2021-08-01 The Life and Teachings of Russel Williams 2

    6:06PM Aug 13, 2021

    Speakers:

    Sensei Amala Wrightson

    Keywords:

    horses

    people

    felt

    manchester

    russell williams

    connie

    buddhism

    buddhist society

    gave

    talking

    house

    nature

    continues

    spiritual healing

    realize

    spiritual teacher

    ramana maharshi

    speak

    monk

    teachings

    Today is the second day of our 2021 winter seven day sesshin. And today is Sunday, the first of August, I gave the wrong date yesterday. It was in fact that the 31st of July yesterday.

    We're going to continue with our text - The Life and Teachings of Russell Williams, which is the title, Not I Not Other Than I - and it's edited by Steve Taylor. And we left off Russell Williams who had this awakening experience through paying attention to his horses.

    He goes on in another chapter, which we I think we just started horses and healing. Talking about this this special relationship he developed with him And telling various stories about about his, his powers that he or more sensitivities that he developed. And we just give a one or two examples here. He went with this the circus that he was employed by to Ireland's to Dublin. And then on the way back, he got got stuck, couldn't take the boat because he didn't have his identity identity card that you needed to sail with. And so he had to stay behind while the rest of the circus went on. But while he was there, he got this very strong sense of, of the horses that he looked after being agitated. He says I was deeply disturbed. I couldn't understand what was going on. Something was distressing them very deeply. What could it be, and this was when there were many miles between him and the horses. He continues, eventually, I was retrieved the identity card, and sailed over a few days later, I hitchhiked my way back to our winter quarters, arriving about 3am and made my way to the stables. There was no light, but everything was familiar. I knew precisely where everything was. As I was walking through something grabbed me by the ankle and threw me to the ground. I'm fighting something in the dark, I can feel it's for I find its neck and start squeezing it and it gives in. I know animals once they've given in, it's over. So I let it go knowing it won't fight back. I find the hurricane lamp light it and realize I've been fighting a baboon, a chacma baboon. It was on a chain though, enough to allow it to run around a few yards. But not long enough to reach the horses. I realized that was why the horses were so distressed, a strange animal they couldn't understand. I was so bonded with them that I'd picked up the feelings from hundreds of miles away. He starts he started to doubt develop such a reputation that people ask him to come when they have problem horses. And one of the first incidents that leads this reputation is when he takes a new job at a different circus. And he's given four horses to look after. But on his first day, there's a big commotion. Because one of the grooms has been very badly mauled by one of the horses there in the circus, and heads his head to be taken to hospital. And apparently he was the fourth person who this had happened to with this particular horse. And so when he goes into the stable he finds the the circus owner's son about to whip the horse. And he tells him not to do it, though, and the son replies, but he's mauled a man. It's the fourth time it's happened. And Russell Williams replies, you're not doing that you'll only make it worse. If you want to chastise an animal, you've got to do it in the moment. Otherwise they won't make the connection. As far as it goes. There's no such thing as a bad horse. I'll take it on in addition to the four others I've got, and I guarantee that within 24 hours, I'll have like a kitten. And if I don't, you can use the whip on me.

    The horse's name was Mephisto, a big black Friesian horse, a stallion, a lovely animal. I went into his stall and he turned towards me lifting his head and baring his teeth. I held up my finger as if to say no, and gave a sign that I would retaliate if necessary. I walked up to his nose petard showing him I was a friend not a foe. I breathed into his nostrils quietly and gently so that we were exchanging breath. He accepted me straight away. I could sense him calming down. I rolled my hand over his body gently stroking his legs at each foot. Inside half an hour, everything was at peace. Struck by this, the breathing into the horse's nostrils and and thinking of the hongi which is so important a part of breathing and into our Maori. And this hongyi is exactly this an exchange of breath exchange of the life force. A way of recognizing and honoring our interconnectedness our relationship

