Before coming to the intentions of this discussion paper, it is fruitful to remind and make clear to practitioners that the Dhamma is akaliko, that is, not dependent on place.

Furthermore, it is useful to consider that authentic written Dhamma is intact in the world at present in various forms.

The Use of New Technology to Reproduce Buddha Dhamma

Since the copyright of present written Dhamma will expire next century, it means it will enter the public domain. This means it can be copied for free distribution without royalty payments.

Unfortunately, much written Dhamma is printed on acid papers.

Such paper does not have long life like rice paper.

It is certain to break down at the oxygen bridge atom of their cellulose molecules, resulting in the paper turning to dust.

In most cases, reprinting is out of the question on economic grounds.

When copyright has expired or if the legal owner of the copyright gives consent, it is legal to scan the information on the pages into electronic form.

Recently, a breakeven point has been reached by new technology where it has become less expensive to reproduce information electronically than in paper based form.

It is clear that the future capability for electronic reproduction and transfer of data will become more and more affordable.

The electronic text of a hundred books equivalent can be obtained for the cost of one paper based book.

The capital cost of devices to read this electronic data are a fraction of what they were a decade ago.

The task of electronic listing of names of key volumes of the unabridged written Dhamma has yet to be put on a systematic basis although many organisations have complied many useful data bases of the whereabouts of some of this material, for example, Dr. Richard Gard's pioneering work in compiling electronic data bases for the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, formally at Princetown University U.S.A. (1)

Buddhist Education ­ the Creation of a Buddhist World Catalogue

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." (2)

The task of compiling the presently known unabridged written Dhamma in its various forms has been started.

A Buddhist world catalogue of what and where this Dhamma is available in the world would be extensive but could be within the scope of 21scentury technology.

A coordination Committee for the Buddhist world catalogue should be set up in several countries.

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.

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.

The Importance of Literacy

For success to be useful, there is a need to make the merit to gain insight into cause and effect. It is a precondition that persons can read, as there are many persons in the world who are functionally illiterate.

There is a need to sanction information technology as a good thing at an affordable cost and promote it as a primary means to give persons a chance to raise within themselves passable elements of literacy.

The secondary use of such information systems is to make written Dhamma available to the many folk.

Special devotion should be directed to those persons who constitute 25 per cent of the world's population who are functionally illiterate.

Sincere followers of the Middle Way, by making an intention to raise literacy in the world, need to raise their energy and concentrate their vision.

Brothers and Sisters in the Dhamma, please understand the unprecedented opportunity that awaits you to help show the way to literacy for the future generations.

Surely, this vision is not as difficult a task as removing smallpox from the world. Yet the removal of smallpox has been achieved.

Present operations taken at our Centre are guided by the reflection that it is possible that more and more Dhamma texts will become more available to persons in the 21st century than in other centuries.

We wish to promote the notion that we have been privileged to read Dhamma accumulated to date by our ancestors in the two and half millenniums that have passed in this sasene, should we not act in such a way as to help others to find a true Guide/Shower of the Middle Way?

We do not wish to be remembered as persons deficient in gratitude. If we arrange to set up the causes to give out Dhamma, then Dhamma will come to us in future times. Remember, if you are fortunate, you may be born human in this world next life and continue to practice Dhamma.

Buddha Dhamma put into action is the antidote of suffering.

Remembering that the consequence of a person's non-practice of Dhamma for lack of a Shower of the Way is really the cause of oceans of tears over many lives, may help you to arrange Dhamma Dana.

Without the Dhamma, every tear a person sheds is without purpose, merely dukkha caused by himself or herself by former unwise (Pali: akusala) actions.

Two things can help us: knowing the time left in this sasene is short for merit-making and the greatest merit gift is Dhamma Dana.

Moving Towards Globalisation

As we approach the next century, we can already see many of the fundamentals of our world's social and economic systems changing.

Already, in the last few hundred years, we have seen the basic domain of commerce change from the level of the local village and province to that of the nation and more recently to that of the region.

Now, we are close to the broader notion of the entire globe as the domain.

By effort, the world is becoming more prosperous.

World trade rose from $US 2,256 billion in 1980 to $US 6,170 billion in 1995, an increase of significance. (3)

Trade in services has risen from $US 361 billion in 1980 to $US 1234 billion in 1995. (4)

By effort, the current financial downturn will pass away.

