11 April 2004: Develop your scholarship

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Buddhist Hour Script 324 for Sunday 11 April 2004

This script is entitled: Develop your scholarship

American Academic Derek Bok (1978) once said, "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance".

There is wisdom in the proverb that there is no royal path to learning.

American essayist John Mason Brown wrote in the Publishers Weekly 1958, "…the best purpose of education: [is] not to be frightened by the best, but to treat it as a part of daily life."

The Theme of our Five Day Course held 9 April 2004 to 13 April 2004 is "Buddhism and Education".

At our Chan Academy scholarship is one of our five styles.

Our five styles are Friendliness, Practicality, Professionalism, Cultural Adaptability and Scholarship.

We see scholarship as something to be developed as John Mason Brown said, "as part of daily life".

Buddhists must return to their traditional role of providing education. The reason for doing this is to follow the Buddha’s teachings on what creates long life stability for the congregation.

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.

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

What is needed and proposed is to start a Buddhist world catalogue of what and where electronically stored Dhamma is available in the world.

This project would be extensive and ongoing but could be affordable within the scope of 21st century technology.

It is suggested that persons under the protection of Bodhisattva Manjustri are the best attendants for this task.

Under such a condition, 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.

During the Five Day course Master Francisco So will conduct Two Pujas.

The Chakra Samvara Puja was taught 9 April 2004 (Good Friday) The required documents were the Sukhavati Ritual and the Chakra Samvara Tantra.

On 12 April 2004 (Easter Monday) the Kala Chakra Puja will be taught. The texts to be studied in this puja are the Sukhavati Ritual and the Kala Chakra.

Pujas help the students appreciate the Buddha Dhamma Texts and to learn them by recitation. This is a meritorious way to develop your scholarship.

To develop scholarship a 'can do' way of thinking is needed. Students at our Centre learn to develop scholarship. You can be a scholar.

This week one of our Members developed this way of thinking and practiced scholarship.

On 6 April 2004, His Eminence Kyabje Dorje Chang Luding Khenchen Rinpoche, one of the highest and most realised masters in the Sakya Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism gave a Public Talk on "Compassion in Action". The talk was held at Camberwell Civic Centre in Melbourne, Australia.

One of our Members attended the Teaching and took notes. The following day she enthusiastically typed the notes and added quotations from scholarly texts to support the information written on the Teaching. In doing this she experienced joyful learning.

These notes have now been published online at www.edarma.org to benefit other Buddha Dhamma scholars.

We would like to read these notes to you:

"Compassion in Action"

This talk was given by His Eminence Kyabje Dorje Chang Luding Khenchen Rinpoche, one of the highest and most realised masters in the Sakya Tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. One of the greatest Buddhist Masters and The Holder of the Three Vows.

His Eminence Luding Khenchen Rinpoche is the 75th Head of the Ngorpa subsect who was enthroned in 1954. His Eminence has contributed greatly to the dharma by giving continuous teachings, empowerments, oral transmissions and re-establishing summer retreats in Sakya Monastries world wide. His Eminence has bestowed the precious Lamdre 15 times, given initiations and instructions on the 13 Golden Dharmas of Sakya Tradition, the 7 Mandalas of Ngor Tradition and other deities and has ordained over 10,000 monks.

This visit marks the first and only visit of His Eminence to Australia, as he intends to enter life- retreat after these final teachings in Australia.

His Eminence was introduced as a renowned Yogi in the Tibetan tradition.
All in attendance were blessed by his presence.
Lama Choedak Rinpoche was translator.

How do we implement compassion in action?
Generally all living beings have one common goal, to seek happiness.
Help to find happiness - enhance, to know what is right and wrong.
Find the suffering and pain not wished for, this is a problem all beings find themselves in, and seek an answer.

There are two things:
1. To practice.
2. To exercise restraint.
Restrain selfishness, we become overpowered by this selfishness, and renounce cherishing of self.
With a lack of spirituality we go off the track, causing unhappiness so there is a need to be restrained.