    Just one more here. This is where he's he's called to help with some particularly difficult horses that have been brought over from wild part of Ireland to be broken in his cordon, I walked into the corral with a bucket of water, and sat and waited. After an hour or so, one of them came up to drink some water from the bucket, and I let him drink it. I said they're completely calm and quietly, he took a few sniffs and accepted me. I did that for two days. And one by one, each horse came up to drink and sniff me and accepted me. I managed to get collars on to the mall and into the stables. After those two days, they will all working with me, not against me. He finds that he also has a skill in helping horses who twisted their ankles. I will heal him with a kind of manipulation, a kind of massage. But perhaps a type of spiritual healing to I couldn't explain, explain it. It was just a touch I had. And I've done it with people Two years later, the Buddhist society in Manchester there was a girl who worked with my friend Connie, who went out walking in the Peak District and hurt her ankle so badly, she could hardly stand up. I worked on her use the same kind of management, massage and manipulation I did with the horses. And by the following day, she was back at work. Remember how he said that he could sort of enter into the consciousness of, of people and things that he encountered. So in a sense, he seems to have been able to enter into the into the ankles of people and horses.

    I felt a rapport with people too, but in a different way. People are deceptive. They even deceive themselves. I can sense the true nature underlying their personalities. And their true nature is wonderful. But the terrible thing is that their minds are full of chaos and brutality. They're not what they really are. When you see a little kitten, your first instinct is to respond with love and kindness. That's how I respond to everybody. Even though there's a tinge of sadness, because of their inability to see their own true nature. One of the first times I saw that clearly was in Blackpool, where I went for a season. It was a Sunday and I was in a pub having a drink with some of the folks from the show. We were in a room in the pub, and a girl popped her head around the door. And as if she were looking for a friend, I looked up and glanced at her and suddenly for the first time I saw the light within in a human being. It was wonderful a revelation seeing this radiance inside her something that was totally different to his surface personality. I began to see it in other people to a spark of spirituality deep within for some people it's faint like a glowing Ember. But for others it's very bright. Remember having a something akin to this actually, a couple of times both of them right after the sheen of seeing people even people with with with sad faces and seeing that their their sadness, their struggles, but at the same time there's this light this luminosity that shines as well.

    Next chapter is called confirmation.

    He describes his life post this this insight experience as being utterly different. He says it was like being born all over again living a new life. Once I settled into this new state, which took a while, I felt I had something very valuable, which people should know about. I was traveling around and try to explain what I was experiencing to local vicars and clergyman. I told them I only saw wholeness with no separation. There's natural state of being which was nurturing and kindness. I thought it would interest them, but they didn't understand. They thought it was far fetched or that I was being blessed from us. I was dealing with it from a heart point of view. Well, they Well, they were coming from an intellectual perspective. They couldn't communicate on my level, and I couldn't on theirs. So we were talking at cross purposes. They were dealing with belief, while I was talking about the reality of experience, so it was totally different. This went on for a few years until I realized there was no point and stopped approaching people.

