The Economy Edition of the Macquarie Encyclopedic Dictionary The National Dictionary first published 1990 and twice reprinted in 1991, shows the word "amateur" as coming from the French through Latin "amateur" meaning lover.

One meaning of the word as a noun is: One who cultivates any study or art or any other activity for personal pleasure instead of professionally or for gain.

According to JRL Bernard, in Australia, there is only one indigenous dialect of English in Australia.

He suggests that by far the greatest part of the variation in Australian speech is between persons, not between regions, and the same set of personal variants are heard everywhere, from Cairns to Hobart, Perth to Sydney.

They are largely a matter of preferred style.
Regional variations are few; the one that comes to mind is that of "castle".

In Victoria, a large number of say /karsel/ while outside Victoria you hear /kasel/.

Some Australians use the Broad speech forms. That is, they adopt the qualities for their individual speech sounds which may be thought of as most characteristically Australian.

Bernard, in his Macquire Dictionary article on Australian Pronunciation, notes that there are many markers defining this type of speech which we may loosely think of as being somewhat "ocker".

Other Australians find their self-image better served by the Cultivated forms of pronunciation.

Their speech follows that rather careful and perhaps self-conscious pattern which can be heard among the best of ABC announcers.

The majority of Australians, opt for 'General Australian', the sounds and qualities of which lie between the two extremes in all things.

Unfortunately, vast numbers of persons withhold respect from those who cannot master the standard forms of the word shapes of the language.
For followers of Buddha Dhamma, this division of respect is seen as having no place from the viewpoint of strategic survival of a Temple's organisational structures.

Our own organisation, the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Limited, is needs many language skills to operate our mandate to show the way of how persons can come to realise the Buddha Dhamma each for himself or herself.

For this reason, we resist any tendency to discount the wisdom of persons who may not be fluent in our own version of the English language.

In our library, a collection of many language dictionaries testifies to our need to be ready to have the tools to be culturally adaptable.

For example, this week, one of our Members who is a native born German donated a German Dictionary for use with our collection.

She is married to an Australian-born male.

The Concise Oxford-Duden German Dictionary was based on the much-acclaimed Oxford-Duden German Dictionary, edited by J.B. Sykes and W. Scholze-Stubenrecht.

It carries all the authority of two of the world's foremost dictionary publishers, Oxford University Press and the Dudenverlag, making use of the unparalleled databases maintained and continually expanded by the two publishers.

The Concise Oxford Duden German Dictionary was first published in 1991 and the revised edition was published in 1997.

We wish to thank our Members for providing the use of such a recent publication having over 140 000 words and phrases and 240 000 translations.

Such gifts increase our Centre's ability to sustain organisational flexibility with regard both to providers and receivers.

Within our library archives, the John D. Hughes Collection we are fortunate that our collection of paper based dictionary resources exceeds 100 volumes.

We appeal to our listeners to donate gift copies of dictionaries.

Please forward your spare dictionaries to the Centre's Librarian at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Limited 33 Brooking Street, Upwey 3158 or telephone us at 9754 3334.

There are some new ways of communicating available through Internet.

Although much of the current literature shows that one can find various kinds of social resources on the Net, there is no systematic evidence about whether individual relationships are narrowly or broadly based according to Barry Wellman and Milena Gulia's paper Netsurfers Don't Ride Alone: Virtual Communities as Communities.

Their semi-final version is dated April 1996 from the Centre for Urban and Community Studies, University of Toronto, Canada.

In one respect, the Internet has continued the trend of technology fostering specialised relationships with more ease than in almost all real life situations, persons can shop around for resources within the safety and comfort of their homes or offices.

Travel and search time are reduced. Everyday examples of the arrangement of group get-togethers are common enough but there are special cases where it is important that efficiency and speed are the main factors.

For example, within hours of the explosion of the Oaklahoma city bombing in April 1995, university students in Oaklahoma had created special information sites and electronic bulletin boards on the Internet.