Fully enlightened Buddha's teachings, and there are 84,000 of these teachings can be explained in a nutshell as practice of compassion and causes for enlightenment.

Attempt to give rise to the thought of enlightenment, to bring self and others to happiness.
As long as we are accustomed to being selfish, the wish to be enlightened to benefit others is rare, with only an occasional wish to help others.

Self clinging and other like behaviours continue as sources of our suffering.

There is the need to generate altruism for the sake of others and it is a daunting task to realise this.
Precious Bodhicitta are the basic ingredients: Loving kindness and compassion, these are necessary for enlightenment.

The meaning of loving kindness is to make a solemn and strong wish to create happiness and the causes for happiness. This can be difficult to sustain as we are so used to only looking after ourselves.

Compassion as a result of giving and generating loving kindness, being more engaged in the well being of others.

Have a strong commitment to generate, a sincere yearning and empathy to eradicate selfishness, to action compassion.

How do we do this? By training the mind. Having a loving kindness filled heart.
To think of someone such as your mother, thinking about positive past relationships to help make the causes for happiness and then we can become the recipient of the causes for happiness.

How do we repay such kindness? With a sense of gratitude and unfabricated feelings of loving kindness. The willingness to enhance happiness of others and to train ourselves to increase these feelings - finally this will give rise to feelings of loving kindness to self and others. A great conviction is needed as it is important to repay this kindness, to cultivate unshakable loving kindness so that we are not changed by circumstances. Confidence to not change or alter this view then loving kindness can be generated for your father, brother, loved ones and then can be extended to opponents, difficulties, anger and enmity.

Our opponents, embodied living beings, people seen as obstacles including not living beings, our negative feelings, dysfunctional, invisible demonic feelings, these we have failed to recognise from past lives, they were at one time dear to us as mothers and fathers, we experience a big gap from our own defilements. Do not harbour negatives, forgive as it is due to ignorance, we perceive them incorrectly creating the cause for enmity.

Change the thoughts from enmity to loving kindness and create causes for happiness for all beings, as we are so accustomed to doing the opposite. Learn new ways, think of the well being of others, practice, become sane by adopting these ideas. Conviction of oneself to change. Devote your whole practice to loving kindness, the basis of compassion. Eradicate conditions and circumstances that beings do not want at all.

When there is a degree of success in practising loving kindness then we can practice compassion.

Compassion: understand the causes of suffering, alter beings' causes of suffering, those that are not aware of causes of suffering, help them to be free from the causes of suffering.

When we understand the concept of compassion you need strong will to train yourself. Understand difficulties, see pain and hurt, feel their suffering is hurting you as much as them. Be committed to alleviating suffering - one suffering being is one too much.

Your whole energy comes to eliminate the suffering of others, you become involved in the act of compassion.

Extend compassion to opponents and enemies, see and view suffering of others hurts and pains as hurting you too.

Feel sad for those who are suffering - King of Heart yearns to alleviate anyone suffering. Then extend to all beings with unfortunate rebirths, think of all suffering as a concern to you, the suffering as unbearable pain. Do something to reduce, eliminate, to have an uncontrollable commitment to alleviate suffering of others. Not to stay idle, feel the pain of others, become committed and engaged as this is the very act of compassion.

The greater the suffering the greater the compassion will be: Hell realms, Hungry Ghosts and Animal births. We do not know these sufferings directly. Bring close to one's heart, illness, old age, natural calamity as the object of contemplation. This has the power to move us and to contribute to eliminate suffering. A mind more willing to venture into suffering of others makes the heart yearn, to bleed. The mind becomes accustomed to severity and the enormity of suffering, especially in the lower realms. We must make a sincere wish for empathy and knowledge of the suffering of others.

