The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

This afternoon at our Centre a senior Buddhist Monk visited and chanted for us and guided our Members to the triple gem refuge and five precepts.

As a result our Members who are live on air have generated sufficient merit to run this evening's program.

We wish to thank the station's management for their help and efforts over the year.

We dedicate the merit of this evening's program to them.

We wish to come together with them again and again to bring the Buddha Dhamma to persons like you, now and in the future, to help world peace.

Our teacher, John D. Hughes, will have the Visuddhananda Peace Award conferred on him by a delegation of Senior Monks on 5 January 2000 at 2 pm at our Centre at 33 Brooking Street, Upwey, 3158.

Please visit us and receive blessings by attending the ceremony.

We stir up the energy to arouse the intention to show our listeners the ancient Path to come to peace.

Our Members have chanted good things for you so you start the year on the right minds.
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We thank our listeners for their attention and send our Year 2000 New Year's Greetings to you and your family. Our wishes are that you be well and happy.

Members and friends of the Centre that are not at the live broadcast are enjoying a get-together at our Centre having just completed a five-day bhavana course.

During that course Members wrote and refined their detailed life plans and how they will fund them.

One of our Vice Presidents, Rodney Johnson, had his birthday during the course.

Rodney has checked and rechecked that our computer systems are Year 2000 safe.

During the five-day course, Rodney worked long hours flow-charting on our system's software the planning steps found for many of our new projects that are planned for the first six months of this year.

Within a series of flowchart boxes are placed Member's names that will do the project.

The subject matters selected prepare the Work Skills of Members for the 21st century.

As a social group we take responsibility for making sure our Members are employable in this century.

It is no good preparing persons for today's ways of doing commerce. An estimated 60% of present job skills using first order knowledge will not be needed within the next decade.

There is no present day formal training for an estimated 40% of the jobs skills needed

We can compare our economy with the state of mind of America when their president set a national task to place a person on the moon.

The 8000 key skills needed for a space program did not exist at that time anywhere in the world.

All that was available was billions of dollars for research and persons of vision who believed it could happen.

Australia needs to plant 5 billion trees to control salinity.

Perhaps if tree planting on such a scale were mechanised, it would be affordable.

It is not affordable if using the "billions of impoverished, uneducated individuals in the developing world, and tens of millions of unskilled, nonprofessional workers in the developed world" described by P. Kennedy in his novel Preparing for the Twenty-First Century (1993).

Kennedy examines this large population of persons, describing their prospects as "poor" and in many cases "getting worse". He continues:

Their plight is the concern of the pessimistic writings about the demographic explosion and environmental catastrophes by the Ehrlichs, the Worldwatch Institute, and others, and it inspires studies on future career trends and their social implications, like the work of Robert Reich. Initially, it might seem that only one school of thought must be right, but it could be that each has examined different aspects of a single phenomenon, so that the optimists are excited about the world's "winners" whereas the pessimists worry at the fate of the "losers".

We subscribe to both views as being correct, and that the gap between the rich and the poor in Australia will widen, as Kennedy suggests.

It is our Centre's capacity to increase the third order knowledge of trainees. The associated skills that result from this training will make these persons employable in the next century.

The ability to work in a group with new software on a multi-million dollar project every day for ten hours a day until the project is complete will not only become more common, skills and aptitudes like these will become a necessary requirement for persons maintaining a common work ethos.

Acquiring Information ­ Psychological accessibility is needed. The individual must be able to recognise his/her need for information, be willing to seek this information and be able to convey the need to a second person (the information specialist) when necessary. Using computer search engines, paper-based technical libraries and Internet products and services our Members will identify information requirements, and develop sifting and gathering skills.

Ability to Perform Practical Tasks ­ Emotional maturity is required to accept the demand for rapid learning of new skills. Members will need to train themselves to develop advanced skill sets, and be willing to implement learned knowledge to own and proficiently perform tasks on an unsupervised basis.

Ability To Work In Groups and Teams ­ Cultural adaptability, pliability of mental states and the rapid exchange and processing of information are required by individuals in the information age, where modern organisational culture typically structures projects around team work. Members wishing to work on our projects must develop these skills.

Scientific Knowledge ­ Our Geology Museum will allow scientific training to be acquired by our Members who volunteer their time. Scientific literacy will be a minimum pre-requisite for all skilled workers and professionals.

Third Order Matrix Thinking and Problem Solving ­ The increasing complexity and volume of information will render first and second order ways of dealing with information and solving problems obsolete.

Enterprise and Excellence ­ The nature of enterprise in the 21st Century will be marked by a demand for frequent and rapid changes to business. Greater competition will force a culture of excellence upon those organizations that desire to stay viable.

Perseverance ­ Project ownership requires persistence and commitment to the tasks undertaken. Our project management professionals must develop this quality.

Performance Evaluation ­ All systems must be better integrated to provide performance evaluation information at much higher levels than at present.

