Page 29 - EH 73 May 2024
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FACE TO FACE  |  EASTERN HORIZON     27









           Celebrating Life and Death


           By Dr Diana Cousens



                                                              Benny: You are today a well-known Buddhist scholar
                                                              and leader but can you share what first brought you to
                                                              Buddhism, and more importantly, what inspired you to
                                                              be so active in the Buddhist community in Australia?


                                                              Diana: After I left school, I decided to work for a while
                                                              and then go travelling. In those days, which is more
                                                              than 40 years ago, it was a common practice for young
            photo credit: Olivier Adam.                       Australians to go to Asia for months or years to explore
                                                              different kinds of countries and cultures. On my first
           Dr Diana Cousens is the Vice-President of the      trip I visited Pagan in Burma - now Myanmar. It has
           Buddhist Council of Victoria and the President of   5,000 ancient temples in a beautiful landscape. If you go
                                                              to the top of one the largest temples, you can see only
           the Federation of Australian Buddhist Councils.    temples for kilometres. It was really beautiful and quite
           She was appointed by HH the 41st Sakya Trizin,     inspiring. The atmosphere inside the temples was also
           head of the Sakya lineage of Tibetan Buddhism,     very tranquil and there was a sacred ambience. One of
           as his representative in Melbourne from 1997 to    the tour guides explained that the Buddha had been an
           2008 and during that time she was the Director     ordinary person but had become a Buddha as a result of
           of the Melbourne Sakya Centre. She has a PhD in    meditating. I was stunned that he was not born perfect.
           Himalayan Studies from Monash University and       He had a journey and as a result of his practices, he
           wrote a thesis about the folklore of the temple at   became a Buddha. The tour guide explained that ordinary
           Triloknath in Himachal Pradesh, India. She has     people could become Buddhas, even now. I didn’t become
           represented the Buddhist community in Melbourne    a Buddhist then but this experience left a mark.
           in interfaith dialogue over the past 23 years and
           in 2016 was the founding President of Sakyadhita   Later while staying in a Christian ashram in South
           Australia, a national organisation representing    India, Shantivanam, there was an interfaith conference
                                                              on religion and science. New scientific ideas were
           Buddhist women. She works as a wedding and
                                                              being promoted that seemed a bit more esoteric.
           funeral celebrant and represents the Buddhist
                                                              Rupert Sheldrake was there promoting his theory of
           community on the Victorian State Government’s
                                                              ‘morphogenetic fields’, and there was a Tibetan lama.
           Multifaith Advisory Group. In June 2023, she was   The lama explained the theories of bodhicitta, which
           awarded the Order of Australia Medal (OAM) for     is the wish for all beings to become enlightened as the
           service to the Buddhist community as part of the   basis for practice, and emptiness and interdependence.
           King’s Birthday Honours. Benny Liow was in touch   These ideas were clearer and more structured than many
           with Diana and decided to ask her about her first   of the ideas I had encountered while travelling around
           introduction to the Buddha Dharma, her role as     India visiting sacred places and staying in ashrams. I felt
           a marriage and funeral celebrant, her approach     I needed to follow up on Tibetan Buddhism. I returned
           towards death and dying as a Buddhist, and inter-  to Australia and became a regular visitor to the three
           faith dialogues in Australia, a predominantly      centers that were in Melbourne at that time.
           Christian country.
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