Manjushri said the practice of altruism is a result of generosity. Actualise: we must act out of compassion. The Guardians of Dhamma take wrathful appearances, fierce manifestation to subdue.
Cherish other sentient beings, cherishing for the well being of others, great change of heart in one's mind, generate bodhicitta and a genuine change of heart to generate altruism.

Habits from the past, one is an ardent believer in selfishness which causes pain and difficulties. We meet difficult people and all this is a product of our selfishness. Unfavourable circumstances come from one's own practices.

Previous suffering decreases dramatically when we function altruistically via loving kindness of compassion to facilitate happiness and causes of happiness for other beings.

Engender altruism and the thought of enlightenment, wishing for the well being of others and their enlightenment.

Effortless loving kindness and compassion, not being obsessed with our own suffering. Our suffering is miniscule and immeasurable compared to the suffering of others. Become tolerant, suffering gives courage, skill to transform our own suffering.

"Not me alone" deluded deception, something from the past. We can tolerate distress, accept this then we can increase our compassion and reduce our own suffering, making this a catalyst to compassion. Being paranoid about our own suffering, eliminate this rather than exacerbate this like committing suicide.

Downplay our own suffering and come out of the self concerned self.

"I am not alone" attitude to suffering takes responsibility and transforms to eliminate our own suffering and help others to reduce their suffering. Practise with family, community, persons, practise loving kindness and compassion to create harmony and that will induce others to behave likewise.

Mutual respect and generosity will create harmony, not doubt, fear, suspicion and mistrust, as these are all causes for suffering.

As you learn to have your mind on one meditation focus you notice your mind has more thoughts. You feel you cannot meditate or develop your meditation practice, this is not alarming as it is typical at first as we discover these discursive thoughts, they are seen and recognised. Previously one was unconscious, meditation can increase clarity, even if thoughts seem too numerous. When we settle the frequency will change.

First recognise your thoughts and they will slow down and create greater stability. Calm Abiding - one pointed meditation, create positive minds as you need a tranquil abiding mental state for loving kindness and compassion.

Other ways are to develop other analytical meditation such as meditation on Avalokiteshvara the great compassionate one using six syllable mantra.

Meditate on Manjushri and use mantra

Use meditation ability to discern what is proper and improper, learn to exercise restraint, reduce suffering and develop wisdom. Learn how to incorporate all aspects, the numerous ways and techniques to check these practices for yourself.

Be consistent, diligent, reliable and disciplined in your practice to gain the benefit of calm abiding.
Diligence is the main way to develop compassion.
Be slow and steady, consistent with not too much too soon.
Better to be stable and long lasting. Slow producing but stable gives better results.

Nature of existence at all times is the suffering of beings and it is incessantly like this. Futility of the world, sense of renunciation. Thinking why is there suffering and what can be done? It is only possible to eliminate if you know there is suffering.

Be encouraged to do something to eleviate suffering - Ask: What can I do? from your own initiative.

One way to overcome suffering is to look at where suffering is. Where is this mind that is sad? Inside or outside of you?

There is no inherent existence, meditate on emptiness of mind, therefore no suffering in the mind.

Increase courage when difficulty comes along and train the mind to be stable, train the mind to be exulted like a Bodhisattva and have courage when facing more difficulties.

Lenore Hamilton found the following verse from the Karaniyametta sutta to encourage the practice of calm abiding. ("Divine Abodes" by Sujiva, 1998)

Aspiration.
As a mother, at the risk of her life,
Watches over her only child,
Let him cherish an unbounded mind for all living beings,
Let him have love for the whole world,
And develop an unbounded mind,
Above, below and all around, Boundless heart of goodwill, free of hatred,
Standing, walking, sitting or lying down,
So long as he be awake,
Let him cherish this thought, This is called divine abiding here.

May all beings be well and happy
May all beings in the world generate precious Bodhicitta.

In this document are written the notes of Lenore Hamilton while listening to the Public talk by His Eminence Luding Khenchen on 6 April 2004.

