The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast for Sunday 2 December 2001
11am - 1pm

Broadcast Script 200

Glossary

compendium, a work presenting in brief the essential points of a subject, a digest, an epitome, an embodiment in miniature, an assortment, a varied collection.

mediocrity, moderate fortune or condition in life, the quality or condition of being in intermediate between two extremes, a middle course of action, ordinariness.

vimutti (Pali), release, deliverance, or emancipation; freedom from the fabrications and conventions of the mind.

The topic of today’s broadcast is:

The 200th Buddhist Hour radio show: A compendium of previous shows

Interview with John D. Hughes

The very first Buddhist Hour program was broadcast live on 16 February 1998 from Knox FM, now known as Hillside Radio.

The Executive Producer of the Buddhist Hour Series since inception is Master John D. Hughes.

Our concern is to try methods which deliver information over a distance in an affordable manner.

Our services provide information to help humanity live better.

If we take care of our mind, and do not weaken it with drugs, we can pay attention to what we are hearing and whatever propaganda is being spread.

Generally speaking, everyone cherishes a faith in something that the way they live and the things they do are somehow O.K. - that in the long run things will turn out to be to his or her benefit. Some religions have declared that faith is the fundamental virtue on the grounds that with faith coming first the remaining virtues will follow of their own accord.

Buddha Dhamma, on the contrary, teaches that where there is knowledge, there is faith as a result.

Our organisation says without doubt that alcohol is not worth the trouble. If you have such troubles, go and get help from other organisations. We cannot help you in this area.

When you are sober we may help you, but we are unable to teach anything new to intoxicated persons or persons who insist on taking alcohol.

It is a matter of record that Buddha awoke to full knowledge under the full moon in the lunar month of Versak. He sat under the Bodhi tree, a member of the ficus of fig family of trees.

Buddha passed away on another full moon in the month of Versak. Accordingly, throughout the Buddhist world, millions of persons hold special remembrance services on the full moon in May.

Sooner, rather than later, you must come to the question of the wisdom and or virtue of remembering the valiant deeds of dead persons. Let us make it clear that Buddha Dhamma is not cynical about such matters. The cynics may say: ‘Let the dead bury the dead’.....but this is not the view of the followers of Buddha Dhamma who know the results of observance as cause and effect.

Teachers must always remember the original principles when Lord Buddha attained Enlightenment at the initial stage and what was in the mind of Lord Buddha.

Unity is strength as the saying goes. History has divided the Buddhists; not only were there the three main divisions of Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana, but within each of these, there were many sects and sub-sects.

It was clear to the founders of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in 1950 that the objective should be to get all the Buddhists of the world together in order that they could make positive contributions towards international peace and amity.

Our Temple is a very suitable location for a person to discover that it is possible to cultivate his or her wholesome minds. Over time, such development shows the way to a better lifestyle, because it wakes up persons and leads them to the discovery of various wisdom minds which were previously unknown.

The locality enjoys relative quiet, clean air, a temperate climate and an abundance of vegetation and is thus a suitable location for the practice of Buddha Dhamma.

In the world, our hearing consciousness is at work day and night, night and day, from the womb to the tomb. Unless deaf, we hear what persons tell us because we have to hear what is being said, like it or not. Life is like that.

Often in history, the course of action to be followed is changed by one person or a group of persons defeating another group in debate. Debating was the main topic taught as education in ancient times.

By the time a person has arrived at the perfection of eight out of the ten Perfections needed, the type of debate changes to a great extent because more and more a student is taught by telepathy, which is a method of fast teaching (mind to mind) rather than slow teaching by debate (word to ear).

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.

The fundamental conditions of human birth will continue to prevail. The challenges ahead of Buddhism deal with the types of mind persons use in response to these changes.

Now is the time to escape from nostalgia and use the best of critical thinking about what ought to be targeted as gains for the new century.

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.

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 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.

The establishment of the World Buddhist University (WBU) can be an answer to solving world crises. Its functions and activities are to train all Buddhists to cope with the world problems thoughtfully and righteously.

