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NAMO
TASSA
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'THE BUDDHIST HOUR' RADIO BROADCAST
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KNOX FM 87.6 Sundays 11:00am to 12:00pm |
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KNOX FM Radio Broadcast for 6 August 2000
Today’s program is entitled: Buddha Paths we use for understanding what we see in our lifetime.
Part of a Teacher’s job is to learn to tell a story through data. This job of teaching and transmission of values has been a struggle of drawing persons into caring about a subject.
The major difficulty of teaching is that many persons do not care about cold facts. They care about pictures or stories that are connected to themselves in some way. For most persons, that is what learning is all about.
Michael Donovan, when aged 56, and Nancye Green, when aged 52, outlined their thoughts on the art of converting raw, unfiltered information into useful, accessible understanding.
The first step is to create an appealing picture - one that motivates the reader or the listener to start down a path.
So it can unfold question after question, they suggest to create hierarchies of information.
The endgame of the story is information and design -colour, line, typography in the case of written information.
The process always starts with a question.
“How do you drive a car” is a different question from “How do you drive a car in a rainstorm”.
In the second case, you need to know how to turn on the windshield wipers - but not have this information buried away on page 94 under “Dashboard”.
Good design helps you because it engages you. It shows you how to move from the recognizable, the Yarra River, to the unfamiliar (our Assembly Hall at 33 Brooking Street Upwey 3158.)
The hardest part is staying honest. In information design, there is always a huge amount of data that you could include, so you need to select carefully, to deal consciously with complexity, and yet somehow to keep it simple.
Once you define what is important, the design becomes interesting and within scope.
Sometimes, comparisons must be made to focus some information - for example, the Internet reached as many Americans in the first 6 years as the telephone did in its first four decades. 36% of American College students have created their own websites or home pages.
There are 7 new persons on the Internet every second. 49% of online users believe that Internet news is more accurate than traditional news sources. 36% of online users in the USA say they go online for news at least once a week. 83% of American college freshmen use the Internet to do research or homework.
These type of statements impart some idea of the cultural change that is sweeping the world.
So let us start with some sort of prediction. According to the US Department of Commerce ‘the emerging digital economy 11’(June 1999) by 2006, 50% of all American workers will be employed in IT positions or within industries that intensively utilize information technology, products and services.
The next sort of statement has to do with stress which contributes to cardio- vascular disease, depression, and gastrointestinal disorders. In 1997, the National Mental Health Association reports that 75 to 90% of all visits to physicians are stress related.
Job stress is estimated to cost US industry $200 billion to $300 billion annually.
Information overload has replaced information scarcity as an important new emotional, social, and political problem. The defining characteristics of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) are inability to concentrate, hyperactive or impulsive behaviour.
Our Members deal with more and more information on a weekly basis but do not get the symptoms of ADD.
You may wonder how we do this. We do this by creating appreciation of a broader view of the accumulation of what might be called ‘cultural artifacts’.
We encourage our Members to read veraciously. This reading brings them to appreciate and ground themselves in the writings and teachings of the Sages from past times.
This allows our students to see themselves as part of history in the making and leaving something as a heritage for the future students rather than merely consuming all the existing wealth for themselves without considering the needs of others.
Where a discipline is well grounded by scholars in the past but due to the rarity of the texts not well known, we say that what was written about belonged in the world as information scarcity.
When we can obtain rare information written by a Master in ancient times, we attempt to make it more widely known in the interests of the pursuit of wisdom for persons living in the present age.
We may think we might choose to study the writing of the great painters of ancient times as a guide to how to live and practice “the way of the brush” in the information age, but to put such a notion into action, we must be able to find the discipline of altered time management in our own life to find the quality time to be able to learn.
Some great painters study the tradition of the past, distill the essence and then produce something that has some grounding in the best of history.
The way of Ch’an using the brush if applied for several years in a system can bring great insight. But this method presupposes the ancients who taught and wrote about method and means were realised in a higher level of experience about reality than we have accessed to date.
Perhaps for you to consider this statement as true may just start off as just wishful thinking when you start, but that is the experience for those Members at our Centre who followed the Middle Path for many years.
Tao-chi’s comments on the ancients can be studied through self-inscriptions on recorded paintings, through his free interpretations “after “(fang in Chinese) certain ancient masters, and throughout his extant and recorded copies after ancient paintings.
Tao-chi’s ideas are clearly stated when he says the ancients were masters of one style, nevertheless, their copying encompassed many styles.
Otherwise, (he argues) how could they have fathomed the sources of various principles (fa-tu)? They could never be considered like the present-day scholars whose works are like dried bones and dying ashes, lacking variety and depth.