A Need for Closer Relationships Between Eastern Scholars

Drawing on an impressive range of thinking by Scholar Monks and Nuns in collaboration with University Professors and Graduates, the last decade has seen the appearance of many English and other European language translations of well written Buddha Dhamma.

As Professor Wang Gungwu, Chairman of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore noted, the immediate antecedents of Asian studies in European and North America enjoyed an arrogant stage. (5)

A more humble scientific attitude has evolved in the post colonial period and it can be guessed that the residue of superiority found in some Western approaches to Buddha Dhamma will vanish in the global context of the 21st century.

Chinese Buddhist studies of other countries date back 1600 years to Fa Hsien's Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms.

This was followed by Japanese and Korean studies of Chinese Buddha Dhamma.

What has recently attracted attention is the impression that, although Scholars from each Asian country established close relationship with their counterparts in Western universities, relatively few have done the same with fellow Scholars in Asia.

Recently, a meeting was held at Hua Hin, with Chulalongkorn University Institute of Asian Studies as host, to collect detailed information about each of the 16 territories covered.

The President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Anthony Reid, was invited to chair the meeting.

South and South-East Asian countries are more prone to look to the West than to one another.

Some Buddha Dhamma Scholars seem to be swept up in this tendency.

Understanding Morality

In the 21st century, Buddha Dhamma Scholars in Asia may blossom in many countries, write adequately in the English language and understand that a careful examination of their own oral and written heritage can be used to stimulate their intellectual interest.

Then, the question of what appears to be fresh, stimulating and worthy in the Western study paradigms will be shown, in part, to be an outcome of persons who neglect to undertake the precept of no intoxicants that cloud the mind.

If there is one thing clear from the past, it is that no insight wisdom can come from those who ignore Sila (the precepts on morality).

The globalisation of Buddha Dhamma has been rapid in Western countries in the last two decades and extended just in time to countries, who, for some time, were serious in their thinking about a need to destroy one another, en masse, with nuclear warfare.

As Freud (1915), writing on repression, noted, one of the vicissitudes an instinctual impulse may undergo is to meet with resistances, the aim of which is to make the impulse inoperative. (7)

From this viewpoint, it might be said repression has caused a movement away from mass killing - meaning that the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) script prevented World War 3.

Current killing in the world is now more at an individual level, in the hand-to-hand sense, and localised.

Perhaps, if more effort was made, further reduction in killing could happen in the human world.

Human fortune is under the influence of heavenly beings to some extent.

Perhaps a word about Buddhist views on climate change in the 21st century would help frame some compassionate actions.

Firstly, we should note that the slaughter of farmed animals is higher than at any time in recorded human history.

At times, an animal is slaughtered by a farmer and due to merit is reborn a deva or devata in a lower heaven world.

The newly born deva or devata pleads with the God of that Heaven to punish the farmers responsible for killing many animals.

Flooding of the Farmer's land can result.

In the 21st century, it is likely more Pujas would be held for dead animals.

Viewpoints of Naive Persons Need More Attention

Unfortunately, at present, naive persons are inclined to believe that a monoculture resulting from "balkanisation" of new nation states done along ethnic or religious lines is appealing.

Some persons prosper when civil war arises because prolonged major killing expeditions appear to guarantee expenditure on arms.

The notion of the right of citizens to bear private arms may be foregone in the 21st century because arms are a supporting factor for killing.

In Australia, vast quantities of privately owned guns were destroyed after the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania.

From the Buddhist viewpoint, it is not right action to carry arms or right livelihood to trade in arms.

There is a need to concentrate on ways of making this supporting factor less appealing.

The horrors of war dull the senses and seem less real when they are viewed again and again on TV world news in your living room.

There is a need to change the format of the content matter of TV news and this may be done if other commercial material were available.

We hope that major research of existing Buddha Dhamma will give practitioners in the 21st century a method of finding and marketing an alternative format of TV news. A method that would allow the viewing news in such a way that it gives sufficient training for many persons in the precept of no killing.

The Evolution of an English Buddhist Heritage

Major aide projects are needed to cover the major risks that will exist from scarcity of essentials in some countries.

Sympathetic Joy (Pali: Mudita) can reach out into the future to discern several alternative futures for particular countries where persons organise or do not organise their lives within a Buddhist heritage.

That a real change of heritage has occurred is identified by the fact that the WFB Conference was held in the U.S.A. and will soon be held in Australia.

Although these countries have a multicultural tradition because their migrants who settled in these countries came from just about every country in the world; their master language written and spoken is the English language.

