Radio Broadcast 233 for
Sunday 14 July 2002
on Hillside Radio 88.0 FM
Glossary
Abhidhamma: higher teachings
Today’s program is titled:
Examination of
Training Issues at our Centre for the next nine years
By John
D. Hughes
Dip. App. Chem. T.T.T.C. GDAIE
(including
comments on
Prajnaparamita Teachings
from Versak 1999 to
Versak 2002
Taught by John D. Hughes)
Training In
Detecting Spurious Information
Discrimination of the various mental states can be
taught. If one must study the inferior as well as the superior to
recognise quality, one must know what constitutes a forgery as well
as what is genuine. Generally speaking, a forgery is any work of art
made with the intention to deceive, i.e. to be passed off as the
product of a different hand or different period. Forgeries ought to
use a more neutral term, “copies”, may be thought of as
malignant entities because of their misrepresentation of period and
person.
The forger himself is an artist, and his output of
energy, however devious its purpose, also forms a part of that
comprehensive history of artist energy we are attempting to
reconstruct.
His or her works, when they were produced,
satisfied a contemporary demand.
Forgeries therefore have a
place in history. As historians we can use them advantageously.
The
“proof” of authenticity emerges from the most rigorous
biography that we can assemble.
We must familiarise ourselves
with the social, religious and philosophical attitudes of other
periods and countries, in order to correct any subjective feeling we
might have for content. Edgar Wind states that participation is very
much the historian’s role, “the investigator intrudes into
the process that he is investigating. This is what the supreme rule
of methodology demands... otherwise, there would be no contact with
the surrounding world that is to be investigated.”
At
our Centre, our library contains most of our sources of research
information. During the last three decades the library collection has
been assembled by our Teacher. This is called The John D. Hughes
Collection at 33 Brooking Street, Upwey 3158 Victoria Australia.
These central sources of information are used to help us practice one
method of researching called triangulation.
The method of
triangulation is to look at a number of different sources and view
points to authenticate the data you are looking at and come to a
balanced and accurate picture of what you are looking at.
By
the methods, the spurious documents will be revealed
Use of
Search Engines
Internally, we use search engines to find good
information for researching our position papers, reports, documents
for the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, the weekly Buddhist Hour Broadcast
Scripts as well as, for example, searching for web site addresses and
matters of administration and corporate governance.
Internally
we use ISYS software for searching our LAN1 (Local Area Network 1)
text files and databases. For our LAN2 (Local Area Network 2) we use
a CGI (Common Graphics Interface) search script, written by Matt
Wright.
Our Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. Database,
built on Microsoft Access, may be searched for Member, contacts,
supplier and organisation details; our Essential Services Inspection
System software may be searched for reporting and tracking our Fire
and Essential Service Maintenance.
In the library, our
Organise 6.0 software is used for searching the John D. Hughes
Collection.
Members’ internal searches using these
packages can exceed 40 searches a day.
Other internal search
functions appear in our word processing and spread sheet packages,
Microsoft Windows ‘95, ‘98, Star Office and Lotus Smart
Suite.
These can be used to find words, phrases and names.
For our financial data and reports we search our Quickbooks
Accounting software Version 7.
Internally, our Members use the
Internet to find web sites that may provide information or references
we need.
External search engines often used include
www.google.com and www.yahoo.com, which search the world wide web to
find specific search engines in sites, such as the Victorian
Government web site at www.vic.gov.au and the Australian Securities
and Investment Commission at www.asic.gov.au.
Our Members use
external Internet search engines up to ten times daily on site. Off
site each of our web masters may use search engines up to a dozen
times a day at their workstations.
Members enrolled in
tertiary studies are able to access their university web sites for
research purposes, such as Monash University at www.monash.edu.au to
search the library databases across university campuses.
Our
Members also use the search engines on four of our web sites. The
bdcu.org.au site uses a search called Entrophy Search. The Entrophy
Search is set up to index the words contained in the documents on the
web site.
Members can use Entrophy Search by typing in a
Keyword and then a hyperlinked list of files and an abstract of the
documents containing the Keyword are displayed.
On the
blessings, bddronline and bsbonline web sites we use a CGI (Common
Graphical Interface) script search engine developed by Matt Wright.
This search engine works in a similar fashion to the Entrophy Search.
Presently we have nine members who are skilled at exploiting
the resources for our purposes by internal searches and through
external online search engines. We aim over the next three months to
skill another twenty Members in the use of internal and external
search engines to do research for our purposes.
For example,
our search research shows over use of BDCU in documents and our next
policy is to cease using this acronym.
