The London Peace Pagoda needs your help?
For over 20 years, the London Peace Pagoda has stood magnificently in the centre of London, on the Thames in Battersea Park - a Buddhist symbol of commitment to peace, commissioned with the then governing body of London.
There is one monk - currently Rev. Gyoro Nagase - who is responsible for this Pagoda and the nearby Temple which is also his home. This is a huge maintenance responsibility, for a monk whose role in life is to pray and witness for peace (the monks of Nipponzan Myohoji undertake enormous pilgrimages, walking all over the world, beating their drums, to stand witness in sites where the risk of nuclear war is proliferated).
A group of us has decided to organise support for Rev. Nagase in these maintenance tasks - ranging from keeping the Pagoda structure pristine to helping with small construction work. So far there are ten of us. Our aspiration is to have help available every week to Rev. Nagase, planned ahead, so that he can rely on this support and plan the maintenance tasks accordingly.
In order to make this reliable level of support possible without depending too heavily on just a couple of volunteers, we need more people. Anyone who is willing to wield a brush or scrub a piece of stone for an hour or two is welcome. If there are people with specialist building skills, that would be marvellous, and if people can commit their time ahead to enable planning, that would be perfect.
As we get started, two of us - Bob Phillips and Anna Cunnyngham - are coordinating the effort. So, if you can help, or would like to talk about it, please click here bob.phillips@blueyonder.co.uk or call Bob on 07505 656 505. If you can let us know your ability to give time to this activity it would be great - are there any days in particular on which you are free? Also, if you have any any special skills or experience the building maintenance area let us know.
We have compiled an initial list of the sort of tasks in which Rev. Nagase needs support. We hope you can join us.
Some of the tasks in which Rev. Nagase could do with help:
The Pagoda
Cleaning - the walls in particular
Regular scrubbing
Jet-washing
Sweeping walkways and steps
Clearing leaves
Cleaning the ceremony platform in front of the Pagoda
The Temple
Clearing leaves
Clearing leaves from the roof and gutters
Weeding
Cleaning windows
Vacuuming
Internal painting
Supporting Rev. Nagase
Transport, from time to time
There are almost certainly other areas where support would be welcome, but we have not explored this in any detail yet. Our belief is that if we tackle the tasks above effectively, we will free a lot of his time.
About The London Peace Pagoda
This was inaugurated in 1985, built and given as a gift to the people of London by the Nipponzan Myohoji order of monks. It was the second Peace Pagoda in England - there is another extraordinarily beautiful Temple and Pagoda beside Willen Lake in Milton Keynes. This Milton Keynes Pagoda was the first built in the Western Hemisphere by Nipponzan Myohoji, who have been building these vibrant witnesses to peace all over the world since shortly after the Second World War.
Nipponzan Myohoji is one order in the school of Buddhism known as Nichiren, after the 13th century Japanese Buddhist monk who founded it. Nichiren Buddhism is characterised by the simple mantra at the heart of their prayer, the short verse from the Lotus Sutra "Namu Myo Ho Ren-ge Kyo". Nichiren monks, including those in the Nipponzan Myohoji order, chant this verse while beating time on hand-held drums. The Nipponzan Myohoji monks take this chant on huge walks all over the world - London to Sicily, London to Moscow, across the continent of America and so on: the monks in their saffron robes, beating their small drums and chanting are a distinctive sight on peace marches and vigils the world over.
This manner of witnessing was inaugurated by Most Venerable Nichidatsu Fujii, a monk in the Nichiren School who lived until he was 100 and died in 1985, the year the London Peace Pagoda was inaugurated. As a young man, he went on a mission to India and met Mahatma Gandhi, who gave him the familiar honorific name of Guru-ji under which he lived the rest of his life. He returned to Japan shortly before the Second World War broke out, to preach the non-violence that is at the heart of Buddhism - not a comfortable place in which to witness for peace.
It was Hiroshima, and then Nagasaki, that propelled Guru-ji into founding a new Nichiren Buddhist sect. His new order of monks took the pursuit of a world free of nuclear weapons and free of war to be the whole pursuit of their faith. They built Pagodas as a witness to this faith and purpose - all over Japan, Sri Lanka, India and then into the west. The number of Nipponzan Myohoji Pagodas in still growing - there are now two in the USA and one more under construction. The monks set out from these bases of faith on enormous walks; they are present, witnessing with their prayers and their drums at treaty talks, arms factories, missile bases, and anywhere where there is a chance to propagate peace or the risk of propagating war.
The Pagoda in London was a gift from Nipponzan Myohoji, but its site is a commitment from the government of London. It is a celebration both of the power of witness to peace, but also of the power of London as a centre for so much of what happens in the world: not just high finance but also the currents of change for the better. The site of the Pagoda and the whole of Battersea Park, are now the responsibility of Wandsworth Council.
