The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

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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 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.

Many local Australian Temples (vihara and wat) were established originally using imported capital.

More and more, it appears some Buddhist organisations have trouble financing their operations purely from local capital raised from local migrant devotees.

Naturally, they want to continue a Temple culture moulded on the national style of their country of birth.

Their Dhamma libraries tend to comply with the traditional style.

By contrast, it was essential to instil into all our library helpers that our organisation's administrative machinery is non-sectarian and is not to be limited to one country's culture of Buddha Dhamma.

We wish to persist to lead our library to maturation with third rate delivery services as part of its make-up.

To do this, we have to raise enough funds to be able to sustain first and second class library investigations for selected end-users.

Among our end-users; our Founder needs material to coach selected persons who wish to undertake collective production of contemporary Buddha Dhamma papers.

The library function is to keep references which are worthwhile and up-to- date enough to be useful for persons having superior editing capacity.

Editing power is vital to conserve publication of our journal Buddha Dhyana Dana Review and other publications.

It is needed for our internet site www.bdcu.org.au material.

Building up our self help capacity applies to the languages used in the library. Often, this is the English language.

Although a very small enclave of elderly Buddhist persons who are monolingual and limited to speaking their national language other than English may exist in Australia, many can speak a few English even words, although they cannot read English well.

Besides incorporating a large migrant program as part of national development policy, the Australian Government provides free tuition in English for migrants.

Living in a land rich in other languages, our organisation is able to find translators among our Members for our library needs.

It is not easy to be systematic and objective about language study because of the range of most languages available among the Australian Buddhist population.

Bilingual Newsletters are common in this country.

Language belongs to everyone and it is easy for different usages to be noted or criticised.

As David Crystal noted in 1987, linguistic factors influence our judgements of personality, intelligence, social status, educational standards, job aptitude and many other areas of identity and social survival.

Most of the delegations of Buddhist persons who visit us include at least one person with a high level of proficiency in the English language.

Our organisation had a requirement to cultivate tactics and conventions for use in our library communication on the type of language we would encourage for writings in the library.

The first thing harmonised was to use Oxford English and the main style to be followed was the AGPS Style Manual for Authors, editors and Printers.

A new edition of the Style Manual came out in 1988 and was reprinted with corrections in 1990.

We have work-in-progress extending over the last 5 years to confine other library guides to 500 English words that are useful, easy to use, and persons can empathise with for Teaching purposes.

Valuable time and effort may be saved because there is no need to coin complicated English phrases when our systems find a suitable single English word for foreign Buddhist words.

This polyglot approach is culturally adaptable enough to help end-users who use English as a second language.

According to Dwight Bolinger (1968), lists of words are both easier to make and easier to understand than grammars.

Our library handbook is intended to be dynamic since we add words from our appraisal of many local and overseas publications in the English language.

We look for Buddhist (pandita) scholars' "irreproachable" pronouncements of various words for this advance.

Many other dictionary references were found useful.

Among style items to be avoided, we include oxymorons, double speak and diasyrmus. Eulogia and thaumasmus were encouraged.

Politeness expression is encouraged.

We note some Members have hyperlexia, an ability to read aloud which goes beyond their other cognitive abilities.

The "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis" combines two principles. The first is known as linguistic determinism: it states that language determines the way we think.

The second follows from this, and is known as linguistic relativity: it states that the distinctions encoded in one language are not found in any other language.

David Crystal inclines to the view that it is unlikely the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis in its strongest form has many adherents.

Usually, because of past slander of Teachers, few persons nowadays can cognate Buddha Dhamma methods which are taught by the method of the seeking inflexibility in the dictionary meanings of words.

In most cases today, persons tend to spiral around in their minds before the true meaning of the words enters their stream as awareness as Buddha Dhamma.

Because of his or her past causes, using another language other than English may be useful to wake a person up to meaning.

Without the kusula (wholesome) kamma of having meaning from the past times, it may take many words to say what another language says in a single word.

But, in the end, the circumlocution can make the point.

For such reasons, and to avoid too much prolixity we provide our library system helpers with polyglot guides.

In 1999, we think our ideal library guidebook would give Buddhist English meaning for some Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, Latin and other words or phrases.

This approach gives a weaker version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis so that language we use does not influence adversely the way our end-users perceive and remember our library output.

Louis Hjelmslev's (1961) words have been translated as : "The grammatical rules of a language are independent of any scale of values, logical, aesthetic, or ethical".

Dwight Bolinger (1968) suggested that a competitive society results in competing values, and some measure of neutrality is thereby achieved.

Since language is used by all parties to every controversy; by being pulled in all directions, it is forced to remain more or less impartial.

We think the best way of being potentially impartial in our library is to put our tactics into print.

We desire to communicate to end-users of our systems in print how they can accomplish the mental tasks specified by Lord Buddha in his Teachings.

