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NAMO
TASSA
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'THE
BUDDHIST HOUR'
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Hillside
Radio 87.6 FM & 88.0 FM |
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The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Sunday 25 February 2001
Today’s Program is called: Cultivating Confidence in the Path
There are arrangements of systems of work values which are useful for research and practical studies. One such arrangement comprises seven systems. The first system is reactive. At this level of existence values are absent. It characterises infant’s behaviour and individuals with serious brain deterioration. The second system is tribalistic where the individual derives his or her values from a “Chief”, such as a father or a boss. Persons in a tribalistic system value highly routine work and friendly autocratic supervision. System three is egocentric. This describes rugged persons who are usually tough and aggressive. They respect a boss who is tough. System four is conformist. Persons with these values exhibit loyalty, hard work and attentiveness to duty. Security and fairness are important to such persons. System five is manipulative. Materialism, activity, goals, achievements and advancement are values by the employee at this level. System six is sociocentric. People count more than situations in this case. System seven is existential. The individual that likes work that allows for freedom and creativity and money and advancement are less important than challenge and an opportunity to learn and grow. These seven systems for success were designed by Professor Clare Graves in 1970. They are of course not statistical but psychological. You will also note that these values can be paired as opposites for example, tribalistic is the opposite of egocentric. In order to be responsible and successful you are taught that you must believe in something. The person who takes responsibility usually gets the credit and the reward. And it is through responsibility that you can become awakened in the Buddha Dhamma sense. But it must be said that there is no way to succeed but to expose yourself to some risk. It is unlikely that any organisation has a clearly defined, step by step path towards success for its employees. It is by nature an obstacle course designed to eliminate the maximum number of persons and discourage all but the most determined. You must become confident that there is no easy accent up the ladder of success because with large organisations very few persons have a realistic overview of the organisation itself. In a small organisation the managers are most likely to have much time to spare to explain in fine detail what positions will be available in the company in five years from now because they do not know themselves with certainty what the company will look like and what products they will be handling and what new skills they will be acquiring. Business novels and movies are always full of powerful executives whose careers suddenly fail. This can happen in real life but it is not that common because successful people retain their advantages long after they have ceased to be functioning at top capacity. A remarkably large percentage of high achievers are fit, healthy and active because they do not use alcohol or drugs. Rich persons take better care of themselves than poor persons and are unlikely to be overweight. The first rule of success is to have plenty of energy and the best way to develop energy is to split your day into the smallest possible segments of time. By this method you can analyse your workload in a positive way. The other thing that is necessary is if you set out to do something complete it. If you do not think you can complete it, then do not begin it. Confidence thrives on achievement and if you start with your simplest problem on your list and solve it you can gradually work to harder and harder problems because you start off having solved and achieved simpler problems. It is quite likely that energy management is all there is to confidence. You can read books on body language if you wish to know more. All these things are the conventional wisdom and it is suggested these might be quickly mastered before you even start practicing the Buddha Dhamma. Our fellow Directors and Colleagues have worked behind the scenes to bring an organisational structure designed to prevent communication breakdown between Members. Finding the reactions of members to proposed policies brings to bear a much greater variety of experience than could be possessed by one person. The Buddha recommended confidence (saddha), morality (sila), and emotional maturity (caga) as virtues when persons are close together. These properties are virtues which ensure happiness and success of individuals. The joy of selfless service to others denotes emotional maturity. It is said that when this quality is displayed between persons, that their relationship can reappear in a future existence. Is there knowledge that can help most humans? The Buddha Canon, known as the Tipitaka in Pali, comprises of three collections of teachings. The first collection, the Vinaya Pitaka, is the book of discipline, containing the rules of conduct for the Monks and Nuns and the regulations governing the Sangha. The second collection, the Sutta Pitaka, brings together the Lord Buddha’s discourses spoken by him on various occasions during his 45 years of teaching. The