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Happy New Year! Yesterday, February 5, was Chinese New Year and marked the opening of the Year of the Dragon.

February 2 was an auspicious and festive day for all our Members and friends and marked a great opportunity to showcase Australia's cultural diversity and the Chinese heritage in Australia as our Teacher John D. Hughes opened the Dragon King Shrine at 2 pm in the Geological Museum at the Buddhist Discussion Centre, Upwey, 33 Brooking Street, Victoria.

All visitors' names on the day were added to a list and placed on the Dragon King Altar for their protection in the Year of the Dragon.

The blessings of this great event for the Members and friends in attendance include:

--sharing in the celebration of the Chinese New Year
--being able to commemorate the "Year of the Dragon"
--the opportunity to make offerings to the Dragon King Altar
--to gain protection for the Dragon King in the Year of the Dragon
--receive blessings from Buddhist Masters
--to experience the splendour of the Dragon King Shrine

So you may also share in the blessings and enjoy a feeling of the ambience of this great event, we would now like to read to you the opening speech given by John D. Hughes.

Opening of the Dragon King Shrine ­ speech by John D. Hughes on Saturday 5 February at 2 pm

Venerables, honoured guests, distinguished guests, friends in the Dhamma, visitors seen and unseen, ladies and gentlemen, I welcome you here today to witness a rare event.

Seeing both yourself and the tasks you do in a new light is the most effective way of self-renewal.

Peter Drucker tells the old story of a great clarinetist in an orchestra who was asked by the conductor to sit in the audience and listen to the orchestra play. For the first time, he heard music. After that, he wasn't just playing the clarinet perfectly, he was making music.

He was not doing anything differently, he was giving it new meaning.

By the end of my speech, I hope you come to discover, each for himself or herself, some new meaning to the notion of how the Dragon King comes to help us if we wish to practice.

For most of us, the world of work appears to lack three things.

These are:

1. Lack of recognition or reward for efforts, contributions and dedication;
2. Poor communication because work-related information did not flow to helpers; and
3. Poor standards of performance where individuals felt management did not monitor or value quality of work performance.

Because of the lack of these three things, many persons look to us for a massive dose of self-renewal or, what Covey calls, "sharpening the saw".

Most persons are aware enough to cognate that one of the quickest ways for self-renewal is to help for some time in a voluntary organisation.

We have policy of confidentiality that is so strong that we do not keep written case study records of the reasons Members or visitors have told us of their need to be here and the specific steps we prescribe to a given individual who comes here seeking a path for their self-renewal.

Some of our Members who have undergone many of the self-renewal processes we teach, know how to live the rest of their mental lives within an organisational climate that is tuned like a guitar string that is neither too tight nor too loose.

Our approaches to teaching self-renewal prevents destructive lifestyles because over time our Members find the rich path called 'moderate living'.

After some time, the folly of looking for autonomy in our relations with others is discovered, each for himself or herself, and individuals develop new daily systems of how to have what we may describe as "harmless fun".

This is not a simple decision path of making more progress towards more autonomy.

It is much more refined than that simple notion.

We seek out and find a more formal vehicle within which we exercise greater autonomy (should this be considered, at that time, desirable) or exercise lesser autonomy when that is the wisdom decision.

To reach this stage, we learn here to become aware of superior systems that can evaluate our decision-making powers of how we handle our time.

Then sound decisions are made of how much time we incorporate into our life to negotiate the time we might choose to spend with persons we thought might be called "significant others".

We favour flatter structures to achieve morale through merit making to help others.

But first we must be able to develop the words for the language of sanity.

The texts say that the one major way of being born into the Dragon world is to have been a Monk or a Nun.

Hence, you can understand why the CEO of that realm (the Dragon King) is considered to be a teaching bodhisattva.

Within a section of the Dragon King realm is the most advanced teaching facility taking the form of a super Buddhist University. In that campus, the complete Perfection of Wisdom texts (millions of lines) as taught by the Buddha in his seventh rainy season about 2,500 years ago are stored.

Even today, some advanced yogi persons can visit this heavenly place and report back on the higher teachings stored there.

Over 1,000 years ago, the Buddhist scholar Nagarjuna sent his mind there and transcribed the shorter version of the Prajna Paramita texts which we have available for study in the human world.

This major text has been translated into many languages and has about 120,000 lines.

When we study we wish to achieve success at the lowest possible costs.

As we are one of the best-equipped Australian organisations to deal with the study of the complexity of learning such things as the 60,000 Perfection of Wisdom texts, we hope to continue the development of information technology in this field of study.

