The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

A patterned approach to tolerate worst case predictions of world influences needed to be factored into our 20 year operating plan.

Our organisation's standpoint at June 1999 ­

We sequence all Members to act as agents in the supply chain delivery global systems we use for knowledge management.

Several Members have their own supply chains that are independent from our organisation and by their generosity we benefit from their efforts.

Our methods aims to disperse risk of breakdown in key areas by timely analysis to find out alternative supply paths.

Generally, the spin off of such analysis where our organisation has structured ourselves to be highly reliant on one supply chain system for a considerable time is we find several more pathways having cost benefit.

The likelihood of any given supplier staying able to deliver a given product is indeterminate because we cannot know how long a current supplier can stay in business.

We do know that in Australia about 36% of businesses started fail to survive the first year. After 10 years, only about 13% of businesses are still operat9ing.

On the surface, it appears clear that for some countries, for example the Japanese and the Germans, the marketplace is their battlefield and they now compete with America much more successfully than they could by force of arms.

We are trying to wake up our Members to emulate best practice systems by setting criteria for controlling projects according to plan. Turning now to see how our planning could be improved this year, we have decided to manage over problem areas.

We have positioned ourselves under 15 headings to treat as our core values in supply design.

We think attending to these things is more valuable to our 20 year plan than the simpler task of finding a "just in case" alternate supply pathway.

We have chosen 15 factors that may come within our control.

Within this range of 15 factors, we see ourselves able to deliver good information rather than no deliver information.

The first point of application is running awareness of trends for KNOX=FM radio broadcasts.

The 15 directly observed reasons for schedule slips and budget overruns are:

1. Insufficient front-end planning
2. Unrealistic project plan
3. Project scope underestimated
4. Customer/management changes
5. Insufficient contingency planning
6. Inability to track progress
7. Inability to detect problems early
8. Insufficient number of checkpoints
9. Staffing problems
10. Technical complexities
11. Priority shifts
12. No commitment by personnel to plan
13. Uncooperative support groups
14. Sinking team spirit
15. Unqualified project personnel

The technicalism of Buddhism was described by Bhikku Nanajivako in 1989 with regard to fascism in Italy. The teachings of Croce and Gentile that our mind makes reality, that man makes history, are the speculative background of the political doctrine of fascism.

Catholic rancour against Protestantism was strong enough to re-emerge in Rome not long after the end of the war in organised attacks of mobs on Protestant churches with attempts to damage or demolish them.

Such attempts were meant also as "popular" protests against the non-Catholic religions of the new invaders of Rome ­ the Anglo-American occupation forces.

Guiseppe Tucci (1894-1984) was the dominating personality between 1920-1980.

This Buddhist scholar was given prohibitive authority as protector of the fascist regime. He was against popular infiltration of Asian religious and spiritual influence into Italy.

Pali Buddhism had to Tucci a marginal importance besides the main stream of his Mahayanist concern.

Tucci was pensioned off as Professor Emeritus for a few years as a fascist suspect of illegal journeys and depredation in Tibet.

By 1948, this "Marco Polo recidivous" was rehabilitated and enabled to organise his last expedition to Tibet with the most splendid display of cultural results, equipped with experts in recording colour films and music in temple ceremonies and documentation of the art.

As an expert, possibly the best known in the world at the time, he was considered indispensable in organising the planning of further excavation work in Pakistan and Afghanistan for the next ten years.

In the obituary of his death he was called "the Great Lama of the West". Tucci claimed to be a Tibetan in a previous life. He was able to transport from Tibet enormous quantities of manuscripts, objets d'art and artefacts for subsequent study and reproduction.

At one level, there are some persons who question the fine point of removing tantric devices without doing offerings so that the heavenly protectors of such devices can appear to leave the former place of practice and follow the device to its new home designed to be a place of practice.

Our Teacher has examined the space near many locations with the old devices in situ and has compared that space with the space surrounding old devices that have been placed in a museum.

Fortunately, there are a few beings appearing in the Western world who have the skill and spent much of their merit making the efforts to build new strong working vihars.

These strong vihars attract either originals of valuable ritual objects or have Teachers able to make or who can instruct local artists to make "working" duplicates of the ritual objects.

Strong vihars include those who can practice tantric texts.

Housing suitable for an ancient artifice is prepared in advance so that when it arrives from another country the new "shrine home" needed for the situation is ready.

Such circumstances happen from causes devised by influential practitioners who care about such elite business enough to function from the good heart.

Who gets what, when and how is the issue that every influential elite has to settle among the devotees.

The highest form of victory is to conquer by strategy.

It is correct to posit that there is a growing global proclivity to present Buddha Dhamma objects in a museum form of an entertainment to be viewed rather than to use them for practice.

If this is so, what strategy can be used by the World Fellowship of Buddhists (W.F.B.) to help the viewing public attending museum displays awake to the practice of Buddha Dhamma?