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.

The rationale and methods used by our organisation are more and more reliant on information science.

Mindfulness is not brash or loud, not apologizing for its presence, not delivered with hate or greed, and is a quality which has to be cultivated to be appreciated. Mindfulness is slow and deliberate and you may think it is boring in nature. It is not boring, it is invigorating.

The wise remove antisocial attitudes involved in the culture of poverty and the culture of ill-health.

Ch’an helps you appreciate that persons have good qualities; that the wise add to local resources in skillful ways; and teaches you how to increase consumption without wasting local Shire, human and material resources.

Because of this Ch’an power, we teach persons not to vilify the way of reason, and we do not refuse to use the so-called immaterial products of the intellect.

Persons need to have systems in place to prevent them from falling back into old ways.

Remoteness from human concerns, uncertainty or doubt of position is unsuitable for Buddha Dhamma scholarship. 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.

The Law of Kamma works forever, and the fruit of good deeds will come in due course. The Buddha taught that “All things spring from a cause” and he clearly laid down the nature of good and bad kamma. Kamma is action; it refers to the fruits of action as well as the effects of causes and so on. If there is a cause, there an effect is inevitable, where there is an effect, there must be a cause.

To answer the challenge of the 21st Century, we must create an organisation which cannot only respond to change in the external environment but which can create our future through internal change and innovation.

At present, our library has some examples of the World’s best Buddha Dhamma reference materials and artifacts. These materials deal with training of the mind, otherwise known as mental culture. This is the first step towards taming mental unrest.

The Bodhi tree at our Centre was cultivated from seeds taken from the original Bodhi tree under which Buddha awoke over 2,500 years ago. The Bodhi tree, which shaded Buddha over the three days and three nights before his Enlightenment, prompts us to consider following the bhavana or mental cultivation which the Buddha Taught.

Devas or heavenly beings are associated with the Bodhi tree at our Centre. They are also associated with just about every other Bodhi tree at every other Buddhist Centre throughout the World. It is common practice to plant a Bodhi tree at a Buddhist temple and old temple sites can often be discovered by looking for the surviving ancient Bodhi trees.

When we share our merits of the good things we have done, we share them with the tree devas at our Hall of Assembly. The Buddha taught his Monks to send loving-kindness, a refreshing form of sweet mental energy, to the tree devas who were disturbing the Monks when they were doing their meditation under the trees in a forest. Today, we refer to this practice as the Metta Sutta.

In October 1998, ten of our Members attended the 20th World Fellowship of Buddhists Conference at the Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong, New South Wales. It was the first time that Australia hosted a WFB conference.

This honour arose from the recognition that Buddha Dhamma practice in this country has reached a certain level of maturity and that the karmic accumulation of the many, many Buddhist practitioners in this country is sufficient to drive this agenda.

We all desire improvement and to associate with the wise of many countries.

The Monks, Nuns, Bodhisattvas and lay person organisers of the various World Centres meet together to plan the future of Buddha Dhamma in this World. They do not meet to practise politics and they abstain from interfering in national issues.

They work through consensus and good will and whenever they are considering something, they have the capacity to stop and pause, and to ‘look and wait’ by suspending reactions or slowing them down. By this method of mind control, they are not taken by surprise or provoked or tempted to hasty action. This means that they refrain from busying themselves unnecessarily and by this method, external frictions can be reduced and internal tensions can be loosened up between Members from the various world centres.

Followers know that their task is to keep their minds concentrated so that they can understand others’ viewpoints.

The Delegates representing many countries and organisations from all parts of the world who attended the 20th General Conference of the WFB conference in New South Wales approved the Charter of The World Buddhist University (the WBU).

The main objective of the Charter is to conduct advanced Buddhistic studies and coordinate globally with the universities and institutions which offer Buddhist studies, research activity, training, spiritual practice, cultural exchange and education in order to enhance the realisation of the aims of the World Fellowship of Buddhists.

