Radio Broadcast
236 for Sunday 4 August 2002
on Hillside Radio 88.0 FM
Glossary:
forgo: go without, deny to oneself,
go from, forsake, omit, to take or use.
mind-sets: (a) habits
of mind formed by previous events or an earlier environment; (b)
loosely a frame of mind, a mental attitude.
myth: a widely
held (esp. untrue or discredited popular) story or belief; a
misconception; a misrepresentation of the truth
paternalistic:
of, pertaining to, or of the nature of paternalism. paternal: of, or
pertaining to, or characteristic of a father or fathers;
fatherly
role model: the person looked to by others as an
example in a particular role
teleconferencing: teleconference
- a conference with participants in different locations linked by
telecommunication devices
Today’s program is titled:
Buddha Dhamma
Women Practitioners at our Centre
We affirm the view of Mary Ritter Beard,
American Historian, (1946) that “The dogma of women’s
complete historical subjection to man must be rated as one of the
most fantastic myths ever created by the human mind.”
Of
course we all know that, the human world is not a walk in a heavenly
park. Fortunate, glad, bad and sad events are caused by kammic
actions in past times.
There will be future happiness and
unhappiness, future gain and loss, future praise and blame, and
future honour and dishonour for most of us. But, there is a path
leading out of this mess.
Great women visit and work at our
Centre.
“The most important thing now is to avoid
all-male leadership cultures,” says Kim Campbell, Canada’s
first female President.
Altering the cultural mind-sets
towards the development of our management team bears in mind that
research on emotional intelligence and gender shows that women tend
to have stronger empathy and relationship skills than men do.
“These strengths of women’s leadership are not so
much innate aspects of femininity as they are the result of
disempowerment,” says Campbell.
Women developed them as
a means of survival in male-dominated cultures.
Men can, of
course, exhibit these skills to, just as women can demonstrate
toughness and decisiveness.
When there is sufficient trust on
a leadership team, gender diversity can boost the team’s ability
to manage its own emotions and respond to those of others in the
unit. (Gary Loren, 2002)
Our special guest on today’s
Buddhist Hour Program, Ms Piyaporn Erbprasartsook, B.Ec, is a leader
from Thailand and role model in the Buddha Dhamma Community. She
graduated from an Australian university in 1969 and is fluent in the
English language.
Ms Piyaporn Erbprasartsook is Advisor to the
World Buddhist University and works at their headquarters in
Thailand, and is a Member of the World Fellowship of Buddhists
Standing Committee on Women.
She is active in many other
international organisations but because Thai culture holds it is good
to be modest about one’s activities she has requested we do not
list her appointments at this time.
Our organisation, the
Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd is a Regional Centre of the
World Fellowship of Buddhists and an Associated Institute of the
World Buddhist University and a member of the Ethnic Community
Council of Victoria.
The World Fellowship of Buddhists and the
World Buddhist University are globally networked organisations with
headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand.
Late last year, our
Resident Practitioners, one male and one female, traveled to Taiwan
for an International Conference on Religious Co-operation. Early this
year they traveled to Bangkok, Thailand for World Buddhist University
Council Meeting and Conference.
Our Members attended and
supported the international conference of the Australasian Buddhist
Convention Week in Camberwell, Melbourne, Australia in June this
year.
In June 2002, a meeting of four International Buddhist
leaders, took place at our Temple.
The four leaders, Dr.
Ananda W.P.Guruge, Vice President World Fellowship of Buddhists from
the USA, Ms Piyaporn Erprasartsook, World Fellowship of Buddhists
from Thailand John D. Hughes, Vice President World Fellowship of
Buddhists from Australia, and Anita Hughes, Public Relations Officer
of the Standing Committee on Women World Fellowship of Buddhists.
They met to discuss further building of relationships between
Thailand headquarters and our Centre in Australia.
In
Australia, middle aged volunteers who work part-time, give an average
of 100 hours a year to charity work.
How do our women Members
better this average time by a factor of six to get to our Centre? It
is an attitude to do what is important to them and us.
Of the
four active webmasters at our Centre, three are female and one is
male. We have another three webmasters in training, two females and
one male.
These persons service our seven websites and email
systems whereby we communicate with Regional Centres of the World
Fellowship of Buddhists globally, and are available to many local and
international organisations.
The major reason our women
Members are so active at our Australian Centre is the fact Australia
has considerable wealth in the country.
Adequate leisure time
is part of Australian work culture. Our women Members, organise their
leisure time to come to the Centre by weekly planning of a high
order. Whether married or single, they all can afford their own
transport to and from the Centre, personal motor cars, company cars
or public transport. In Australia eighty-five percent of households
own motor cars.
This means they can plan to visit the Centre
for an hour or two at most times in their busy lives. Over the years,
our Members buy a house or rent accommodation closer to the Centre.
For some, the shorter working hours they have arranged, means
time is available. For others studying at university, their lecture
times permit visiting during the day. A factor for those with
children is that their friends can act as baby sitters for their
children so they can get more free time.
