The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives
Buddhist
Hour
Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 351 for Sunday
17 October 2004CE
2547 Buddhist Era
This script is
titled:
Cultivating Samma Ditthi about our Ancestors. How can we
help them today?
It was Edmund Burke (1729-1797) who once wrote 'We have
hardly any landmarks from the wisdom of our ancestors to guide
us.'
Who were they, from where did they come and to where did
they go to at death.
In his book 'To the Cemetery and Back -
Dark Ages, Golden Ages', Leonard Price wrote the following words: In
this city as in all, the dead are granted little space. Our business
and pleasure take us past the old iron gates a hundred times on the
way to seemingly more immediate destinations.
But inside the
cemetery, the earth is half-paved with stone remembrances and the
middle air is full of obelisks and angels. Names and dates surrounds
us, some sharp and raw, some worn nearly to oblivion, all crowding
upon us with the particulars of spent lives - of this family, of this
age, with these virtues, with this hope of heaven. What can this mean
to us?
We stroll on, reading chronicles of grief: beloved
wife, infant aged three days, daughter, son, darling children.
Generations are drawn from the world by the chain of mortality.
Do
these stones mark an ending or only a continuance?
Leonard
Price noted that: The mind runs endlessly in moments that flare and
fizzle. There is a being born and dying with everyone of them - a
birth and death of every thought and every breath happening right
here while we worriedly scan the horizon for a supposed Great
Death.
This cemetery, wrote Price, with its solid stones is
only a mirror, into which the Buddha bids us look to the funeral
procession within ourselves.
On Saturday 16 October 2004 two
of our members Leila Igracki and Pennie White represented our Centre
at the Bon Phcum Ben (Festival of All Souls) at Wat Buddharangsi, 159
Clarke Road Springvale South 3172.
The Festival was held by
the Cambodian Buddhist Association of Victoria Incorporated.
The
origin of the festival is unclear, but it is unique to Cambodian
Buddhist tradition. It dates from at least the reign of King Ang Dong
(1845-1860). The Cambodian Buddhist ceremony of Phcum Ben is based on
the Buddhist Sutta entitled Terokudda Sutta, which describes the
miserable life of Prets or Hungry Ghosts, inhabitants of the
underworld kingdom or hell.
They came naked to the royal
palace of king Bimbisara by night. Their languished plea for mercy
and assistance resulting from hunger and thirst were heard by the
king. He brought the news to the Buddha and asked him who were these
creatures. The Buddha told him that they were prets, and they were
relatives of yours who came from the underworld looking for food.
Food was offered to them to satisfy their needs.
The book of
Milinda Panha mentioned four kinds of Prets.
1. Prets who live
on pus,
2. Prets who are always hungry,
3. Prets who are
constantly on fire, and
4. Prets whose lives depend on merits
dedicated by living relatives. This last group is commonly known as
Paradattupajivipret. They are released by night once every year from
the underworld and wander among the living beings in search of their
living relatives. They curse their relatives if they fail to find
them in seven different Temples by this time of year. The daily
Buddhist chanting includes the following Pali stanza, which says
that: "yadihine gatothane kayaducaritena.." which means
that a part of the merit resulted from this ceremony is dedicated to
the Paradattupajiviprets via the Buddhist Monks.
The Bon Phcum
Ben Festival of All Souls began at 9.00am with the arrival of
Buddhist followers.
Members of the Sangha arrived at 9.30am
with offering of flowers to Buddhist statues, offering of basic
necessities to Buddhist prayers, contributions to the ceremony and
dedication prayers by lay Buddhists.
At 10.00am lay persons
offered dana for the Alms begging round by eight Buddhist monks
resident at the Temple.
Arrival of the official guests at
11.00am included Honourable Tim Holding, Minister for Manufacturing
and State Member for Lyndhurst attending on behalf of the Premier of
Victoria Mr Steve Bracks MP. Also in attendance were the Honourable
Hong Lim MP, Special Advisor to the Premier on Victoria-Asia Business
Relations, Cr. Youhorn Chea City of Springvale, Ms Karen Liedke,
Principle Coomoora Secondary College, Mrs Leigh West Principal
Westall Secondary College and Ms Judith C. Graley Parliamentary
Electorate Officer for the seat of Lyndhurst.
This was
followed by chanting by lay Buddhists, accepting the five precepts,
chanting by the Sangha members and offering lunch to Buddhist
Monks.
Official speeches were given at 11.30am and followed by
a Dhamma talk in Cambodian at 12midday and then lunch for guests and
Buddhist followers, with the official conclusion to the ceremony at
1.30pm
Who were those ancestors, from where did they come and
to where did they go to at death.
These things become known by
persons who cultivate their minds.