    The lack of understanding from others had the effect of making me very confused. I had a lot of knowledge, but I couldn't communicate it to anybody. I began to doubt myself. I thought, if nobody can appreciate this, I must be mad. I'm so different to everybody else. I knew deep down that I wasn't mad that I had something that was profoundly important to other people, but it was overlaid with this confusion. By this time, I was back in London. I came back after the season in Blackpool, and found a job straight away as a lifeguard at the swimming bars in his LinkedIn. I had a Garret room and Finsbury Park, and one night, I was sitting up there pondering over it all, feeling upset and frustrated. The frustration grew in intensity inside me, until I shouted out, for God's sakes, somebody helped me. The next moment, there was a massive flood of peace, a vast emptiness full of love. There was no substance. It was the same serene feeling that I'd had before with the horses, but in greater depth. It was as if someone had dropped off soft, warm blanket over me. It stayed with me for three days. I asked if I was allowed to know who or what was responsible for the flood of peace. And a man's face appeared in my mind's eye, a foreign face, dark skin, possibly Indian. My only thought was, I've never seen such a sweet, beautiful face on a man and all my life. There was such benevolence in it. He was gray haired with a beard, and the most beautiful eyes full of love and benevolence. I didn't know who he was at the time. Just three days later, I was working at the bars as usual, and a storm blew up with lightning and thunder. I traveled back to my room in Finsbury Park, and did something I've never done before. I bought an evening paper on the corner of the street. What did I get this for? I was thinking. I opened it at a page full of adverts all the same size. And one jumped out about somebody who was giving a lecture on spiritual healing in Holloway, about four miles away. Even with the dreadful weather, I felt impelled to go. I arrived there like a drowned rat. While the lecture was really underway. It was a church hall, about a dozen people present. And I said in the back row, there was a man two chairs in front of me making notes on a pad. When the lecture was over. The speaker asked for any questions. And this man in front of me stood up and gave him a mess of dressing down even worse than I'd heard in the army. The intensity was amazing. This isn't spiritual healing. He said, You should never attempt to teach people about spiritual healing. You don't know what you're talking about. Then he suddenly turned around to me and said, I suppose you're the reason I came here this evening, aren't you? It certainly wasn't for that. There was a coffee shop about a couple of doors down and we went there and and spoke until two o'clock in the morning. He asked me various questions all related to Buddhism. And he was amazed by my answers. How do you know all this? he asked. I just know I said but How did you come to know? This is all pure Buddhism. He was John Gary, one of the founders of the Buddhist Society of Manchester. He was the first person I ever met who could understand me. I could explain the way I experienced the world, and he could relate it to the teachings of Buddhism. I felt a deep rapport with them. We decided to meet up again and work together virtually every evening. I described my experiences and he had told me which Buddha's suitor it fitted with. It was a massive relief, to find out that I wasn't mad after all. I found out later that he'd been drawn to that meeting in a similar convoluted way to me. He had felt impelled to go to, even though he wasn't keen

    turned out that John was a John Gary had made was a was an out of work actor, making his living as a painter and decorator and also quite as a psychic as himself a spiritual healer, healer. And

    Russell Williams described him as one of the best healers he'd ever made.

    So a new a new sort of chapter started in Russell Williams live on amazing this John Gary. He introduced her to hurt him to another founder member of the Buddhist Society of, of Manchester, Connie waterton. We talked for hours comparing notes, and I found that there was another person who understood me who knew exactly what I was talking about when I explained how I saw the world. Carney made me feel that there was a group in Manchester who would be very welcoming, who I could communicate with and feel at home with, so I decided to hit up to Manchester on New Year's Eve 1957. Carney put me up and after a few days, I found a job at Kellogg's. The Buddhist Society of Manchester began after the war, when food rationing was very tight. And there was a series of lectures on diet. The group of people attended them and found there was a rapport between them and decided to study other things together. They studied Buddhism with the help and guidance of a Burmese monk to tailor and inaugurated the society in 1951. One of the members took the robe and Thailand Bhikkhu, copy lavado and started the English Sangha. In other words, audain Sangha. Connie was 16 years older than I, a very small woman, a Leo with piercing eyes. When she looked at people there were initially afraid of her because of her eyes. They thought she was looking through them at their darkest secrets. But she was actually looking at the light within, she could see the very nature of what was happening. She had such a loving quality, the softest heart of every anyone I've ever known, and an unbelievable intuitive understanding of other people. She caught he had been and was continued to be a very important person in promoting Buddhism in the UK and organize the first summer schools at the Buddha Society of Manchester and intensive meditation retreats as well. helping organize visits by various becos tera vaada monks and even managing to persuade British Rail to let them have free tickets from London to mansions. She held the first meditation weekends in a hotel in Buxton, and organized funds which paid for house for the first because living in Hampstead so she was a she's definitely a mover and a shaker in the in the Buddhist world of in Britain at that time. The Buddhist Society of Manchester met in Connie's house. In fact, it still meets there today. I did feel at home there straightaway. The first time I'd felt at home since being a small child. I knew it was where I was supposed to be. Now, I had a purpose to be there for other people. So they could gain something from me. That was the path I was meant to be taking. The one I tried to find. She he meets with many other members of the of the organization and they they question them intensely. And, and he discovers more and more about how his understanding accords with the teachings of Buddhism. Soon after my arrival in Manchester, I opened a book by an Indian teacher, I'd never heard of Ramana Maharshi. There was a picture at the front of the book, and I recognized him straightaway. It was the man I'd seen that night when I was full of frustration in my room and Finsbury Park, when I'd cried out for help. I assumed that somehow he was looking after me. When I read more about him, I found he was a very remarkable man. And I've always felt deeply connected to him.