The intention of this work is to help others and we apologise for any mistakes or misunderstandings that may have occurred.

During this Five Day Course renowned scholar from Monash University Melbourne Professor Padmasiri De Silva spoke to our Members on the theme of "Buddhism and Education" at 2:00pm on Saturday 10 April 2004.

The first meeting of our Standing Committee on Education is being held 10 April 2004 at 3:00pm.

The Education Committee will discuss the key implementation objectives of the Committee and the current initiatives.

One initiative is a course in Buddhism designed for teaching Buddhism to children at primary school level developed by The Buddhist Council of Victoria. The course is suitable to be offered to schools that are looking to provide a wider religious teaching curriculum. Support and backup is offered to school teachers who wish to teach the subject and it may be possible to undertake a teachers training course with the Buddhist Council of Victoria. The contact person is Judith McDonald on 9489 1127. Gilda Grey has completed the training course and recommends it highly.

Inescapably, we must talk about our audience for this study paper.

We would prefer this study paper's audience to be our Members and Friends.

However, as our e-library policies state that our information bases are to become more and more readable, the distinction between internal and external communication papers becomes blurred.

We are aware that the act of describing the organisation's strategic intent in a narrative framework has risks.

Critical literary theory is based on the premise of using a wide variety of lenses to view the same artefact. The observer's choice of lens determines what he or she will see in a given book.

Vertical support includes compilation of education and human resource (HR) information on learning relationships and providing abstracts suitable for machine searching about Dhamma education.

From time to time in world history, much higher education Buddhist infrastructure including library material and artefacts has been wiped out.

We remind ourselves our task is to develop a religious investigation paradigm suitable for use for a technology driven Buddha Dhamma e-library.

As Glenn Ralston put it in 1998:

"Technology has already swept over us. It is no longer a technological argument, but rather a cultural change".

When discussing using technology to provide new responses to old problems, Dr.James Garner Ptaszynski considered one of the biggest problems he saw in for the appropriate adoption of technology in Higher Education is our limited vision of its use.

Quite understandably, persons tend to think of using technology within the present teaching paradigms and thereby limit its full potential contributions.

Earlier, although clear on the viewfinder needed for paradigm building, because funds did not exist, the library was fashioned from what is procurable.

As a preamble leading to an introduction to the affects of comparative librarianship on end-users, we have our Members recall if they came from a home with books available. The prime librarians of these books were their mother, their father, their relatives or their guardians.

These authority figures chose from some catalogue or other and determined the first books that were read.

Not only did they specify what was read, but they also specified the library opening hours.

They had great control in giving vocabulary and grammar - affecting what was understood.

Our first teachers, rightly or wrongly, had the power to constantly make judgements about how much reading they thought we could cope with.

May our first Teachers be well and happy.

Vygotsky (1978) has called this phase of dependency the "zone of proximal development" which refers to the period during which the child cannot complete the task concerned without help.

The interaction means the very basis of thought is social; the interaction between the parent and child leads to the child tending to think about reading to study new things like his or her first teachers.

For some children in Western Countries, reading under the blankets with a torch, after lights out, may have been one of their secondary library sites.

Byrt and Bowden, in Australian Public Management (1989), list several ways in which case studies are used to facilitate management education:

1. Analysis - students develop the ability to analyse situations and problems with the goal of understanding how managers are faced with multiple decisions at any one time. Problem-solving skills are also developed.

2. Communication - students develop their ability to communicate the results of their analysis.

3. Group Behaviour - during group studies and class discussion, students are exposed to aspects of group dynamics.

4. Assessment - students may be assessed on their ability to perform case studies.

5. Application of Theories - students can apply management theories they have learnt to case studies. Their level of understanding of the theories will be apparent.

The ideal case study teacher, according to Byrt and Bowden, is what they term the "resource person". The resource person is not domineering, and does not allow their own personality bias to determine the direction of group discussions. They use well-timed suggestions and questions to allow the group to come to their own conclusions.