By understanding at least
a few of our own past lives and deaths before we were born human this
life, we can learn the causes that brought us to this present
condition, and gain an insight into that of our ancestors.
Whatever
birth they have come to may they find peace.
There is a
saying that, “A teacher for knowledge is easy to obtain, one for
morality is hard to find”.
In Chinese educational
history, the scholastic tendencies demonstrated under the civil
service examination system of old China meant the scholars became
obsessed with gaining official recognition and neglected moral
principles.
The so-called ‘Master’ was one who
could help a scholar prompt his official rank. Therefore, the
relationship between Masters and students was totally dependent on
mutual benefits, and the spirit of teaching deteriorated accordingly.
‘A teacher of morality’ refers to an expert or
professor in teaching techniques whose inner nature and behaviour can
be a demonstrative example for ordinary people; thus it is difficult
to find a good teacher such as this.
Nevertheless, in Buddha
Dhamma there are teachers of morality simply because of the ten
perfections that are needed to be cultivated, and the second of these
perfections is sila in the Pali language, which is generally
translated as morality in the English language.
The New
Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines “Ancestors” as,
“A person more remote than a grandparent, from whom one is
descended; A forefather; A source, A precursor. A person who proceeds
another in the course of inheritance. An animal or other organism
from which another has evolved.”
Throughout the
twenty-five years the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. has
been an active learning Centre many Buddhist Discussion Centre
(Upwey) Ltd ancestors have contributed to the growth and prosperity
of the Centre.
For this reason we give thanks to all those
past ancestors who have helped the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey)
Ltd to continually develop.
The Buddhist scriptures
traditionally refer to the eighty-four thousand illusions
(misunderstandings), or causes of sufferings, that plague all living
creatures, and also to the eighty-four thousand Teachings of the
Buddha designed to combat these illusions through understanding
things as they really are.
Certain types of infrastructure
work chosen by our ancestors makes it now possible for suitable
conditions to continue to arise at our Centre for the ongoing
teachings of Buddha Dhamma.
Our Ancestors that practised the
Buddha’s Teachings of the Ten Perfections, the Five Precepts and
the Noble Eightfold Path made it possible for persons in the present
to hear the Buddha Dhamma in a suitable location.
Many human
beings wish to improve and are willing to allot time and energy to
work in return for rewards.
The Buddha taught the Ten
Perfections as a method of self-development.
Morality (Sila)
is the second Perfection of the Ten Perfections.
The Ten
Perfections are:
1) To be generous (dana parami)
2) To be
virtuous, moral (sila parami)
3) Not to be selfish or
renunciation (nekkhamma Parma)
4) To be wise (panna parami)
5)
To be energetic (viriya parami)
6) To be patient (khanti parami)
7) Truthfulness (sacca parami)
8) Determination (adhitthana
parami)
9) Loving Kindness (metta parami)
10) Even
mindfulness (upekha parami)
Because of the karmic force of
these ten perfections, Bodhisattvas will be born many times in the
existence of Samsara to fulfil these parami or perfections until they
attain enlightenment.
Samma Sambuddha is a fully awakened one
or Lord Buddha who was self enlightened without any external guidance
in the final life. One who wishes to become a Samma Sambuddha has to
practice the ten parami or perfections in thirty ways to purify the
mind. In a suitable time after completion of the necessary
perfections, he will become Samma Sambuddha in this world.
Only
one Samma Sambuddha will appear in a given world system at any one
time. In the future Samma Sambuddha will be the Lord Buddha
Maithereya, (Maitreya).
Samma Sambuddha has capacity to teach
others to show them the Path of Wisdom to attain enlightenment. Samma
Sambuddha has four kinds of disciples or Savakas. They are Monks,
Nuns, lay men and women. When one of these Savakas becomes fully
enlightened such a one is called Arahat Buddha. To become Arahat
Buddha, one has to practice only ten parami to purify the minds.
The word morality however has different meaning depending on
what religion or ethical system you follow because of morality
practised during one life your future life is modified.
As an
example, by the practice of morality you may come to peaceful rebirth
in wealthy places like Australia. But, if you are determined you want
to be born an animal next life, I don’t think today’s talk
about morality would be good to you.
Some years ago the
Buddhist Hour's Founder and first Executive Producer John D. Hughes
found a hilarious quote from an unread book that was being classified
in the new Store at 33 Brooking Street in Upwey.
It read: “I
can’t help wishing you were all animals. Of course technically
you are, but if only I could look down into a sea of furry faces, I
would know better what to say. If only your ears were the movable
kind that cock forward or prick to attention, I would know what kind
of sounds to make soothing murmurs if you grew restless, little
chirruping noises if your heads began to droop and your eyes to
close. But what sort of sounds to pour into immobile human ears,
about that I am not sure.”