The translations into English by the Pali Text Society over the last century have provided a reading background of incomparable use for those who wish to taste the flavour of Dhamma.

It is not surprising, given that 90 per cent of Internet sites are in America, that many English Dhamma commentaries appear on Internet sites.

We all need a common language to trade with each other. Chances are that English as a second language will become more common.

In the 21st century, with automatic translation facilities for the English language becoming common, and many European nations speaking English as a second language, many centres will form Buddhist joint enterprises with other regional centres.

In the 21st Century, at web sites or with the World Fellowship of Buddhists website or the proposed International Buddhist University website, development in the English language will follow naturally.

By the 21st Century, the refugee scholar Monks and Nuns from the areas from Cambodia to Vietnam, who have established themselves in Western world countries, will have appointed their successors.

Their successors could come from anywhere provided they have completed some sturdy moral training system of Buddha Dhamma fit to be introduced into the Western world.

Their educated successors may be helped less by neyattha-Dhamma (teaching the meaning of which has been inferred) rather than by nittattha-Dhamma (teaching with an implicit or evident meaning).

In any event, their successors could not support a platform which is uccheda-ditthi (nihilistic) or sassato-ditthi (eternalist).

The Role of Immigration in Spreading Buddha Dhamma

In a world where immigrants are increasing, both within a given country and from a given country to another country, it is difficult to believe that future migrations of the educated Buddhist elite will not occur towards the richer Western countries of the world.

With increasing population growth, it is assumed that the present tendency for Buddhist refugees to settle in richer countries will increase year by year.

On the assumption that Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the USA have sufficient land and infrastructure to continue to generate more wealth in the 21st century, it appears likely these places could accept any Buddhist refugee Monks and Nuns.

By way of example, simple kamma might suggest that Canada and France seem obvious places for immigrant persons, such as the Vietnamese, who have a background of French colonial cultural history.

The complex reasons for suggesting the other Western countries is outside the scope of this paper.

There does not seem to be much limit to the adsorption of qualified Monks and Nuns into these societies.

It is a tortuous path to see at what point demand and supply could be said to be balanced because, if in excess, the educated players could migrate to another country.

For example, Burma has a long history of great Masters and Scholars.

The amount of important Burmese texts that remain to be translated into the English language is likely to be extensive.

If the karmic conditions that allowed relocation of English speaking Burmese Scholar Monks to other countries were studied against the colonial past, it could be seen it is probable that a number of English speaking Burmese Scholars and Monks can be expected to relocate into English-speaking countries in the 21st century.

Building and Maintaining Temples

Buddhist morality, which is not given as commandments from a creator God, challenges and clarifies the raison d'etre of notions of the Ten Commandments derived from the Christian canon.

This moral training is not God-given; but can be deduced from a knowledge of cause and effect.

There is some common ground in practice of morality between various religions and all can converge with compassion. Buddha Dhamma does not end training with the development of compassion.

The limit to wisdom development does not go beyond the ten perfections. For example, there is no need for an Arhat to build a temple. The task of building and maintaining temples belongs to the laity. In the Western world experience, the absence of suitable viharas has meant that certain Monks and Nuns occupied themselves with construction techniques that may be rated as too lavish for the functions required.

The Western World has a tendency to go to excess in good things. It expects to have an increasing living standard year by year. It tends to like to believe that the World is really a very nice place. This belief is reinforced by high living standards and superior medical systems. The basis of these things leading to good life is thought to be made possible by good government regulation, not individual kusala kamma coming from the individual's own good actions.

As Buddha Dhamma becomes more widespread, the need to generate good causes in this life becomes better understood. Because of clever marketing, there is a perception that the size and quality of a dwelling, whether private or business, reflects the worth of a person or organisation.

That 'bigger is better' is not questioned by mass advertising in a consumer society.

For this reason, when a question of the size of any temple is considered from this Western frame of reference, there is a tendency to go to extremes. It is not enough to build a small temple for some Western persons, they must build the biggest or most lavish to rival the luxury of a Hilton Hotel. The conditioning of persons' minds is so nearly complete, that there is no hesitancy in choice of the desirability of having as many rooms as possible within a given structure. The belief system is so strong that a person choosing a lesser number of rooms within a given structure would be considered as lacking judgement.

