One of the great joys I experienced shortly after the publication of my book record of wakening was engagement in the question-and-answer sessions at various Buddhist centres around the British Isles that followed the launch.
This first book was an attempt to express the deep spiritual understanding that arose in me in Sri Lanka in 1981, though I only wrote the first draft some eight years later, in 1989, while living in London. On completion, I put the draft in my desk drawer and forgot about it for quite some years.
One day, however, just out of curiosity, I searched it out and read it over again, and I was surprised how much I liked what I had written.
In the intervening years I had learned how to use a computer and gained experience in word-processing so I decided to clean up my rather poor first draft and improve the general presentation. This took some time but eventually I had a presentable copy, which I then had ambitions to get published.
The preface, written by the founder of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, Urgyen Sangharakshita, picks up the story of how it was finally published by Windhorse Publications in November 1999.
For me this was quite an achievement; to write a manuscript that finally reached publication was something beyond my dreams.
Publishing a book didn’t somehow seem to fit the sort of upbringing I had a very ordinary working class background in Oxford, England.
I am the son of a car worker, and at the age of 25 I decided to travel the world just for the sake of it. It was while leading a quite hedonistic existence in Sydney, Australia, that I found Buddhism through books. Reading the Dharma the teaching of the Buddha transformed my whole life, and the reason for living it.
I returned to my native England to seek out a Zen teacher, as this was the form of Buddhism that interested me most at the time. I trained with that teacher for nearly six years before becoming a theravada monk in Sri Lanka.
It is my experiences there in the subtropics that are the main focus of the first book.
After three years in Sri Lanka I dis- robed and returned to the UK, where, despite retaining my theravada links in this country, I have on the whole been practising on my own ever since.
The major change since the launch of that book has been the opportunity to transmit some of my understanding of the Dharma to fellow practitioners through Dharma groups that I lead.
At the book launches I was struck very strongly by the interest and enthusiasm shown by the audience in the book itself, but also by their enthusiasm and desire for knowledge about how to practise the Buddha’s Path.
So whilst there were a few predictable questions on metaphysics, and a few even more predictable questions expressing curiosity about my own practice, the great majority of queries were about their own practice: how they should approach it and how they should deal with the difficulties they encountered.
It has been this experience above all else that has motivated me to put together this second book. I consider it to be really a continuation from the first publication, committing to paper the answers to most of the questions I was asked at the book launches.
It also allows me to air several questions put to me during the many personal meetings I’ve had, and from the numerous letters and emails I have received following the book’s publication.
I have also included one or two extra pointers and suggestions which the reader may find useful.
