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A Bodhisattva adds value in the world through practical actualisation of his or her vision. This vision is in the form of clearly articulated vows.

How do you begin to move toward this? The answer is through the cultivation of the object of faith in your (wholesome) minds.

Many Buddhist practitioners of the past and present have left a legacy of a life whereby they have shown "Vision for Adding Value". Noble persons who practised well in the past have enjoyed a life span of a hundred, some 120 and even up to 140 years. The more a Monk or Nun practised this way, the more respect they were granted, and the better they could serve Buddha.

John D. Hughes, Founder of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., clearly articulates "Vision for Adding Value" through a clear and consistent theme.

This is Lifetimes of Learning and the cultivation of friendliness, practicality, professionalism, cultural adaptability and scholarship.

This theme is evident in the verbal and written messages communicated through the teachings, the flagship newsletter the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, fundraising, relationships with Dhamma Centres or other outside institutions and this weekly radio broadcast, to name just a few examples.

An example of one of our members exhibiting "vision of adding value" is Vanessa Macleod, who trains Members to catalogue books for the John D. Hughes Collection.

Members currently in training are Frank Carter, Arrisha Burling, Isabella Hobbs, Philip Svensson and Anita Svensson.

Other Members who have expressed interest in learning how to catalogue are Leila Lamers, Evelin Halls, David Igracki, Lenore Hamilton and Santi Sukha.

Cataloguing must be done together by two persons to ensure double checking of entry of information and correct procedures. Three sessions are needed to ensure thorough learning and correct practice.

John D. Hughes teaches his students to practice this theme and through this become ambassadors in the promotion of goodwill towards the propagation of the Buddha Dhamma both in Australia and overseas.

The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. is a regional centre of the World Fellowship of Buddhists. John D. Hughes is a Vice-president of the World Fellowship of Buddhists.

The World Fellowship of Buddhists was established in 1950 in Colombo Sri Lanka. The longevity of this organisation can be attributed to the clear "Vision for Adding Value" of its constitutional founders through to its present day executive council and vice-presidents.

The World Fellowship of Buddhists operates across many cultures, and through a clearly stated vision the regional Centres have a common theme.

This theme is articulated through the World Fellowship of Buddhists aims and objectives. Some of the objectives written in the Constitution are:

* To promote among the members strict observance and practice of the Teachings of Buddha;

* To propagate the sublime doctrine of the Buddha;

* To organise and carry on activities in the field of social, educational, cultural and other humanitarian services.

John D. Hughes articulates his "Vision for Adding Value" through such activities as:

The final 5- Day Bhavana Course for 1999 ran from Monday 27 December 1999 to Friday 31 December 1999.

The course was about learning the tools towards creating a life whereby the members can develop "Vision for Adding Value".

Tools for meeting deadlines, getting things done on time, knowing the time, knowing the place to assist Members to learn how to make merit to fuel their Life Plans.

Members are committed to tasks to continue management of the Centre's activities while John D. Hughes is on a three-month retreat.

During the December Bhavana course Members learnt:
--flow charting current concerns in JDH's Life Plan to generate the merit to do their own life plans
--plan creation
--creating the causes to do a life plan and generate the merit to propel it by committing to working on John D. Hughes's Winners Gain Ground book.

Other activities included:
--posting of the BDDR Volume 9 No.3
--construction and painting of the Bodhi tree surround
--Geology Museum upgrade
--The Buddhist Hour Millennium radio broadcast at 12 midnight on 31 December 1999.
--Preparation and giving out of John D. Hughes' hair relics by Arrisha Burling on her birthday
--The course concluded with a New Years Eve party and celebration of Arrisha Burling's 27th birthday. The theme of the party was "WOW!"


Flow charting

The teaching on flow charts was about funding and creating the causes for the things you wish to complete on your life plans.

It is our Centre's capacity to increase the third order knowledge of trainees.

The associated skills that result from this training will make Members employable in the next century.