It is not a matter of the number of rooms but of right sizing to get the optimum use from a temple structure. Right sizing is entering the business spectrum of global culture at present, so, it can be imagined that the 21st century will bring better resolution of temple dimensions and locations to fit the practice that is planned ahead of construction.

The Role of Technology in Teaching Buddha Dhamma

Monk and Nun training could be helped from a central location via fifth-generation Internet systems. A portion of each future temple may be equipped with a workstation of considerable power. As the cost of computing lowers, and viharas can communicate with one another with ease, it may be that Monks and Nuns actually do less travel and therefore do not suffer from disturbances associated with cultural shock. Multiple teachings in real time become commonplace because of multimedia technology becoming more and more affordable.

The strength and affordability of technology will produce some remarkable changes in the influence of larger temples. A small temple will have the same capability as a large temple to service persons reading from fifth-generation Internet services. It may be that superior Monks and Nuns prefer the atmosphere of small size viharas. Without doubt, they would certainly have longer life in such a suitable environment and Teachers may live to be 120 to 140 years old or more. Their teaching period may be multiplied by an equivalent time factor of more than 50,000 at least. This is a combination of an increased life span and the ability to guide 100 or more groups simultaneously. There are several persons in training at present who either this life or next life can attain to this capacity.

The author remembers with affection the suitability of simpler vihara constructions in Bangladesh villages with superior Monks in attendance. These Monks were trained in the Burmese traditions of practice and run their viharas accordingly. Within the temple grounds, an ancient bodhi tree stands and stupas hold the relics of four generations of Teachers in their tradition. It is evident that there must have been a series of viharas in that specific location going back to the twelfth century.

Were Teaching to be conducted by the Abbot of such a temple by multimedia to a global audience, the project would be well suited for practitioners and affordable to maintain and operate. When the operating costs of this small suitable vihara in Bangladesh are compared to the operating costs of some large establishments built in Western countries, the natural advantage of the Bangladesh vihara becomes evident. Quality of guidance appears in different parts of the world because of past conditions and cannot be manufactured by wealth alone.

Sharing Resources Equally

In ancient times, the Chinese had by no means the same ideas as the Europeans who came to their shores on the subject of commerce. Kouan-tse, a celebrated economist of the Celestial Empire, who lived more than two thousand years ago, expresses himself thus: "The money which enters a kingdom by commerce only enriches it in the same proportion as that which goes out. There is no commerce permanently advantageous but the exchange of things useful and necessary. The trade in articles of pomp, elegance, or curiosity, whether carried on by exchange or by money payments, supposes the existence of luxury; now luxury, which is the abundance of what is superfluous among certain citizens, supposes the want of necessaries among others. The more horses the rich put to their chariots, the more people will have to walk on foot; the more their houses are vast and magnificent, the more those of the poor are small and miserable; the more their tables are covered with dainties, the more people there are reduced to eat only rice".(7)

This notion has been left behind in modern times but it is evident that balance of trade must have some meaning. There is an attractiveness in facilitating quality Teaching regardless of national boundaries. It might be that economic rationalism of some sort would exclude high overhead temples from offering their services because their costs could be out of proportion to what is offered elsewhere. At that point, the reputation and desirability of using Monks and Nuns to 'Show the Way' within the backdrop of their smaller viharas would be empathised with by many persons.

The energy of utilisation of a good resource regardless of its locality is a property of modern management. As the global news service CNN has shown, it does not take that much energy to deliver visual images from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world. The will to achieve such quality guidance ought to come from practitioners in the Western world who may not be content with the conventional wisdom that, the larger the organisation the higher the quality of the product.

Westerners will become more discriminating of what they wish within the 21st Century and this in turn will raise the discrimination level of traditional Buddhist countries. Japan could become revitalised by the commercial exploitation of the new technology and the availability of suitable Teachers in many underdeveloped countries. Since this represents a new world market for a product that will bless persons, it is feasible that any country in the World could exploit the obvious advantages of this path. The author wishes that parts of Australia could generate the intention and raise the energy to reach this objective within the 21st Century.

The energy with which Westerners build their viharas is commendable, but not enough energy is poured into sustaining the structure after it is built. It is as if they do not wish for future generations to have anything to do! They want to present a 'perfect' building as soon as possible. There is no patience in this practice and the only outcome is great wealth in a future life for the persons engaged in this type of building.

Buddha Dhamma does not limit a person to continue to develop the four qualities of the mental state of the Brahma World beyond a certain development.