They have ease of
communicating with each other and other Members by telephone at home
or at work with email and mobile phones to make it easy to work
off-site on our projects. Much of our web site material is loaded at
sites other than our Centre.
All Members have been encouraged
to become proficient in teleconferencing on our elaborate range of
software and database search engines on our Centre’s computers,
with Internet email access to the computers in their homes.
Our
work is becoming more and more de-centralised.
Our Centre has
an internal e-mail system on our local area network, and Members who
have access can send or read messages easily to one another
regardless of their visiting hours to our Centre. Our internal emails
rich in project information, amount to over 1500 per year, per
Member.
We stress a high order of communication for key
Members at our Centre. To give Members certainty that others
appreciate their worth, we have the Brooking Street Bugle online.
Our organisational role and the width of Member’s power
to influence others on the way we do things around here with modern
management contributes to continual improvement.
Since Buddha
Dhamma culture is non-sexist, non-ageist and non racist we do not
highlight the diversity of social status and the birthplaces of our
Members and their family culture.
ISO 9000 is a quality
assurance standard. It is not a legal requirement for Australian
companies to be endorsed by compliance to this standard.
The
old paternalistic culture that came to Australia with the British
military administrators in colonial days is being extinguished at our
Centre.
We have a policy of encouraging all Members who could
benefit, to undertake tertiary studies.
Because of our
welcoming ambiance, over the time we get more and more women
graduates or women who have had good commercial experience. We have
few scientists.
The notion that there is somehow a set
leadership role for males and not for females is not encouraged at
our Centre.
If you train to do the task, that is not enough,
you must work in harmony with other team members, this is why there
are many female members who actively participate in running work
units at our Centre.
One of our younger female Members
trained as an electrician at a local University. She was encouraged
all the time during her apprenticeship by our Teacher. She now works
in electrical sales. She gives sound advice about the safety of new
wiring for the power needs at our Centre.
Our Members who are
sober, industrious and honest because they keep the five precepts
have been encouraged to work as consultants to various industries.
They learn within our five styles of professionalism, friendliness,
scholarship, cultural adaptability and practicality.
We prize
Buddha Dhamma scholarship but can understand it is not for all
comers. We find some female Members who do not get on with currently
involving themselves in furthering their education to advancement
tend to leave our organisation within three to four years and place
themselves in organisations that hold scholarship at a lower
priority.
One key Member is a Registered Nurse Division 1, a
mother of three and an assistant manager of nursing of an aged care
residential facility. She has qualified in many short courses. Her
consultant work involves raising the level of care and safety of
patients and staff within the organisation she works for through
providing written education, motivation to change work culture and
clinical auditing of results. She is on the Standing Committee on
Women of the World Fellowship of Buddhists and is a Resident
Practitioner at our Centre.
Another Member, a mother of two is
currently completing a Bachelor Degree at a local university, in
Management Information Systems. She gets high distinctions and brings
the latest research to our attention and skills herself by working
with our three male consultant information technology experts. These
comprise a systems engineer, a program developer and database
designer.
Another female Member is working in the office of
consulting medical educators and is studying a Certificate of
Business Administration on a traineeship.
Yet another female
Member is an English teacher studying a Masters in Information and
Communication technologies at a local university. She gets high
distinctions and is the mother of one.
Another female Member
volunteers full time at our Centre’s office and is currently
studying a Bachelor of Business degree.
Because of the
intensity of self help and mutual coaching we give our female Members
to understand the global supply chain of our management models, they
find they do well in modern management concepts and are not too old
fashioned when they handle our international correspondence.
We
remind all Members that the Devata of Learning (Sarasvati) at our
Centre’s library has a female form.
No special
concessions are made to our women - when a new system is found to
work better than the old system there is a change over time when old
Members must forgo the use of the old way and skill themselves in the
new system. Our rate of change is above average for this country.
We
remind our female Members to practice this life and not to rely on
being born as a male.
In the Dharma talk of Gyeong-heo Seunim
translated by Park Sang-pil, “It is difficult to become a human
(woman) and even in becoming a human (woman) it is difficult to
become a man, if even to become a man it is difficult and even more
so to become a Buddhist Monk, and even if becoming a Monk it is
difficult to meet correct Buddhist teachings. So think about it
deeply.” (Lotus Lantern Vol. 4 No. 14 Summer 2546 B.E.
(2002))
Today, when the role of Women in Society is an issue
of local interest it is opportune that we ought to pause to look at
it from a Buddha Dhamma perspective.
We are part of a set of
people who consider themselves part of a larger group within the
World Fellowship of Buddhists context and in the World Buddhist
University context. We have frequent or meaningful contact with our
customers and are able to touch a large number of customers. We have
the authority of having a reputation as experts in our given field.
We have integrated women into our management team.
If
you are interested in the type of experiences we provide please visit
our web sites to get more detail on all our activities. If you wish
to join us or help fund us, please contact us on 03 9754 3334 or
e-mail wbu@bdcu.org.au.