Because we need the "four Es" (economy, effectiveness, efficiency and equity), we need the help of heavenly advisors who have developed these four things in their heaven worlds.

Humans seem to imagine that heavens can supply an infinite amount of things forever.

This is a wrong view. The resources of heavens have limits.

One day, billions of years from now, the pavilion holding the Wisdom texts will collapse and they will be destroyed because all form is anicca (meaning no material form can stay intact and permanent.)

But, at present, these study fields par excellence are intact.

Every Tuesday evening, we study the short version of the Perfection of
Wisdom at our Centre.

Naturally, this consumes a lot of our merit. To continue such things, we must make more merit directly related to the cause of existence of these texts.

How do we do this?

It is doubtful, first of all, whether there is any empirical research which will give us an objective answer to these questions. There has not been a large amount of research conducted in this area as yet, but what is available is stimulating and suggestive.

To report briefly, some oversimplification is necessary, but what I am about to say may give you the feeling that factual advances are being made here and I hope, after today, some Members will study our records for themselves, if they have not already done so.

Very briefly, since 1970, we have been doing offerings to the Dragon King at the Nobbies, Philip Island. When I was in mainland China many years ago, I did offerings to the Dragon King at the Yellow River. At another time, when flying near Indonesia I did offerings tot he Dragon King who was flying to inspect an active volcano. During the last major bushfires in this area, the Dragon King came and flooded the area with water.

These are fairly ordinary examples, but the major force that revolutionised the worlds was the seven times that the Dragon King organised the locations of where the Prajna Paramita could be taught by Lord Buddha.

This is amazing enough, but on top of this, the Dragon King arranged the preservation of the teachings taught at these places. Our Members have studied the commentaries of where these places are.

Personally, I think this structuring of a suitable location amounts to the equivalent of a cluster of parental attitudes towards children, the "acceptant-democratic", which is most growth-facilitating.

Children of those parents who had warm and egalitarian attitudes showed an accelerated intellectual development (an increasing IQ), more originality, more emotional security and control, less excitability than children from other types of homes. According to Rogers (1967), though somewhat slow initially in social development, they were, by the time they reached school age, popular, friendly, and non-aggressive leaders.

The Dragon King arranges teaching in the "acceptant-democratic" type mode, not the "actively rejectant" mode.

This means that the Perfection of Wisdom can only be taught in a certain type of field that we have managed to build as a cultural artefact at this Centre. It is expressed as our five styles. These are: friendliness, practicality, professionalism, cultural adaptability and scholarship.

These are so important that they are listed on the front page of our brochure.

What causes do we need to preserve the duration of teaching these texts so that they may stay in the world?

The Dragon King is aware of the precise terminology used in Buddha's teaching such as the first list of words that are the names of the 24 wholesome states of mind listed in the texts.

To give you some idea of what sort of training we supply, I hope you bear with me for a few minutes while I explain and argue about some of the robust skills we transmit here.

The arguments will be less significant within the social culture of those who are born into Buddha Dhamma and follow the teachings in full.

It might be misleading to compare a melting-pot society such as Australia with demographically stable and ethnically homogeneous countries like Sweden and Japan.

In many countries, the students attend school more days a year than in Australia.

If by the age of 18, the average Japanese or South Korean knows much more algebra and physics, it should come as no surprise.

But there are other things known in these two countries that may surprise you ­ a strong knowledge of the protective power of the Dragon King.

With the Year of the Dragon opening today and being celebrated all over the world by millions of persons, it is fitting we open a Dragon Shrine.

In future times, the fact we all worked so hard to crate this Shrine will be remembered with affection.

A special thank you to Julie O'Donnell, Leila Lamers, Brendan Hall and Philip Svensson.

I now declare the Dragon Shrine open and I invite you to take a walk through it.

Today's program is called "Leverage your merit in the Year of the Dragon". The Oxford Dictionary meaning of leverage is "means of accomplishing a purpose, or power of action".

Power of action equals volition equals the power of kamma . . . the root of causation.

The Pali term kamma literally means action or doing. Any kind of intentional action whether mental, verbal, or physical is regarded as kamma. It covers all that is included in the phrase "thought, word and deed".

In its ultimate sense, kamma means all moral and immoral volition. Involuntary, unintentional or unconscious action, though technically deeds, do not constitute kamma, because volition, the most important factor in the determining kamma, is absent.

Through the practice of turning the mind toward the Buddha, under the ideal conditions, wholesome minds are developed and vast merit is accumulated. The way to make merit is to do things for people. The Pali term for merit is punna. The desire for accumulation of merit provides a strong incentive to benevolence. The way of making merit is through the practice of dana (generosity).