Among other things these information resources provided a list of names of the wounded, hospitals servicing these wounded, and locations of emergency blood-donor clinics.

Not only was this information speedy, some found it more accurate than television news reports.

Some persons are concerned the Net may become a repository of misleading information.

In 1995, a Wall Street Journal article (Chao 1995) proclaimed that the "pioneers" or veteran users of the Internet were rejecting the electronic medium.

This concern is shared by health care professionals who criticise online services for functioning as repositories of erroneous information and bad advice (Foderaro 1995).

Before life on the Net, persons did not go the experts, be they mechanics for their cars, doctors for their bodies, or therapists for their psyches.

Fortunately, the ability of Net mail systems to maintain logs of who sent and received messages facilitate the correction of misinformation.

In our ordinary life, if we get misinformation from a friend it is unlikely it can be corrected very quickly.

Some Net users hide their identities and addresses by using a re-mailing service that claims to accept all messages and forward them to designated recipients while hiding the original sender's name and e-mail address.

It is said that the best known re-mailing service claims to be in Finland but Wellman and Gulia comment that "for all the users know (the site) might be operated by the CIA, KGB, the Mafia or others".

There are numerous anecdotes about anti-social behaviour online such as confidence men (sic) or women betraying the innocent.

Several writers have expressed fears that high involvement in virtual communities will move persons away from involvement in "real-life" communities that are sustained by face-to-face, telephone and postal contact.

O'Neill (1995) reports that addiction may create "cyber-widows".

Such fears are mis-stated in several ways. For one thing they treat community as a zero-sum gain, assuming that if persons spend more time interacting on-line they will spend less time interacting in "real-life".

There can be authentic relationships between people on-line just as there can be authentic relationships when we talk to one another by telephone.

"Invisible colleges" of scholars communicate over wide distances through e-mail and other media.

For example conversations started in one medium may continue on others. As with the telephone and the fax, the lower band width of e-mail may be sufficient to maintain strong ties between persons who know each other well.

The development of multiplexity can involve the conversion of relationships that operate on-line to ones that include in-person and telephonic encounters.

We invite you to make the effort to join the others who learn about Buddha Dhamma from our internet site at www. bdcu.org.au.

Starting next Friday, we are running a 5 day course each day for 5 days.

If you wish to join us ring us at 9 754 3334 for more details.

Our usual practice classes at 7.30 pm Mondays and Fridays continue.

This afternoon, our Teacher John D. Hughes is teaching the monthly Way of the Brush Ch'an painting class. It runs from 1 pm to 4 pm today.

Cost is $65.

Materials are provided.

Ring now 9 754 3334 if you can wish to learn.

We must gather more funds to publish our next issue of Buddha Dhyana Dana review.

This 80 page publication is for free distrubition and is our flagship.

It is distributed to 40 countries.

We are looking for persons to donate A3 paper and money to help us cover our printing and postage costs.

To raise funds, we are offering a limited number of Ajaan Manivong's latest vipassana text, "Bhumi 6" for $49 a copy.

Please ring the Centre at 9754 3334 to order this meditation manual.

This book is special--it is written in three languages, and will become a collector's item as it has genuine gold embossed on the front page.

May you be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes and Leanne Eames.

Disclaimer:

As we, the Chan Academy Australia, Chan Academy being a registered business name of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., do not control the actions of our service providers from time to time, make no warranty as to the continuous operation of our website(s). Also, we make no assertion as to the veracity of any of the information included in any of the links with our websites, or another source accessed through our website(s).

Accordingly, we accept no liability to any user or subsequent third party, either expressed or implied, whether or not caused by error or omission on either our part, or a member, employee or other person associated with the Chan Academy Australia (Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.)

This Radio Script is for Free Distribution. It contains Buddha Dhamma material and is provided for the purpose of research and study.

Permission is given to make printouts of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. Please keep it in a clean place.

"The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts".

For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us.

© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.