Peter Harvey has spent his life as a Buddhist academic and meditation teacher. He talks about five decades of reflection, curiosity and learning to let go – and what leaders can learn from the process
Was there anything in your childhood that suggested Buddhism would play a key role in your life? It’s a standard question to start the interview. But I wasn’t expecting this answer. “When I was six years old, we were eating a roasted leg of lamb for Sunday lunch, and I asked: ‘Does the lamb now walk around on three legs?’”
Peter Harvey was born in 1951. He grew up in the Shibden Valley near Halifax, West Yorkshire. The area, which translates as ‘sheep valley’, has been home to wool production, some coal mining, and the quarrying of flagstones. It is now a quiet, green vale. As a young child, Peter enjoyed exploring its meadows and heather-decked hillsides, among the cows – and a few sheep.
At the age of eleven, Peter travelled sixty miles east of the Shibden Valley to attend boarding school in Pocklington, a market town in the Yorkshire Wolds. He was sent by his parents. While actor Adrian Edmonson famously disliked his time there, Peter says he found it… “OK”. He became interested in maths and science and, importantly, remembers the school motto: ‘With courage and truth’. What happened next would draw deeply on both.
“When I was seventeen, my dad died of a heart attack; it was a complete shock,” he says. “I suppose it helped me become more independent.” His sense of loss and awareness of mortality also coincided with Indian culture and religions spreading in the western world.
The science of the mind
In 1970, after a year as a student apprentice at ICI, Peter sat in a biochemistry lab at the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology. But his heart wasn’t in it anymore. Instead, he switched to philosophy at the University of Manchester, which helped him to develop “a clarity of thought and expression; to analyse and to probe things”. He was asking questions, he wanted answers.
Buddhism revealed itself during a second-year module on comparative religion. It was taught by academic Lance Cousins, who would become a key influence in Peter’s life, and many others finding Buddhism for the first time. Lance introduced Peter to meditation. Through the Buddhist society he picked up Buddhist ideas, met Buddhist speakers and developed his Buddhist practice.
“I remember going to see Lance in his office, where he took meditation reports,” says Peter. “And when I came out, I stood in the corridor and thought: ‘Yes, I would like to go down this road, both studying Buddhism and practising it.’”
After graduation, Peter had an offer to study in Canada, but also one from India. He chose to travel with his wife Anne and started Indian Philosophy at Visva Bharati University in West Bengal. Together they visited the Buddhist sites of Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Nalanda in India, as well as Kathmandu in Nepal. But he found the teaching in India slow going, and after only a few months, decided to come back and study for a PhD in Lancaster.
“There, I was reading the early Buddhist texts,” says Peter. “I remember my supervisor suggesting that I ‘have a mull’ through the Pali Canon – which is about thirty volumes of traditional scripture. So, I mulled, and became increasingly intrigued by things I didn’t understand. I threw questions at it, gave it a good shake. Connections formed. It made an incredible amount of sense.”
You don’t have to believe everything you think
Peter describes Buddhism and the vehicle of meditation like this: as a method of pausing, paying attention and stepping back; to get oneself together and, at the same time, not be fooled by the ego. It’s a toolkit, a way of life, which contains elements of psychology, philosophy and religion.
He says we don’t need to believe the thoughts in our heads. By working with and observing the breath we can manage our emotional energy. This helps to avoid getting caught up in thoughts or feelings; to come back to some kind of balance; to ride the wave of our experiences. As a result, we can become more open minded and less attached.
“It has helped me to deal with the ups and downs of life,” says Peter. “It also helped me to be more realistic during the early days of my academic career, when I thought: ‘next year will be better.’ But it’s also related to clarity: seeing the world more clearly. I enjoyed helping students with their writing, too; because if you can write more clearly you can think more clearly.”
For much of his academic career, Peter worked at the University of Sunderland. He taught modules on Hinduism and on Buddhist ethics and philosophy. Later he developed an online Masters’ degree in Buddhism, which still runs today, now at the University of South Wales. He’s written several books on Buddhism and, now retired, remains an established meditation teacher for the Samatha Trust.