To comprehend this idea in all its ramifications is to attain the state of the dragon (supreme height) in painting.
Several statements dated after Tao-chi’s 1692 trip to Peking indicate that his acquaintance with the old works was broad enough to give him confidence in his own judgment.
He was critising contemporary painters who were unable to “understand what they see” (k’an -pu-ju), a phrase which in Chinese implies an inability to go beyond the external formal conventions to grasp the spiritual ideal of the old works.
Tao-chi was not adverse to much study and cogitating on what the great detective of fiction, Sherlock Holmes would describe as a THREE PIPE PROBLEM. It is very difficult to predict the future in Australia beyond the next five years because the pace of change in the world in the economical, social, medical, military, technological platforms are all undergoing rapid change.
But it is most likely Australian workers will follow the information age new economy model.
When multiple changes in IT occurs, new synergies are formed which emerge from the complex systems.
For example, in early predictions by the RAND corporation of America it was not predicted that the United Kingdom would have a female Prime Minister.
We can only presume that the entrenched sexist views were so deep thirty years ago that it was not conceivable to forecasters that a female could possibly become the most powerful person in the United Kingdom.
If we were to predict today that Australia would have a female prime minister within the next decade, it is doubtful if most Australians would believe that this prediction was possible within that short time span.
For centuries, persons have been predicting the end of the world and of course this never happened as far as we are aware.
The behaviour of maverick competitors can be a source of ideas for creating a portfolio of strategic opinions.
Companies should continually ask which companies are breaking the rules. A company with a single strategy dismisses its competitors as irrelevant or as following a different strategy.
Analogist processes build new capabilities that allow a company to expand its strategic options.
These processes include building a company’s capabilities base through problem solving, experimentation, importing knowledge and implementing and integrating new capabilities. A combination of capability building initiatives involved in a total quality management system build a new capability called “Quality”.
A company called Acer used these processes to grow from a small electronics company in Taiwan to become the third largest supplier of personal computers in the world.
Just like its competitors, Acer lacked a crystal ball to forecast the future, but it had a broad sense of which markets it should learn about to expand its strategic options.
Acer recognized that because Americans are sophisticated PC buyers, understanding these customers would give it a head start against competitors in other global markets. That understanding would open many options for Acer to respond more rapidly and to lead change.
Acer developed capabilities, products and consumer understanding so it could access the much lower-price markets in Asia.
Acer learned how to sell computers to the mass market segment in the emerging Asian economies ahead of competitors, opening new options to enter other low-price, emerging markets like Mexico, South Africa and Russia.
Acer did not follow a strategy of straight-line forecasting based on its existing products and procedures. Acer invested in partnerships with local distributors and suppliers designed to maximise its opportunities to learn about the market and further develop its capabilities.
Acer’s approach was that strategy is creating options and exercising in new markets. Each wave of initiatives opened new, broader options for positioning. No amount of planning could enable it to pinpoint exactly which option it would exercise in an uncertain future.
However, it created an expanded strategic space in which it could manoeuvre. (11)
British Telecoms (BT) set up a team to predict the shape of things to come in the 21st Century.
It says that within 20 years, cancer will be preventable, space tours would have begun, online voting in elections will be operational, and the petabit memory chip will have arrived. There would be tremendous improvements in medical science.
Disasters could also happen, including a virus becoming immune to all known treatments, icecaps could break up and cause ocean levels to rise one hundred feet, human mutation, collapse of the sperm count and terrorist use of biological weapons.
What does this tell us? It tells us that the Buddhist teaching is even more needed in the next century.
The National Conference on ‘Buddhist Civilisation in the 21st Century’ organised by the YBAM was held at MAS Academy, Kelana Jaya, Selangor on June 5 1999. The objective of the conference was to highlight the relevance of the Buddha’s teachings as we move into the next century.
Many issues or challenges faced the Buddhist Community which included the inability of Buddhists of various traditions to work together for a common cause, a lack of interest among Buddhist parents to instill Buddhist educational values in their children, as well as missionaries of other faiths coverting Buddhists into their religions, materialism, assimilation and dilution of traditional Buddhist cultures by stronger non-Buddhist cultures and religious cults in the guise of Buddhism.
The Dhamma is akaliko, that is, not dependent on time.
Authentic written Dhamma is intact in the present world in various forms. We intend to make it better known from a series of Websites we are setting up.
The copyright of present written Dhamma will expire next century at which time it will enter the public domain. It can then be freely distributed without royalty payments.
Unfortunately, much written Dhamma is printed on acid paper.
