FWBO JOHANNESBURG - PEOPLE
ACHALARAJA
ANNIE LEATT
VAJRADHARA
ACHALARAJA
Achalaraja has had a protracted interest and practice of meditation. At the age of 12 he decided to practice japa mala and this continued into his early twenties. Hereafter he pursued an interest in Buddhism.
In October 2003, Achalaraja met Vajradhara and Ratnajyoti, and became involved actively in the FWBO Johannesburg. Becoming a mitra in March 2004, and receiving ordination in October 2009, have led to the current situation he is in. Working and living at Shantikula, he works on the garden, his studies, activities at the centre, leading classes and meditations and being the webmaster. He is one of the three members of the Shantikula council.
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ANNIE LEATT
Born in 1970 to a Methodist family in Cape Town, Annie discovered meditation and Buddhism at the age of 12. She started sitting and read everything Buddhist she could lay her hands on as a teenager. It was only in her early 20s when she went to live at the Ixopo Buddhist centre for 6 months that she started practicing with others and experiencing sangha. For many years she attended various Buddhist centres around Cape Town without finding a home. At the same time, she studied religious studies academically, first at UCT and then at an American university. When not in her books, she was politically active and did karate.
When Annie was in the UK in 2001 and 2002, she met the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order at retreats at Rivendell and Dhanakosa. Here for the first time she felt that she had found a spiritual home. Annie moved to Johannesburg early in 2007 to do her PhD at Wits University. She immediately made contact with the FWBO. In May she became a mitra and a few months later, asked for ordination.
Annie helps with leading meditation and supporting meditation interviews at the centre.
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 VAJRADHARA
Vajradhara is a Durban boy. He studied and worked in Cape Town and
Johannesburg, but left for London to avoid further military service during
the closing years of the apartheid era. Having lived outside of South Africa
for 20 years, he has returned to spend half his time here each year to share
Sangharakshita’s vision of transforming self and world, as best as he can.
Vajradhara wants to express his gratitude to the land which gave him birth,
and to respond to what he sees as the urgent need for the truth of the
Dharma, the medicine of the Dharma, in Africa.
Vajradhara will tell you that he was an angry man for much of his life. He
has experienced how easy it is to slip into self-righteousness and rage - he
was involved in or supported sociopolitical activism of all colours:
antiapartheid, nuclear disarmament, constitutional reform, human rights, gay
liberation, green/ecological, animal welfare, HIV/AIDS, and tax reform so that one can
choose for the military share of one’s taxes to go instead to initiatives
towards understanding, cooperation and peace. He learnt from the experience
of banging his head against a brick wall that it is impossible to force,
demand or persuade others to change, and takes inspiration from the Buddha’s
assertion that the greatest hero is not he who conquers 10000 men in battle,
but rather the man who conquers his own mind.
Vajradhara has worked hard, played hard, fought hard, loved hard. He has - taught Sunday School at his church as a teenager long before he ever heard of Buddhism - dropped out of UCT medical school - supported an early affirmative action
program at IBM, accompanying his staff to the pass office - graduated from
UNISA in computer science and psychology - cooked macrobiotic food for
people with AIDS in hospital in London before the advent of
antiretrovirals - designed and built large databases and computer systems as
a software engineer for retail and financial institutions - backpacked
across Japan - been on solitary retreat in a hut above the clouds up a
Spanish mountain - presented a paper on loving-kindness meditation as an
antidote to stigma and discrimination at the Bangkok World AIDS Conference -
cycled the Argus for the first time at the age of 45, managing 4.5 hours - recently got married and turned 50.
When he was ordained his Preceptor named him after the archetypal Buddha
Vajradhara, he who bears the diamond sceptre or thunderbolt of reality. Vajradhara is chairman of Friends of the Western Buddhist Order Johannesburg.
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