We will begin by examining the first Buddhist perfection, which is generosity (in Pali: dana).

We would now like to read you an extract from the Dragon King Sutra Stanzas, summarised and translated by the Buddhist Yogi C.M. Chen, published by Thorp Springs Press, Berkeley, California on the Dragon day of the Dragon month of the Dragon year, 22 April 1976.

The Dragon King offered many jewels,

Just as our Members have offered jewels in the last few weeks to be placed on the Dragon King image.

The jewels the Dragon King offered were:

Those value is equal to the whole world.
And wished to get Buddha's light.
Bless all beings to get the Buddhahood.

The Dragon King asked the Six paramita again.

Buddha replied, "One must hold the Wisdom Sword.
Give alms equally with all things and one's self.
Give others equally and with all Dhamma's word,
When all things have been given equally to others,
One may obtain the equality of Buddhahood!"

As is illustrated in the opening Stanzas, the Dragon King practiced great generosity (in Pali: dana) through the offering of jewels, the value of which was equal to the whole world, wishing all beings to be well and happy and to come to the end of suffering.

Dana is the first perfection in Buddha Dhamma practice as it is through the practice of dana that one can accumulate merit. Merit is the fuel required by the Dhamma practitioner.

The practice of dana can be viewed as a skilful act. Venerable Phra Ajaan Plien Panyapatipo in "How to get good results from doing merit" explains how to wisely practice dana.

Dana begins with the pre-intention - bhuppa chetana. This means that before making merit one should have the will and intention and feel happy with the merit-making opportunity we are about to embark on. The will or intention is the key and we should bear this in mind.

The second practice in dana is the intention in between ­ munchana chetana. Before we make the offering it is wise to formulate our intention to observe the five precepts.

The third practice in dana is the post intention ­ aparapara chetana. When we recall the act of dana we always feel happy.

As you can see, in the three aspects of the practice of dana, right intention or the generation of good heart is the key.

As Phra Ajaan Plien Panyapatipo elegantly states, The most important thing in doing merit is one's will and intention. No matter how much the alms cost or how great in quality and quantity, the alms must be morally pure, we must have good intentions, and the one who receives it has to be pure and have good intentions too. If all three components are united correctly, then we will receive a great deal of merit. That means we always feel happy whenever thinking or talking about the alms-giving we have done.

After that we should extend our good feelings, which means dedicating our merit and wishing all beings to be well and happy like we feel in that good experience.

The Dragon King demonstrates the above practice of dana perfectly to us and this is clearly illustrated in the opening Stanzas, whereby he offers the jewels and dedicates the merit for the benefit of all beings.

The Dragon King offered many jewels,
Those value is equal to the whole world.
And wished to get Buddha's light.
Bless all beings to get the Buddhahood.

The Members of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) have a rare opportunity to practice great dana in the Year of the Dragon as our Teacher John D. Hughes will embark on a three-month retreat beginning on the 10th February 2000.

During this time, Members of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. will be entirely responsible for fulfilling al the tasks required to run the Centre. This is a great opportunity for our Members in this Year of the Dragon. However, this will require all Members to develop and use higher orders of knowledge in order to be successful.

First order knowledge will have to be abandoned because it equals a childish thought order. To use second order knowledge better enables individuals to understand and practice Buddha Dhamma.

The merit increases as the thought orders reach higher levels. In order to run the Centre without the Teacher's advice for the three months, Members must be able to use their own minds. This is only possible in 2nd order thought and higher.

The Dragon King Shrine will help to create a suitable environment for Members to practice. The Dragon King Shrine is for the two higher order level Naga Protectors.

The Dragon King protects the Centre in many ways. It is very important to offer the right things at the right time. In general, you should not offer gifts after the sun has set.

Members of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. are invited to make offerings of water, rocks, precious and semiprecious mineral specimens such as jewels and other suitable offerings to the Dragon King in the inside altar.

In the past, jewels have been offered to our Teacher who has placed them at the right time and used them to clothe the Dragon King or use them in the museum.

As was mentioned in our Teacher's opening speech for the Dragon King Shrine, he has for over thirty years made offerings to the Dragon King at the Nobbies in Philip Island, Victoria, and at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. for the protection of all beings. The benefits of these offerings was visible during the bush fires in the Dandenong Ranges, when he requested the Dragon King's protection as the fires were at their peak. The weather then changed and the rain came to stop the fires.

If you would like a more comprehensive brief on the "Place of the Dragon King" phone the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. on 03 9754 3334.