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

One of John D. Hughes' current concerns where he is practically documenting how to develop the tools to develop "Vision for Adding Value" is to write a book called "The Life Work Skills You Are Looking For" consisting of the following chapters:

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 prerequisite 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 organisations 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 will recognise that persons having mastery of these eight things must be the future managers and will be able to begin to actualise a life whereby they can develop "Vision for Adding Value".

Each of these subjects was 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

The Buddhist Discussion Centre Members are in training to use 2nd and 3rd order conceptual thinking about knowledge UNTIL they can reach higher and higher orders of thinking. This training is to allow the members to develop this maturity required to more towards a life of "Vision for Adding Value".

At a certain level of attainment (about 7th to 8th order thinking), the ways of approaching the four foundations of mindfulness starts to be viewed in an alternative frame of reference.

This change is explained in "A Lamp for the Path and Commentary" of Atisha, where Conceptual Thought (Vikalpa) is defined as 'The ideation process of the mind, the forming of concepts and discursive thinking.'

'And this Insight which does not see
Intrinsic nature in any phenomena
Is that same Insight explained as Wisdom.
Cultivate it without conceptual thought.'

'The world of change springs from conceptual
Thought, which is its very nature;
The complete removal of such
Thought is the Highest Nirvana.'

'Moreover, the Blessed One declared:
"Conceptual thinking is the great ignorance,
And casts one into samsara's ocean; but
Clear as the sky is his contemplation who
Remains in Concentration without concepts."'

However, this level of understanding is the "end-game" for but a few persons in the world.

For this life and the next two lives it is not possible for the majority of our Members to attain and realise this level.

In general terms, it might be said that the ability to remain in concentration without concepts requires so much merit that it is only realised by those who can receive what is generally referred as "transmission of the true knowledge mandala ".

The premature abandonment of conceptual thinking and analysis is Mara.

Why is this so?

It is so because one who abandons conceptual thinking too early has not developed the Four Divine Abidings and the Four Immaterial States which are the basis of the development of Concentration. One who has not developed the Four Divine Abiding and the Four Immaterial States is impure of character and unable to truly abandon concepts. By attempting to abandon concepts too early, wholesome concepts will be replaced by unwholesome concepts.

What are these four Four Divine Abidings and the Four Immaterial States that are the description of Concentration?

The Four Divine Abidings are Loving kindness, Compassion, Sympathetic Joy and Equanimity. Why do these Four Divine Abidings assist in concentration? For Concentration to be established, the trainee must first purify these mind states. Why must he or she do so?

Of these states, Lovingkindness is the way to purity for one who has much hate, Compassion is for one who has much cruelty, Sympathetic Joy is the way for one who has much aversion (boredom), and equanimity is for one who has much greed. How difficult is it for such persons to obtain wholesome concepts that they then abandon them?

The Four Immaterial States are the Sphere of Infinite Space, the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness, the Sphere of Emptiness and the Sphere of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception. Why are these aforementioned states conducive to the development of concentration?

The Sphere of Infinite Space is due to surmounting signs of materiality, the Sphere of Infinite Consciousness is for surmounting space, the Sphere of Emptiness is for surmounting the consciousness with space as its object, the Sphere of Neither Perception nor Non-Perception is for surmounting the disappearance of consciousness.

So they should be understood as four, with the surmounting of the object in each sphere by two factors, namely equanimity and unification of mind.

That being so,

They progress in refinement; each
Is finer than the one before.
Two figures help make them known:
The cloth lengths, and each palace floor.

Another example of "Vision for Adding Value" can also be clearly illustrated through the economic activity of a country. Most persons have heard of the notion of relative Added Value of Manufactures.

For example, The Economist in 1989 published a value added rating chart for Japanese technology.

Starting from the value of the cost of one pound weight of metal used in the constructions of various things;
the added value in dollars was $10 per pound of metal for a luxury car;
for a mainframe computer it was $160 per pound of metal and
for a supercomputer $1,700 per pound of metal;
for a jet fighter it was $2,500 per pound of metal
and for a satellite $20,000 per pound of metal, value added.

