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'THE BUDDHIST HOUR' RADIO BROADCAST
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Hillside Radio 87.6 FM & 88.0 FM Sundays 11:00am to 12:00pm |
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‘The Buddhist Hour’ Hillside Radio Broadcast 110 (formally KNOX FM) 5 November 2000 Today’s Program is called: Why is it difficult to deal with chivalrous persons? According to the Oxford Dictionary, chivalry is “knights or horsemen equipped for battle; medieval men-at-arms; gallant gentlemen”. The Age of Chivalry is described as “the period during which the knightly social and ethical system prevailed; the period during which men behave with courage, honour, and courtesy”. Some say the age of chivalry is dead. The first medieval knights were cavalry knights. As knighthood evolved, a Christian ideal of knightly behaviour came to be accepted, involving respect for the church, loyalty to one’s feudal or military superiors, and preservation of personal honour (The New Encyclopedia Brittanica). In medieval society, instead of attending a grammar school and proceeding to a university, boys served as pages and then as squired in the halls and castles of the nobility, there receiving prolonged instruction in chivalry. The training was designed to fit the noble youth to become a worthy knight, a just and prudent master, and a sensible manager of an estate. Much of the knowledge was gained from daily experience in the household, but, in addition, the page received direct instruction in reading and writing, courtly pastimes such as chess and playing the lute, singing and making verses, the rules and usages of courtesy, and the knightly conception of duty. As a squire, he practiced more assiduously the knightly exercises of war and peace and acquired useful experience in leadership by managing large and small bodies of men. In our current age the notion of chivalry could be seen as political correctness or at the very least, preconditioned behavioural responses or adhering to the ‘work ethic’. To behave in a chivalrous way can be viewed as controlling all your actions and responses in a way which you think is socially acceptable. To have a conditioned response to all situations means that you are never going to be truly conscious of what you are doing. It can also mean that you are responding in a way which is deemed to please a third party as opposed to acting in an appropriate way for yourself. To constantly control your own behaviour in a tight ritual rarely allows you to act or react from the heart - regardless of whether or not that reaction is deemed by others to be appropriate. At times, chivalrous persons may be too proud or narrow minded to be compassionate to others. Traditionally, even the lowliest worker has been accorded a measure of respect for being a worker, particularly if the worker was a male supporting a family. Friends (and enemies) were made in the workplace because in ancient times work provided the main source of social interaction outside the family for many persons. Dulling as there tasks may be, they prided themselves on doing the best they know how to because the workplace has not been a place to be but a community. The breadwinner of the family had a respected place in society, made a recognised contribution to society, because to be a worthwhile person one must do one’s share. Through work, persons feel a sense of worth as a person and this feeling provides some sort of meaning for them. Modern citizens regard wage-work as naturally chivalrous and necessary for human dignity. What would modern citizens make of the role of someone who does not place work as number one?. To practice cultivating your mind, it is necessary to put down work demands for the period of the practice. If identification and belonging was only felt to be possible by work then asking a person to put aside the primary source of his or her life’s labels and ego boundaries that is his or her work where he or she come both to know themselves and orientate themselves to the external world. In Buddha Dhamma meditation practice, the outside world is put down and the inside mental world is examined. Naturally, the inside world has not got work as number one because it deals with what is outside of us such as work. Few person have a paid job to examine their inner world. We are not paid at work to get to know our likes and dislikes; we are paid to attend to the task at hand. It is not through work we obtain a niche in Buddhist society, it is through increasing our awareness to examine the marks of true existence. The teaching of the Buddha showed us how to always maintain awareness of our actions and our minds. If we are constantly acting in a way which is learned or seen to be proper, then our focus is going to be on other person’s reactions as opposed to our own actions. Abiding in our true Buddha nature allows us to be simply and gently aware, and if one is always mindful then our actions and responses will always be appropriate. The Buddha taught in great detail about wholesome and unwholesome behaviour and these are encapsulated in the Noble Eightfold Path. The Eightfold Path is :
If persons live their lives with the Eightfold path as their guide, there is no behaviour, action or response which could be considered inappropriate. Perhaps the Buddha’s followers could be compared with the original chivalrous knights, with wisdom as their swords for the slaying of ignorance! They cannot be identified with workers full of too much flurry and worry in the workplace. They could be identified with workers who are not too self centred to work for themselves when there is no alternative to working for others because they had been retrenched from layers of management when they thought they had job security for many years. Under these cases, the wise know the worth of a person who places value on good things is not felt to be diminished by thinking they still have a lot to give in a job that has passed it use by profit date because of technology shift. There are alternative mechanisms for gaining sense of belonging to society, such as church and community groups, as our key Members know well. The irony is that at a time when most of the population in an industrialized world cannot think of an identity outside work, the modern world needs to review, restructure and downsize regularly if they are to stay in business. There are new jobs being created every minute. As one wit commented: “Don’t tell me about the millions of new jobs created- I’ve got four of them and I’m not all that impressed. A lean, efficient company can increase wealth and increase work opportunities for some skilled persons while reducing old-fashioned boring work for others. For the first time since the Great Depression, some well-educated, middle-managing persons are experiencing chronic job insecurity long familiar to the unskilled poor. For many intelligent persons unable to adjust to rapid change , we teach a sure method to calm their minds, we teach the practice of loving kindness. There is a particular teaching which the Buddha gave to a group of monks whose practice was being disturbed by unseen beings. It is known as the Karaniya Metta Sutta - the discourse on Loving-Kindness. References to “he” in this translation should be understood to mean all sentient beings. This is what should be done by one skilled