Throughout the world, new museums are being built and old museums are being revitalised.

In 1998, the Louvre Museum in Paris completed its $1.2 billion renovation project.

In the same year, Te Pape, a new national museum for New Zealand, and the nation's first Vietnam War museum opened in Holmdel, New Jersey, U.S.A.

This year, the Victorian Museum at Melbourne moved a vast number of museum pieces from academic exclusivist to more extensive public display, Within three years, the new museum will open under the supervision of senior museum presenters.

More display space is planned to give better presentation of the treasures.

Can Dhamma practitioners devise an economically sound advance to extend the aftermath of a short time museum display to help persons come to refuge in Buddha Dhamma?

To life awareness (sati) of the viewing public, it might be difficult to move them away from museum presentation to a preferred setting for Buddhist exotic art forms to a vihar rather than a museum.

By nature, to attract funding, the fashionable museum is arranged to deliver appearance rather than form.

In saying this, the author does not intend to denigrate in any sense the idea of a museum's purpose.

But it is reasonable to expect the research front that leads to quality Buddha Dhamma teachings in the 21st century suitable for the next generation of devotees in Western countries be pioneered by institutions such as State owned and controlled museums?

It will be argued in Western countries that this is unlikely to happen.

For this reason, a reward system that gives tax incentives to place rare Buddha Dhamma artefacts in museums ought to be resisted. If we do not do it today, we will regret it tomorrow.

We communicate with unknown persons at home and abroad whose belief systems we perceive as likely to be near our own or who have yet to form a belief system. They may or may not be searching for the truth of what is what.

We want material help (dana) from one fraction of our unknown fellow practitioners to fund our efforts and we want some other fraction of these unknown persons to come to our Centre to learn.

The persons we want must be teachable.

Modern advertising of the existence of our services is run live by radio broadcasts and with text from our website.

We exist within a system where it is permitted for our organisation (rather than the State) to control almost no end of assets.

We are capitalistic because we do not plan or seek methods to transfer our hard won assets that we use for religious purposes to the secular community. The State is never neutral in such issues and so, although we are exempt from paying income tax on our asset build up at present, we have no certainty that things we do with our monies that favour our private view of social needs we see as good will be allowed to continue.

The postulates of any social theory are value judgements born of the experience of the individual thinker who makes them.

Within Australia, liberalism has and is shaping Australia.

The Labour opposition is shaped from the medium it was born from and it is difficult for that party to agree to a common level of economic experience where the capitalistic paradigm becomes widespread.

There may be some latent tendency to want to apply the methods of dialectical materialism to debate.

The choice of symbols in dialectical materialism elevated the reading of private preferences into universal history, the remoulding of the universe in the pattern of desire and completion of the crippled self by the incorporation of the symbol of the whole

Until the competing symbolism of glasnost arose to replace such compulsive formulation, the cold war could not have passed into history. There are cultural residues left to appear because of the depth and length of time problems were widely understood in that dialectical frame.

How deep was the ill-will generated for years of following what was the party line which was to be implemented world wide by taking the path of killing; or (as it was put, in 1936, by the Secretary of State of the Comsomal, adapting Lenin) " . . . we have the task . . . to declare who shall destroy whom, in the whole world".

As holders of the precept of no killing, we cannot and will not suggest in our radio programs or on our website any goal holding that we suggest violent means are acceptable policy for settling disputes.

Professor Catlin has stated what we learn from the times of the Christian reformation that those who lived by the privileges of the old order (More and Fisher and the Monks) were ready to fight for them.

We hope to persuade persons to be peaceful but we cannot praise or lend support to those who think killing other persons has merit and is a superior way to live. Killing brings demerit.

The same position statements on what is merit and what is not applies to other precepts.

One reason for broadcasting is to present a favourable image of merit making to the public at large of our organisation's efforts in Buddha Dhamma

One form of raising of public awareness in the local area of our place we might consider as the goal of training is to use the radio broadcast to invite persons to contact us if they feel inclined to learn how to keep five precepts.

This means when we recruit new Members, they are likely to be teachable.

The main goal is to make our Member participants creative enough to write, produce and present Buddha Dhamma talks conforming to whatever are our current concerns at a given time.

This five day bhavana course is being guided by John D. Hughes.

The focus of this five day course is the development of systematic attention (Pali: yoniso manasikara).

It is systematic attention that helps that Student to quiet his or her untrustworthy mind.

In 1991, the late Venerable Piyadassi Mahathera wrote(1):

"Many a man [or woman] today thinks that freedom and unrestraint are synonyms and that the taming of the self is a hindrance to self-development.

In the teaching of the Buddha, however, it is quite different.

The self must be subdued and tamed on right lines if it is to become truly well.