Keyword Notion
We
use our text retrieval system ISYS, which uses Keywords to find the
information we are looking for.
This process of using
Keywords is like a librarian: He/she will provide us with books only
on request. This process also applies if we wish to enter the Sphere
of Infinite Knowledge; we must know what to ask and what the Keywords
are in order to obtain the information.
Persons should
acquire a vocabulary of at least 80,000 Keywords that appear in our
ISYS index.
See Appendix 1 for ISYS Index of Words on LAN1
Occurring More Than 1000 and 10,000 times.
In Appendix 2 of
this document is a list of Keywords from the Foreword of ‘The
Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma’ by Dr. Tin Mon. These were
compiled by Pennie White B.A. Dip. Ed.
Appendix 3 gives the
list of the 100 subdivisions of the Dewey Decimal Classification
System and its subdivisions.
This list ought to be learnt by
all members within the next three months.
We want to use the new
technologies to help us read and learn faster with minimum strain.
New software will enable us to bring up text or photographs fast
on the computer screen.
We will build PHOTOLAN that will enable
us to view as many as 3000 photographs within half an hour (100 per
minute).
Members need to get ready for better Dhamma learning
experiences as best they can.
Because the mind is so fast it
is possible to absorb large amounts of information. The trained mind
in Nibbana is quicker than our usual the five senses appearing and
disappearing.
Mary Ann Maxwell, the CIO (Chief Information
Officer) of Westpac Bank, states that a businessperson who
understands computers is more effective than a computer person who
has to try and understand business.
Maxwell writes: “One
of the roles of the CIO has to be helping executives understand the
benefits and the risks involved in bringing technology into an
organisation”.
“ If you ask what has gone wrong in
the past, there hasn’t been a clear definition within
organisations about what strategic goal is being met when bringing in
new computers, or customer relationship management systems.”
She points out it is important that IT vendors understand
Australia’s difference in scale with the US, for example even
though Australia has a high rate of IT adoption.
Maxwell
generally states that IT vendors are not putting in enough effort to
meet the promises for the IT equipment to suit many Australian
companies’ needs. Not meeting the promises has a real
implication on business.
Preparation for Teaching
Abhidhamma
To be able to learn, students have to increase
their usual merit as it takes much more merit to learn Abhidhamma
than to learn Prajnaparamita.
The female deity Prajnaparamita
is often described as the mother of all Buddhas.
The Sanskrit
term Prajnaparamita means the Perfection of Wisdom and is used to
refer to both the deity Prajnaparamita and the Teachings of the
Perfection of Wisdom held by the Deity.
The original substance
of the Prajnaparamita text was delivered of a platform provided by
the Dragon King.
The Sutra was spoken in seven places and in
nine assemblies. The verse facilitates remembering those places and
assemblies:
“The first was in the Bodhi field;
The
ninth in the Jeta Grove;
The third and fourth in the Trayastrimsha
and Suyama Heavens;
The second seventh and eighth were held in the
Universal Light Palaces;
The fifth and sixth took place in the
Tushita and Paranirmitavashavartin Heavens.”
At the same
time, the Members learn to display professional friendship and
conduct towards one another by working in teams.
Conditioning
the minds of Members to appreciate arrays of knowledge was conducive
to Prajnaparamita that was taught by John D. Hughes from three moons
before Versak 1999 to Versak 2002 at the Buddhist Discussion Centre
(Upwey) Ltd.
As taught, it required Members to spend much
time manually searching their prescribed text together. The power of
chanting the text together was discovered.
In the Teacher’s
view, the fact that the students here could analyse and continue for
three years and three moons and then take their proper place
attending to and practising bell Pujas to share merit with the many
Devas and Devatas who guarded and helped them was auspicious.
These
and other Student indicators, show they could be suitable vehicles
for Teaching Abhidhamma over nine years.
In other words, they
are the sort of people who could start to learn Abhidhamma.
The
Prajnaparamita Teachings are a subset of the Abhidhamma Teachings.
Learning Abhidhamma differs from Prajnaparamita as students
use their own energy to learn. Internally, they examine the content
of their own mind, not their Teacher’s mind nor the mind of
others.
So what did the students find out over the course of
the Prajnaparamita Teaching?
One local student who had been
taught Prajnaparamita for about seven years, after hearing two
sessions of Abhidhamma has vowed to live in such a manner that she
can take rebirth at the Golden Pavilion of the Heaven of the
Thirty-three.
The Teacher wants the students to be heedful.
