Preparation and review of merit needed by participants for
Abhidhamma Teaching
at our Centre 2002 to 2011 CE
This
document is printed using the Bookman Old Style font,
point size
14
Prepared by John D. Hughes, Anita Hughes, Evelin Halls and
Julian Bamford.
Persons attending the Abhidhamma Teaching
classes at our Centre come on a voluntary basis. There is no fee
charged for the Teaching.
This paper is aimed strictly as a
preparation and review of merit needed for Abhidhamma Teaching. The
major aim is to refine the minds, but to do this the speech and body
must be refined. You cannot have fine minds on a coarse base or
coarse speech.
The paper will not teach you everything you
need to know about a topic. Instead, it will present and dissect the
question topics that you are probably going to see as you consolidate
your learning.
We begin with a basic assumption that you
already have a very strong background of experience in Buddha Dhamma
practice.
Without this condition …you cannot
begin.
Participants must generate the intention to study
Abhidhamma, make the effort to study Abhidhamma, arouse the energy to
study Abhidhamma, make the merit to study Abhidhamma and place ardour
on top to study Abhidhamma. There are many ways in that participants
can do this.
Participants are requested to bring flowers to
each session to offer. There are ten blessings that come from
offering flowers. They are:
Long Life
Good
Health
Strength
Beauty
Wisdom
Ease along the Buddha
Dhamma Path
Being born in beautiful environments
Born with good
skin, hair and beautiful to look at
Always have a sweet smelling
body
Pleasant relationships with friends
All things depend
on nutriment. From Dana of food five blessings arise.
Each
participant must bring to the Temple each week a 5kg bag of Basmati
Rice. We suggest White Tiger AAA Pak Basmati Rice. Long grain
non-stick 100% rice, silky sortex with clean double polish. Importers
and wholesale U.V.Enterprises, 9 Massey Street, Gladesville NSW 2111
Phone 02 9817 5521 Fax: 02 9879 6681
In addition to these
offerings participants are to bring food. They may select items from
the recommended list of grocery requirements each week. Remember,
some of our Members are diabetic.
Participants need to be
involved in the cleaning and maintenance of the Temple, Library and
surrounds.
It is recommended they visit the Temple at least
three times per week, for three hours each visit and three hours
daily for each day of their holidays.
See our roster books
for this purpose which contains the Resident Practitioners’
Attendant and Temple Attendant Rosters.
Participants must
increase their present merit making. Ideally, they can do this by
spending three hours a day at the Temple if they can arrange it, at
least three times a week and in their holidays three hours each day.
Participants must not allow their bodies, speech and minds to
become coarse. They ought avoid eating coarse (sattvic) food.
We
refer to the Dasabhadra Karmamarga Sutra (1) where the Buddha
says:
‘He (Sic) who abstains from lying will attain eight
qualities, the possessing of which is commended by the Devas. What
are they? They are: -
(1)His mouth is always clean and
fragrant as the Utpala flower,
(2)He commands the confidence
and the obedience of all worlds,
(3)What he says becomes proof
and he himself is held in esteem by Devas and men,
(4)He is in
the habit of giving comforts to all sentient beings by kind words,
(5)He gets refined pleasure and his speech, action, and
thought are all pure,
(6)He makes no blunder in speaking and
his mind is always joyful,
(7)His words carry weight and are
respected and obeyed by Devas and men,
(8)His wisdom is
extraordinary and inferior to none.
Should he turn his good
merits towards the cause of Anutara Samyak Sambodhi, he will gain in
his future Buddhahood the Buddha attribute of truthful speech”.
In
the Sutra of 42 Sections (2) the Buddha said “There are twenty
things that are hard for Human beings: -
1. It is hard to
practice charity when one is poor.
2. It is hard to study the
Way when occupying a position of great authority.
3. It is
hard to surrender life at the approach of inevitable death.
4.
It is hard to get an opportunity of reading the sutras.
5. It
is hard to be born directly into Buddhist surroundings.
6. It
is hard to bear lust and desire (without yielding to them).
7.
It is hard to see something attractive without desiring it.
8.
It is hard to bear insult without making an angry reply.
9. It
is hard to have power and not to pay regard to it.
10.It is
hard to come into contact with things and yet remain unaffected by
them.
11.It is hard to study widely and investigate everything
thoroughly.
12.It is hard to overcome selfishness and
sloth.
13.It is hard to avoid making light of not having
studied (the Way) enough.
14.It is hard to keep the mind
evenly balanced.
15.It is hard to refrain from defining things
as being something or not being something.
16.It is hard to
come into contact with clear perception (of the Way).
17.It is
hard to perceive one’s own nature and (through such perception)
to study the Way.
18.It is hard to help others towards
Enlightenment according to their various needs.
19.It is hard
to see the end (of the Way) without being moved.
20.It is hard
to discard successfully (the shackles that bind us to the wheel of
life and death) as opportunities present themselves.”
Buddha
rules forbid us to detail the healing and wealth blessings that arise
at our Buddha Dhamma Temple if our recommended pujas are
completed.
Suffice to say, the blessings here have been so
great in number that they are almost too many to list even if we
tried.
Some blessings fruit in this life and some in future
lives.
The practitioner who has just entered the door of
Buddhadharma has immense karmic obscurations and a lack of merits and
quality.
In order to eliminate the obscurations and improve
merits and quality, the aid from the blessings of the boundless power
from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas is the only way to change his or
her life in the long run.
There are billions of meritorious
deeds possible that can be done as a human being.
As
explained in the most recent issue of Wisdom Man, published by The
Great Perfection Buddhist Centre Ltd. (3) a Temple in Hong Kong
advised a student to burn The ‘Boat of Fortune’. The ‘Boat’
is made of thousands and thousands of mantra recited by the people
who constructed it.