Such paper does not have the longevity of rice paper. It is certain to break down at the oxygen bridge atom of the cellulose molecules, turning the paper to dust.
In most cases, reprinting is not economically viable.
When copyright has expired or if the copyright owner gives consent, it is legal to scan the information into electronic form.
Recently, a break-even point has been reached by new technology where it has become less expensive to reproduce information electronically than in paper based form.
It is clear that the future capability for electronic reproduction and transfer of data will become more and more affordable.
The electronic text equivalent to one thousand books can be obtained for the cost of one paper based book.
The capital cost of devices to read this electronic data are a fraction of what they were a decade ago and could become more affordable.
The task of electronic listing of names of key volumes of the unabridged written Dhamma has not yet been done systematically although many organisations have complied many useful databases of the whereabouts of some of this material.
For example, Dr. Richard Gard's pioneering work in compiling electronic databases about Buddha Dhamma for the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, formally at Princetown University U.S.A. was praiseworthy. (1)
Other attempts at distributing on Internet as a part of the Electronic Buddhist Archives, available via anonymous FTP and/or COOMBSQUEST gopher on the node COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU, were non-sustainable.
A useful collection on Chinese Buddhism/State of the Field, by John McRae, apparently lasted from March 1992 to November 1993.
We must be very careful about what we write when we are dealing with Buddha Dhamma if we expect a project to be ongoing.
Probably one of the causes of the short life of the text Chinbudd.txt was a malediction reading:
"Quoting this paper without permission will result in your spending three immeasurable eons in the avici hell, listening to endless recitations of neo-Confucian doctrine!"
The task of creating an electronic compilation of the presently known unabridged written Dhamma in its various forms is proceeding in many countries.
What is needed and proposed is to start a Buddhist world catalogue of what electronically stored Dhamma is available where in the world.
This project would be extensive and ongoing but could be affordable within the scope of 21st century technology.
It is suggested that persons under the protection of Bodhisattva Manjusri are the best attendants for this task. Under this condition, the drive to have a Buddhist world catalogue is likely to become all pervasive, as efforts are made to increase the literacy of persons by presenting them with access to written Buddha Dhamma.
It is by merit that our present written Dhamma becomes available. It did not happen by chance.
To drive this Buddhist world catalogue suggestion to resolution, Buddha Dhamma followers need to raise funds and become active in supporting educational systems using the new technology.
This is the main challenge of the 21st century.
The strategy is an approach which identifies broad actions to assist all heritage collections in different countries.
The scope of this strategy is the conservation and preservation of all types of heritage collections, whether they are held in viharas, museums, libraries, archives, galleries, universities, historic sites, in both the private and public domain.
Our proposed strategy does not cover all activities associated with heritage collections, such as exhibition development.
The success of our strategy implementation will depend on the effectiveness of developing key partnerships across the sector.
Our strategy is organised into five main elements: significance, skills development, collection management, research, and awareness raising.
Significance refers to assessing an object's value to provide the context for appropriate conservation and preservation.
Skills development encompasses activities which increase the conservation and preservation expertise of those responsible for caring for collections.
Collection management is a strategy that addresses the promotion and achievement of improving conservation processes.
Research activities aim to achieve a national research strategy to encourage research projects and disseminate results.
Awareness raising proposes actions to create a culture of caring for and treasuring heritage collections. (3)
We have no intention of slandering the intellect or motivation of persons who cannot read and write.
For our project to stay useful, there is a need for persons involved to make the merit to gain insight, each for himself or herself, into cause and effect of how persons become literate or otherwise.
For written Dhamma to be useful, it is a precondition that persons can read, or have someone to read to them.
It is recommended that a portion of the merit of the project be dedicated to address persons in the world who are functionally illiterate at present.
There is a need to sanction information technology as a good thing at an affordable cost and promote it as a primary means to give persons a chance to raise within themselves passable elements of literacy.
The secondary use of such information systems is to make written Dhamma available to the many folk.
Special devotion should be directed to those persons who constitute 25 per cent of the world's population who are functionally illiterate.
Sincere followers of the Middle Way, intending to raise literacy in the world, need to raise their energy and concentrate their vision.
Brothers and Sisters in the Dhamma, please understand the unprecedented opportunity that awaits you to help show the way to literacy for the future generations.
Surely, this vision is not as difficult a task as removing smallpox from the world. Yet the removal of smallpox has been achieved.
Present operations at our Centre and elsewhere are driven by the reflection that it is possible to make more and more Dhamma information available to persons in the 21st century.
For example, the scouting movement's policy in Australia is to encourage the study of many religions and our Centre has provided them with suitable material for many years.