As a peak Buddhist organisation in Australia and a regional centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, in November 1988 we were chartered to be part of the WBU.

The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. (ACN 005 701 806) which is an Australian company, was approved by the Delegates of the World Fellowship of Buddhists 20th General Conference, to operate as an associated institution of The World Buddhist University in the role of a spiritual training centre.

Our websites carry detailed information of our organisation.

May you sow the seeds to find the path to scholarship this life.

Our organisation exists for five types of persons: the Sangha, persons wishing to develop faith and confidence in this human life, devotees, persons faithful by nature, and those of faithful temperament.

If you wish to cultivate Buddha Dhamma in a lasting way you should establish a timetable, and depending on your inclinations, health and particular situation, grow progressively more diligent as time goes by. You should not be over-ambition at the very beginning, and try to practice for too long initially. Like a pedestrian, you should not walk too fast over unfamiliar territory because if you do you will stumble and trip over. You should get to know your limits within the first six months of practice at our Centre and you will be taught how not to be discouraged by fatigue or stress.

To succeed in anything new, you must have a wish to change and practice the new mental skill till it is learnt well enough for you to give up some old learned unskillful behaviours. Delivery from mental taint lies absolutely and entirely in one’s own hands. Someone else cannot do it for us.

We train persons by showing the Path so you can see for yourself that the door of the future is free of all bolts and bars except those you have built yourself.

Some run swiftly, some walk, some creep painfully, but all who keep on will reach the goal.

By transactional analysis theory classification, if a naughty or good childish person seeks to hold their attention-seeking behaviour for longer than two hours then they must leave. Because such persons are unteachable, most leave within that time.

Emotional maturity is commanded of our managers. Management is one path to achieve emotional maturity. We teach management maturity to acceptable Members by inviting them to expose themselves emotionally to complex managerial surprises.

We manage for the long-term accords we build, for which we need to achieve at least three years of building trust. To build trust, we first target three years of goodwill. Before we target goodwill, we target active friendship for one year. Before active friendship, there is a need to be of good service, and to give good service, we must exhibit generosity. To exhibit generosity, we must develop new resources, because it is hard to practise charity if you are poor.

Our Centre’s management tactics are directed at developing an sustaining suitable conditions for the practice of Buddha Dhamma. Over time our management tactics have evolved in order to meet this goal in more efficient and effective ways.

We do not wish to overstate our case for international operations but we can see that it could not be obtained by stop-go policies about the flow of information. We must be prepared to support values that have shaped our own liberalism and prosperity with generosity of information.

We must at all times be aware that the next century belongs not to Asia or America or to any other continent, but to the values which we teach to bring about the good life. We maintain such values are universal.

Our organisation’s international Dhamma activities require training of many volunteers who, over time, become key management persons. As part of their training, they apply their learned knowledge to develop critical thinking to be applied to our local area planning, asset management, knowledge management, corporate governance, reporting and giving delivery of our generated or acquired resources to be of service to others and help show the way to persons looking for Buddha Dhamma.

We encourage persons trained by us to examine their current type of thinking skills and then improve such skills to get that pliability of mind which is the precursor for critical thinking.

Critical thinking is needed for two reasons; one being to coach those new Members who will govern our organisation in the future, the other being to introduce Buddha Dhamma.

Persons can overcome interruptions to their life plans when they can understand the correlation between an ability to use critical thinking and the skill of applying some of Buddha’s Teachings to their everyday life.

Dhamma teaching becomes feasible for the individual who recognises that his or her present thinking patterns are inadequate to distinguish relevant from irrelevant information, claims or reasons and then wish to learn to search for a better type of mind.

Bhikkhu P. A. Payutto, who was awarded the 1994 UNESCO Peace Prize for Peace Education noted that as the world has been made smaller through the development of information technology, it facilitates the spread of terrorism. The venerable explained that ‘high technology’ means that greed and hatred have acquired much more effective tools.