The Buddha, the Tamed, teaches the Dhamma for the purpose of taming the human heart (danto so Bhagava dam-taya dhammam deseti)".

The tamed mind has the property of being calm (Pali: passaddhi), and when concentrated the calm mind can see things as they really are (Pali: samahito yatha bhutum pajanati).

Members are studying the chapter entitled "Things fall apart" in Mahasi Sayadaw's book: "Fundamentals of Vipassana Meditation" translated by Maung Tha Noe, first published in 1981.

They are invited to give systematic attention to thinking of the Bodhisattva's names in the Jatakas: Vessantara, Mahajanaka, Vidhura, Temiya, . . .these names were lost for millions of years until the Buddha restored them.

Appellations are just conventions that do not travel with us from life to life.

It is sobering and helpful to recall this fact.

It becomes clear that the high investment of egotism that a person invests in his or her name this life is misplaced.

Good things generated in part this life will be inherited by the person you will become next life.

This being will have a different human name provided you have the merit to be born human next life.

Prior to the course, some Members made the merit needed for this training by attending to the Monk, Venerable Dhammadharo, who is staying at our Centre this Vassa.

Venerable Dhammadharo practices bhavana at our Centre in the Mahasi Sayadaw, U Ba Kim and Goenka traditions.

The Monk, who was born in Cambodia, made it easier for our Members to pay respect and serve the Sangha.

Our more experienced Members have been teaching the Monk at his request to read, write and speak the English language.

During the five day course, Members worked on our style manual.

Style rules are not engraved on golden tablets, and further comments and suggestions are needed.

The style manual is to help our Members and sub-editors produce clean copy which one local newspaper style manual describes as: "accurate, literate, clear and concise and in style".

Our style manual requires all of our five styles.

When clean copy is produced, it saves valuable time of our leading graduate sub-editors, Arrisha, Leanne and Vanessa.

Our Knowledge Management Task Unit was trusted with the project of developing our electronic version of the style manual.

The style manual is needed to raise awareness of how we communicate with precision, and most Members were encouraged to work on our style manual.

The question of our systematic policy approach to capitals and style in ranks and titles are brought together in the style manual.

Other matters dealt with are abbreviations, use of foreign words without diacritical marks, and what range of variations we find acceptable and the general course we suppose our style manual will sanction.

During this part of the course, some Members commenced the task of maintaining regular printed supplements to our style manuals.

To find the agreeable forms that word additions take for our manual, they retrieved preferred definitions that our Teacher has used in his writing over the decades.

To do this, Members gained experience in use of our ISYS search engine capacity to transform data from the virtual form present in our electronic databases.

Our Teacher's collection of preferred Oxford English definitions and translated words from major Buddhist classic texts, assembled over the last 30 years, is deemed a useful resource for W.F.B. purposes.

New inputs for our 500-year Guardianship policy for written Dhamma were explored.

Recent additions to the John D. Hughes Collection (our extensive range of Buddhist reference material) were catalogues.

Several Members practiced to become competent with the ORGANIZE . . . software used for the present library system.

An outline of our next after next planning was given.

Members viewed demonstration of the next generation of library software we intend to install ­ called Athena.

A library position paper published in the Brooking Street Bugle Issue No. 11 was reviewed.

To be practical and professional, the correctness of our word usage (an ongoing project) was helped by making our glossaries more manifest.

Our preferred glossary for words and phrases is an extension of the 500-word project proposal running since 1996.

The rationales of the style manuals of various Australian printers were utilised to produce a better declaration of what we need.

John D. Hughes' research into a range of preferred English usage phrases can be noted as examples of systematic attention.

When his systematic output is organised and used by our organisation more frequently it should help many persons add clarity to their use of terminology about Buddha Dhamma or for translating classical Pali terms.

Members were fortunate that Pali is understood by the resident Monk and he gave our Members a chance to verify that English use of some Pali words was near enough.

The Monk was not at the Centre till the last day of the course.

After prajna paramita teaching by John D. Hughes, invited Members sat quietly with the Monk for one hour in the Hall of Assembly to test what they had learnt over the five days.

Further practice in attention was gained by Members testing themselves on recall of our OH&S safety bulletins.

Outside, fireproof cladding was added to our storage archive, which was then painted by Members.

May all beings be well and happy.

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

References

1. The Spectrum of Buddhism ­ first published 1991. Reprinted for free distribution by Bright Moon Buddhist Society Inc. ISBN 955-9098-03-9 (p271).

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Accordingly, we accept no liability to any user or subsequent third party, either expressed or implied, whether or not caused by error or omission on either our part, or a member, employee or other person associated with the Chan Academy Australia (Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.)

This Radio Script is for Free Distribution. It contains Buddha Dhamma material and is provided for the purpose of research and study.

Permission is given to make printouts of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. Please keep it in a clean place.

"The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts".

For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us.

© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.