The Amida Trust’s Vow 22 Programme

The Amida Trust, a Pure Land Buddhist organization based in England and dedicated to exploring issues of social action connected with Buddhist practice, recently launched the Vow 22 Programme for Ministry & Chaplaincy.

The programme is described in the following way:

    This programme is called “Vow 22″ after the 22nd vow of Dharmakara Bodhisattva in the Larger Pureland Sutra, the vow which establishes the bodhisattva path as a core element of Pureland Buddhism. We conceive Buddhist ministry to be equivalent to following the bodhisattva way since to minister is to serve the spiritual needs of others…The Vow 22 programme is offered from a Pureland Buddhist perspective. The programme originated in the need to prepare Amida-shu members to take on pastoral, liturgical, sangha leadership and socially engaged activities. This remains a major function of the programme, though it is recognised that by no means everybody who joins the programme will seek ordination in the Amida Order.

Dharmavidya (David Brazier), founder of the Amida Trust, in a post at the Buddhist_Chaplaincy Yahoo! Group, also emphasizes that

    The programme does not lead directly or inevitably to ordination–in the Amida Order ordination is a function of achieved role, alignment and integration of principle and practice rather than a particular educational stage–but it does bring together a group of people enthusiastic about ministry, many of whom are actively involved in it in a variety of settings, studying together.

It possible to complete the programme both in residence at the Amida Trust’s Buddhist House, or via distance-learning technology. Visit the Vow 22 Programme’s website for more information.

Although the website states that there is no cost for the program, but that “participants generally make a regular financial contribution to help support the work of the Order,” in his post to the Buddhist_Chaplaincy Yahoo! Group, Dharmavidya states that the programme costs “US$395 per year.”

Many months ago, I posted an interview I did with Dharmavidya at this blog. If you’d like to know more about him and the ideas behind the Amida Trust, I’d recommend taking a look at it.