Some students said they wanted to learn Prajnaparamita, the
Perfection of Wisdom, but were not genuine in paying respect to the
Buddha as number one and holding Prajnaparamita in mind. Because of
this they held less than five precepts (sila) some of the time.
Over
time, such person’s health and wealth decreased and they missed
more and more weekly teachings.
One student moved to Sydney
for six months for the big money available during the Olympic Games.
Her wealth increased for a while but her health decreased through
overwork to such an extent she was no longer fit to work.
Other
students developed the intention to learn and forgot to request to be
taught in a generous manner, free from doubt. As a result, they
learnt little.
Intense practice makes vast merit.
Intense
practice destroys vast merit if the flood of defilements is left to
their own devices. They ought to be attended to.
Many were
motivated to learn Prajnaparamita because of their wish or vow to
help others. So to fulfil their Bodhisattva vow they needed to
develop more wisdom. Such persons could stay for the course of
teachings.
All students recognised that to prepare their
minds to receive the teachings correctly they had to overcome two
unwholesome cetasikas - sloth and torpor.
By making wholesome
actions many students increased their wholesome minds and kusala
decreased their akusala minds.
If they were sensuous types,
the improvement was of short duration and subject to worldly
distractions.
One female student greatly increased her income
and work hours and decided to get pregnant to her rich
boyfriend.
Expecting Radical Change in Scholastic
Focus.
Embarking on scholarship – learning, research or
studies needs courage as you often end up where you least
expect.
Jinhua Chen, in an article page 5 of the Bukkyo Dendo
Kyokai Fellowship Newsletter No. 5 2002 writes about his scholastic
experiences in a number of Universities in Kyoto, Japan when he was
awarded a Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai dissertation-research fellowship. Some
of the universities he studied at were: Hanazono University, Kyodai
University and Ryukoku University.
Jinhua notes that two kinds
of unexpected experiences occurred. Firstly he was able to get a
better understanding of Chinese traditional culture (Chinese Buddhism
in particular) in Kyoto, Japan, as Kyoto was so successful in
preserving Japanese traditional culture, a significant part of which
was faithfully borrowed from China. Here he was able to see religious
rituals and ceremonies now long extinct in modern China.
Secondly,
Kyoto being a global Centre for Japanese and Chinese studies, he
notes, how he met more North American and European Sinologists and
Buddhologists during his two years in Kyoto than in North America.
He also comments on the generosity of scholars he met, saying
no matter whether they were young PhD students like himself, or
senior scholars of world wide reputation they were all generous in
sharing the results of their research.
He says that Kyoto
opened up on new perspectives for him that he never imagined existed.
He says that his two years in Kyoto had been of decisive importance
for his intellectual life as he feels that if those two years had
been spent otherwise he would now be in a totally different track of
life as a scholar.
The two projects that he had intended to
work on were the Tang Monk-Scientist Yixing and Sengcan. However, he
ended up writing his dissertation on Saicho (767-822).
He says
that he felt embarrassed submitting this work to his superiors in
Canada – like an awkward bridegroom who finds to his shock his
new bride is somewhat quite different to the girl he has been dating
for years. To his relief his dissertation research was received
positively by his superiors.
He sums up by saying that he
recognised that two distinct factors changed his scholastic focus;
the first being technical, the second emotional.
You may
join us for Abhidhamma Teachings on Tuesday evenings the Buddhist
Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd., 33 Brooking Street, Upwey, 3158,
Australia.
May you offer more flowers to learn this life.
May
all beings be well and happy.
References
Chen,
Jinhua (1994) BDK Fellowship and Me, BDK Fellowship Newsletter No. 5
2002, Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, Minato-Ku, Tokyo, Japan, p.5.
Fu,
Marilyn and Shen (1973) Studies in Connoiseurship, Arthur M. Sackler
Foundation, Washington, D.C.
Maxwell, Mary Ann “Saying
sorry about systems isn’t enough”,
THE AUSTRALIAN, 9
July 2002, p.32.
LAN2 I:\teach02.rtf
Readability
Statistics
Counts
Words: 1649
Characters:
5879
Paragraphs: 51
Sentences: 57
Averages
Sentences
per paragraph: 1.3
Words per sentence: 18.5
Characters per
word: 4.9
Readability
Passive sentences: 17%
Flesch
Reading Ease: 48.4
Flesh-Kincaid Grade Level: 11.0
Estimated
writing and editing time: 56hours
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Flesch
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Computes readability based on the average number
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Scores range from 0 (zero) to 100. Standard writing averages
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The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.
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