Members Profile

       Maurice George – a profile

             I’m sure of one thing : my name is Maurice George. Most other things in my life are less clearcut but here are some ‘facts’. From my earliest years, (born and brought up in Hemel Hempstead, parents both manual workers in a factory), my self-identity was always in doubt.

            Unwilling soldier in National Service, then amazingly accepted as token ‘working-class lad’ at Oxford University. Worked in Central Africa teaching African students to teach English. Met my beautiful wife-to-be at a bus-stop in London. Back to U.K. in 1971 as lecturer in F.E.  in Liverpool. Met my life-partner John (a doctor) in Campaign for Homosexual Equality in 1973); we’ve been together ever since.

            Fascinated by photography and the arts, computing, politics (activist first in Labour, then Green Party), cycling (no car for the last 35 years), humanist, socialist, rationalist, anti-religionist, anti-spiritual,  environmentalist, pacifist.   

            The big question : how on earth did I become a (late-developing) Buddhist ? Long story still unfinished. Perfectly satisfied with my riotous life-style and all my ‘-isms’ until I became aware that no creator-god was necessitated in the Buddha’s teachings. Found the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order in the Yellow Pages in 1995. Eye-opening journey since then. Zen is now my spiritual home.

            You and I, we all have ‘this precious human life’. Does all this make sense ? So much of my life has been ruled by accident or serendipity or pure chance; no plan, no aims, no theme, no core entity, no meaning. In this situation the Dharma is my ‘calm abode’.

www.greenwestlancs.org.uk