Northwich man explains journey to becoming Buddhist monk

READ> Northwich Buddhist Centre on verge of ordaining latest monk

Bruce Robinson was born in Shepherds Bush before moving to Huddersfield with his wife, where he completed his last decade in the army before starting a job working for the local authority there.

It was while living and working in the West Yorkshire town, Bruce began to suffer from work related stress and about 25 years ago, decided to finally do something about it.

"Like many others I was in work and like many others I was stressed," he said.

"I'd read that meditation can help reduce stress and stabilise the mind.

"It pricked my ears up and I thought, 'emotional stability, I'll have some of that'.

"I started it at home at first but then realised I needed more, which was when I started doing group meditation."

Bruce, 75, who was working in a very rewarding but demanding role at the local authority was fifty at the time he first set out on what would be a quarter of a century journey in Buddhism that would bring him to Northwich a couple of a years ago.

He added: "I started as a support worker before I became an employment advisor.

"People would come in who were out of work because of a disability, so my job involved lots of counselling and meetings.

"It can become vast and although it was very rewarding work, it became very stressful and I decided to do something about it.

"So when I first went to the group, a nun from the tradition I am in, spoke, and it just rang bells with me.

"Although I didn't understand everything that was going on in terms of background, it rang enough bells to keep me going.

"I realised meditating was something I needed to do every day and here we are, some 25 years later."

The Northwich Buddhist Centre is on Chester Road

The resident teacher at the Odiyana Kadampa Meditation Centre on Chester Road is Gen Kelsang Chokyong and he explains the process of becoming a monk.

He said: "Being a monk is about a lifestyle choice.

"You can be a Buddhist without being a monk.

"There are lots of ways of training the mind, one of which is meditating.

"Lots of people come into Buddhism because of stress and we're seeing lots at the moment because of the lockdowns.

"It's hard to describe why you decide to become a monk.

"In my experience, the teachings made so much sense that I wanted to dedicate my life to them."

With the pandemic impacting on the lives of everyone, many people having experienced a myriad of emotions and stresses during the past fifteen months, and Chokyong explained what can be done to alleviate those feelings.

"One of the things about meditation and Buddhism is that you can't control a lot of things going on in your life, but you can control your mind," he said.

"The main thing Buddha teaches us is that happiness is a state of mind.

"So it is possible to keep your mind happy when everything is going wrong.

"The stronger your mind gets, the less these things bother you.

"What you want, is to get to a state where instead of going shopping on Amazon when you're feeling stressed you do some meditation instead.

"Buddha also taught a lot about suffering because he said if we don't understand we spend most of our life trying to avoid it.

"So what takes a lot of stress away is accepting that we can't change a lot of it.

"In the end, we are going to die and lose everything and in a peculiar way that allows you to relax.

"Contemplating death actually teaches us how to live.

"We all need to build up some mental resilience because I think a lot of people have been knocked over by this last year or two."

For more information on the work that goes on in the centre go to meditationincheshire.org