The Bijapur One Drop India Community School was founded by Venerable Bhante Bodhidhamma, Zenji, in the year 2000. The school’s objective is to maintain and advance a supportive community where severely impoverished and underprivileged boys, ages eleven through fifteen, are provided with a spiritually progressive, healthy, living environment; nutritious meals, and a quality education — much of which is beyond the means of their families to provide.
The Bijapur One Drop India Community School students are admitted to local public school for their academic training with additional tutoring provided by the Community as needed. At this time, the school enrollment consists of thirty boys from the Dalit (untouchable) community. The boys are provided with Zen meditation training, basic Buddhist studies, and social consciousness training — empowering them to transcend their subjugation into untouchable caste by the dominant culture.
Zen (or “Dhyāna” in Sanskrit) is a direct experiential method of discovering one’s true nature, thus offering a tremendous level of empowerment to its practitioners. Zen training has become enormously popular worldwide not only in the Buddhist tradition but over a wide range of faith traditions. Venerable Bhante Bodhidhamma, Zenji, is a senior student of Venerable Shodo Harada, Roshi, The Abbot of Sogen-Ji Rinzai Zen Monastery in Okayama-Shi, Japan. Venerable Bodhidhamma has worked tirelessly to bring the practice of Zen to the disenfranchised people of India for many years. His objective has been to bring Zen training within the reach of the masses in India irrespective of their religious backgrounds.
Since the year 2000 over three hundred boys have been admitted to The Bijapur One Drop India Community School. At times the school has had to go to extraordinary lengths to retain the boys in residence when their impoverished families have tried to withdraw them for child labor due to dire economic circumstances. The school resists such efforts by educating the families as to the long-term value of their children’s education for their future.
The Bijapur One Drop India Community School maintains a small garden where students are taught basic horticultural methods and participate in the growing of the food used in School meal preparation. Gardening is presented as a tool used as a means of focusing the mind as an adjunct to the formal meditation practice they are taught in the Community. Meal preparation and cooking is taught and the boys take part in every aspect of providing themselves with healthy and nutritious meals. The boys tackle the various tasks under supervision on a rotational basis and learn how to provide healthy and tasty food for them selves. They learn that food production and preparation are not activities restricted to women and girls and so disabuse themselves of deep seated cultural stereotypical thinking. In time, with adequate training, the boys become proficient at being able to provide for others by discarding their own likes and dislikes to become wholly involved in the practice of selfless service to the community.
The School has instituted an arboreal program that has thus far resulted in the planting and maintenance of over three hundred trees around the campus. These trees contribute to balancing the environment, provide shade, fruit and nuts as dietary supplements and greatly enhance the beauty of the school grounds. The boys take special care of the trees even during periods of drought that occur from time to time in Karnataka.
Venerable Bhante Bodhidhamma’s vision for The Bijapur One Drop India Community School is to provide a quality education to increasing numbers of underprivileged children. Plans are underway to provide educational opportunities for girls in the near future. These efforts are all geared toward the development of an empowered, well-informed student who then becomes skilled in being able to assist in the creation of an enlightened human society free from fear and hatred. Bhante Bodhidhamma’s message is the manifestation of compassion and love toward all beings thus contributing to a better world free from self centered concerns and agressve actions.