At this point in the interview, Peter offers to read out feedback from some of his meditation students. I sit back and listen. They talk about meditation as a way of taking control of a ‘monkey mind’ that jumps around from one thing to another. But gradually they gain more gentle control over the monkey. They talk about noticing the beauty of the light on a bike ride to work, hearing the birds singing in the garden, or noticing the clouds in the sky. It’s interesting to hear that life’s challenges are part of the practice. One says: “My mother-in-law says meditation is good for me.”
This all sounds positive, and entertaining, but are there any downsides? I reference stories I have read about people suffering after intense meditation experiences; after sitting quietly for extended periods, difficult emotions and past experiences can bubble up. “You should start off practising gradually and progress slowly and organically with support,” says Peter. “For a seven-day retreat, certainly a ten-day retreat, meditators have to be ready. A teacher will usually suggest it when the time comes. And, on a retreat, it’s important that you have one-to-one reporting with a teacher. Teachers themselves need to be well-experienced in the practice.”
‘What’s the point of being rich if you are a stupid prat?’
Can sitting on a cushion really change the world? Being still and looking inwards can appear passive, I suggest, especially to people in fast-moving, problem-solving societies where achievement is usually visible and tangible. Peter explains that we need energy and application to keep up with the practice; and, because we are training attention and managing our emotional energy, the process can ripple out into everyday life. The more we develop a calm and balanced mind, for example, the more that will influence the way we speak to and interact with others.
If someone plays an important role in society, this ripple effect can go even further; being alert to the bigger issues, learning from mistakes and acting in an ethical way towards the population at large. The Buddha taught, for example, that a business leader should have both eyes open: an eye for profit, and an eye for ethics. If someone acts in an ethical way, then it will naturally come back to them and help their business. If someone is well off, Buddhism would say they have a duty to be generous to others. “What’s the point of being the richest person in the world, if you end up as a stupid prat?” says Peter.
Attachment to power and ‘views’ causes suffering, especially if an individual or group believes that “this alone is true, all else is false”, for example. Attachment to dogma – a fixed set of beliefs – and protecting favoured groups can ostracise others. It can also start conflicts. This can happen in politics, religion, in any walk of life. “If you look at the politics of Buddhist countries, you can see plenty of mistakes when they become attached to Buddhism or Buddhists,” says Peter. The message: leaders need clarity, integrity and sincerity; a Buddhist leader should work from Buddhist values, rather than focus on protecting Buddhists.
I ask about the leadership of Siddartha Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, who is understood to have lived in India around the fifth century BC. Peter describes him as someone who lived by example. He embodied his teachings in how he lived. He listened to what people said and where they were coming from, encouraging them to go further or challenging them on their views. He was analytic and probing. And he only made rules when it was necessary. “The Buddhist monastic organisation is one of the longest lasting in human history. It has survived with basically the same rules for about 2,500 years,” he says.
A life in Buddhism
For Peter, a life in Buddhism comes down to this: aim for the benefit of yourself and others; realising that those two things go together. Don’t become attached to insights you’ve had; they might need broadening. Cultivate calm, but don’t become attached to it. Don’t assume you are always right; learn from others. I ask him if he is a more open person than he was 50 years ago. “Hopefully,” he says.
What I like about Buddhism and the vehicle of meditation is the journey of self-reflection and improvement. It allows space for curiosity and awareness to develop. In that way, I think of it as a toolkit rather than a religion. Speaking to Peter has also reminded me of holding views lightly, not becoming attached to a way of seeing; after all, I may be wrong. I can imagine adopting less-rigid views would help our relationships and our societies. I also like what he says about being playful, especially for those who take things too seriously.
“I was once on a meditation retreat and carried my cushion in a tough shopping bag to keep me dry when sitting outside,” he says. “When I had finished my practice, I decided to put it on the ground and slide down the hill on it, as I used to do as a child. There was a joy, openness and playfulness to doing that.
“Another time, when sitting in meditation, a horse strolled over, picked up its hoof and gently nudged me to see if I was alive. Then she put her nose to my nose. It was a magical moment to be sussed out by another sentient being.”
The interview finished where it started: with stories about connecting with animals – and a knowing smile on Peter’s face.
This article is part of Rupert Cornford’s Substack series called Voices For The Future.