    I feel it is nature's always with me, though not as a person. In the meetings of the society, there is often a powerful, warm silence. And within that silence, there is a tremendous influence. I've wondered many times if that's Romanus influence coming through, as as if his his nature is acting through me, not his personality, but his nature. I think that's where my emanation comes from. I can't complain any wisdom or kudos for myself? It's not me, I don't have the skill. If anything, I feel humbled and privileged to serve as a channel ramanna is another doorway a channel from some huge spiritual source, whose whole nature is to nurture to grow, to become coming to life rather than death, although not necessarily in a physical form. From time to time, his presence has been felt by others at the Science Society to just a little bit about us Ramana Maharshi great spiritual teachers and influenced many, including Roshi Kapleau, who went to his place had already died by that point, but went to his his ashram in southern India. So his his dates are 1879 to 1950. I'm reading here from the Encyclopedia of Eastern philosophy and religion. One of the greatest spiritual teachers of modern day India, at the age of 17, Sri Ramana, Maharshi attained a profound experience of his true self, without the guidance of a guru, and thereafter remained conscious of his identity with the absolute Brahman at all times. After some years of reclusion at the holy mountain Arunachala in South India, he finally began again to speak. He was he was completely silenced for some years, and to reply to the questions put to him by spiritual seekers all over the world. He followed no particular traditional system of teaching, but rather spoke directly from his own experience of non duality. Ramana Maharshi wrote virtually nothing, his teaching took the form of conversations with visitors seeking His guidance as transcribed by his followers, the brief instructions he lived with his followed followers and a few religious songs. His method of instruction was to direct the questioner again and again to his true self, and to recommend as a path to realization, a tireless form of self inquiry featuring the question, Who am I? So you can see the the affinities between Ramana Maharshi. And Russell Williams in the sense that they both had a holy color, a spontaneous awakening, not not independent of any teaching. And they both taught very much out of that direct experience rather than referring 20 texts,

    continues talking about the Connie's house with a buddy Buddha Society of Manchester was based. I lived in the house for 18 years until Connie died. We had a platonic relationship, a spiritual partnership, we work together very comfortably for a long time. When you come as arrived at the center, we assess the needs. And we're able to decide between us what the best course of action for them was, what type of meditation they should practice, and so forth. In those days, we met every night, every day of the week, sometimes to the to early hours of the morning, at weekends, sometimes we went through the night without sleeping, it was a completely new role. To me, a spiritual teacher, I suppose, I was allowed to freehand and learned a lot as I went along. You can get a sense of the intensity of the practice where creature comforts such as getting a good night's sleep were dropped in the, in the fervor of the part of the Dharma explanation exploration that they were undertaking.

    He also points to the fact that that Buddhism isn't isn't a belief. And it's not something we do as a form of worship. But rather, it's a kind of training. And I've mentioned this before that spiritual teacher his name, I'm just forgetting right at the moment, but he, he talks about zendo as being more akin to a dojo, a training Hall, than it is to church. It's not about just coming along once a week, to be uplifted, but to train. And that means every day, and sometimes it means through the night.