Unlike Victorian Britain, Japan neither rests on its laurels nor spends on Empire.

To illustrate from the U.K. experience between 1870 and 1930, the urgent need for replacement equipment was not matched by the supply of the necessary investment capital. This situation did not arise from lack of available wealth but from where the wealth was being directed.

The decline of the British Economy in the late 1940's can be attributed to a failure in equipment investment policy. A study, [George Terborgh, Dynamic Equipment Policy, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1949] revealed that as long as a machine was running and performing the job intended the British manager was not motivated to replace it. This, of course, is in complete disregard of the truth that replacement is dictated solely by economic considerations and not by the engineering ability of management to keep the machine running.

If the economics favour replacement, the savings which he rejects are equivalent to his paying for a new machine without getting it" (2).

What adds value to a company is the ability to create new products and or services.

A recent study on titled 'Corporate Creativity' by Robson and Stern (1997) has debunked many myths about creativity in organisations; one of these myths has been to search for the brilliant, creative individual who has the innovative flair. As it turned out,

"A company's creativity is limited to the same extent that it acts on preconceptions about who will be creative, what they will do, and when and how they will do it"

This means it is essential is that the cultural climate of the organisation accommodate the total unpredictability of where the next truly creative idea is going to come from, facilitating and accepting creative contributions regardless of where they come from in the organisation.

This is relevant in trying to understand the historical factors behind Japanese economic success where most Japanese companies seem to exhibit the characteristics that allow the harnessing of individual creativity.

Robinson and Sterns study on Corporate Creativity has shown that management does not have control over creativity as was thought.

In Japan, government direction in the development of the industrial base was considered essential because of the lack of indigenous resources. The industrialisation of Japan was the handiwork of a state that has assumed the combined roles of entrepreneur, financier, and initiator of the fostered economic "leap forward". 3.

Japan's Council on Industrial Structure stated that:

"Japan will retain and encourage the branches of the machine industry that yield high added value, but production facilities which involve a low degree of processing and generate low value added should be moved to developing countries . . . so that Japan can concentrate on high technology and knowledge intensive industry" 4.

Japan has a competitive advantage over Europe and the U.S.A. in both the cost and supply of capital for investment. The availability of funds for investment depends largely on national savings.

In 1985, the net national savings rate (as a percentage of GNP) in the U.S.A. was 3.2 %, going only half way to support a national investment rate of 6.2%. In Japan, a savings rate of 16.7% easily covered an investment rate of 13%.

The outcome of this situation is that the cost of capital in the U.S.A. is three times the cost of capital in Japan. In the U.S.A., foreign capital, particularly Japanese, is imported to bridge the gap between their savings and investment.

In California, five of the top ten banks are Japanese. In 1989, eight out of ten of the world's largest banks were Japanese, up from one in ten in 1980. 5.

Japan has steadily increased its productivity not only in manufacturing but also in services.

A shrinking workforce may stimulate a large investment in automation and other labour-saving devices, as in Japan at present.

In the future its industrial bases will give place to services and the Japanese will spend more and save less.

Generally, the collective understanding enlarges as a society becomes more cosmopolitan.

Because Australia is likely to continue its immigration policies, Australian citizens are likely to become more understanding about the importance of trading as we become more cosmopolitan.

Part of Australia's economic growth in exports can be traced to the energy and work ethic of persons who were not born in Australia, worked here for a few years, then returned to their own country.

Some of these very important persons came as managers of multicultural organisations.
These Masters of Business Administration bring with them the rare treasure of high grade managerial skills useful for the information age.

They might be called meteoric Australians who flash into our skies lighting up the land below and then are gone.

They do not become naturalised to become true Australian citizens but, while here, show a deep commitment to the improvement of this country in the sense of open-handedness in bringing their global vision and high order work skills into our culture by working in Australia.