A combination of a spreading of teachings by Ajarns and well-written Dhamma literature to back up such teaching within the last two decades have demystified questions of why one should take refuge in the Triple Gem in at least one of the four possible ways (8).

The Distribution of Dhamma

Within the materialistic Western World, some scientifically trained persons reject eternalism by considering that the belief in an eternal creator God is unscientific.

Other persons live within a nihilistic framework by rejecting the notion that rebirth and redeath are not the norm.

In some cases, this challenge has encouraged Buddha Dhamma collaboration by University Professors and Graduates, and the last decade has seen the emergence and publication of many translations of classic well-written Buddha Dhamma.

This material has been traded in printed form as a World commodity. Affordable costing makes material widely available and, in many cases, due to the generosity of many organisations, written Dhamma is available for free distribution.

In addition, Dhamma materials are appearing in electronic formats on Internet and as compact discs readable by computers.

Communication by electronic-mail will become so widely available at low cost, it would be possible and likely that the W.F.B. would link together their Regional Centres to compile a World register of Monks, Nuns and lay Dhamma Teachers with examples of their current training methods.

Web masters could run these systems with voice systems from either their present location or anywhere else world wide.

As more and more persons will work from home in the information age, and home entertainment increases in convenience, some persons could become disinclined to leave their home.

For such persons, a demand for Buddha Dhamma equivalent culture piped into their home may become the norm.

With "convenient" Web systems using voice synthesis, it would appear likely that known texts could be verbalised by virtual Monks and virtual Nuns.

A cost-efficient "convenient" Web system would be an offshoot of a commercial system that would appear with universal language skills to overcome the need to use the English language as a world language.

The "convenient" Web systems could address national audiences on request in their own Dhamma languages at any time day or night.

In time, for such an audience, it may become difficult for those living Monks and Nuns and lay persons who wish to compete against the synthetic Web voices.

Those who incline to speak "live" would need some very pleasant speech to hold the attention of persons with restless time-driven minds who may be conditioned not to travel from their work-wired homes.

Future Challenges for Buddhism

There is more wealth to build, maintain and deliver services to and from Buddhist Institutions.

This wealth has caused fundamental changes in the structure and distribution of communities.

Much of this is being driven by a confluence of factors that are shaping the world of the next century in terms of a more global community and market place.

Patterns of demography and distribution of wealth may also be expected to change that will set increased pressures on global resources including the environment.

At the same time, the human qualities of covertness and grief do not appear to have substantially abated and are likely to also continue into this new Century.

This will create an evolving set of challenges for Buddhism to both recognise and adapt to so that it may continue to flourish.

What are these challenges?

We are seeing the proliferation of information and communications technology that is extending into almost every corner of the globe.

The cost to access these communication channels is coming down rapidly making them accessible on a scale that has not been possible before.

We are also seeing a convergence of communication technologies in which computing, television, telephony and interactive multimedia are coming together merely as different enablers of communication through the recognition that the basis of all these technologies is digital technology.

Accompanying this is an increasing concentration of communications media ownership that will be powerful in both informing and shaping the global agenda.

Richard H. Brown, Chief Executive of Cable and Wireless plc, states they are the most international company in the world by having substantial operations in 55 countries and a presence in over 70. (9)

They are arranging for a single dedicated management team that will target multinational companies directly instead of operating through the national companies.

Part of their plan will be to sink their roots in markets where they can really make a difference and take control of their destiny.

What this means is that the Cable & Wireless team must practice a form of global multiculturalism having values which use logic to help build momentum in an industry which is open-ended.

It is this very open-ended nature of the industry that allows it to overcome lack of direct eye consciousness by giving, in an affordable form, what can be considered a worldwide "celestial eye" substitute for many persons.

The Power of Storage-Area Networks (SAN)

The impact, intensity and apparent realism of fiction have always had power to guide the formation of views.

Under the 227 Vinaya rules, Monks and Nuns are advised to avoid watching and listening to common plays, pageants or theatre where dancing women or men move their bodies to music.

In ancient times, such shows were not frequent in the countryside so it was not too difficult to observe this rule.

The significance of the intense development of Storage-Area Networks (SAN) at present is a guarantee that such entertainment will be easy and affordable in many, many places this century.

It does not take much vision to see that suitable feed stock for the future SANs is ready in the marketplace held by copyright.

So apart from reruns of sporting events, persons who have tested positive to popular global appeal in the 20th century could extend their global shelf life with "spin off" marketing on SANs.