Group analysis can be performed using alternative group structures:

1. Each person presents their own analysis which is discussed by the group.

2. Each person is given a distinct aspect of the analysis to perform. The analyses are then discussed with the intention of gaining an overall conclusion.

3. One or several persons conduct an initial analysis, which is discussed by the group to arrive at a higher level analysis.

Our model is not prescriptive - because task units must decide which level of information architecture they are fit to deal with.

The task may not be major enough for them to wish to realize "impossibilities".

For example, our Members are writing the necessary system handbooks to act as service manuals for our LAN, WAN and Newsgroup.

Defining where we are with our LAN from the technical viewpoint is tested by seeing whether it works, not whether it is "right".

Writing system handbooks is a high priority because it enables us to focus our view of the next stages of information architecture we can afford to raise.

The system handbooks will include details of operating system
configuration, other software configuration, scripts and programs written and hardware specifications of the various file servers.

What we must do is to stop judging knowledge by its media rather than its substance.

Having arrived at that outlook, we revisited questions of how we can filter and classify types of knowledge to get more open systems suitable for "more encyclopedic" information searches.

In trying to generalise how this notion could be put into practice at an affordable cost, we found that our traditional strategic planning written statements, which had become stable and well understood by most Members, were prescriptive rather than consequential and new strategies were
emerging within and outside our business.

Education programs we deliver must stay eclectic today and tomorrow, yet be well grounded in known theory.

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

Our Centre is attractive to the Sangha, scholars and devotees born in countries other than Australia because, in a tactical way, we preserve and practice many oral traditions and make use of the written Tipitika Dhamma in a series of faithful translations.

We must not forget about morality.(sila)

Our words take on the richer language of the information Age ready for the next century.

The organisation needs to develop awareness among present Members that Lifetimes of Learning creates the correct base for the Centre to become a Learning Organisation.

Why set up organisations that learn?

Because learning disabilities in children are tragic; learning
disabilities in organisations are disastrous. To meet our strategic mandate, a Dharma Centre is by definition a Learning Organisation (at least it should be).

By borrowing the concepts of management disciplines and by using current managerial terminology, you can articulate a conceptualised understanding of what we are, what we stand for and where we are going.

1. Commitment to quality reading is a hallmark of our policies.

2. Promotion of a written culture where we become aware of how we contribute, at the organisation level, to our own problems and the need to develop preventative rather than reactive management strategies.

3. We have been encouraged to stop focusing on events but seeing written processes of changes instead and to analyse the underlying structures which cause people's behavior.

In the 1980's some precious teachings were taught at our Centre using an old slow "hear- say" culture. Little of this teaching was documented. It vanished without a trace.

We are now recording all Teachings.

We are close to heading towards a third-rate library. Our e-library written resources have doubled this year. Leaving behind the seventh rate library culture we had years ago took much effort.

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.

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.

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.

We thank the many Devas who help us including the Deva of Learning and the God of Work.

May you develop your scholarship.

May all beings come to Buddha Dhamma to be well and happy.

May you be well and happy.

We thank the Devas and Devatas of Learning for their help in and guidance with the writing of this paper.

This script was written and edited the Buddhist Hour Radio Team, and Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls, Lenore Hamilton and Pennie White.

References:

Chan Academy Australia, LAN 1 Data warehouse ISYS search on education, Melbourne.

Derek Bok (1978) cited in A Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations compiled by Jonathan Green, David & Charles, London, p 359.

John Mason Brown (1958) Publishers Weekly cited in A Dictionary of Contemporary Quotations compiled by Jonathan Green, David & Charles, London, p 359.

Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Buddhist Education held at the Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies in Taipei, A. K. Narain (1986)

Sujiva, Venerable, 1998, "Divine Abodes", Buddhist Wisdom Centre, PJ.

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