in good, Who would attain that state of peace: He should be able, upright, truly straight, And meek and gentle and not proud, Contented, easy to support, With few duties and frugal habits, Calm in faculties and discreet, Not puffed up, not greedy among lay supporters. And let him not do even the slightest thing That later on the wise may blame. (He should contemplate;) may they be happy and secure. All beings may they be happy hearted. Whatever living beings there are - Weak or strong, omitting none, Those which are long or great, Middle sized, short, subtle or gross, And those which are seen, or the unseen, And those which dwell far or near, Beings and those who wish to be - All beings may they be happy-hearted! Let none another deceive, Or with anger or thoughts of hate, Wish dukkha for each other. Thus as a mother with her son, Might guard with her life her only child, In the same way with all beings Unlimited one’s mind should be developed - Above, below and all around, Uncramped without malice or enmity, Standing or walking, seated too, And lying while free from drowsiness, He should stand firm in this mindfulness, This is divine abiding here they say. And not going to views, Virtuous and possessed of insight, Having removed greed for sensual pleasures, He will surely come no more to any womb. May I be well and happy! May all beings be well and happy! How does it work? Tay Vaughan, a multimedia pioneer, reminds us that a classic physical anthropology law (Leibig’s Law of Minimums) proposes that the evolution of eyesight, locomotor speed, sense of smell, or any other species trait will cease when that trait becomes sufficiently adequate to meet the survival requirements of the competitive environment. If the trait is good enough, the organism expends no more effort improving it. Vaughan’s Law of Multimedia Minimums states there is an acceptable level of adequacy that will satisfy the audience, even when that level may not be the best that technology, money or time and effort can buy. This Law is to be considered as part of a person’s life project plan. When you are calm enough from metta, you can plan for the next set of three jobs you will work at for the next ten years. You need to understand persons have worth other than what they work at. The concept of work as a determinant of personal value and identity and as an indicator of good character and good morals would have been alien in many past societies”. The Artistotelian viewpoint was that, “All paid jobs absorb and degrade the mind”. It was following the Reformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that work acquired this moral dimension and became a central defining characteristic of human existence. Similarly, the idea of money making being the primary goal of the most admired people in society, the goal of nations, and the major determinant of social success would have been strange indeed to previous societies. Prior to the Reformation those whose primary goal had been money making had been looked at with suspicion and even contempt. The acquisition of wealth became an approved and worthy goal with the emergence of modern capitalism and the changing conception of work. At the heart of the work ethic is the idea that work is worthwhile for reasons other than the rewards it brings in terms of pay, products and profits. The work ethic gives work an intrinsic value: Dedicated work is considered a mark of good character... For people who accept this belief, dedicated work is a positive virtue, much like honesty or loyalty. Implicit in this belief is an ethical demand that a person ought to be diligent and industrious. So, adhering to the ‘work ethic’ could be modern capitalist societies version of chivalrous. This has been achieved from the idea of hard work and diligence as a virtue. Although it is not unique to Western culture, it is not universal. Always, we ought to remember the way persons view work is shaped by their culture and social setting. Orthodox Jewish persons have a different holy day to Christians. It is Saturday, not Sunday. Modern capitalist societies tend to imbue work with a moral value that other societies would find strange. They need to operate plant and equipment and services. We do not believe that part-time workers who take off their holy days are second-class citizens. We do not encourage idleness as a way of life because we have met very few persons who do not want to work. Our Teacher can think of only three such persons over the last year who resisted the teaching that taking wealth not freely given and not working destroys merit and leads to a poor life. We teach that even doing some kind of simple part-time work for a while is a better case in terms of cause and effect, than not working at all. The lazy persons do not like to hear such talk. Soon they cease to come to our Centre and hence do not consume our resources. We do not exist to encourage sloth and torpor that are unwholesome states of mind. We have plenty of work like activities at our Centre but it is not our task to spend our time and money helping persons who are slackers who are on unemployement benefits and who just won’t work. Over the years, we have an 80% success rate in convincing persons to get serious about study to reskill themselves for the future work and accept the form of their present work will most likely vanish within 3 years. We aim not to be too old fashioned in delivery. Our use of Local Area Networks (LAN) our eight web sites and our weekly radio broadcasts impress young persons as giving us relevance to the 21st century more than 10 000 words of preaching in the old sense. Our many success stories about Members changing their occupations as an active policy are impressive. Our older Members tell new Members how they learnt to persist here at the Centre by practice of metta and helping others and improved their job skills towards best practice by using our methodologies. May you change your study habits this year to improve the quality of your minds and find the right way to view the new work culture as right livelihood. The new business (post Fordism) culture moves faster than the old Fordism culture. May you meet and greet persons who act towards you in a chivalrous manner of the new order to help you at work. This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes, Leanne Eames, Tim Browning, Evelin Halls, Pennie White, Julie O’Donnell and Lisa Nelson. Disclaimer:
As we, 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 an other 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 Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
Print based References Beder, Sharon, (2000) Selling the Work Ethic, Scribe Publications, Australia. Goetz, Philip W., chief ed.. (1987). The New Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. 18, Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 15th ed., U.S.A. Lesley Brown, ed. 1993. The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press, New York. Vaughan, Tay. (1998). Multimedia Making It Work. Osborne/Mc Graw-Hill, Berkeley, U.S.A. The Karaniya Metta Sutta - the Discourse on Loving-Kindness. Readability Statistics Flesch Grade Level: 10.4 Coleman-Liau Gradelevel: 13.7 Bormuth Gradelevel: 10.6 Flesch Reading Ease Score: 58.6 Flesch-Kincaid score: 9.6 For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us. |
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