Risk free appeal may last several generations because exposure to the deceptive charm of popular signers such as the Three Tenors or Spice Girls equivalents is held to be conducive to pleasant feeling.

The global availability of an audience that wishes to share a common delusion equivalent to specific virtual seduction by sight or sound and other major theatrical sense base spectacles is a strong reason to develop product.

When product is mass produced for a complete market profile, it means it would be nice from the producer's viewpoint if present conventions of what is accepted as suitable juvenile vis-a-vis adult products was left unquestioned.

By linear projection of what would have been considered suitable for general exhibition 50 years ago and what is considered suitable with the same rating today, it can be predicted that the present ratings for film for mature adults only and so on will vanish in many countries.

In the entertainment industry, there appears little hard evidence to suggest that any person went bankrupt by allowing bad taste to prevail in their presentations.

It may be difficult for children educated from birth in a permissive society which allows them to view the full content of the future SANs to make sense of a precept prohibiting viewing of such subject matter.

As an indicator of this trend, the author has noted that popular music groups are used at fund-raising events in local Temple grounds even while the Monks and Nuns are still in residence.

Buddha Dhamma SANs

The educational potential of Buddha Dhamma SANs could be very high.

It is suggested that by using skilful method and means and without much effort the possibility of setting up a 21st century Buddha Dhamma SAN site ought be investigated by WFB.

To be commercially viable, it could reward viewers financially (with the equivalent of frequent viewer points) and emotionally (by being polled for their response to the instructional material).

The mission is to alter their conformity to low style which darkens the mind through desire-inducing influences that are likely to appear on other "Mara" sites.

From the author's experience in setting up our Buddha Dhamma site at www.bdcu.org.au this year (1998) and our Local Area Network, it can be stated that, provided Dhamma practitioners believe they are certain their organisation can master the technology, that can do it.

The technology does not need to be reinvented because it is not a sentient being but since it is neutral to data images based on true or false images shown in electronic form as a motion picture form becomes more affordable and more common culture for more and more persons,

SANs are being developed which permit high-speed access to multiple storage displays, where such items as video clips might be archived.

Research on SAN is moving quickly and it is most likely SAN will replace the need for face-to- face contact with live teachers who can teach logic.

The concern of most logic programs is whether a statement follows necessarily from the premises. This is the judging of deduction.

Machine search engines could include logic testing of given subjects and arrange lessons.

The character of search engines developed to date can find more references than are held in local libraries and automatic translation of foreign texts appears to be nearly ready for key word searches at an affordable cost.

Rather than attempt to outline detailed technical information on the present state of SAN development in this paper, interested readers could refer to a series of websites that distribute mature information. (10)

Facing the Challenges

The fundamental conditions of human birth will continue to prevail.

The challenges ahead of Buddhism deal with the types of minds persons use in response to these changes.

The Abbot Zenkei Shibayama of Nanzenji Monastery, Kyoto, Japan, lectured in the United States and is cognisant of Western Ways.

In 1970, he stated that at the bottom of modern persons who are tired and afraid of the pressure of modern culture, nostalgia for missing humanity seems to be gradually awakened.

This nostalgia may not be satisfied by political reformation, improvement of economic systems, or diplomatic negotiations alone; it seems to be more deeply rooted than that.

Now is the time to use the best of critical thinking about what ought to be targeted as gains for the next century ­ the 21st.

Back to Basics

Recently, the Leader of the Roman Christians, Pope John Paul II, suggested the new apostolic letter, Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord.

This new policy appeals for a renewal of Sunday as a day of rest.

The apostolic letter is not just to bishops and priests, but to the whole church.

He rejects a day of inactivity, but encourages a day of unique activity: worship, contemplation, fellowship and good deeds.

At present (July 1998), 16-18% of Australian Catholics attend church on Sundays according to figures supplied by the Archbishop's research office in Melbourne, Australia.

We assume the attendance figures are much the same in other post-industrial countries similar to Australia.

IN confronting the indifference of those motivated purely by materialistic and financial gain, I should prove prophetic.

With this example, we might be able to each our Dhamma followers to observe the ancient policy of our followers of visiting their churches (viharas) on our holy days (i.e. the quarter, half, three quarter and full moon days in the Buddhist calendar.)

In the 21st century, it would become more common in persons' thought patterns to practice in a church for one day a week for Christians.

In Australia, it is estimated about 80% of persons calling themselves Christians do not attend church regularly.