Practitioners attending the five-day meditation course on the 21st ­ 25th September 1990 were taught the beneficial influences of Devas and therefore, because of past causes could understand a Teaching directed to the Dragon-King Deva.

Buddha explained to the Dragon-King that in former times Dragon-King was named Endless Welfare King and had heard the Teaching.

One of Buddha's Disciples asked why a profound Teaching had not been preached to al mankind and why the Buddha had only taught it to the Dragon-King. Buddha explained that the Dragons had all been Monks (in Pali: Bhikkhus) in past lives but they fell into poor rebirths because of their lustful kammas (actions).

The Prince of Dragons vowed before the Buddha that he would keep good conduct and not forget the correct Practice in future times. Buddha taught the Ten Goodnesses and their outcome.

Buddha taught the Dragon-King with endless Teachings which was a doctrine names "The Entire Control".

We will now examine the effect of precepts and jhanas in order to leverage your merit in the Year of the Dragon.

When a person does a good action that is an action which is beneficial for the well-being of themselves or others, merit is produced. Such an action would be to give someone a cup of tea. Some merit is produced through the act of giving a cup of tea with volition to another person.

How much merit arises from this act is not a fixed amount. The amount of merit produced by the act of giving a cup of tea can be increased or decreased markedly depending on how you do it.

The factors involved are to do with the quality of the mind of the giver, the quality of the mind of the receiver of the cup of tea and the quality of the tea. How is this quality measured? Buddhist training recognises the components which are present in a wholesome mind (kusala) and an unwholesome or impure mind (akusala).

The basic component of a wholesome mind is morality (in Pali: sila). This is the presence of the five morality precepts being held by either or both persons. The five precepts are:

To refrain from killing,
To refrain from stealing,
To refrain from sexual misconduct,
To refrain from lying,
To refrain from intoxicants that cloud the mind.

A mind of a person who keeps five precepts has more purity than the mind of a person holding less than five precepts. Arising from this superior mental consciousness, a person giving a cup of tea who is holding five precepts makes more merit from the act of giving than a person giving a cup of tea who is holding less than five precepts.

Similarly, more merit arises from the act of giving a cup of tea to person who holds five precepts than to a person holding less than five precepts. When the giver and receiver are both holding five precepts the merit produced is maximised from the morality factors.

Minds which have the purity associated with holding five precepts can be trained to develop better states of mind. These levels are called jhana consciousness. The training in the development of jhana consciousness occurs through the practice of meditation.

There are eight levels of jhana consciousness, four of which are rupa jhanas and the other four are arupa jhanas. Rupa means body, form or materiality so rupa jhanas are mental states arising in association with a body form. Arupa means not body or immateriality so arupa jhanas are mental states which may be developed in meditation where the mind experiences such phenomenon as the sphere of limitless space or the sphere of infinite knowledge.

Each of these jhanas is successively more powerful than the preceding one. This affects the amount of merit produced from an act of giving, for example, or from any other of the nine types of meritorious actions.

The merit produced from a similar act increases tenfold for each level of jhana consciousness of either the giver in the case of a cup of tea, or the receiver.

Therefore, a person whose mind is in fourth rupa jhana makes 1000 (because 10 * 10 * 10 equals 1000) times more merit from the act of giving a cup of tea with volition to another person than if the gift had been made in first rupa jhana. This is what is meant by leveraging merit.

Buddhist training teaches the technologies that enable us to leverage merit to maximise the benefits of our good actions.

This explanation does not cover every factor associated with leveraging merit, but it does provide an introduction to the practice. Further training leads to an understanding of additional subtle ways to fine tune merit leveraging.

Opportunities for making great merit (in Pali: kusala kamma) are rare because they depend on conditions that are difficult to "assemble". For example to offer food to a Monk (in Pali: Bhikkhu) requires at least ten contemporaneous conditions to arise.

1. The co-existent human birth of both the Bhikkhu and oneself
2. A living Bhikkhu who is near at hand
3. Sufficient vision to see
4. The knowledge that such an act is meritorious
5. Food available
6. The volition to want to offer food to another person
7. The correct time and proper place within the Vinaya Rules
8. The time and the means to prepare the food
9. Sufficient physical strength to prepare and offer the food
10. The actual acceptance of the food by the Bhikkhu

The "assembling" of such conditions may take as long as 1000 million life times or more.

Without Mindfulness and Wisdom, great merit-making opportunities are unlikely to be recognised.

Dhamma Teachers constantly point to them and direct Students into merit-making activity.