We wish to proclaim the notion that we are privileged to access authentic Dhamma. We praise the Dhamma custodianship over the two and half millenniums of our ancestors.
Should we not act in such a way to help others to find a true Guide/Shower of the Middle Way?
We do not wish to be remembered as persons deficient in gratitude.
If we arrange to set up the causes to give out Dhamma, then Dhamma will come to us in future times.
Remember, if you are fortunate, you may be born human in this world next life and continue to practice Dhamma.
Buddha Dhamma put into action is the antidote of suffering.
Remember that the consequence of a person's non-practice of Dhamma for lack of a living Shower of the Way or ability to read Dhamma is really the cause of oceans of tears over many lives.
Without the Dhamma, every tear a person sheds is without purpose, merely dukkha caused by himself or herself by former unwise (Pali: akusala) actions.
Two things can motivate us: knowing the time left in this sasene is short for merit-making and the greatest merit gift is Dhamma Dana.
Moving towards Dhamma Dana Globalisation
As we move in to this century, we can see many of the fundamentals of our world's social and economic systems changing.
In the last few hundred years, we believe the basic domain of commerce has changed from the level of the local village and province to that of the nation and more recently to that of the region.
Now, we are close to the broader notion of the entire globe as the domain.
By effort, the world is becoming more prosperous.
World trade rose from $US 2,256 billion in 1980 to $US 6,170 billion in 1995, an increase of significance. (4)
Trade in services has risen from $US 361 billion in 1980 to $US 1,234 billion in 1995. (5)
By effort, the current financial downturn will pass away.
Drawing on an impressive range of thinking by Buddhist Scholar Monks and Nuns in collaboration with University Professors and Graduates, the last decade has seen the appearance of many well written English and other European language translations of Buddha Dhamma.
As Professor Wang Gungwu, Chairman of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore noted, the immediate antecedents of Asian studies in European and North America enjoyed an arrogant stage. (6)
A more humble scientific attitude has evolved in the post colonial period and it can be guessed that the residue of superiority found in some Western approaches to Buddha Dhamma will vanish in the global context of the 21st century.
Chinese Buddhist studies of other countries date back 1600 years to Fa Hsien's Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms.
This was followed by Japanese and Korean studies of Chinese Buddha Dhamma.
What has recently attracted attention is the impression that, although Scholars from each Asian country established close relationships with their counterparts in Western universities, relatively few have done the same with fellow Scholars in Asia.
Recently, a meeting was held at Hua Hin, with Chulalongkorn University Institute of Asian Studies as host, to collect detailed information about each of the 16 territories covered.
The President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Anthony Reid, was invited to chair the meeting.
South and South-East Asian countries are more prone to look to the West than to one another.
Some Buddha Dhamma Scholars seem to be swept up in this tendency.
In the 21st century, Buddha Dhamma Scholars in Asia may blossom in many countries, write adequately in the English language and understand that a careful examination of their own oral and written heritage can be used to stimulate their intellectual interest.
Then, the question of what appears to be fresh, stimulating and worthy in the Western study paradigms will be shown.
If there is one thing clear from the past, it is that no insight wisdom can come from those who ignore Sila (the precepts on morality).
The globalisation of Buddha Dhamma has been rapid in Western countries in the last two decades and extended just in time to countries, who, for some time, were serious in their thinking about a need to destroy one another, en masse, with nuclear warfare.
As Freud (1915), writing on repression, noted, one of the vicissitudes an instinctual impulse may undergo is to meet with resistances, the aim of which is to make the impulse inoperative. (7)
From this viewpoint, it might be said repression has caused a movement away from mass killing - meaning that the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) script prevented World War 3.
Current killing in the world is now more at an individual level, in the hand to hand sense, and localised.
Perhaps, if more effort was made, further reduction in killing could happen in the human world.
Human fortune is under the influence of heavenly beings to some extent.
Perhaps a word about Buddhist views on climate change in the 21st century would help frame some compassionate actions.
Firstly, we should note that the slaughter of farmed animals is higher than at any time in recorded human history.
At times, an animal is slaughtered by a farmer and due to merit is reborn a deva or devata in a lower heaven world. The newly born deva or devata pleads with the God of that Heaven to punish the farmers responsible for killing many animals. Flooding of the Farmer's land can result. In the 21st century, it is likely more Pujas would be held for dead animals.
Viewpoints of naive persons need more attention.
Unfortunately, at present, naive persons are inclined to believe that a monoculture resulting from "balkanisation" of new nation states done along ethnic or religious lines is appealing.
Some persons prosper when civil war arises because prolonged major killing expeditions appear to guarantee expenditure on arms.