In Australia, the impression is a higher percentage of Buddha Dhamma practitioners attend their vihara regularly (meaning at least monthly) than do followers of other religions.

Further research is needed to get the world pattern of relative attendance at religious Centres.

One theory that needs testing is to test if television viewing of a church service gives a "proxy" satisfaction of real attendance.

In post-industrial society, it is self evident that a form of "proxy satisfaction" is obtained for viewing sporting events, where the main reason for non-attendance is finance, distance or work pressures.

The absence of a particular popular Monk or Nun at the Temple affects attendance.

The long-term cultural effect of this Christian proposal seems to imply that other religions might suggest a scaling down of work and frivolities on the Sabbath day and getting on with prayer. This could become worldwide culture next century.

At the conceptual level, the notion is easy to follow, and easy-to-follow traditions have great vigour.

The covert desire of a Government to share available work of a privileged class where high unemployment of underemployment of an underclass may cause civil trouble could drive emerging nation-states to find such a symbol of unity as a singularity of purpose of keeping the Sabbath useful.

The folklore of the underclass as a "non-religious" segment of the society whose labour might be needed on that day is dangerous in the longer term.

Folklore is a form of nostalgia for the ancient days when the present citizens of a nation hold that their ancestors achieved greatness in terms of conquest or in completion in trade.

Learning from History

In European history, we find persons like Annaeus Seneca who paid little attention to the logic and physics of he older schools. For Seneca, virtue was the one great end of philosophic effort.

Seneca was the wealthy minister of Nero.

The historian, Samuel Dill, noted that great generals and leaders of the last age of the republic often carried philosophers in their train. (11)

The serious aim of philosophy commended itself to the intensely practical and strenuous spirit of the Romans and although there were plenty of showy lecturers or preachers in the first century who could draw fashionable audiences, the private philosophic director was a far more real power.

But some did not take their roles very seriously.

Both Nero and Hadrian used to amuse themselves with the quarrels and vanities of their philosophers. (12)

That a courtier like Seneca, who lived during the reigns of Caligula and Claudius, and was the tutor and minister of Nero, could have composed such letters seems improbably. Yet he was an analyst of a corrupt society and a guide to moral reform who lived through "the gloomiest years of imperial tyranny". (13)

Seneca was the ideal director for the upper class of such an age. He had risen to the highest office in a world-wide monarchy and spent years in hourly fear of death.

He had no illusions about the actual condition of human nature.

In his preface, Dill (1904) stresses that the scope of his book "Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius" is strictly limited and he concentrated on the inner moral life of the time. (14)

He reasons that philosophy in its highest and best sense is not the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, nor the disinterested play of intellect, regardless of intellectual consequences, as in a Platonic dialogue. It is pre-eminently the science or art of right living, that is, a life conformed to right reason. (15)

Achieving an "Unbiased Mind"

Graham Little (1998) states he asked Alan Davies "Just what does psychoanalysis do for you?" (16)

He replied, "It allows you to think the thoughts you're already thinking".

Little believes this is really about communication ­ about dethroning the unconscious political correctness "that stifles the many voices bouncing around in our heads". (17)

Perhaps the 21st century will be the time where it becomes fashionable to flower rather than dismiss the promise of Western psychoanalysis that somehow may suggest there is tangible evidence of a mind (citta) operating within human beings and animals.

There is some recent evidence appearing, using fast response measurement in terms of millisecond, that "snap" decision-making used by most persons has unconscious, built-in race or gender bias.

This is recognised as the kammic nature of persons' minds.

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.

Perhaps this bias may be described in terms of mind.

It may well be that someone will find a rigorous repeatable scientific demonstration of the biased notion of mind itself being able to form considered thoughts and having secondary results in feelings, pleasant or unpleasant.

If this is so, once one "discovered" biased mind is found, the way opens to show the prospect of the biased types of "mind" known in the Buddhist canon.

If it became the fashion to search on how one would "unbias" the mind, then history shows that it is exactly what Buddha Dhamma can achieve with yathabhutam mind (a mind free of personality bias).

Discovering Citta

With modern communication means such as the internet, news of the critical demonstration of mind to the satisfaction of many persons who enter and follow the rigour and discipline of mathematic modelling could pass from one knowledge institution to another within a short time and blend into the Western scientific materialistic paradigm.

The promise of speed of electronic publication means experimental results demonstrated at one institution can be available overnight unless the information is withheld for trade reasons.

