Buddhist Hour Radio
Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 340 for Sunday
1 August 2004
This script is titled: Learning to learn
Buddha Dhamma for lifetimes
I think that you would agree
that all beings fundamentally want to be happy.
Structured
learnings and systematised ways of learning are indeed essential to
the achievement of this. If people are to live worthwhile, happy and
productive lives as individuals and within a community then they need
to develop technologies of learning.
As Dennis Hawes (1983)
put it:
The hardest part of management will always be the
selection and quality of leadership and the motivation of the work
force. If this can be achieved the deployment of resources and
management of the environment is likely to take place to the
satisfaction of the individual and the efficiency of the
organisation.
The true welfare of persons is bound up with the
ability to identify those staff whose cooperation is critical to the
scheme and concentrate efforts to winning them to the side of prudent
design of capital outlays needed for site refurbishment and
growth.
Apart from occupational health and safety (OH&S)
issues within the obviously tangible physical structure designed for
client guidance; we operate another not so obvious structure
formulated for the same purpose.
This is our virtual learning
organisation that relies on our ability to deliver reliable
information and our data base content electronically via internet or
a LAN.
Prof. John Niland (1998) stated in his educational
address to the Press Club in Canberra that disciplines come and
disciplines go as fields of study.
He compared library
cancellations of serials as equivalent to loss of life blood of the
establishment.
It has taken more than two decades of gaining
sufficient capital outlay to amass and house a suitable library, the
written knowledge base we are looking for.
The acquisition
process is highly volitional action and the volition acts as the
motivator. That is, volition, by stimulating the mind and its
associated mental factors, initiates a karma.
Venerable
Ackaraya Buddharakkhita (1995) likened volition to a generator. It
sets in motion an action and until its fruit is reaped, it flows as
learning energy with the stream of life (2).
Kamma- Samangi is
like a potency, a seed-force, awaiting for a suitable opportunity to
produce result.
Just as energy generated by the generator
travels through various means until it is tapped, so also karmic
energy flows within until there is a suitable condition for it to
produce result.
Small study groups can cover specific areas to
ensure the proper flow between computerisation and non-computerised
work.
Informal involvement of a person is easy to achieve.
Later, as maturity and dedication surfaces, that person can be
introduced to the small study group.
When brought on line,
they are encouraged to develop vision and make volitional causes for
a life-long career of facilitating the supply of our good information
to current and future clients.
From time to time, we
demonstrate profiles using a fuller analysis of our current operating
costs and capital outlays that include the hidden costs of a specific
fund raising practice in our organisation to our Work Group
Leaders.
After such a demonstration, they become more willing
to affirm the wisdom of remembering if you feed a horse you must make
it work.
One assumption we operate on in the selection of a
recipient for our free training programs is he or she must return
something tangible in the economic sense to either our organisation
or Australian society in the longer term.
Our goods and
services are for those who wish to learn; they not for
everybody.
Work Group Leaders remember that their resources
are limited.
The teaching of Buddha Dhamma uses different
methods for different persons and, in fact, Buddha taught the ruling
class, warrior class, merchant class and sudra class.
The
sudra classes comprised various undesirable hard occupations
something like lower working classes and including the slave classes.
There have been no slave classes in Australia.
The very nature
of introducing superior language in teaching of subtle things to
impart complex information requires elaborated
codes.
Persons
who are too lazy or too proud to let a few new words enter their
vocabulary cannot learn Buddha Dhamma by hearing or reading.
So,
without faith and without a good command of language. how can yo test
something?
It helps to think what you would do if you were
given something that looks like gold and you needed to test it
yourself to be sure.
Now, to do these tests for yourself, you
get a book where the standard chemical and physical tests for the
metal gold are written down - for example, the noble metal gold does
not react with most acids or that gold has a certain specific gravity
and so on.
Simple enough if you follow instructions? If you
cannot read a new word or two and you do not trust the written
instructions and think that these are the wrong instructions, what do
you do then?