    He continues, there was no knowledge, my mind was still an empty blank. It's as though your mind is empty, but clear and sharp, and so able to notice phenomena you would never have believed existed. They aren't so much things but qualities of a very subtle kind. He says there is no knowledge. I think here of the famous words of Bodhi Dharma, when asked who he was by impro Woo. I don't know. Or have the Enzo, which is such a important art form the circle in Zen expression of, of the truth, nature of mind.

    Just as a person can instinctively sense certain factors about an other people through their feelings. This doesn't operate through intellectual recognition, but from the unconditioned realm. Consequently, it doesn't carry any knowledge of things. But as soon as requested, it picks up vibrations, feelings, intuitions. I don't know exactly how it happens. we'll encounter as we go into some more of his teachings in the next few days, that he quite often will talk about communicating or relating through feelings. And it's clear that he doesn't mean just just emotions, but also since our sensory world and our intuitive faculty as well. All of these are bundled up into his in the term he uses feelings. We can see it here when he says picking up vibrations, feelings and institutions. I don't know exactly how it happens is not knowledge I've built up. But something which comes through me, I assume it is pure consciousness itself, speaking through this body, even to the point but that and this surprises me more than anything else. From time to time, I found myself speaking particular words, which I have no knowledge of, in the right context. And when I check, I find that it was the right usage. So when he checks the teachings, there's this expression that sometimes used and in Zen when, when recognizing someone has who has the potential to be a teacher, it's to call them a vessel of the Dharma, a vessel, the space, the container through which the teaching can come.

    goes on talking about his his teaching role at the Buddhist Society of Manchester. I didn't come through the traditions, but from a direct path, as did Ramana Maharshi. Though, though, he would be classed he was ramen, and never, as far as I know, talked about Buddhism, he came more from the language that he used was more that of the Advaita Vedanta. I didn't come through the traditions, but from a direct path. So I started to show people this method, so that they didn't have to go around the houses through the traditions, as it developed of itself, it's become quite unique, based on feeling rather than words. It involves appreciating people in the depth of their feelings, rather than their thoughts in their thoughts or understanding. I'm not interested in knowledge. It's not teaching. It's showing, introducing people to the deeper levels of their own being, I don't want people to learn anything, I want them to open up and see their true nature. Patience has to come in, it can take years, you have to wait until the moment is right, then I begin to reveal the nature more and more, until they realize that it's already there. This is something I think we can't hear enough the importance of patience, and, and of, of things maturing to, to the right moment. And this is not something that is under our control. But the readiness is all that's what we can do we can we can position ourselves in a way that we are open to this unfolding. when it occurs.

    Gradually, I persuaded the society members to ignore the books. For a long time I was completely opposed to books. I used to say don't read anything, just look into your experience. Forget the theory. It just takes you further away. And so the group became purely experiential, a couple of things are thinking reading this is we can be very grateful for books. We're reading from a book and taking inspiration from it. But it's important to see that how its limits the limits of books in terms of being fingers pointing at the moon, not the moon itself. Think of the the the four phrases that are used to describe Zen, special teaching, independent of the sutras, not relying on words or letters, and direct pointing to the human heart and realizing Buddhahood. Seeing seems to be what Russell Williams was aiming at direct pointing to the human heart the theory can help Because to get to the point where we see that we have to realize the truth for ourselves that, that the intellectual understanding is not sufficient, may be necessary, but it's not enough.

