The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

 



Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast 234 for Sunday 21 July 2002
on Hillside Radio 88.0 FM



Glossary

savoir faire: [Fr., lit. ‘know how to do’.] The instinctive ability to act suitably in any situation; tact.


Today’s program is titled:

Savoir faire developed for increasing the depth of knowledge fields and friendliness on our web sites


Our teachers and webmasters have developed much savoir faire regarding web sites this year.

Our major web masters are Evelin Halls, Pennie White and Julian Bamford. We have another three webmasters in full training of our style of operations: Leanne Eames, Helen Appleyard and Kamfatt Lin.

In the case of our flagship publication Buddha Dhyana Dana Review, we know how to increase the depth of knowledge fields we present to our readers in our publications.

In the case of the Brooking Street Bugle, we know how to increase the very human approach of the publication.

Learning to maintain control and focus on these two qualities has been important for our teams who provide our communication from our web sites. We understand the fact better that Internet delivery does not have the economic limitation on space of paper based material.

Now we understand we can illustrate an article with 200 photographs on our web site, whereas if we were to print it we would have to limit the range of illustrations because of physical space and economic considerations.

When selection is made from an array of photographs, depth of knowledge field is diminished.

When meeting deadlines and managing behaviours of our team of webmasters, wordsmiths and researchers, we all need to stay familiar with internet contemporary thinking and a mix of views and perspectives from the paper age. We do not operate within the historic vacuum of severe limitations on the length of text or number of photographs.

However, we will resist the temptation of becoming prolix for its own sake. We think more referenced footnotes are desirable.

There is hard evidence that long, substantial articles on Internet web site www.aldaily.com (Arts & Letters Daily) have appeal.

With 220,000 people per month viewing the site, it has won a 2002 Webby Award, deemed the oscars of the Internet. The editor of Arts & Letters Daily, Dennis Sutton, is a teacher, a philosopher of arts at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. He believes that many academic writers on the liberal left are “extremely poor prose stylists”.

Arts & Letters Daily readers are especially keen to be introduced to long substantial articles an apparent paradox since many editors have been trying to win the competition for attention by giving ever shorter articles.

We understand administrative issues need to be considered for our researchers to explore and debate current issues surrounding Australian directors and boards to meet corporate governance, legal obligations and accountability.

We do not wish our researchers to come to conclusions that, if implemented, would be illegal.

To achieve our grand vision of increasing our depths of our knowledge fields and increasing human warmth on our Internet publications, we plan to use higher orders of thinking more frequently to hold these objectives more and more over the next decade.

To master higher orders of thinking we need to plan to draw upon the insights and wisdom offered by Abhidhamma. This is one of the reasons it will be taught at the Centre every Tuesday for the next nine years.

We study understand and apply what we learn about conditional relations to bring about paths for sharing good and reliable information.

We understand that wholesome thoughts and actions in our writing practice are reflected in what we produce.

We want to be ambassadors of skill in means to show lifetimes of learning are possible.

The benefits of our recent study and practice of the Abhidhamma are already beginning to surface.

The more depth we put into our readers’ understanding of Pali key words, the closer we track our mission.

First of all, the word ‘kusala’ (moral) means ‘good health’, ‘faultless’, ‘skilful’, ‘productive of happy sentient results’.

In short, when we write, we must regularly state that we have learnt ‘wholesome’ and ‘faultless’ are both suitable translations of the word ‘kusala’.

We know that ‘wholesome’ pertains not only to bodily health and material food but also to mental health, since the mind is in a healthy state when mental corruptions are absent.

Thus, ‘free from the pain of mental corruptions’ is a suitable meaning.

For whenever moral consciousness arises in one’s continuity, the corruptions that are likened to sores and diseases are absent.

All the moral states have the property of eliminating the corruptions and this elimination takes place only for the moment when they belong to the sensuous type, for a long period when they belong to the lofty type and for all time when they belong to the Path type.

There is no royal path to learning.