Do you think it is reasonable to ask someone who
can read to explain the new words to you and understands what he or
she reads and then add a provision that you must trust him or
her?
In real life, it is unlikely you could meet such a
person.
What happens if you cannot find such a person or if
you do he or she does not talk your language?
It means you
cannot learn what you need to know. You must make yourself easy to
teach by a series of steps which looks like self-education.
If
you are lazy and are opposed to setting up some time this life to
learn, you cannot expect to meet with Teachers and be taught to
learn. Wise persons do not associate with foolish persons who do not
wish to learn. So, Buddha Dhamma teachers do not preach they teach.
When you have matured enough to believe in yourself then you
must built up your language skills to understand what is being taught
and learn to change your behaviour towards wanting to learn what is
what.
Faith in the subject matter of what you want to learn
may help to make learning easier; but, strictly speaking, it is not
vital.
It is perfectly reasonable to understand if your mind
was temporarily disabled, you cannot follow certain instructions that
are simple enough for you before your mind became disabled.
The
behaviours that weaken or disables the various minds is well known by
Teachers of Buddha Dhamma.
To help you establish trust of
Dhamma Teachers and writers of useful books, if you have a devotional
nature, one method is to chant refuge in Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha: the
Triple gem in Pali with our Members.
The instructions of
Buddha were written down in an elaborated code and chanted by Monks,
Nuns and laypersons.
An elaborated code explicitly verbalises
many of the meanings taken for granted in a restricted code.
In
recent years in many Asian countries groups of Buddhist singers and
musicians have expressed the old words in tunes which cross over
towards Western musical forms.
Some of these songs are written
in an elaborated code for adults and other are written in a
restricted code for children.
We decided to refrain from
selecting songs with words in restricted codes on the grounds that we
do not wish to be thought of as patronising our listeners who we
choose to deal with as adults.
For example,the Wayfarers is a
group of Buddhist musicians and singers whose vocal and musical
arrangements were composed and directed by Victor Wee for the
Buddhist Missionary Society Youth Section at Brickfields, in that
country.
Some of the words come from the traditional Pali
texts.
For example, Stanzas of Victory in Pali is Jaya Mangala
Gatha.
The English translation of the Gatha sung by the
Wayfarers is something like:
Through the merit of his great
virtues,
the Buddha overcame his adversaries,
He overcame Mara
with generosity and
Alavaka with patience and self
control.
Expressed simply, Mara can be thought of as master of
sceptical minds and will try to talk persons out of cultivation of
wholesome minds. Because the energy of sceptical minds appears
powerful to their owners, the Mara viewpoints are not conducive to
contentment.
According to Buddha's directions, when you
decide to start you have to proceed in stages over several lives and
you do not cease cultivation until you come out of suffering. If you
do not start today, you will regret it tomorrow because it is likely
that it is becoming more demanding in the future to find the safe
conditions in a suitable place to practice in this Dhamma ending
Age.
When you admire places like Sri Lanka which have had
suitable conditions for centuries it is easy to form a viewpoint that
it will not change but in fact, it appears some of their wonderful
Temples are slowly being more difficult as places for quiet
practices.
The Buddhist world which has become accustomed to
the slow run down of some Temples was sobered by the bombing event
that destroyed part of the famous Temple of the Tooth at Candy.
Mara
operates on just about every person so it is safe to assume it is
normal that the bombers were listeners meeting disapproving forces
from either strangers or friends.
It is a signal to others to
decide to become a cultivated person rather than take the path of a
barbarian who destroys Temples.
Generally, there is some show
of commitment if and when a person decides to take on some path of
cultivation.
As preliminary practice, it was recalled that
proficiency in learning anything depends on the continuation of
practical merit making. Over time, the need to be practical and
appropriate in merit making leads to the correlation of skill in
method and means.
