Five-Day Bhavana Course 9 to 13 April 2004
Chan Academy is a registered trading name of the
Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
33 Brooking St, Upwey, Victoria, Australia, 3158.
A.C.N. 005 701 806 A.B.N. 42 611 496 488
Five-Day Course Theme: "Buddhism and Education"
American Academic Derek Bok (1978) once said, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance".
There is wisdom in the proverb that there is no royal path to learning.
American essayist John Mason Brown wrote in the Publishers Weekly 1958, "…the best purpose of education: [is] not to be frightened by the best, but to treat it as a part of daily life."
The Theme of our Five-Day Course held 9 April 2004 to 13 April 2004 was "Buddhism and Education".
At our Chan Academy scholarship is one of our five styles.
Our five styles are Friendliness, Practicality, Professionalism, Cultural Adaptability and Scholarship.
We see scholarship as something to be developed as John Mason Brown said, "as part of daily life".
Buddhists must return to their traditional role of providing education. The reason for doing this is to follow the Buddha’s teachings on what creates long life stability for the congregation.
At the 5th International Conference on Buddhist Education held at the Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies in Taipei, A. K. Narain (1986) discussed the notion that there is no difference between "Buddhist Studies" and "Buddhist Education".
There was a need to plan a system of instruction and training in such a way that "education" precedes "Buddhist" and does not follow it.
General education must precede "Buddhist Studies" and "Buddhist Studies" must precede "Buddhist Education".
One leads to another and it should be open to all. Buddhist Education should aim at producing not merely what it considers good Buddhists but good humankind.
The task of compiling the presently known unabridged written Dhamma in its various forms electronically has been started in many countries.
What is needed and proposed is to start a Buddhist world catalogue of what and where electronically stored Dhamma is available in the world.
This project would be extensive and ongoing but could be affordable within the scope of 21st century technology.
It is suggested that persons under the protection of Bodhisattva Manjustri are the best attendants for this task.
Under such a condition, the drive to have a Buddhist world catalogue is likely to become all pervasive, as efforts are made to increase the literacy of persons by presenting them with access to written Buddha Dhamma.
It is by merit that our present written Dhamma becomes available. It did not happen by chance.
During the Five-Day course Master Francisco So conducted Two Pujas.
The Chakra Samvara Puja was taught 9 April 2004 (Good Friday).
The required documents were the Sukhavati Ritual and the Chakra Samvara Tantra.
On 12 April 2004 (Easter Monday) the Kala Chakra Puja was taught. The texts studied in this puja
were the Sukhavati Ritual and the Kala Chakra.
Pujas help the students appreciate the Buddha Dhamma Texts and to learn them by recitation. This is a meritorious way to develop your scholarship.
To develop scholarship a 'can do' way of thinking is needed. Students at our Centre learn to develop scholarship. You can be a scholar.
During this course one of our Members developed this way of thinking and practiced scholarship.
On 6 April 2004, His Eminence Kyabje Dorje Chang Luding Khenchen Rinpoche, one of the highest and most realised masters in the Sakya Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism gave a Public Talk on "Compassion in Action". The talk was held at Camberwell Civic Centre in Melbourne, Australia.
One of our Members attended the Teaching and took notes. The following day she enthusiastically typed the notes and added quotations from scholarly texts to support the information written on the Teaching. In doing this she experienced joyful learning.
These notes will then be placed on our Buddha Dhyana Dana Review online at www.bddronline.net.au to benefit other Buddha Dhamma scholars.
During this Five-Day Course renowned scholar from Monash University Melbourne Professor Padmasiri De Silva spoke to our Members on the theme of "Buddhism and Education" at 2:00pm on Saturday 10 April 2004.
The first meeting of our Standing Committee on Education was held 10 April 2004 at 3:00pm.
The Education Committee discussed the key implementation objectives of the Committee and the current initiatives.
One initiative is a course in Buddhism designed for teaching Buddhism to children at primary school level developed by The Buddhist Council of Victoria.
The course is suitable to be offered to schools that are looking to provide a wider religious teaching curriculum. Support and backup is offered to school teachers who wish to teach the subject and it may be possible to undertake a teachers training course with the Buddhist Council of Victoria.
The contact person is Ms. Judith McDonald.
Ms. Gilda Grey has completed the training course and recommends it highly.
Ms. Gilda Grey may come to speak about this course during the meeting.
Inescapably, we must talk about our audience for this study paper.
We would prefer this study paper's audience to be our Members and Friends.
However, as our e-library policies state that our information bases are to become more and more readable, the distinction between internal and external communication papers becomes blurred.
We are aware that the act of describing the organisation's strategic intent in a narrative framework has risks.
Critical literary theory is based on the premise of using a wide variety of lenses to view the same artefact. The observer's choice of lens determines what he or she will see in a given book.
Vertical support includes compilation of education and human resource (HR) information on learning relationships and providing abstracts suitable for machine searching about Dhamma education.
From time to time in world history, much higher education Buddhist infrastructure including library material and artefacts has been wiped out.
We remind ourselves our task is to develop a religious investigation paradigm suitable for use for a technology driven Buddha Dhamma e-library.
As Glenn Ralston put it in 1998:
"Technology has already swept over us. It is no longer a technological argument, but rather a cultural change".
When discussing using technology to provide new responses to old problems, Dr.James Garner Ptaszynski considered one of the biggest problems he saw in for the appropriate adoption of technology in Higher Education is our limited vision of its use.
Quite understandably, persons tend to think of using technology within the present teaching paradigms and thereby limit its full potential contributions.
Earlier, although clear on the viewfinder needed for paradigm building, because funds did not exist, the library was fashioned from what is procurable.
As a preamble leading to an introduction to the affects of comparative librarianship on end-users, we have our Members recall if they came from a home with books available. The prime librarians of these books were their mother, their father, their relatives or their guardians.