The notion of the right of citizens to bear private arms may be foregone in the 21st century because arms are a supporting factor for killing.
In Australia, vast quantities of privately owned guns were destroyed after the Port Arthur massacre in Tasmania.
From the Buddhist viewpoint, it is not right action to carry arms or right livelihood to trade in arms.
There is a need to concentrate on ways of making this supporting factor less appealing.
The horrors of war dull the senses and seem less real when they are viewed again and again on TV world news in your living room.
There is a need to change the format of the content matter of TV news and this may be done if other commercial material were available.
We hope that major research of existing Buddha Dhamma will give practitioners in the 21st century a method of finding and marketing an alternative format of TV news. A method that would allow the viewing news in such a way that it gives sufficient training for many persons in the precept of no killing.
Major aide projects are needed to cover the major risks that will exist from scarcity of essentials in some countries.
Sympathetic Joy (Pali: Mudita) can reach out into the future to discern several alternative futures for particular countries where persons organise or do not organise their lives within a Buddhist heritage.
That a real change of heritage has occurred is identified by the fact that the WFB Conference has been held in the U.S.A. and in Australia.
Although these countries have a multicultural tradition because their migrants who settled in these countries came from just about every country in the world; their master language written and spoken is the English language.
The translations into English by the Pali Text Society over the last century have provided a reading background of incomparable use for those who wish to taste the flavour of Dhamma.
It is not surprising, given that 90 per cent of Internet sites are in America, that many English Dhamma commentaries appear on Internet sites.
We all need a common language to trade with each other. Chances are that English as a second language will become more common.
In the 21st century, with automatic translation facilities for the English language becoming common, and many European nations speaking English as a second language, many centres will form Buddhist joint enterprises with other regional centres.
In the 21st Century, at web sites or with the World Fellowship of Buddhists website or the proposed International Buddhist University website, development in the English language will follow naturally.
By the 21st Century, the refugee scholar Monks and Nuns from the areas from Cambodia to Vietnam, who have established themselves in Western world countries, will have appointed their successors.
Their successors could come from anywhere provided they have completed some sturdy moral training system of Buddha Dhamma fit to be introduced into the Western world.
Their educated successors may be helped less by neyattha-Dhamma (teaching the meaning of which has been inferred) rather than by nittattha-Dhamma (teaching with an implicit or evident meaning).
In any event, their successors could not support a platform which is uccheda-ditthi (nihilistic) or sassato-ditthi (eternalist).
In a world where immigrants are increasing, both within a given country and from a given country to another country, it is difficult to believe that future migrations of the educated Buddhist elite will not occur towards the richer Western countries of the world.
With increasing population growth, it is assumed that the present tendency for Buddhist refugees to settle in richer countries will increase year by year.
On the assumption that Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the USA have sufficient land and infrastructure to continue to generate more wealth in the 21st century, it appears likely these places could accept any Buddhist refugee Monks and Nuns.
By way of example, simple kamma might suggest that Canada and France seem obvious places for immigrant persons, such as the Vietnamese, who have a background of French colonial cultural history.
There does not seem to be much limit to the absorption of qualified Monks and Nuns into these societies.
It is a tortuous path to see at what point demand and supply could be said to be balanced because, if in excess, the educated players could migrate to another country.
For example, Burma has a long history of great Masters and Scholars.
The amount of important Burmese texts that remain to be translated into the English language is likely to be extensive.
If the karmic conditions that allowed relocation of English speaking Burmese Scholar Monks to other countries were studied against the colonial past, it could be seen it is probable a number of English speaking Burmese Scholars and Monks could be expected to relocate into English speaking countries in the 21st century.
Apart from war as a cause, a natural disaster on a medium scale such as a virus in crops in Burma could drive potential immigrants to seek haven in other countries.
It would be nice if more sustainable Temples able to last 500 years or more could come into actuality.
The Western world has a tendency to go to excess in good things. It expects to have an increasing standard of living year by year.
Some tend to like to believe that the world is really a very nice place. This belief is reinforced by high living standards and superior medical systems.
The bases of these things leading to good life is thought to be made possible by good government regulation, not individual kusala kamma coming from the individual's own good actions.
Buddhist morality, which is not given as commandments from a creator God, challenges and clarifies the raison d'etre of notions of the ten commandments derived from the Christian canon.
This moral training is not God-given; but can be deduced from a knowledge of cause and effect.
There is some common ground in practice of morality between various religions and all can converge with compassion. Buddha Dhamma does not end training with the development of compassion.
The limit to wisdom development does not go beyond the ten perfections. For example, there is no need for an Arhat to build a temple.