The Buddha identified ten ways of making merit in descending order of power.

1. DANA ­ Charity, Generosity.
2. SILA ­ Observing Precepts, Morality.
3. BHAVANA ­ Meditation.
4. APACAYANA ­ Respect for Dhamma Teachers.
5. VEYYAVACCA ­ Giving a helping hand for others to perform virtuous deeds.
6. PATTIDANA ­ Sharing Merits.
7. PATTANUMODANA ­ Joyful acknowledgements in the sharing of Merits.
8. DHAMMASSAVA ­ Listening to Dhamma.
9. DHAMMADESANA ­ Teaching Dhamma.
10. DITTHIJUKAMMA ­ Righting one's own wrong views.

The Law of Cause and Effect (kamma and vipaka) determines that to attain learning and benefit in respect of meditation, it is necessary to produce an accumulation of available wholesome (kusala) kamma.

This merit is the "fuel" of all realizations and the cause of continued wholesome conditions of practice. A corollary of this means, without sufficient available merit, a Student's meditation will not produce realizations and further, the Student will find it difficult to find conditions which will support Dhamma Practice. Some basic conditions which have to arise in order for beings to be able to practice the Buddha Dhamma are:

1. Have to be born into a Buddha-Sasana
2. Have to be born into a suitable body or form.
3. Have to be born healthy in order to live beyond a few years.
4. Have to have sufficient food, water, warmth and conditions to sustain this present life.
5. Have to meet the Buddha's Teaching of the Middle Way in a language that can be understood.
6. Have to be Teachable as regards the Middle Way.
7. Have to desire to learn the Middle Way.
8. Have no major obstructions to being trained in the Middle Way.

We will now examine further examples of how Members have successfully leveraged their merit-making opportunities.

Late in 1998, eight Members successfully demonstrated the success of leveraging through acting as rapporteurs at the World Fellowship of Buddhists (WFB) Conference.

At the same time, the Centre was run as normal by remaining Members.

Our leverage was increased by President Vince Cavuoto working on the EXCO Committee prior to the Conference.

Further leverage was obtained by our Teacher being appointed as a Vice President (VP) of the WFB at the Conference. As a Vice President, he appears at EXCO Committees in Thailand.

Even more leverage in the future will be obtained because we are an Associated Spiritual Centre of the World Buddhist University in Thailand.

For strengthening equilibrium, we have to pause from time to time and have to review to find out "what we do not know".

Providing remote access to information improves our leverage.

When talking about remote access to information, it is important we define "remote". This is very relative.

It may mean taking the opportunity of getting one or more of our Members to visit interstate or overseas to discuss themes of mutual interest.

For some persons, it is talking to them on the telephone, loaning them a book or journal, or putting them on the mailing list of our Review.

To our Members, it may mean gaining access to a file on a personal computer situated in two rooms from his or her workstation at our Centre.

To another person, it may mean filling a request from another country to post, fax or email an article written at our Centre.

For others, it may be indirect, by giving them details of our website address www.bdcu.org.au

So may you successfully leverage your merit in the Year of the Dragon.

And how do you do this?

Firstly, through the practical application of the elegant technology demonstrated.

Secondly, through gaining a thorough understanding on the blessings for yourself and others of making merit.

Thirdly, you must look for additional opportunities to leverage your merit making.

Fourthly, as Venerable Phra Ajaan Plien Panyapatipo succinctly states, the most important thing in doing merit is one's will and intention, therefore increase your will to do and then increase it to a higher level and then yet again concentrate four times and see that you had more will to do than you ever dreamed of.

Fifthly, always bear in mind that what you are today is a result of what you did in the past and what you will be in the future is the outcome of what you are doing today.

SO WHAT ARE YOU DOING TODAY?

Sixthly, you are moving between two points and neither point can be defined. From nowhere to nowhere your view is spoilt by billboards, old, soggy, askew, advertising things we don't need.

The forest is bare and brittle
You should feel sad but you feel warm inside.
You know it can happy anytime now.
And if it never happens? Will that be bad?
You are surprised at your own conclusion. It won't be bad.

The sixth point was extracted from "A Glimpse of Nothingness", by Janwillem van de Wetering, first published in 1974 by Publisher Pocket Books in New York.

So may you leverage your merit in the Year of the Dragon.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Disclaimer:

As we, the Chan Academy Australia, Chan Academy being a registered business name of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., do not control the actions of our service providers from time to time, make no warranty as to the continuous operation of our website(s). Also, we make no assertion as to the veracity of any of the information included in any of the links with our websites, or another source accessed through our website(s).

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.