Just as the superego with its harmful effects was a fundamental discovery of psychoanalytic science this century, so the rigorous experiment that uncovers the odourless, colourless, shapeless mind base (citta) could be expected to be found and accepted in the 21st century.

What is to be shown is that the mind (citta) is something other than the mere chatter of molecules of matter (rupa) jumping around between different energy states.

At present, there is no real need to invoke the notion of mind to explain the twists and turns of the mental pictures that arise from chemical experiments with minute amounts of transmitter chemicals in brain chemistry.

In conventional science, it has been noted that certain organic substances can help us feel fine provided their concentrations are within certain ranges. We talk about normal brain chemistry.

The great success of the materiality approach to conventional scientific medicine, such as doubling the life expectancy of Australians in the last century, is not based on evidence of a mind because medical treatment is based on ideas of substances being given for treatment of most diseases.

Because the direct insight coming from correct meditation gives knowledge that mind exists can only be found each for himself or herself, many persons doubt the existence of mind.

Because of the materialistic science assisting the denial of the labelling processes of consciousness so respected by Freud, this can give persons, the Maras of the human race, a medium for dismissing the very notion of mind induced morality.

If the playful stirring of the collective superego is treated as a property of matter rather than mind, the temptation to treat a Buddha Dhamma statement that mind precedes all things is discounted as some chemical ghost within the human machine that should be dismissed.

For the material driven moralists, "communication" as a property of mind smacks of compromise with their need to hold what they call the modern scientific chemical version of human beings.

Yet they hold notions of "customer confidence" in economic terms, and can agree that the mindset that is held in mind, say, for a prolonged trade war, may damage the wellbeing and lifestyle of a group of persons in a nation for a longer time and ore in dollar terms than a small conventional war.

What is "customer confidence" if not mind?
What is the will to hurt a group of persons if not mind?

Australia has a surprising zest for making folklore about fighting in another nation's trade or of carving out trade markets in some other nation's sphere of influence.

What are these things if not mind?

The Path You Are Looking For

The Buddha taught that no beings arise in a happy, heavenly state after death because of gain of relatives, wealth or health but beings are reborn in such states because of morality and right view.

What ought you do to establish that you in fact have a mind that determines what you do or do not do?

Buddha Dhamma shows you the method of how this fundamental knowing about mind is to be done.

If you are interested in this line of reasoning, please contact us, on telephone number Australia 03-9754-3334. Our Centre is fortunate in that it is rich enough in library resources to select the foremost methods from a variety of multicultural activities arising from the past.

May you be well and happy.

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

1. The Buddhist Text Information issues include cumulative bibliographic information for the study of Buddhist texts. In addition to descriptions of texts and their published editions, translations, studies, etc, special attention is given to projects planned, in progress, or recently completed/awaiting publication. For example, numbers 55-58 (1988) include dictionaries for the study of Buddhist texts in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uighur. ISSN 0360-6112

2. Narain, A. K., Address On The Opening Ceremony in The Journal of Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies; Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies, No.5, 1986, p 14.

3. Maiden, Malcolm, Thinking Global in The Age Newspaper; Business Saturday 4, July 1998, p 1. Sources quoted: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Productivity Commission, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade ( Australia), Foreign Investment Review Board, OECD, Centre for International Economics

4. Ibid (3), $US87B (1985), $US 861b (1990).

5. Gungwu, Professor Wang, 'Other' is a view of where you are in The Australian Newspaper; July 29, 1998, p 38

6. Freud, Sigmund, Collected Papers Vol. IV; Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1950, p 84

7. Huc. M., The Chinese Empire, Vol. II; Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London, 1855, p 131

8. There are four ways of taking refuge in the Triple Gem:

1. Attasanniyyatana - dedication of one's life to the Triple Gem
2. Tapparayanata - taking the Triple Gem as the protection of oneself
3. Sissa Bhavopagamana - approaching the Triple Gem as a pupil
4. Panipata - submission to the Triple Gem with devotion

9. Brown, Richard H., "Momentum"; A speech presented at Merrill Lynch New York on 18 March 1998

10.

11. Dill, Samuel, Roman Society from Nero to Marcus Aurelius, Meridian Books, New York, 1957, p289.

12. Ibid, p294

13 Ibid, p296

14. Ibid

15. Ibid pp 298-299

16. Little, Graham, The Australian's Review of Books; July 1998, p 6

17. Ibid.

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