As Buddha Dhamma becomes more widespread, the need to generate good causes in this life becomes better understood.
Because of clever marketing, there is a perception that the size and quality of a dwelling, whether private or business, reflects the worth of a person or organisation.
That 'bigger is better' is not questioned by mass advertising in a consumer society.
For this reason, when a question of the size of any temple is considered from this Western frame of reference, there is a tendency to go to extremes.
It is not enough to build a small temple for some Western persons, they must build the biggest or most lavish to rival the luxury of a Hilton hotel.
The conditioning of persons' minds is so nearly complete that there is no hesitancy in choice of the desirability of having as many rooms as possible within a given structure.
The belief system is so strong that a person choosing a lesser number of rooms within a given structure would be considered as lacking judgment.
It is not a matter of the number of rooms but of right sizing to get the optimum use from a temple structure. Right sizing is entering the business spectrum of global culture at present, so, it can be imagined that the 21st century will bring better resolution of temple dimensions and locations to fit the practice that is planned ahead of construction.
Monk and Nun training could be helped from a central location via Internet systems. A portion of each future temple may be equipped with a workstation of considerable power.
As the cost of computing lowers, and viharas can communicate with one another with ease, it may be that Monks and Nuns actually do less travel and therefore do not suffer from disturbances associated with cultural shock of different countries.
The pervasiveness and affordability of technology will produce some remarkable changes in the influence of smaller temples.
A small temple may compete with a large temple to service persons reading from Internet services.
It may be that superior Monks and Nuns prefer the atmosphere of small size temples.
Without doubt, they would certainly have longer life in such a suitable environment, and Teachers may live to be 120 to 140 years or more.
Their Teaching period may be multiplied by an equivalent coverage of more than 50,000 times at least. This is a combination of an increased life span and the ability to guide 1000 or more groups simultaneously.
We intend to train several persons in training at present who either this life or next life can withstand the stress of preaching to large numbers of persons.
The author remembers with affection the suitability of simpler vihar constructions in Bangladesh villages with superior Monks in attendance.
These Monks were trained in the Burmese traditions of practice and run their viharas accordingly. Within the temple grounds, an ancient bodhi tree stands and stupas hold the relics of four generations of Teachers in their tradition. It is evident that there must have been a series of viharas in that specific location going back to the twelfth century.
Were Teaching to be conducted by the Abbot of such a temple by multimedia to a global audience, the project would be well suited for practitioners and affordable to maintain and operate.
When the operating costs of this small suitable vihar in Bangladesh are compared to the operating costs of some large establishments built in Western countries, the natural advantage of the Bangladesh vihar becomes evident.
Quality of guidance appears in different parts of the world because of past conditions and cannot be manufactured by wealth alone.
It is not possible to share resources equally.
In ancient times, the Chinese had by no means the same ideas as the Europeans who came to their shores on the subject of commerce.
Kouan-tse, a celebrated economist of the Celestial Empire, who lived more than two thousand years ago, expresses himself thus:
"The money which enters a kingdom by commerce only enriches it in the same proportion as that which goes out. There is no commerce permanently advantageous but the exchange of things useful and necessary.
The trade in articles of pomp, elegance, or curiosity, whether carried on by exchange or by money payments, supposes the existence of luxury; now luxury, which is the abundance of what is superfluous among certain citizens, supposes the want of necessaries among others.
The more horses the rich put to their chariots, the more people will have to walk on foot; the more their houses are vast and magnificent, the more those of the poor are small and miserable; the more their tables are covered with dainties, the more people there are reduced to eat only rice.(8)
This notion has been left behind in modern times but it is evident that balance of trade must have some meaning.
There is an attractiveness in facilitating quality Teaching regardless of national boundaries. It might be that economic rationalism of some sort would exclude high overhead temples from offering their services because their costs could be out of all proportion to what is offered elsewhere.
At that point, the reputation and desirability of using Monks and Nuns to show the way within the backdrop of their smaller viharas would be empathised with by many persons.
The energy of utilisation of a good resource regardless of its locality is a property of modern management. As global news service CNN has shown, it does not take that much energy to deliver visual images from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world.
The will to achieve such quality guidance ought to come from practitioners in the Western world who may not be content with the conventional wisdom that the larger the organisation the higher the quality of the product.
Westerners will become more discriminating of what they wish within the 21st century and this in turn will raise the discrimination level of traditional Buddhist countries.
Japan could become revitalised by the commercial exploitation of the new technology and the availability of suitable Teachers in many underdeveloped countries.
Since this represents a new world market for a product that will bless persons, it is feasible that any country in the world could exploit the obvious advantages of this path.