Our web site addresses
are:
www.bdcu.org.au
www.bdcublessings.net.au
www.bddronline.net.au
www.bsbonline.com.au
www.buyresolved.com.au
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhamap
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhatext
May
you come here and help us this life, then you will see for yourself
and acquire many blessings sufficient to learn how to practice the 8
great moral consciousnesses.
1) Somanassa - sahagatam nana -
sampayuttam asankharikam ekam.
Means: one consciousness,
unprompted, accompanied by joy, and associated with knowledge.
May
be illustrated further: A lady with the knowledge of kamma and joy
offers flowers to a pagoda on her own accord.
2)
Somanassa-sahagatam nana-sampayuttam sasankharikam ekam.
Means:
one consciousness, prompted, accompanied by joy, and associated with
knowledge.
May be illustrated further: A girl, after being
persuaded by her companion, goes to listen to a Dhamma talk with joy
and with the knowledge of kamma.
3) Somanassa-sahagatam
nana-vippayuttam asankharikam ekam.
Means: one consciousness,
unprompted, accompanied by joy, and dissociated with knowledge.
May
be illustrated further: A boy spontaneously gives some money to a
beggar with joy without the knowledge of kamma.
4) Somanassa -
sahagatam nana - vippayuttam sankharikam ekam.
Means: one
consciousness, prompted, accompanied by joy, and dissociated with
knowledge.
May be illustrated further: A man, after being
requested by the head master to donate some money to the school,
donates one hundred dollars joyfully without knowing kamma and its
result.
5) Upekkha - sahagatam nana - sampayuttam asankharikam
ekam.
Means: one consciousness, unprompted, accompanied by
indifference, and associated with knowledge.
May be
illustrated further: A girl sweeps the floor with neutral feeling but
knows it is a wholesome thing to do.
6) Upekkha - sahagatam
nana - sampayuttam sasankharikam ekam.
Means: one consciousness,
prompted, accompanied by indifference, and associated with
knowledge.
May be illustrated further: A man prompted by
another, chops wood with neutral feeling but knowing it to be a
meritorious deed.
7) Upekkha - sahagatam nana - vippayuttam
asankharikam ekam.
Means: one consciousness, unprompted,
accompanied by indifference, and dissociated with knowledge.
May
be illustrated further: A woman reads a Dhamma book on her own accord
without understanding the meaning and without kamma and its
results.
8) Upekkha - sahagatam nana - vippayuttam
sasankharikam ekam.
Means: one consciousness, prompted,
accompanied by indifference, and dissociated with knowledge.
May
be illustrated further: A girl prompted by her mother washes her
parents’ clothes without joy and without thinking of the kamma
and kamma-result.
May you be well and happy.
May all
beings be well and happy.
Today’s script was written by
John D. Hughes, Anita Hughes, Julian Bamford, Rilla Pargeter and
Pennie White.
References
Trumble, Charles P.
(Editor), Brittannica Book of the Year 2001, Encyclopaedia
Brittannica.
Brown, Lesley. (Editor) The New Shorter Oxford
Dictionary. Oxford University Press 1993
Buddhist Discussion
Centre (Upwey) Ltd. (2001) Roles of Women in Buddha Dhamma Activities
in Australia, available at URL http://www.bdcu.org.au/scw/roles.html
accessed on 1 August 2002.
Campbell, Kim cited in Harvard
Management Update, July 2002
In the Dharma talk of Gyeong-heo
Seunim translated by Park Sang-pil, Lotus Lantern Vol. 4 No. 14
Summer 2546 B.E. (2002), Journal of the Jogye Order of the Korean
Buddhism, Shinheung-sa Temple, Korea, p. 4.
Dewaraja, Dr.
(Mrs,) L. S. (1981) The Position of Women in Buddhism, The Wheel
Publication No. 280, Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, Sri
Lanka.
Green, Jonathon, A Dictionary of Contemporary
Quotations, 1982, Redwood Burn Ltd., with permission from David &
Charles (Publishers) Limited, Great Britain, p. 55.
Document
Statistics
Counts:
Words: 2,420
Sentences:
108
Paragraphs:104
Syllables: 3480
Averages:
Words
per sentence: 22.4
Sentences per paragraph:1.0
Percentages:
Passive Sentences:14%
Readability
Statistics
Flesch Grade Level: 12.3
Coleman-Liau Grade Level:
15.9
Bormuth Grade Level:11.2
Flesch Reading Ease Score:52.2
Flesch Kincaid Score:10.4
Version 58
Research and
Editing time: 450 minutes
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Flesch Scoring Table
Flesch Reading Ease
Score Flesch Grade Level Reading Difficulty
90-100 5th Grade Very
easy
80-89 6th Grade Easy
70-79 7th Grade Fairly easy
60-69
8th-9th Grade Standard
50-59 High School Fairly difficult
30-49
College Difficult
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(Upwey) Ltd.