Although individuals now have access to a vast array of disorganised information, the potential to use the information for the research of translations of classic texts is weak or missing.

To enhance educational aspects of Buddha Dhamma for Buddha Dhamma followers who are not opposed to scholars is difficult, because there seems to be a lack of a clear model of how to make use of what is provided.

We exist to train persons to appreciate Buddhist studies and apply the essence of study of the Buddhist Canon to everyday life.

The Buddha warned against the extreme wrong views of nihilism and eternalism. So, when partaking of learning look for more than the literacy that just reflects the knowledge base of society and develop the cognitive skills that lead to wisdom. Fortunately, there are newly emergent functional approaches that lead towards four forms of critical thinking that can transform stale cultural knowledge bases into practical wisdom tools.

Our mission is to utilise present global forces to cause our Buddha Dhamma library to stay serviceable for 500 years.

For Buddha Dhamma success, persons need to display better than average attention to their thought processes.

The premise is that students should take responsibility for their own learning, rather than simply accepting what is handed out to them in lectures. Factors facilitating learning must include a decent reference library. Our Teacher is the ‘Shower of the Way’, and it is the Teacher who provides the resources.

It would be nice if our library could arrange for our future teaching and learning processes to consider our target audience in terms of his or her preferred learning styles.

The education system a person exploits is karmically determined by a person’s past actions because you have used that system I past times - you have learnt that way before.

So why would persons seek tools an techniques for knowledge organisation different to those used in the past that they feel more comfortable in exploiting?

If one person ‘curls up with a book’ to relax, can the same person curl up with a book to learn? Can the same person read the book from a screen and relax?

“An excellent plumber is infinitely more admirable than an incompetent philosopher”.

The society which scorns excellence in plumbing because plumbing is a humble activity and tolerated shoddiness in philosophy because it is an excellent activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy.

Neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.

Followers of Buddha Dhamma are practical and believe in ‘user pays’ notions because they know cause and effect (kamma) means ‘there is no such thing as a free lunch’.

We find no social injustice or magic or ‘luck’ in the actuality that decent persons live longer and have happier lifestyles than impoverished persons.

To offer education is the least patronising thing one can do for another person but, like cooperative farming, it may not succeed in villages not used to any form of self help.

Our library organisation is the way it is because we are a self-help group. As a self-help charitable Organisation, we rely on the generosity of local and overseas persons to fund our activities.

Our Organisation’s strength is that we are a self-help organisation and have always operated with mainly locally generated capital.

We gain by preserving our records and assets against deterioration from weather, fire and theft. This is an example of being cost conscious and full-grown in responsibility.

Our acquisition policies for library materials include the provision of computer warehousing of electronic information without infringing copyright.

With five precepts established from moral information in our library, Members established themselves with self-possession enough to be able to recognise, each for himself or herself, that populist texts have no place in our collection.

Suffice to say, if as a result of our teachings, a person who used alcohol and/or drugs as their parents taught them ceases to use these mind intoxicants for the rest of their life, that extra precept makes a difference.

Without Dhamma, it is doubtful if persons would move away from the populist position on drugs and drinking until they become unwell, or are charged by the law or fear loss of their home, family life or sanity.

Through concerted library action, we created a learning organisation having as its lemma ‘lifetimes of learning’.

Through the practice of turning the mind toward the Buddha, under the ideal conditions, wholesome minds are developed and vast merit is accumulated.

The Buddha Dhamma appears in the mind. Hence, the Buddha Dhamma cannot be displayed for the world to perceive with its senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste or touch in the way other things can.

Even though there may be other immaterial phenomena similar to the Dhamma-- such as smells--still they aren’t like the true Dhamma which is touched by the hearts of those who have practiced it.

The application of energy (viriya) to wholesome purposes requires right motivation. If motivation is not correct, then application of energy will not lead to the development of good minds, regardless of the amount of vigour. Right motivation is the foundation for success.