third collection is the Abhidhamma Pitaka which contains the Buddha’s ‘higher’ or ‘special’ doctrine. The Abhidhamma is said to hold the essentials of the Buddha Dhamma without the need of conventional terminology. It deals directly with those elements which constitute the exact nature of our existence, and all questions of a conventional nature are left aside. This should not deter one from plunging into the Abhidhamma however. Once begun, the Abhidhamma can lead us on to a better understanding of the practice of insight (vipassana). A study of Abhidhamma can be of immense value to us in coming to terms with the nature of life and understanding it in the way of momentary events. It is made clear that life exists as moments only. The past moments have gone, they cannot be made to come back. The future has not yet come, so it does not yet exist. The present moment is now and is all that really exists. Through the study of Abhidhamma the moments of life are analysed into their respective factors of consciousness, mental factors and the objects of consciousness. Wholesome moments are distinguished from unwholesome moments in such a way that we can understand the difference between the two and thus enable us to see the difference between all the different moments of life-to know that the moment of seeing is different from the moment of hearing, that hearing is different from thinking about what we hear, that tasting is not the same moment as smelling, that even the taste is not the same as the tasting and so on. The Ahidhamma assists us to understand this momentariness of life. Life is but a moment, conditioned by past moments, arising for an instant then passing away again to be followed by the next moment’s arising. Two consecutive moments are never the same. If there is right knowledge too vast for most humans, we would like to know how we cognise its existence. Stcherbastsky in his book Buddhist Logic Volume One states: “All successful human action is (necessarily) preceded by right knowledge, therefore we are going to investigate it. By these words (Master) Dharmakirti defines the scope and the aim of the science to which his work is devoted. Human aims are either positive or negative, either something desirable or something undesirable. Purposive action consists in attaining the desirable and avoiding the undesirable. Right cognition is successful cognition, that is to say, it is cognition followed by a successful action. Cognition which leads astray, which deceives the sentient beings in their expectations and desires, is error or wrong cognition. Error and doubt are the opposites of right knowledge”. According to the Abhidhamma philosophy there are two types of realities: One is the conventional and the other is ultimate reality. Conventional realities are made up of conventional modes of expressions like persons, living beings and whatever object making up that part of mental life which has not been analysed. Abhidhamma philosophy maintains that the mode of being of these notions is essentially conceptual and they are not expressive of any inherent irreducible reality but rather mental constructions which we wrongly assume to be true. Ultimate realities are discovered from correctly performed analysis of our experiences. As one extracts oil from sesame seed, so one can extract the ultimate from the conceptual realities. By examining the conventional realities with wisdom, we eventually come to perceive the ultimate realities which lay beyond our assumed constructs. Only by means of wise or thorough attention to things one can see beyond the mental constructs and take the ultimate realities as one’s object of knowledge. One skill that is required to achieve this process is the power of observation and analysis. The Lord Buddha gave a Discourse of the Analysis of Offerings for persons to learn and practice. The Buddha advised: Whoever, moral in habit, gives to the poor in moral habit A gift rightfully acquired, the mind well pleased, firmly believing in the rich fruit of kamma- This is an offering purified by the giver. Whoever, poor in moral habit gives to those of moral habit A gift unrightfully acquired, the mind not pleased Not believing in the rich fruit of kamma This is an offering purified by the recipient. Whoever, poor in moral habit, gives to the poor in moral habit A gift unrightfully acquired, the mind not pleased, Not believing in the rich fruit of kamma This is an offering purified by neither. Whoever, moral in habit, gives to those of moral habit, A gift rightfully acquired, the mind well pleased, firmly believing in the rich fruit of kamma- I assert this gift to be of abundant fruit. Whoever without attachment, gives to those without attachment A gift rightfully acquired, the mind well pleased, firmly believing in the rich fruit of kamma- I assert this gift to be a gift abundant in gain. When persons practising dana follow the Buddha’s advice, the mind becomes clear and cognates the process of cause and effect made of the offering. If at any stage in the process the mind falters, doubt can arise and the mind goes to error. Doubt is the nature of shifting the mind from object to object finding out what is true and getting fatigued in the attempt. Doubt refers to a mental state in respect of eight things, the Buddha, the Teachings, the Order, the Precepts, the Before, the After, the Before and After and the Law of Dependent Origination. It does not mean that the spirit of scepticism is a bad thing. For in the Suttas the