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
e-mail: wbu@bdcu.org.au
website: www.bdcu.org.au
Phone: (03) 9754 3334
Founder’s Day Celebration
9 September 2004
Welcoming Address by Mr Julian Bamford BA App Rec.
President Chan Academy Australia
Most Venerable Members of the Sangha, the Chief Deva of the Temple and his heavenly retinue, our Abbot and Resident Teacher Mrs Anita M. Hughes, Honoured Guests, Directors, Members and Fellow Friends of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
It is with the greatest joy that we welcome and thank you for your blessings on this 25th Founders Day celebration and birth anniversary of our Teacher the late John David Hughes.
We thank the Sangha for their vast blessings for John D. Hughes who continues to be held in the deepest veneration by his many students and friends in Australia and around the world.
We thank the Sangha for coming here today. It is a blessing to see the Buddha robe.
Our theme and message for this Founder’s Day 2004 (2547 Buddhist Era) is Fellowship with our Buddha Dhamma family.
The Maha-ratnakuta says that fellowship is that quality within us that leads us to use our wisdom and compassion to bring others to the Dharma.
Venerable Master Hsing Yun wrote that when we begin to act on this understanding, we can be sure that we are acting out of the deepest sources of fellowship.
The spirit of fellowship is inherent in Buddha Dhamma practise here at our Temple today and in Buddhist communities around the world.
Our Members practice the five styles of friendliness, practicality, professionalism, cultural adaptability and scholarship. These are the petals that form the flower of fellowship.
It is a flower of the scholarly individual, of a cultured society, of harmonious participation in meritorious events, of companionship between friends in the Dhamma and actions for the benefit all living beings.
John D. Hughes built this Temple, a World Fellowship of Buddhists Regional Centre, to provide persons in Australia with the opportunity to make merit, so that they can learn and practice Buddha Dhamma.
He provided our Members with the resources and opportunities to come together in fellowship with Buddha Dhamma practitioners at international conferences here in Australia and overseas.
The Venerable Shilalankar Mahathero, the Sangharaj of the Supreme Sangha Council of Bangladesh described John in a letter to him for his 65th birthday in 1998 as “one of the apostles of our New World Buddhist order in Australia, and one of the pioneers of Buddhism in the Australia - New Zealand region”.
As Patrul Rinpoche wrote in The Words of My Perfect Teacher ‘Of all the paramount sources of refuge or opportunities for accumulating merit there is none greater than the Teacher’.
The life size image you see here today of our Founder and Teacher John D. Hughes is a mark of our veneration to his many Noble qualities.
The most important thing for John fundamentally was to show teachable beings the way out of suffering, to help them to understand the way out of suffering and to provide the materiality to do it.
On Founders Day 2004 we celebrate and venerate his life and the great waves of merit and wisdom of our precious Teacher John D. Hughes.
It is with heartfelt joy and love that we express our gratitude to Mrs Anita M Hughes for her fellowship in the Dhamma and give our resolute committment to support her and our Temple that it may last for another five hundred years.
John D. Hughes Buddha Dhamma Practitioner and Teacher taught his students what he himself practised:
‘Avoid Evil, Do Good and Purify the Mind’.
May we always gather in Fellowship, meet in Fellowship and depart in Fellowship.
Thank you very much.