How are we to judge this type of emerging literature?

The exchange of language is the sharing of experience.

If we regard it as the highest mark of civilisation an ability to project ourselves into the mental and physical world of others, we must ask how language is to be used.

There are few laws about the misuse of language.

In the more complex information age societies which are appearing at the global level, it seems language is to become a weapon of division in our society.

The few remaining small, unstratified examples of society are about to vanish under world population pressures.

We ought not overlook that it is valid to use any superior verbal skills and written skills, if we develop them, to turn our library systems into holdings where at least some space or exclusive closed section is for use by the elite to train them to lend a helping hand.

If we do this well, the automatic trickle-down effect and striving to equip the few in an array of Buddha Dhamma good enough to help to awake the many folk to change their direction by recognising and frowning on those liars who use language to demote the value of good (Pali: kusula) things in our society.

What is our use of language policies?

We wish to express the essence of things with clarity.

In 1996, our organisation developed a self-test for persons who want to have accreditation to be involved in our publications.

We would say we think our library language policies stand a little to the right and beyond the concept that no dictionary founded on the methods of modern scholarship can prescribe as to usage; it can only inform on the basis of the facts of usage.

From time to time, so we do not become too old-fashioned, we ask ourselves how would a dictionary look if it tried to satisfy the new demands of linguistic science?

We incline to the view that too many new words in our library guide would confuse those who use Buddhist English as a second language.

This is because we believe our average end-user already knows some of the Buddhist language and could only guess at what modern words are left out of such a dictionary.

Perhaps the "use" of language, in discourse on moral matters, is not to indicate facts.

C. L. Stevenson wrote in 1937, that the major use of ethical judgements is not to indicate facts, but to create an influence.

At that time, the resulting new theory, under the name of "emotivism" was viewed by many as a great liberation.

It seemed to rest firmly upon the bright idea that there were various " uses of language".

Ten years or so later it was held that while there are diverse uses of language, it was questioned if, in bringing in the "emotive" or "dynamic" use of language, is that use really characteristic of moral discourse?

According to G.J. Warnock (1968) there were three main grounds on which it was argued that it was not.

First, it was clear there are quite other regions of discourse in which this "dynamic" use is clearly exemplified.

It was a property of advertising slogans or of propagandist political harangues.

Second, is it always true that moral discourse is always emotive, or dynamic?

Discussion of some section of the FBT law in the utterance "I think it's wrong" is scarcely an utterance one would think of as emotionally charged.

In this sense, it is steering, not pushing.

The third ground emerges very naturally from the second case.

It is where a person essentially tell the helpers something which may be unsolicited and which answers practical questions.

This is where it is powerfully stated, subtly elaborated, and defended against a variety of objections.

This third ground is where the field of enquiry becomes large and is given with extensive and ramified argument and can be termed "prescriptive" discourse.

To review the situation, we say we have moved from a position where a body of doctrine move from simple statements goes beyond the emotive language of the "dynamic" process moves outside the realm of the theoretical subject matter of moral philosophy.

The person comes to insight that was previously unknown which passes beyond the locutionary act of "using" language and leaves the fogginess which the perlocutionary act (influencing) and the illocutionary act (prescribing) behind.

What this means in practice is to get the timing right as a helper develops to prove, each for himself or herself, the validity of observing sila (morality).

Kamma is a law in itself, with no need for a law-giver; an external agency that punishes the ill deeds and rewards the good deeds.

Other causative factors also come into play and often it is their combined effect that determines the result. A single cause cannot produce a result much less many results.

According to Buddha Dhamma, things are not causeless (a-hetuka), nor due to one single cause (eka-hetuka).

Persons can change their nature by personal endeavour (purisakara).

Kamma and rebirth go arm in arm.

In Buddhist thought there is no origination out of nothing.

From thousands of different causes in the library operations, many combinations of good things can be assembled.

As from a heap of flowers many a garland is made, so by one born as a human being many a good deed should be done.

So there is "no single use of language" and our library lists are open to new discoveries.

In some cases, because of good things done in former times, helpers whose mind can mimic other helpers for a brief time, develop pliability of mind and so obtain strings of patriarchal findings.

Then, they do not just find themselves knowing what they are going to do but get some view of what is desirable to do in the future.

This forces them to review the thesis that knowledge is immediate but arises from causes whose base was testimony found in former times.

Each person has a different past history of kusula kamma.

Those with much kusula kamma become more confident about roles in the right way about what they are going to do and how much merit they need to succeed in their roles.

As Bernard Mayo (1968) stated it, the concept of role is irreducibly sociological: it cannot be reduced to elements of individual behaviour at this level.

However, he writes about the possibility of assimilating the behaviour of persons and the roles they act.

