcomes that more people practise it. For him, however, that's only one part of it. “There's so much more that Buddhism has to offer”
Does the area influence you? Yes, well I think it does in a sense that I’ve been based here for 21 years and have been working here for18 years. So obviously there are always local people coming in and I have been meeting them and talking to them and asking them about the locality as well.
What makes you most proud? When I was a young man I had many choices. But I’ve decided to put a large chunk of my life into deepening my own practice and working in a team to make that available to other people. One of the most satisfying things I do is to take people on retreats. We introduce them to meditation and a whole new way of living. I feel proud that I steadily followed through on that over a long period of time.
What are you working on now? At the moment, I work in the centre’s administration team. We're planning and scheduling for the re-opening of the retreat centre in 2016. I’m also the current season's events manager and I'm organising the Introductory Day for November. I’m also involved in the general management of the LBC.
Best coffee in these parts? I really recommend The Larder just next door.
Where do you eat out? Once again, The Larder. It’s a local business and it's really important for the centre that it does well. I eat there regularly and the food is very good.
What do you do at weekends? I like to read – Philip Pullman at the moment. This year I’ve been doing a number of Thames Path walks: the Rotherhithe to Greenwich is a good one. And then I do like to make the most of what London has to offer like galleries, theatre or the cinema.
Anything you would change? Well, one of the things around staying in the same situation for a long time is that some of the aspects of my work start to feel a bit samey. There is a desire for some new areas of work. I don’t know yet what it is and whether I'll find it here.
The area's best-kept secret? I don’t know about best-kept secret but I like Victoria Park and the Pavilion Café, especially in the morning. The light then is very nice.
East End in a word? Varied.
This article appeared in the November 2015 issue of LoveEast Magazine.