As part of their Buddha Dhamma practice, the
author's disciples are encouraged to make merit by lending a helping
hand to their friends and others.
They are taught to perform
in the five styles (11) of our organisation and not be too old
fashioned in the practical sense.
Our lemma is Lifetimes of
Learning, so all Members of our organisation are encouraged to make
causes for this life and further lives, to cultivate wholesome minds
that lead to these five styles when they interact with
others.
Precision of language use, dependent on the
communicator's confidence in the content of communicated knowledge,
and practice in the delivery of the spoken presentation, is a
precondition of useful activity in the productive organisations of
society.
Fluency and Discernment is required for productive
activity in the social setting, and is necessary for the
communication of the Dharma to non- Buddhist persons of high learning
and critical faculty who hold positions of social
responsibility.
However, it may not be widely accepted that
'progress', as it equates with technological development, is
problematised not by the perceived insincerity of State's media
propaganda, but by the prevalent lack of appreciation of the
difference between contemporary modes of use of technology and the
actual technology.
Modern technology is based on a foundation
of world-wide co-operation. This is a good thing. It may be clearly
understood that the emerging technologies of the digital age will
transform our lives.
Buddhist higher education allows many
vectors or boundaries (between disciplines) to fuse or even melt
away.
One of the prime difficulties is that the learning
benefits of Buddhist studies in higher education cannot be studied
without a considerable number of source materials. These materials
force persons to make use of the types of minds that welcome
multidiscipline studies.
The educational climate in this
country may be robust enough to be ready to "legitimise"
cross-discipline approaches to problems.
I think that you
would agree that all beings fundamentally want to be happy.
Structured learnings and systematised ways of learning are indeed
essential to the achievement of this. If people are to live
worthwhile, happy and productive lives as individuals and within a
community then they need to develop technologies of
learning.
Learning leads to understanding and understanding
produces the clear comprehension which allows individuals to develop
and act in ways that are beneficial to themselves and
others.
Fortunately, the Buddhist methods to do this still
exist today and an aspiration of a person to collect a range of these
suitable technologies together is an admirable one.
However,
this in isolation will not automatically result in Students who can
learn and benefit from the outputs of such training.
Clearly
there are factors which must come from the Student's side as well.
Initially, this is manifested as a disposition and willingness to
learn - and ideally to learn quickly!
The methods that lead to
structured learning may appear to be on the surface
complex.
Thankfully, once this initial complexity is worked
through the simplicity of the method can be seen. Do good, cease
harming yourself and others is approved by the wise.
The
"thought of enlightenment" implies that there is a decision
to win full enlightenment, (or all knowledge of what is what) and the
desire for the welfare of others. Dependent on past causes, such a
simple dual statement is viewed as means and method for some, while
for others, it is viewed as method and means.
It is expedient
to state there may be five categories of persons with the disposition
to follow this simple dual statement.
The first is the Sangha
who cultivates this dual statement at the highest level.
The
lowest level where this statement may be cultivated is by persons who
are at the wishing stage that they may develop faith and confidence
towards the Buddha's Teaching in this human life.
The
mid-range of cultivation could be said to be found in three types of
persons. These are devotees, persons faithful by nature or by those
of faithful temperament.
The one homily or unifying advice to
all five types is to persist and
never let go.!!
The words
"religious in character" and "religious object"
refer to
learning-and-practising of Buddha Dharma.
The word
"predominantly" will be interpreted as a round figure of
80%.
This figure refers to the time/energy spent in
learning-and-practising Chan.
At an entry (novice) level, Chan
is taught at the experiential level.
This is contrasted to
teaching at the proficiency level when its internal structure
requires that learning-and-practice become more rather than less
co-incident and concurrent with Chan supporting factors.
The
final stage involves training to Master level.
This stage
involves lifetimes of learning and stresses the promotion of being
friendly, professional, practical, culturally adaptable and
scholarly.
