The Buddhist Council’s newest member is Little Dust, a new Dhamma project led by monk and BCNSW Board member, Bhante Akaliko.
Bhante was inspired to start Little Dust through his work with BCNSW, meeting Buddhists in areas where there is little infrastructure to support individuals and communities to practice, such as temple, centres or monastics. Noting the difference between spiritual support in major metropolitan areas compared with regional areas, Bhante Akaliko says,
Little Dust aims to make Buddhism available to everyone, especially in regional and country areas where access to the Dhamma is limited. Little Dust connects communities across Australia to the Buddha’s teachings. We create Dhamma and meditation events for Buddhists from diverse cultural backgrounds, as well as new Buddhists and the Buddh-ish.
Serving Buddhists In Regional Areas
Since it’s launch in January this year, Little Dust has visited several regional towns across NSW, including Newcastle, Stroud and Winjello to work with multicultural communities there, as well as a collaboration with BCNSW member organisation Central West Buddhists, visiting Molong, Orange, Wellington and Dubbo to work with Thai, Sri Lankan and other communities. Interstate visits have taken Little Dust to Kambah in the ACT and Rockhampton in Queensland with further trips planned to Wollongong, Cairns and central Australia,
These visits to regional areas are especially important for Buddhists from immigrant communities. Unlike back in their home countries, or in major Australian cities, there are no Buddhist temples around for hundreds of kilometres, so communities miss out of a large part of their spiritual practice and religious identity. Little Dust remedies this by taking the Dhamma to the places where Buddhist are living. Bhante Akaliko says,
Having a monk come to visit them is a good opportunity—not only to offer food and make merit—but also an important chance to pause and reflect on spiritual issues and to reconnect with religious and cultural parts of themselves that may have faded into the background over the years. Many of the attendees have not had the opportunity to think about their spiritual practice for a long time. Some people talk about how they used to offer food to monks back in their home village as a child and how they miss seeing the monks or going to the temple. There was a palpable sense of nostalgia and even a few tears.
For immigrant communities, these types of occasions are intimately wrapped up in memories of their home country and often bring to the surface a lot of complex emotions about their migration experience. Engaging in cultural activities brings to mind the vast distance between them and their family and friends back home. Such events bring into focus the time that has passed and the differences between the life they used to live and the life they are living now.
Why the Name Little Dust?
The name Little Dust comes from the story of Brahmā Sahampati requesting the Buddha to teach out of compassion, saying that there are many beings with little dust in their eyes who would be able to understand the Buddha’s teaching.
Sir, let the Blessed One teach the Dhamma! Let the Holy One teach the Dhamma! There are beings with little dust in their eyes. They’re in decline because they haven’t heard the teaching. There will be those who understand the teaching! (Brahmayacana Sutta)
Discover More about Little Dust
Find out more about the work of Little Dust connecting people in regional areas to the Buddha’s teachings by listening to the Treasure Mountain podcast below:
Visit the Little Dust Website below:
littledust.org