‘Boat’ literally means that
sentient beings aboard are brought from this shore of samsara to the
other shore of nirvana.
Therefore, by burning it the
recipient of the merits is rescuing his or her own past affiliates,
and thus eliminating some evil karma each time this boat of fortune
is burnt.
Fire pujas are not recommended at our Centre because
we are within a high fire danger zone that is prone to bush fires.
At
our Centre, on most Tuesdays, two different Teachers will teach
Abhidhamma practice in at least two small classes at the same
time.
We wish to make it easy to learn.
If a
participant has too much repeated difficulty learning in one class,
it is possible for him or her to apply to be taught in the other
class.
Participants who do not follow these guidelines will
get three written warnings and will be offered counselling.
Ultimately, persons may be suspended from both classes.
There
is no appeal from such a decision under the Equal Opportunity
Act.
Religious institutions are not subject to the Equal
Opportunity Act 1995: “Part 3. When Is Discrimination
Prohibited?” The Act states that nothing in Part 3 applies to
section 75 Religious Bodies, section 76 Religious Schools, and
section 77 Religious Beliefs or Principles. The Equal Opportunity Act
1995, Version No. 035. Act No.42/1995 incorporating amendments as at
1 January 2002 can be viewed at URL www.dms.pdc.vic.gov.au
The
Abhidhamma covers all areas of knowledge. One of the requirements to
learn Abhidhamma is that students develop a knowledge framework into
which they can store and from where they can retrieve, what they have
learnt.
It is recommended that participants rote learn the 100
classifications of the Dewey Decimal system (4) to use as a knowledge
frame work for storage and retrieval of the Abhidhamma knowledge they
learn.
Participants must read voraciously.
Participants
are expected to read our Buddha Dhamma texts and handouts given on a
weekly basis. Participants must increase the amount of data they
handle.
Also they ought to read the Buddhist Hour weekly radio
broadcast, the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, the Brooking Street Bugle,
Longhair Australia News, photographs, reports, papers and any other
written materials published on our web sites and elsewhere.
Much
of our material is available online on our web sites, so that
participants can research off-site. We will also prepare CD-ROMs for
offline reading at our Centre.
The paper “Examination of
Training Issues at our Centre for the next nine years” (5) by
John D. Hughes Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE was given to
participants in the Abhidhamma class No. 3.
This paper deals
with search engines in more detail including the importance of
learning keywords such as used in the Dewey decimal Classification
System. This paper is also uploaded on web site
www.bdcublessings.net.au/radio233.html
References:
1.Translated
into English from the Chinese Version by Upasaka Wong Mou-lan,
translated into Chinese from Sanskrit by Sikshananda-nanajio, The
Buddhabhasita Dasabhadra Karmamarga Sutra, Bilingual Buddhist Series
Sutras and Scriptures Volume One, Publisher: Rev. Shih Tsy Huey.
Taiwan R.O.C. p 276-277.
Editor’s note: Add “or she”
after “he”; add “or her” after
“him”.
2.Translated into English from the Chinese
version by Upasaka Chu Ch’an (John Blofeld), translated into
Chinese from Sanskrit by Matanga, Kasyapa and Gobharana The Sutra of
Forty-two Sections, Bilingual Buddhist Series Sutras and Scriptures
Volume One, Publisher: Rev. Shih Tsy Huey. Taiwan R.O.C. p
321-322.
3.Wisdom Man p 59, The Great Perfection Buddhist
Centre ltd., Flat A, 4/F Ma’s Mansion, 35-37 Hankow Road, Tsim
Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.
Note from the editor: “
Wisdom Man misses its readers so much in the past few months! We
never forget your kind support and care since “Wisdom Man”
was first published. Everyone of us has been maximising our effort to
meet the demanding requisites of our readers in hope of achieving
quality of the quality within our limited lives. We put every word of
the newsletter into actions as it is said in the Three Aspects of
Learnings that is to listen, to meditate and to practice. We won’t
allow your waiting for this volume to be wasted! In this volume, we
have extended the teachings of our Great master Guru Rinpoche and the
preaching of the Nyingmapa instructions of our Venerable Master
Chogtseg Dorje in a profound yet simple way, and at the same time
continue our mission and aspiration. We wish our readers reach
supreme enlightenment through (overcoming) ignorance; alleviate
towards Dharmadhatu through purification; illuminated by
all-pervading-radiant compassion; and reveal every path wisdom
explicitly to all sentient beings.”
4. Hughes, John
D. et al., Appendix 3 of Examination of Training Issues at our Centre
for the next nine years (including comments on Prajnaparamita
Teachings from Versak 1999 to Versak 2002 Taught by John D. Hughes),
9 July 2002, our ref: LAN2 I:\teach02.rtf Online at
www.bddronline.net.au Vol. 12 No.2
5. Hughes, John D. et al.,
Examination of Training Issues at our Centre for the next nine years
(including comments on Prajnaparamita Teachings from Versak 1999 to
Versak 2002 Taught by John D. Hughes), 9 July 2002, our ref: LAN2
I:\teach02.rtf Online at www.bddronline.net.au Vol. 12 No.2
6.
Jones, J.G. and Landes, C. Exam Cram A+. Second Edition. Arizona: The
Coriolis Group. LLC, 2001.
Document statistics
Words
1556
Characters 7652
Paragraphs 71
Sentences
80
Averages:
Sentences per paragraphs 1.4
Words per sentence
16.0
Characters per word 4.7
Readability:
Passive
sentences 15%
Flesch Reading Ease 55.9
Flesch-Kincaid Grade
level 9.2
Revision Number 70
Editing time 460 minutes