Many listeners will recognize that persons having mastery of these eight things must be the future managers.

Each of these subjects are planned and detailed into a series of flow charts that contain:

Names of the persons who will help
Time allotment by persons who will help
Names of Persons owning tasks
Produce 10 references
Produce 10 abstracts
Produce to our standards
Review book
Print book
Edit book
Catalogue book

In 1798, Thomas Robert Malthus wrote "An Essay on the Principle of Population as It Affects the Future Improvement of Society" (London, 1798) focusing on what appeared to him the greatest problem facing the human species: "that the power of population is indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man".

The " power of population" was answered not so much by "the power in the earth" itself, but by the power of technology ­ the capacity of the human mind to find new ways of doing things, to invent new devices, to organize production in improved forms, to quicken the pace of moving goods and ideas from one place to another, to stimulate fresh approaches to old problems.

Overpopulation, pressure upon the land, migration, and social instability on the one hand, and technology's power both to increase productivity and to displace traditional occupations on the other, still confront us today, with greater force than ever. In other words, we should see the demographic and economic conditions of the late eighteenth century as a metaphor for the challenges facing our present global society, two centuries after Malthus's ponderings.

Today is the 27th birth anniversary of Member Arrisha Burling. Arrisha has been a Member for three and a half years.

Originally she lived in Perth and after attending a five-day course in 1996 she decided to move to Melbourne to be near our Teacher. She became a financial Member in 1996. Since that time, she has realised that looking after the Teacher is wise. As a result of this practice, her health improved. As a result of fundraising, her income improved. She looks forward to helping make the Centre sustainable for 500 years or more over the next five years, and becoming President of the Centre over the next twenty years.

Among the many valuable tasks she does at our Centre, Arrisha is Assistant Editor of our flagship Journal, the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review. Later in the program we shall explain the meaning of the word DANA in the title.

Arrisha graduated from Murdoch University with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Communications Studies in 1995. She works as a Communications Coordinator in the superannuation industry. At present, she is continuing her studies part-time at Monash University for a Bachelor of Business. She gets high distinctions in her tertiary studies.

Her command of English language and grammar is superior.

The latest Issue of the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, Volume 9, Number 3, was posted around Australia and to 40 countries on 29 December 1999.

The contents are:

-- List of Contributors
-- Moon Phases 2000
--Glossary
--Coming Events at Our Centre
--Editorial
--Visuddhananda Peace Award 1999
--Founder's Day 1999 and Convivium of Living Knowledge Heritage
--September Bhavana Course
--Chan Academy 1999 Spring Chan Classes with Master John D. Hughes
--The Basic Teaching of the Buddha, by Andre Sollier
--Majjhima Nikaaya Part 1.1, Muulapariyaayasutt.m, Origin and Behaviour of All Thoughts, translated by Sister Uppalawanna
--Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravada Buddhism by Ven. Varasambodhi
--The Library You Are Looking For, Chapter 6 - Looking for Emotional Maturity (Caga) in our Library Systems
--The Library You Are Looking For, Chapter 7 - Library Policies for Today and Tomorrow
--The Testing Without An Examiner - Radio Broadcast on 18 July 1999
--The Relinquishment of Affiliation From Your Family - Radio Broadcast on 25 July 1999
--Letter From Ven. Sushilananda Sraman
--Friends, Let's Create a Buddhist World, by Ven. Bhikkhu Vipassanapal Thera, Tapoban Buddhist Monastery, India
--Appeal for Dhammarajika Orphanage
--Appeal for Titabor Buddhist Centre
--Appeals for Others
--Appeal for Funds
--How You Can Help Our Centre

Lord Buddha said that giving detailed instructions of how to wake up the minds and practice to get out of suffering is the highest gift. The Pali word "dana" means something like "giving something of value to others".

So Dhamma Dana - the giving of the instructions of how to come out of suffering - is the highest gift. There is nothing higher than this.

Our publication is freely given. We produce three issues per year.

Printing the last issue cost $1400 and postage cost $2100. Our Members raise this money.

Arrisha raised $1600 towards the total cost by selling flowers on Christmas day and through a printing and postage sponsorship program.

As a self-help organisation, we encourage persons like Arrisha to develop themselves in three extra ways to be a useful Member of society.

Until recently, the history of education was a neglected focus of interest amongst historians, sociologists, educationalists and feminists. According to June Purvis (1980), even standard histories of education texts offered limited discussion of the issue.

Most adult-education provision in the 19th Century in the U.K. was the result of voluntary rather than State effort; state provision did not develop until the second half of the century, especially during the last few decades.

The first Sunday school held exclusively for adults was a school established for young working class women employed in the lace and hosiery industries in Nottingham.

Though the establishment of this school appears to be a relatively isolated occurrence, it was followed in time by the establishment of middle class business initiatives, especially that of male businessmen with involvement by non-conformist religious groups, especially the Quakers.

They had a narrow curriculum that offered an introduction to literacy and an emphasis upon using the Bible and other religious books as reading texts.