Buddha says, “you have raised a doubt where you should” or “you have raised a doubt where you should not”. Dogmatism is not encouraged in Buddhism; for to hold “that one’s view alone is right” until the person has obtained the Supra Mundane States is a tie that binds one to the world of rebirth and suffering. The Buddha said that things never arise from one cause, they are multi stranded. To date, persons cannot see that there are five or seven elements of the cetasika Saddha (or confidence) as described in the Abhidhamma. In fact, overall they cannot see that our kusula cetasikas (our wholesome minds) are not one “mind-stuff”, but multi strand. Until persons know for themselves the building blocks of confidence and how to generate them, he or she does not know, in the sense of Bhumi, what is needed for certainty that their confidence never fails them, because he or she neglected to assemble some of the five or seven elements to build confidence. Things improve when a person has a good Teacher. Then, if he or she has success in what they are trying to do and achieve it slowly, over many instances, he or she gains confidence in the Teacher’s methods because of their experiences. The way in which each person develops confidence depends upon their personality type. Each person will develop confidence differently from the next person. Some persons are more inclined to develop confidence through faith while other persons develop confidence through analysis. It is not uncommon for some persons to learn through a combination of both, though with a strong natural bias toward one. Those persons who learn to develop confidence through faith, do not necessarily understand the means involved but follow the process due to their faithful nature. This method of developing confidence is slower and weaker than by analysis and takes many lifetimes. This method of learning has fewer risks than by the way of analysis. The higher risk nature of developing confidence by analysis is offset by speed and strength when success is a result. The analysis path is unsuitable for persons with weak discursive minds. The analysis path is unsuitable for persons with strong minds who deny faith. One of our former members had a strong mind and kept many precepts (sila). This person was unable to develop confidence by analysis because of a strong disposition towards the denial of faith. Such a person is not able to develop confidence by analysis or faith and misses their opportunity to practice Buddha Dhamma this life. The certainty of death must be understood. Such persons are characterised by their minds beginning to seek denial of pain in their body and practicing not to keep their minds within the volume of their body. Such a person denies that they will get sickness, become old and die one day. Without this bitter knowledge, a person is not able to develop confidence. To get success you need to be loyal. Other persons have faith in the Buddha Dhamma Teachings but do not understand that we are in a Dhamma-ending age and that a sense of urgency is needed to become established in the Buddha Dhamma. Some persons believe that faith alone is enough to get out of the suffering and that they do not need a Teacher to show them the way. There are two errors that persons using faith can fall into. One is to have faith with the mind inside and seek a soul or a God within. Persons can fall into the delusion that they are a God or are an eternal soul, that is not subject to old age, sickness and death. This is wrong view. The other error is to have faith with the mind outside seeking an external God to worship. This is also error. Saddha is that nature in which there is self clarification in the spiritual object that should be believed. These objects are: the Teacher, the Teaching, the Order, Action (kamma), and its Fruit (kamma vipaka). Our Members and Friends and Benefactors supply us with resources. This week we obtained many filing units and office furniture as gifts from one of our Member’s employer. The gifts for housing our library collection came just in time. New printer stands were donated and support our new scanners. IT equipment has been upgraded by a factor of two in the last seven months. We wish all persons who play an active role in our three Task Units confidence in everything they undertake. Those Members at our Centre who make much merit by helping others are quick to understand the cetasika of saddha and the other wholesome cetasikas. And through the power of confidence this can lead to observation and analysis which leads to a superior form of confidence. We wish our listener’s confidence and work skills to increase and never decrease. We welcome visitors to our websites where they will find more information about how to build superior levels of confidence. We would welcome visitors by appointment who wish to help us with their time and skills that are freely given. May all Members come to understand ‘how we do things around here’. May you be confident and prosperous. This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes, Lisa Nelson and Evelin Halls. Disclaimer:
As we, 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 an other 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 Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
REFERENCES: Korda, Michael. “Success” (1977) Random House New York Stcherbastsky, Buddhist Logic Volume 1. For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us. |
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