As you know animals kill
animals without regret. One of the tasks of humans is to educate
persons in precepts to try to stop them killing each other. As you
know humans are very poor at learning lessons about such things.
Humans kill insects for sport, they kill animals for sport,
or they kill fish for sport. It would be better if they played out
their aggressiveness and turned their instinct towards competitive
sport such as the Olympic Games.
For our Teacher, personally,
apart from sailing and skiing, surfing at Anglesea and Cape Shank and
bush walking, he has never been one to take sport seriously, much
preferring to read voraciously and listen to music.
Although
he played football and basketball with the rover scouts, he did not
find much joy in the injuries of bruised muscles that he received and
so did not manage to work up a killer instinct with regards to
competitive sport.
When John D. Hughes was a little boy, his
father and his brothers (they were his Uncles) took him fishing off
the coast of Mordiallic where he grew up.
When his father
invited John to kill a fish that he had caught by sticking a knife
through its brain, he did as he was told.
However, the instant
the fish was stabbed he became acutely aware of its pain and would
kill no more. John managed not to go fishing after that.
So
our Teacher did not manage to become one with the idea of killing. He
found out much later why he had this disposition which had been
inherited from former lives where John had practised morality.
But
he does not expect others to have the same sense of what is what in
this area because they have different causes effecting them from
their different past lives. We are not the same as our parents in
some cases so we have the possibility of escaping from their culture.
Although it is illegal to own a machine gun, we have yet to
see any signs of the reduction of production of killing weapons such
as machine guns. These are not sporting weapons. The idea of freedom
has become berserk in the hands of terrorists with machine guns and
fear has almost become a god.
The amount of security that was
mounted for the Olympic Games in Sydney is one example of the fact
that Australia could be a target for terrorism at any time.
We
must remember that nuclear disarmament is not a fact of life because
there are many countries with missiles that can be activated at a
minute's notice. We do not think it is irrelevant to try and make a
case for protecting animals. You cannot stop killing by killing. We
hope human beings can settle differences in most cases without
shedding blood.
Our teacher was not pessimistic when he said
this view is but realistic. We want to call on everyone listening
today to see for themselves that this juncture of world turbulence
and disaster is real. Distracting ourselves with Olympic Games,
although noble, is still only one episode towards building peace
between nations.
He only hopes that you understand that
things were not much different in Lord Buddha’s day when he
stopped wars and taught about the way out of the suffering.
We
must send loving kindness into the world.
Of course, for most
of us this can’t be achieved in a day, or even this life but it
will be a fruit in the future when the time is right. The tendency
towards humanistic thought, religious feelings and mind nurturing
among young persons is not as widely spread as you think. Many fancy
themselves as Rambos.
It does not help much to slander those
who killed our ancestors for how they behaved towards them. Unless we
can take the necessary steps to reduce vandalism, bullying and a
rising suicide rate among our younger persons, we are heading for
trouble.
The Vietnamese Monk Thich Nhat Hanh whose power of
peace works during the Vietnamese war are now legendary, used to say,
“Remember Brother, man is not our enemy”. Of course today
it is not politically correct to be so gender specific as to say man
so perhaps we better say human beings are not our enemy.
We
have become immune to suffering and are like the Irish
Singer/musician Bob Geldoff who said about Africa, “I get sick
of seeing people dying in my living room”. His sense of urgency
lead him to organise, ‘Live Aid’, a concert that raised
millions of dollars for famine relief in Africa.
We have in
our community today descendants of Cambodians who are Australians and
descendants of the Aboriginals of this country who are Australians.
All of you listening have ancestors who have been treated badly
by other human beings.
We cannot find any real difference
between us in this regard.
All of us listening today are human
beings in this present good life who meet with good will as
Australians. We were not eaten by a white shark on the way here.
Yet for most of history this land here has been underwater
for millions of years and the ancestors of the present sharks swam
here killing every day.
It was hardly a suitable place to
build a Temple in those days.
The ancient sharks were about three
to ten times bigger than the present day great white sharks.
When
writing this script for the Buddhist Hour our Teacher noted: I cannot
see how anyone can dispute the fact that we are in a safe, peaceful
place here today.
For the time being this life, we stopped
being born as great fish like those sharks.
If during those
days so long ago, I ate you; all I can say was it seemed like a good
idea at the time.
I do hope you will not hold my animal
behaviour against me after this time has elapsed.
I mean you
no harm now or in the future and I certainly do not wish you to turn
into cannibals and eat me by using some twisted mind.
As for
being divisive in our society, I suggest you let the dead bury the
dead because they have taken rebirth as something else.