It was from Bristol, in 1812, rather than in Nottingham, that the adult Sunday school movement developed. Two schools were established, one for men and one for women.

Thus, by 1816, there were 31 schools for women and 24 for men while the numbers admitted since commencement were 1887 female and 1434 male scholars.

Why did more working class women than men become scholars at these schools?

Unfortunately, most of the research in this area relates to working-class men rather than working class women. The statements made by Dr. Pole in his address of 1813 illustrated that the kind of benefits that many middle-class persons hoped the Sunday Schools might bring, included "meekness, Christian fortitude and resignation".

The latent functions appear to be social control and class control.

The working classes were regarded as culturally and morally deficient; one way to improve them was to use adult education as a vehicle for socialisation into a different group of values.

The Mechanics Institute movement, which began in the 1820s, is usually regarded as the major adult-education movement of the 19th Century.

These institutes never aimed to attract female scholars.

It was not until 1861 that female members were allowed to vote or hold office.

At the large northern institutes of Liverpool, in 1845 the number of female members reached a peak of 560 out of a total membership of 3763.

It is difficult to establish the social class background of the female members.

At Manchester, in 1846, a decision was made to attract women from the lower middle classes rather than the working classes. This included the daughters of "shopkeepers" and "respectable classes of mechanics" and those who wanted to give their daughters a good education, but could not afford the fees of an expensive school.

Institutes of the more popular kind, called Lyceums, attempted to recruit both working-class women and men by offering a varied program of education and entertainment at much cheaper rates than most Mechanics Institutes.

Why were reading rooms regarded as a male preserve? "Separate" never meant "equal".

In the second half of the 19th Century, working men's colleges and institutes were established.

The "useful knowledge" taught not only included the 3 "Rs" but also a broad range of subjects - Latin, Greek, French, German, mathematics, literature, logic, elocution and drawing - all for ninepence a week.

Working Men's Colleges were established widely and tuition was extended to include chemistry, geometry, history, algebra and logic.

The choice of such subjects is understandable since "Cambridge men", according to Jonathan Ree (1980), dominated all working men's colleges.

We would now like to explain our views on how we provide access to high grade education.

Blatantly, we hold that superior mind cultivation is the first tool needed for education.

We do not wish to interpret or belittle the great efforts made in potted histories of Western adult education efforts, that helped the working class shift from cloddish literal-mindedness roles in viewing their position in work systems as some kind of passive cog in a production team.

What we do want to make clear is that from our viewpoint there are still three paramount issues that need to be articulated into our version of a Western civilization learning curricula.

The first is that it is fundamental to work ethics that killing of sentient beings ought to be eliminated or at least minimized, and this precept has been sidetracked from deep analysis in work culture.

The second is that the s-curve nature of the limits to growth of bio-systems has been worked out, and there is no reason to doubt that economic limits apply to conventional education using face-to-face delivery.

The third thing is that the foundations of most Western accounts of education tend to be "normalized" to produce a curious and ideological illusion about the economic limits of education.

In Manufacturing Consent, Noam Chomsky suggested that Western culture and education has been embedded with normalisation by certain government and non-government organisations aiming to achieve political and economic power.

Normalisation appears as what "everyone thinks they know" when their minds manufacture pathways to consent to sustain the greater portion of their anti-work, anti-study lower class thinking.

We are not interested in maintaining the causes and the culture of poverty among our Members.

Since we teach in these three frames of reference we aim to cut the effects of normalisation from our Members' minds.

We do not wish to waste our valuable volunteers' time, our most precious resource, on lay persons who neither want to work in right livelihood occupations nor study work-related skills.

We have simple tests to identify such lay persons.

For example, we are not willing to accept a person who makes a policy statement such as "I do not wish to work in a nine to five job", unless he or she can give a sane reply to our next question.

"Well, what working hours up to 90 hours a week do you want to give to work and work-related study?"

His or her silence in reply shows that he or she does not understand the need for intense education in the information age, and has a reluctance to sacrifice high-grade leisure time to do it.

Our Centre is not to embark on an uncritical and unhistorical revival of educational idealism, with all its gaps and elisions.

Although we structure our learning from the ideological standpoint of that Buddha Dhamma it is taught as method and means.

It is not taught as "pure" blind theory nor is it taught as "pure" blind practice.

You might say we teach theory and practice to overcome the impression that we are dealing with 1st order knowledge that is has been compared with little more than a set of proverbs.

Our learning systems are exercise in cognitive structuring up to 4th order knowledge.
Just as the idea comes that we may reclaim authentic cuisines we find the revisiting process destroys the originals.

Our Members have just completed a five-day Bhavana (meditation) course. During this course they worked in 2nd order knowledge to develop training information for Work Skills. They produced flow charts relating to eight areas of work skills.

May all beings develop higher order knowledges.

May all beings develop the work skills they require.

May all beings be well and happy.

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

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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.