    I was eternally grateful to Connie, she taught me love which mellowed me and gave me a deeper insight side. Because of my difficult early life, I was inclined to be harsh. She also gave me a home before I came to Manchester, I had never been in one place for longer than two years. Coming here was like joining a family. And that's how it still feels now goes on to describe his his, the work during all of these these years. Most of it working for an engineering form firm made gaskets for valves and conveyor belts and joints for boilers and so forth. And he started in absolutely on the ground level of, of the business, but came eventually to manage the whole of the shop floor. He says doing all the stock keeping directing the rest of the workers as well as traveling around to paper mills recovering large rollers on site. My colleagues didn't know anything about my other work as a teacher. They sensed I was different, but I didn't think but I don't think they could pinpoint how they all accepted me. And I had a good relationship with them. They saw me as a sympathetic ear, someone they could come to you with their problems. It was as if they felt I would listen to them without any judgment. Sometimes I wouldn't even have to speak, they would talk through their issues and walk away, as if they realized a solution to the problem themselves. They seem to benefit from the calmness of my prayer presence, and the full attention I gave. It's interesting here that he uses the same word in that he had and talking about his relationship to the horses, that they accepted Him. And that he Duffy didn't even have to say anything, just his presence, just his his attention could shift things for people.

    This This can happen between people if you if you have somebody who could who can listen to you can be so helpful when struggling with some issue, that it can also happen on the med. When we attend to what is going on in us. What's what we're feeling and thinking without getting it without identifying with these things that are arising. If we can do that, if we can pay close attention, then things shift, they start to to fall into place. We give our full non judgmental attention.

    He continues I still do that. Now this is listening without any judgment. Whenever I can counter somebody, whether it's the girl on the till at the supermarket, the bus driver, or a workman who comes to the house, I always give them my full attention. Always look them in the eye and speak directly to them. It's amazing how they react their faces light up, and they always send back deliverance to me.

    After Russell Williams had been in Manchester for 18 years. his colleague and friend Connie became seriously ill. She was given medication for a condition that had a side effect of tunnel vision. And she was one day in the centre of Manchester crossing a road and didn't see a large tanker approaching and she she crossed into its path and it collided with her and threw it to the ground. And to cut a long story short, she ended up

    having broken her hip actually in a At a later date, but when she was already ill and convalescing from the collision, and

    was discovered when she broke her hip that that she had osteomyelitis and it couldn't be the the fracture couldn't be healed. And he tells us of the what happened next when he started to look after her. The interesting thing was she refused or painkillers. She wasn't in pain. I overheard the nurse speaking to the doctor about it wondering how on earth she could cope with the pain without medication. But Connie wasn't suffering. She died two weeks later, I was by his side for the last two days. And with her at the moment, she passed away, she was conscious right up to the last her eyes completely bright. She quietly slipped away, I could tell by her eyes that she wouldn't be coming back again. So all in all the time that he had spent looking after her, for from from the collision through until when she died was two years. And she she he was quite exhausted at this at this point. Sometimes time after her death, solidified solicitors came to the house and informed him that she had left the house to Russell Williams and he and he lived in it for some years after that. He also invited a Cambodian monk who was who was stuck in, in Manchester to come and stay. It was the time of Pol Pot and the monk had been cut off from his support from home. And apparently the government wasn't didn't want to help him anyway. And so he was he was sort of marooned. So Russell Williams invited him to come and stay at the Buddhist Center, which was where he lived as well. And Chanda wonder, Chanda, what was his name, and he was able to take over some of the teaching duties, and later expresses his gratitude for having been able to stay there for a year. And he said he learned much about Buddhism that he hadn't done all his time in Cambodia.

    Around the same time, Russell Williams married one of the other members of the of the society who had been helping him through Connie's illness. And so then he ended up moving away and the and the house was donated to the Buddhist Society of Manchester, which still still owns it now. Or at least when this book was written.

    That takes us on to the last chapter in his life story.

    I think we're going to have time to get it we'll get through all of it.

    To just

    stop here and continue with the rest next, tomorrow. So we will stop now and recite the four vows.

    All beings without number to liberate endless fine. To brute charm again, it's beyond measure. to penetrate the great way, Buddha to attain all the things with number two to liberate endless flying passions to dharma. beyond measure to penetrate, the great way Pura to attain all the things with a number two liberate and last blind. To brood jar my gaze beyond measure to penetrate the gray whale Buddha