Our Teacher has arranged a web site that blesses persons at www.bdcublessings.one.net.au.
The energy with which Westerners build their viharas is commendable, but not enough energy is poured into sustaining the structure after it is built. It is as if they do not wish for future generations to have anything to do!
They want to present a 'perfect' building as soon as possible. There is no patience in this Practice and the only outcome is great wealth in a future life for the persons engaged in this type of building.
Buddha Dhamma does not limit a person to continue to develop the four qualities of the mental state of the Brahma world beyond a certain development.
A combination of a spreading of qualified Ajaan's teaching and well written Dhamma literature to backup such teaching within the last two decades have demystified questions of why one should take refuge in the Triple Gem in at least one of the four possible ways (9).
Within the formerly materialistic Western world, some scientifically trained persons reject eternalism by considering that the belief in an eternal creator God is unscientific.
Other persons live within a nihilistic framework by rejecting the notion that rebirth and redeath are not the norm.
In some cases, this challenge has encouraged Buddha Dhamma collaboration by University Professors and Graduates, and the last decade has seen the emergence and publication of many translations of classic well-written Buddha Dhamma.
This material has been traded in printed form as a world commodity.
Affordable costing makes material widely available and, in many cases, due to the generosity of many organisations, written Dhamma is available for free distribution.
In addition, Dhamma materials are appearing in electronic formats on internet and as compact discs readable by computers.
Communication by electronic-mail will become so widely available at low cost, it would be possible and likely that the World Fellowship of Buddhists would link together their Regional Centres to compile a World register of Monks, Nuns and lay Dhamma Teachers with examples of their current training methods.
Web masters could run these systems with voice systems from either their present location or anywhere else world wide.
As more and more persons will work from home in the information age, and home entertainment increases in convenience, some persons could become disinclined to leave their home.
For such persons, a demand for Buddha Dhamma equivalent culture piped into their home may become the norm.
With "convenient" web systems using voice synthesis, it would appear likely that known texts could be verbalised by virtual Monks and virtual Nuns.
A cost-efficient "convenient" web system would be an offshoot of a commercial system that would appear with universal language skills to overcome the need to use the English language as a world language. The "convenient" web systems could address national audiences on request in their own Dhamma languages at any time day or night. In time, for such an audience, it may become difficult for those living Monks and Nuns and Lay persons who wish to compete against the synthetic web voices. Those who incline to speak "live" would need some very pleasant speech to hold the attention of persons with restless time-driven minds who may be conditioned not to travel from their work-wired homes. There is more wealth to build, maintain and deliver services to and from Buddhist Institutions. This wealth is causing fundamental changes in the structure and distribution of communities. Much of this is being driven by a confluence of factors which are shaping the world this century in terms of a more global community and market place. Patterns of demography and distribution of wealth may also be expected to change which will set increased pressures on global resources including the environment. At the same time, the human qualities of covertness and grief do not appear to have substantially abated and are likely to also continue in this century. This will create an evolving set of challenges for Buddhism to both recognise and adapt to so that it may continue to flourish. What are these challenges? We are seeing the proliferation of information and communications technology which is extending into almost every corner of the globe.
The cost to access these communication channels is coming down rapidly making them accessible on a scale that has not been possible before. We are also seeing a convergence of communications technologies in which computing, television, telephony, interactive multimedia are coming together merely as different enablers of communication through the recognition that the basis of all these technologies is digital technology. Accompanying this is an increasing concentration of communications media ownership that will be powerful in both informing and shaping the global agenda. Richard H. Brown, Chief Executive of Cable and Wireless plc, states they are the most international company in the world by having substantial operations in 55 countries and a presence in over 70. (10) They are arranging for a single dedicated management team that will target multinational companies directly instead of operating through the national companies. Part of their plan will be to sink their roots in markets where they can really make a difference and take control of their destiny. What this means is that the Cable & Wireless team must practice a form of global multiculturalism having values which use logic to help build momentum in an industry which is open-ended. It is this very open-ended nature of the industry which allows it to overcome lack of direct eye consciousness by giving, in an affordable form, what can be considered a worldwide "celestial eye" substitute for many persons. The impact, intensity and apparent realism of fiction has always had power to guide the formation of views. Under the 227 Vinaya rules, Monks and Nuns are advised to avoid watching and listening to common plays, pageants, theatre where a dancing women or men move their bodies to music. In ancient times, such shows were not frequent in the countryside so it was not too difficult to observe this rule. The significance of the intense development of Storage-Area Networks (SAN) at present is a guarantee that such entertainment will be easy and affordable in many, many places this century. It does not take much vision to see that suitable feed stock for the future SANs is ready in the marketplace held by copyright.