That they can train local that comes into play when a perceptual judgement is formed can be clearly distinguished by its mark; this mark consists in the capacity of being expressed in speech.

Conceptions are utterable, but sensations are unutterable.

A mental construction that implies a distinct cognition of a mental reflex, which is capable of coalescing with a verbal designation ­ this variety of the spontaneous activity of the mind, is meant when sensation is contrasted with conception, says the Buddhist Master Dharmakirti.

Communication of a sane lifestyle towards retirement is also left behind by the meteoric Australians.

When they return to their own country after their immigration tour of duty is finished they disclose they have a sound life plan for their retirement.

Generally, they have a vision of their ageing and plan for it with more intensity than the way some Australians are likely to plan before they join an ageing population.

It is clear that if you do not plan for your retirement well ahead of time, you are short of concepts.

Professor Paul Kennedy (1993) pointed out that for countries where more and more expensive techniques are being used to prolong the lives of those over seventy-five, the question is whether these resources might be better invested elsewhere, such as in preventative medicine for the very young or improved educational facilities.

There is a concern that the age structure and spending priorities of a country with a high "elderly dependency ratio" may be a drag upon overall production increases.

Not all advanced economies are equally affected by the problem of excessively ageing populations.

Economic strategies have been and are conceptualised and concretised e.g., GNP.
The current Australia Government policy regarding community services, which is related to Human needs, demands that managers now use business skills and strategies .

Feelings cannot be conceptualised ­ fleeting, habit, memory ­ therefore do not have the notion of added value.

Value adding is important in manufacturing and services for increasing GNP of a nation.
Value adding is added not through feelings but through concepts.

One of the most important concepts that Members learn in the practice of Buddha Dhamma at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey), Ltd. is to build their life plan, which is not based on chasing feel good sensations but throught the honing of their analytical skills. To construct a life which follows the wisdom of the Buddha.

Concepts can be communicated. Feelings cannot. This is why it is very difficult for people to try and convey and share their feelings. The experience is too personal to be communicated. The practise of Buddha Dhamma allows them to stand aside from their feelings and conceptualise about what has happened to them so they can understand and have an insight into reality of what is what.

It could be said that Buddha Dhamma practise adds value to the individual and to society.

May you develop vision for adding value.

May you develop insight into the reality of what is what.

May you be well and happy.

References.

1. Industrial Activity and Economic Growth. p.185

2. Managerial and Engineering Economy. p. 412

3. Industrial Activity and Economic Growth. p.128

4. 'AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review', vol. 9, nos 2, p.44.

5. When Giants Learn to Dance. p.26 - 27.

6. A Lamp for the Path and Commentary. p. 11, 193.

7. Robinson, Alan and Stern Sam, Corporate Creativity. Business and Professional Publishing, NSW 1997.

Sources

Ackley, G. Macroeconomic Theory, 1969, Collier McMillan International Editors
Tisdell, Economics of Markets
Taylor, G.A., Managerial and Engineering Economy, 1964, D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., New York.
Pogue & Sgontz Government & Economic choice- An Introduction to Public Finance
America Tomorrow, Creating the Great Society, 1965, Signet Books.
Shirras & Rostas, British Taxation, 1942, Cambridge Press.
Humphreys, I.J., Economic Theory, 1975, Pitman Australia.
Australian Financial System Inquiry, Commissioned Studies and selected papers, Part I, Macroeconomic Policy: Internal Policy, 1982.
Horngren & Foster, Cost Accounting - A Managerial Emphasis, 1987. Prentice Hall International Editors, 6th Edition.
Estall, R.C. & Ogilvie Buchanan, R. Industrial Activity and Economic Geography, 1961, Hutchinson University Library.
Kanter, R.M. When Giants Learn to Dance, 1989, Simon & Schuster Ltd.
Nakano,Kenji. Japan's Overseas Investment Patterns and FTS's, 1977 in AMPO: Japan-Asia Quarterly Review.
Atisha, A Lamp for the Path and Commentary, 1983, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London.

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