If sets of roles are conceived as persons, the social status quo is immediately sanctified; when roles constitute selfhood, to change society is to mangle human beings.

So, there are theories which engulf personality in role-playing; there are persons who present themselves as so engulfed; there are institutions which foster engulfment.

Our library organisation standard for our helpers is guided to prevent cloning by thwarting such engulfment.

If role thinking were the only meaning we could give to describe the highly formalised offices needed by law to be reserved for key Members, we would agree with Professor Dorothy Emmet that we should not make it so all- embracing as to lose its effectiveness as a tool of social analysis.

Doing something in the library should make a distinction in favour of " expectations" as against "requirements".

For example, it is a requirement not to kill silverfish but, the expectation is that the silverfish will be removed outside to stop them destroying the paper.

Professor Austin suggests the act of uttering certain words should conform to a certain vocabulary, and conform to a certain grammar.

This amounts to mutual reciprocal expectations.

We try to avoid the "infinite etceteration" which can arise if this notion is carried too far.

Since we tend to limit our library working vocabulary to about 50,000 words, with new words added each year; all helpers need periodic tutorials to stay informed of our preferred report writing words.

Diverse words we preserve are words used by Buddha Dhamma followers who use English as a second language.

For example, we must make it clear when we use the word "river" if we are talking about the course (river bed?) or the volume of water (river water) in that course.

In 1961, J. L. Austin introduced the notion of performance utterance.

In a broadcast talk in 1956, he made the comment:

"That equips us, we may suppose, with two shining new tools to crack the crib of reality maybe. It also equips us-it always does -with two shining new skids under our metaphysical feet".

Lukac's essay on reification (1923) was not concerned directly with alienation (Entfremdung) but with the problem of "false consciousness" as produced by the process of reification ( Verdinglichichung) under capital's conditions of community production.

M. Gottdiener (1985) holds that the concept of reification in Marx's theory and that of alienation are, although related, not the same.

Mandel (1971) stated that Marx's "anthropological concept of alienation remains largely philosophical and speculative. It lacks empirical foundation".

David Sciulli (1985) worked on a synthesis of procedural and analytic concepts which he termed societal constitutionalism.

It updated and extended the procedural restraints on arbitrary power inherited from the distinct common-law rebellion against absolute monarchy, extending those restraints beyond governmental power to arbitrary power by corporations in the socioeconomic order.

What sort of helpful environment is likely to limit alienation of helpers giving their time to our project development?
Jonne Miller, Kazimierz M. Slomczynski and Melvin L. Kohn 1985 paper contained data from both the United States of America and Poland which showed that the effect of occupational self-direction on intellective process is similar for younger, middle-aged, and older workers.

By occupational self-direction, the researchers mean the use of initiate, thought, and independent judgement in work.

From a historical perspective, the three Polish cohorts had unique generational experiences.

The majority of men in the oldest age-group completed their elementary education before World War II and entered the labour force before the rapid industrialisation of the 1950's had begun. A critical experience for this generation was the Nazi occupation and, later, the Stalinist era, terminated by the national upheaval of the" polish October" in 1956.

Since the men in the U.S.A. had been interviewed 14 years before the Polish men, the experiences of all three age-groups are of rather different historical eras from those of their Polish counterparts.

The oldest group (who were born in 1918 and before) has experienced the Great Depression and World War II as adults.

The younger men (born between 1934 and 1948) are essentially a post-World War II generation.

As in Poland, educational requirements for many jobs increased from cohort to cohort.

The original U.S.A. measurement of intellectual flexibility was measured on seven indicators.

Factor scores based on these one-dimensional models of ideational flexibility correlate near unity with factor scores based on the ideational dimension of the two-dimension models (for the U.S.A. r = 0.97; for Poland r = 0.96)

It was a longitudinal model, containing two underlying dimensions - one ideational, the other perceptual.

The paper is interesting because it could compare findings for a socialist and a capitalist society.

All the evidence from these studies supports the conclusion that job conditions continue to affect, and be affected by, intellective process with undiminished force throughout adult life.

Joan D. Browne (1981) commented on the difficulty that occurs when an effort is made to trace the decisive intellectual influences on the careers of leaders in educational change because we have to wait a long time to see how philosophical idealism leads to educational reform.

The growth of the library does not appear to stretch under a link between the development and the local economy nor did it coincide with an economic " take-off" in the State of Victoria.

Australia has been undergoing structural change for some years with rising unemployment or underemployment.

In Australia, the labour market shaped new ideology thinking about post secondary education for persons to retrain to gain new work skills.

This was done by the rise of Government sponsored Technical and Further Education (TAFE) institutions in Australia.

The Training Guarantee tax provisions which have been suspended meant employers had to spend a percentage of their wage bill on education for their employees.

May all beings be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes and Leanne Eames.

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