Acceptance into any of the three levels of training
at the Chan Academy.
The needed Buddhist Refuges should be
strong to withstand the direct and indirect supervision needed.
The
going for refuge to the Buddha is not a single action which occurs
only once and is then completed with absolute finality. It is, or
should be, a continually evolving process which matures in tandem
with our practice and understanding of the Dhamma (7).
To go
for refuge does not imply that at the outset we already possess a
clear grasp of the dangers that make a refuge necessary and of the
goal towards which we aspire.
Professor Lynn White has been
quoted as saying that future historians may well look back upon the
pioneering work of the late D.T.Suzuki as a cultural watershed, as
influential in its own way as the fourteenth-century translations of
Aristotle. (B.S.Rev.9,1 p.65)
While this observation is
praiseworthy, it is credible to acknowledge the Maha Bodhi Journal,
also, was influential in that process.
It should be understood
that D.K.Suzuki is not a "thinker" in the Western sense;
but rather he is aware of "non-conceptual" thinking as
practiced by Bodhisattvas. Suzuki notes that "When it (Zen)
attempts to explain itself by means of a philosophical system
.......it partakes of something which does not strictly belong to
it." (Essays in Buddhism Third Series 1970 Edition
p.20)
"Non-conceptual" thinking, for those
practiced enough is a blessing which gives direct connectivity
between Buddhists, past, present and future.
Those who learn
this type of Buddhist meditation know for
themselves the
experience of the Dhamma's connectivity across space and time
(sanditthiko akaliko properties of dhamma).
Ultimately, the
main benefit of such mental training is a confidence that there must
be a path of the "knowing only", transcending mere learning
as well-grounded practice.
By way of personal example,
consider Mr K. T. Vimalasekara who had his seventy-fifth birthday in
November 1971, at which time he arranged for one thousand prints of
Buddha to be distributed.
When this editor met him in 1982 at
Columbo, Sri Lanka, he was kind enough to provide me with the last of
these prints. Mr. Vimalasekara, when young, met
Anagarika
Dharmapala. With startling vigour, grace and
percipiency, he described his meeting with Anagarika Dharmapala.
Under such a discourse, it became possible to feel the presence of
the Founder of the Maha Bodhi Society.
Ultimately, the main
benefit of such mental training is a
confidence that there must be
a path of the "knowing
only", transcending mere learning
as well-grounded
practice.
A five day Meditation Course was
held from 27-31 December 1991. Teachings were given by Venerable
Kassapa Mahathera, Venerable Dr. Viriyananda Mahathera and John D.
Hughes.
Producing the Causes for a Suitable Meditation
Environment
The site location of the Centre away from the city
turmoil means it was possible for the five day Course to be held at a
suitable location. The accumulation of over 15 years experience in
providing meditation Courses within the confines of a rain forest
environs of the Centre ensures that suitable material, verbal,
emotional and mental supplies of the "nutrients" required
by meditators were managed with a minimum
of flurry and supplied
with ease over the five days.
The additional factor of merit
made by Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd Members in providing
the recent use of the Centre's facility for the 1991 rainy season
retreat of Bhante Kassapa meant additional Devas protected the area
and the Students' well-being, and enhanced the suitability of the
Centre's atmosphere for insight meditation.
Just as the
measure of the justification for the Chan Academy Australia’s
existence is measured to the extent that its prime objective of
creating conditions for the Buddha's Teachings be practised to the
level of samma samadhi can be managed, so the justification for the
Students is that things formerly unknown by them become
known.
Producing the Causes for Persistence in
Practice.
While it is the personal background of each sentient
being which provides their framework of how they measure their
progress through the Middle Way, the real measure is found in
canonical texts, such as the Abhidhamma.
Persistence is
needed.
A methodological necessity to persist is to have the
clear view that
continuity and moral responsibility across lives
occurs without the Upanisadic atman as controller.