Vimutti is a Pali term that is used to mean release, deliverance, or emancipation; freedom from the fabrications and conventions of the mind. Persons with high levels of vimutti are polished persons who have perfection of energy so they know when to speak and when not to speak.

Every Buddha has to devise strategies in teaching the Dhamma so as to bring that marvel out to the world by using various modes of speech and conduct - for example, describing the Dhamma and showing the conduct of the Dhamma as being like this and that - but the actual Dhamma can’t be shown.

If you read old Buddhist texts, or if you study Buddhism in Asia, you can’t avoid the awareness of the importance of renunciation as an issue in Buddhism. Our Teacher sometimes thinks of this as the foundation of Ch’an.

This is the ordeal quality that comes with any great learning. That you will have to give up something if you want to practice the Dhamma well.

By helping others, we make causes which help ourselves.

Teachings about Buddha Dhamma methods are not for lazy persons who wish to gamble, because persons who are addicted to gambling are unlikely to have the mental space capable of turning their thoughts away from greed into right action.

We hope to persuade persons to be peaceful but we cannot praise or lend support to those who think killing other persons has merit and is a superior way to live. Killing brings demerit.

The same position statements on what is merit and what is not applies to other precepts.

One reason for broadcasting is to present a favourable image of merit making to the public at large of our organisation efforts in Buddha Dhamma.

Some types of education pays attention to the inner nature of words, because they are thought to profoundly and directly affect human mental cultivation, and are believes to influence behaviour motivated by the effect of our environment.

Our Library obviously contains many such words.

Persons who find that the inner nature of literary texts of Buddha’s Teachings are a source of realisations and insight wisdom when they are put into practice will have no doubt about the nicety of preserving the ancients texts.

Thinking must be to some design if we are to stay logical.

For thousands of years, Buddha Dhamma practice stressed that mind cultivation giving flexibility of minds is desirable.

If you need to know more, please come and visit our Centre.

Today’s radio script is a compendium of our weekly broadcasts from 16 February 1998 up to that of 27 June 1999. You can find this radio script and previous scripts online at www.bdcublessings.net.au.

May you come to live in Buddha Dhamma this life.

May you be well and happy.

The authors and editors of this script were: John D. Hughes, Leanne Eames, Evelin Halls, Lisa Nelson, Anita Svensson and Pennie White.

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.

References

1. Draft of Charter, World Buddhist University (W.B.U.)

Document Statistics

Total:

Words: 4135
Sentences: 189
Paragraphs: 130
Syllables: 6470

Averages:
Words per sentence: 21.9
Sentences per paragraph: 1.5

Percentages:
Passive Sentences: 41

Readability Statistics:
Flesch Grade Level: 21.4
Coleman-Liau Grade Level: 11.6
Bormuth Grade Level: 10.3
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 52.1
Flesch-Kincaid Score: 11.1

Readability Statistics

Display’s statistics about the document's readability, such as the Flesch Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease Score. These statistics help you determine if you are writing at a level your audience can understand.

Flesch Grade Level: Flesch Grade Level indicates the Flesch Reading Ease score as a grade level. See the Flesch Scoring Table.

Coleman-Liau Grade Level: Indicates the grade level of the document based on the average number of letters per word and number of sentences per 100 words.

Bormuth Grade Level: Indicates the grade level of the document based on the average number of letters per word and per sentence. These scores indicate grade levels ranging from 6.3 to 11.6.

Flesch Reading Ease Score: Indicates how easy the document is to read based on the number of syllables per word and number of words per sentence. These scores indicate a number between 0 and 100. The higher the score, the easier the document is to read. See the Flesch Scoring Table.

Flesch-Kincaid Score: Indicates the grade level of the document based on the number of syllables per word and number of words per sentence. This score predicts the difficulty of reading technical documents, and is based on Navy training manuals that score in difficulty from 5.5 to 16.3. It meets military readability specifications MIL-M-38784 and DOD-STD-1685.

Flesch Scoring Table

(Reference: Lotus Word Pro Help Files)

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

May You Be Well And Happy

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