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.