These authority figures chose from some catalogue or other and determined the first books that were read.
Not only did they specify what was read, but they also specified the library opening hours.
They had great control in giving vocabulary and grammar - affecting what was understood.
Our first teachers, rightly or wrongly, had the power to constantly make judgements about how much reading they thought we could cope with.
May our first Teachers be well and happy.
Vygotsky (1978) has called this phase of dependency the "zone of proximal development" which refers to the period during which the child cannot complete the task concerned without help.
The interaction means the very basis of thought is social; the interaction between the parent and child leads to the child tending to think about reading to study new things like his or her first teachers.
For some children in Western Countries, reading under the blankets with a torch, after lights out, may have been one of their secondary library sites.
Byrt and Bowden, in Australian Public Management (1989), list several ways in which case studies are used to facilitate management education:
1. Analysis - students develop the ability to analyse situations and problems with the goal of understanding how managers are faced with multiple decisions at any one time. Problem-solving skills are also developed.
2. Communication - students develop their ability to communicate the results of their analysis.
3. Group Behaviour - during group studies and class discussion, students are exposed to aspects of group dynamics.
4. Assessment - students may be assessed on their ability to perform case studies.
5. Application of Theories - students can apply management theories they have learnt to case studies. Their level of understanding of the theories will be apparent.
The ideal case study teacher, according to Byrt and Bowden, is what they term the "resource person". The resource person is not domineering, and does not allow their own personality bias to determine the direction of group discussions. They use well-timed suggestions and questions to allow the group to come to their own conclusions.
Group analysis can be performed using alternative group structures:
1. Each person presents their own analysis which is discussed by the group.
2. Each person is given a distinct aspect of the analysis to perform. The analyses are then discussed with the intention of gaining an overall conclusion.
3. One or several persons conduct an initial analysis, which is discussed by the group to arrive at a higher level analysis.
Our model is not prescriptive - because task units must decide which level of information architecture they are fit to deal with.
The task may not be major enough for them to wish to realize "impossibilities".
For example, our Members are writing the necessary system handbooks to act as service manuals for our LAN, WAN and Newsgroup.
Defining where we are with our LAN from the technical viewpoint is tested by seeing whether it works, not whether it is "right".
Writing system handbooks is a high priority because it enables us to focus our view of the next stages of information architecture we can afford to raise.
The system handbooks will include details of operating system
configuration, other software configuration, scripts and programs written and hardware specifications of the various file servers.
What we must do is to stop judging knowledge by its media rather than its substance.
Having arrived at that outlook, we revisited questions of how we can filter and classify types of knowledge to get more open systems suitable for "more encyclopedic" information searches.
In trying to generalise how this notion could be put into practice at an affordable cost, we found that our traditional strategic planning written statements, which had become stable and well understood by most Members, were prescriptive rather than consequential and new strategies were
emerging within and outside our business.
Education programs we deliver must stay eclectic today and tomorrow, yet be well grounded in known theory.
To offer education is the least patronising thing one can do for another person but, like cooperative farming, it may not succeed in villages unaccustomed to any form of self-help.
Our Centre is attractive to the Sangha, scholars and devotees born in countries other than Australia because, in a tactical way, we preserve and practice many oral traditions and make use of the written Tipitika Dhamma in a series of faithful translations.
We must not forget about morality (in Pali: sila).
Our words take on the richer language of the information Age ready for the next century.
The organisation needs to develop awareness among present Members that Lifetimes of Learning creates the correct base for the Centre to become a Learning Organisation.
Why set up organisations that learn?
Because learning disabilities in children are tragic; learning disabilities in organisations are disastrous. To meet our strategic mandate, a Dharma Centre is by definition a Learning Organisation (at least it should be).
By borrowing the concepts of management disciplines and by using current managerial terminology, you can articulate a conceptualised understanding of what we are, what we stand for and where we are going.
1. Commitment to quality reading is a hallmark of our policies.
2. Promotion of a written culture where we become aware of how we contribute, at the organisation level, to our own problems and the need to develop preventative rather than reactive management strategies.
3. We have been encouraged to stop focusing on events but seeing written processes of changes instead and to analyse the underlying structures which cause people's behavior.
In the 1980's some precious teachings were taught at our Centre using an old slow "hear- say" culture. Little of this teaching was documented. It vanished without a trace.
We are now recording all Teachings.
We are close to heading towards a third-rate library. Our e-library written resources have doubled this year. Leaving behind the seventh rate library culture we had years ago took much effort.
To prevent Buddha Dhamma education from falling into mediocrity, it is suggested that Buddha Dhamma papers should be written without the uncertainty of the conditional mood.
To drive this Buddhist world catalogue suggestion to resolution, Buddha Dhamma followers need to raise funds and become active in supporting educational systems using the new technology.
This is the main challenge of the 21st century.
A better script for human beings is likely to say that this potent line of research may bring some effort to make the reduction of this bias trend the intent of education in the 21st century.
We thank the many Devas who help us including the Deva of Learning and the God of Work.
May you develop your scholarship.
May all beings come to Buddha Dhamma to be well and happy.
May you be well and happy.
We thank the Devas and Devatas of Learning for their help in and guidance with the writing of this paper.
This paper was prepared and editied by Julian Bamford, Pennie White and Evelin Halls.
References:
Chan Academy Australia, LAN 1 Data warehouse ISYS search on education, Melbourne.
Derek Bok (1978) cited in A Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations compiled by Jonathan Green, David & Charles, London, p 359.
John Mason Brown (1958) Publishers Weekly cited in A Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations compiled by Jonathan Green, David & Charles, London, p 359.
Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Buddhist Education held at the Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies in Taipei, A. K. Narain (1986)