Prior to
the first day of the Course, John D. Hughes explained that it is
useful to Students to persist in maintaining five or more precepts
and be considerate to others and themselves.
When a Student
holds several precepts and these are affirmed in proximity to the
production of a recent wholesome background of causes, insight
success may be obtained each for himself or herself.
To stress
that themes cannot be narrowed down to specific well-defined issues,
instruction was given to prevent practice from being reduced to the
level of mere conformity. Students were invited to consider the
relevance of the following verses:
Verses on a Well-Spent Day
Let not a man trace back the past or wonder what the future
holds: the past is but the left-behind, the future ... but the yet-
unreached. But in the present let him see with insight each and every
dhamma, invincibly, unshakeably, that can be pierced by
practising.
Today the effort must be made, tomorrow death may
come - who knows?
No bargain with His Deathliness can keep him
and his hordes away.
But one who bides thus ardently,
relentlessly, by day, by night -
him the Tranquil Sage has called
the ideal lover of solitude.
Necessary Conditions for
Cognitional Buddha Dhamma
The fundamental views to bear in
mind and become clear about are that it is rare to find such a
suitable environs; have a desire to learn; be born human with a
healthy body and mind capable of learning; a Teacher who can show or
merely point the way; that the Buddha Dhamma Sasana is still in the
World today; and that the time of any person's death is uncertain to
them.
If the Dhamma is not practised this life, how could such
a rare thing be met with at a future life?
May we generate the
intention to learn.
May we make the effort learn.
May we arouse
the energy to learn.
May we apply the mind to learn.
May we put
ardor on top to learn.
May Buddhists persist each for himself
or herself to make the causes for life times of learning Buddha
Dhamma.
May all beings be well and happy.
Today's
Buddhist Hour Broadcast script was written and edited by Anita M.
Hughes, Julian Bamford, Leanne Eames, Evelin Halls, Julie O’Donnell
and Lainie Smallwood.
References:
Little, W.,
Fowler, H.W., Coulson, J. Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford
University Press 1992.
Encyclopedia Britannica. Vol 6. &
Vol 13. William Benton. Chicago USA 1963.
Hughes, John D. The
Chan Academy Three Year Plan.
www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio/archive.html 1998.
Hughes,
John D. Editorial Buddha Dhyana Dana Review Volume 9 No. 1.
LAN1.
Buddha Dhyana Dana Review Vol 9, No.1, 2,3.
Isys Search of LAN
1 Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. computer files.
Gathered
from page 2 / 3 of BUILDING PARADIGM for MANAGING CAPITAL
DISBURSEMENT for BUILDINGS. (2/27/98)
Gathered from page 60 /
61 of December Six Day Bhavana Course (11/25/97)
Gathered
from Table of Contents (8/24/98)
Gathered from page 2 of
Volume 5 No 3 , Dec 1995 (12/31/98)
Gathered from BUDDHA
DHYANA DANA REVIEW (12/31/98)
Gathered from BUDDHA DHYANA
DANA REVIEW (12/31/98)
Gathered from page 8 / 9 of BUDDHA
DHYÃNA DANA REVIEW (1/14/99)
Gathered from BUDDHA
DHYÃNA DANA REVIEW (1/14/99)
Gathered from page 2 / 3
of p.2 (3/15/96)
Gathered from Volume 2 No. 1 Registered by
Australia Post Publication No. VAR (12/31/98)
FIVE DAY
MEDITATION COURSE - 27-31 December 1991
Verses on a Well Spent
Day
Statistics
Words: 3,446
Characters: 17,
102
Paragraphs: 142
Sentences : 155
Averages:
Sentences
per paragraph: 1.1
Words per sentences : 22.0
Characters per
word: 4.9
Readability:
Passive Sentences 32%
Flesch
Reading Ease : 51.7
Flesch-Kincaide Grade Level :
10.8
Coleman-Lieu Grade Level : 14.5
Bormuth Grade Level :
11.2
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