To do
otherwise, just for a moment pretend our differences whatever they
are do not override our humanity as human beings. Even if we may be
old fish taken rebirth as humans who would drown in a water element,
let us forget it and be kind to one another.
That is the
message of the Lord Buddha on how to remember our ancestors.
Our
attitude is determined from many causes and we would like to know
what we are like.
First of all, we do not expect Pol Pot who
is now taken rebirth in hell to feel remorse for his killings in
Cambodia. Hell beings have dark clouded minds.
We depend so
much on cause and effect, we cannot think otherwise and be
reasonable.
So try to be tolerant and do not be too hasty to
keep ourselves in our own separate worlds.
Personally, as
some of you are aware, our Teacher does not spend a great amount of
his time just feeling good with other nice persons at interfaith
dialogues. He thinks it is better if he spends his time showing the
way as a practical method to his followers.
It is this idea of
knowing that it is hard to practice charity if you are poor and you
need to fix up your own mandate first and foremost.
What is
reasonable to expect from others?
In Buddha Dhamma, John D.
Hughes taught Members the peaceful way to develop something is to do
it yourself and not expect the Government to pay for grand schemes.
He does not expect other religions to fund our Buddhist
Centre and pay our airfares to the World Fellowship of Buddhists
Conferences in other countries.
He planned to get funding
from our Brothers and Sisters in the Dhamma. That is the true
charity.
Our websites and international journals are not
devoted to listing what common ground we have with others but where
the Buddha Dhamma differs from other faiths.
We raise money
to support orphanages run by Buddhist Monks in poor countries and do
not spend more than 2 percent of our resources supporting other
religions charitable works.
If as an animal you were killed
by a human, and then took rebirth as a human, you would be unlikely
to grow up trusting humans and would see nothing wrong with killing
animals.
If you were a human killed by a human, and then took
rebirth as a human, you would be unlikely to grow up trusting humans
and may see nothing wrong with killing humans.
Discouraging
Euthanasia.
In recent years the Australian Senate agreed that
the Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee inquiry into and
report on the provisions of the Euthanasia Laws Bill 1996 was:
-
the desirability of the enactment of the provisions;
the
constitutional implication for the Territories of the
enactment
of the provisions;
the impact of the enactment of the provisions
on the Northern
Territory criminal code; and
the impact on,
and attitudes of, the Aboriginal community.
Certainly, the
Minister for Immigration, the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the
Prime Minister of the time spoke out against racism.
But the
assault on racism, as on sexism and other ideologies that legitimate
domination, will require a coherent and sustained analysis and a
genuine desire for change. Such an assault would have to confront the
entrenched structures and ideas we have been discussing today - that
is, not just making people more tolerant, but redistributing
resources and power.
The two decades from 1976 to 1996 saw
Australian cultural values altered beyond recognition. Our
‘traditional’ culture during this time was replaced by
multicultural values; our Aboriginal community has been recognised;
our Asian communities, because of their linguistic and cultural
skills are clearly in the forefront of cultural change to make us
more productive.
"Attention should be drawn to the fact
that the diverse cultures referred to in the above statement of
Objects include the cultures of the Aboriginal peoples, who form an
integral part of the multicultural Australian society."
This
applies equally to all Australians, whether Aboriginal, Anglo-Celtic
or from a non-English speaking background, and whether they were born
in Australia or overseas.
So, from the merit we have made
here may all the ancestors share with us the causes to be well and
happy.
In most Theravada Temples they transfer merits to the
departed. In Pali this chant is:
Idam me natinam hotu, Sukhita
hontu natayo,
Idam me natinam hotu, Sukhita hontu natayo,
Idam
me natinam hotu, Sukhita hontu natayo.
In English this chant
reads;
Let this merit accrue to our relatives, and may they be
happy!
Let this merit accrue to our relatives, and may they be
happy!
Let this merit accrue to our relatives, and may they be
happy!
May you be well and happy and free from harm.
May
your ancestors have peaceful rebirth and attain full enlightenment in
this life or in future lives.
This script incorporates a paper
written by our late Founder John D. Hughes for the Buddhist Hour was
prepared and edited by Lisa Nelson, Anita Hughes, Julian Bamford,
Paul Tyrrell, Julie O'Donnell, Leila Igracki.
References
Price, Leonard. To the Cemetary and Back - Dark Ages, Golden
Ages. Bodhi leaves No.B 96 Buddhist Publication Society Sri Lanka
1983.
Bon Phcum Ben (Festival of Souls) 16 October 2004.
Official Program. Cambodian Buddhist Association of Victoria,
Inc.
The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations. Third Edition.
Oxford University Press. London UK 1985.
Buddhist Vihara
Victoria chanting book compiled by Temple, no date.
Word
Count: 3639
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