The global availability of an audience that wishes to share a common delusion equivalent to specific virtual seduction by sight or sound and other major theatrical sense base spectacles is a strong reason to develop product. When product is mass produced for a complete market profile, it means it would be nice from the producer's viewpoint if present conventions of what is accepted as suitable juvenile vis-a-vis adult products was left unquestioned. By linear projection of what would have been considered suitable for general exhibition 50 years ago and what is considered suitable with the same rating today, it can be predicted that the present ratings for film for mature adults only and so on will vanish in many countries. In the entertainment industry, there appears little hard evidence to suggest that any person went bankrupt by allowing bad taste to prevail in their presentations. It may be difficult for children educated from birth in a permissive society which allows them to view the full content of the future SANs to make sense of a precept prohibiting viewing of such subject matter. We suggest that if we use skillful method and means to tell the Buddha Dhamma stories, we will capture some users of the internet.
The technology does not need to be reinvented because it is not a sentient being but since it is neutral to data images based on true or false images shown in electronic form as a motion picture form becomes more affordable and more common culture for more and more persons, SANs are being developed which permits high speed access to multiple storage displays, where such items as video clips might be archived. Research on SAN is moving quickly and it is most likely SAN will replace the need for face-to- face contact with live teachers. The character of search engines developed to date can find more references than are held in local libraries. Automatic translation of foreign texts appears to be nearly ready for key word searches at an affordable cost.
We hope this short outline of the Buddha paths we use for our understanding of what we see in our lifetime has helped our listeners to continue to explore the Buddha Dhamma Teachings.
The full text of this talk and other weeks talks can be found at our website www.bdcublessings.one.net.au.
May you be well and happy in your search for Buddha Dhamma.
References 1. The Buddhist Text Information issues include cumulative bibliographic information for the study of Buddhist texts. In addition to descriptions of texts and their published editions, translations, studies, etc, special attention is given to projects planned, in progress, or recently completed/awaiting publication. For example, numbers 55-58 (1988) include dictionaries for the study of Buddhist texts in Mongolian, Tibetan, Uighur. ISSN 0360-6112 2. Narain, A. K., Address On The Opening Ceremony in The Journal of Sino- Indian Buddhist Studies; Institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies, No.5, 1986, p 14 3. Heritage Collections Council, Australia's Heritage Collections; Commonwealth Department of Communications and the Arts, 1998, pp 10-11 4. Maiden, Malcolm, Thinking Global in The Age Newspaper; Business Saturday 4, July 1998, p 1. Sources quoted: Australian Bureau of Statistics, Productivity Commission, Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade ( Australia), Foreign Investment Review Board, OECD, Centre for International Economics 5. Ibid 3, $US87b (1985), $US 861b (1990) 6. Gungwu, Professor Wang, 'Other' is a view of where you are in The Australian Newspaper; July 29, 1998, p 38 7. Freud, Sigmund, Collected Papers Vol. IV; Hogarth Press and The Institute of Psychoanalysis, 1950, p 84 8. Huc. M., The Chinese Empire, Vol. II; Longman, Brown, Green and Longmans, London, 1855, p 131 9. There are four ways of taking refuge in the Triple Gem: 1. Attasanniyyatana - dedication of one's life to the Triple Gem 2. Tapparayanata - taking the Triple Gem as the protection of oneself 3. Sissa Bhavopagamana - approaching the Triple Gem as a pupil 4. Panipata - submission to the Triple Gem with devotion 10. Brown, Richard H., "Momentum"; A speech presented at Merrill Lynch New York on 18 March 1998 11. Sloan Management Review, Spring 1999, Volume 40, No. 3, pp 122- 123. 12. Fast Comany, March 2000, 4th Anniversary Issue, pp 209-219 13. H.R.H. The Late Supreme Patriarch Prince Vajirananavarorasa, Dhamma Vibhaya (Numerical Sayings of Dhamma) Part 2; The Mahamakut Buddhist University, Thailand, 1970, pp 52-3 14. Little, Graham, The Australian's Review of Books; July 1998, p 6 15. Studies in Connoisseurship, Chinese Paintings from the Arthur M. Sackler Collections in New York, Princeton and Washington, D.C., Marilyn and Shen Fu, Third Edition 1987. 16. Voice of Buddhism, Vol. 33, January 2000, Buddhist Maha Vihara Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
The writers and editors of this script were John D. Hughes, Pennie White, Leanne Eames, Vanessa Macleod, Lisa Nelson, Rilla Oellien, Julie O’Donnell, Brendan Hall, Nick Prescott.
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