When persons become practiced in Abhidhamma they can understand each for himself or herself the causes and effects that arise and cease in the continuity of beings at every instant of the day.

Members are not surprised by mundane occurrences because they understand causes and effects, moment by moment.

One mundane approach to understanding how causes and effects of events can be researched is through selective but voracious reading of a broad range of subject matter over a period of time.

‘Faultless’ (anavajja) is a simple and convenient word, ‘faultless’ can even be used for ‘kusala’ (moral).

To be ‘kusala’, the presentation of information on our web sites must allow persons to have access to a more complete data set of events.

For example, our Brooking Street Bugle shares information about the practice of Buddha Dhamma with a very human approach.

Our readers like to find out what we do here and how we do it though the personal accounts in Members’ news, for example. These accounts come from internal e-mails.

Then when they have read the stories they can view hundreds of photographs to widen their very human view and hence understanding further.

This good example on the Brooking Street Bugle is in accordance with our style of practicality and friendliness.

We operate all our web sites from a global view point of using English as a second language.

The aim is for all our articles to be provided with a glossary of English words that may not be so well known. We want to continue to develop a broader view.

Another example of how we apply our understanding of conditional relations to broaden our view can be evidenced by our flagship publication Buddha Dhyana Dana Review.

The Buddha Dhyana Dana Review has attracted international readership.

We paraphrase our Buddha Dhyana Dana Review writing to help our readers’ comprehension.

At present, we are unable to afford publication and postage in paper form. We spent $15,000 Australian in the last year of publication (2000).

As mentioned earlier, the mundane approach to develop a global view is for persons to read voraciously. By reading many quality international sources a reader or researcher can come to a broader view.

We want to thank all the women who have throughout the years given us much support in library and secretarial services to help us get to where we are today.

A method used by some researchers is 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.

Historians might look at various sources on the one event to formulate an accurate picture of that event.

To clarify how triangulation can be used to have a broader view, we give an example of how we present information in our online journal the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review Vol. 12 No. 2 at www.bddronline.net.au

We uploaded information about the Australasian Buddhist Convention to the Buddha Dhyana Dana Review Vol. 12 No. 2. The information included a congratulatory letter from the Convenor of the Convention, Dr. Ranjith Hettiarachi, some of our Buddhist Hour radio scripts reporting on the event and our recollection of the teachings and hundreds of colour photographs taken by our Members with our Digital Cameras.

In due course, we found suitable captions for photographs.

Our reading audience can use the hypertext method of triangulation when reading our various types of textual material uploaded and the many photographs to complete their data set.

This service is offered in one web site publication without the need to gather the information from remote sources.

Search engines on our web sites help readers.

This extensive reporting exercise was well planned before the two-day event.

We wish to thank all our Members who were so supportive and understanding of the need of our key Members’ attendance at this event.

Because the organisers hold the copyright we took notes of the various speeches.

Why do we strive to provide a broad range of data in the one publication? The long substantial articles allow for the formation of knowledge arrays (or mandalas).

With such mandalas, our Members and readers can be protected by the Sangha, Devas and Devatas and guided to think globally. If they were to keep broadening their view with an outcome to resolution sufficient to embrace the whole universality of things they would come to Abhidhamma.

Change has taken place for the better.

Another method we use for research is to form a better viewfinder (a frame of reference) to view the information available.

Our ability to create knowledge mandalas (or arrays) brings us to a suitable viewfinder.

This year information work was central to our 8 web sites.

Information can be used as a noun or a verb.

Computer programs that transform text and images and perform work are information verbs with names like Word, Photoshop, Star Office and Front Page.

Humans produce information as both noun (speech, writing, gestures) and verb (processing of office work using their brain).

Electronic proximity will effect our lives, nation and cultures.

Through our web sites, we will hardly remember the large number of people we do reach if we ever meet them again, much as politicians forget the owners of all those hands they had to shake.

The relationships on Internet will be more fickle, more transient, and less reliable than even casual acquaintances.

To encourage our Internet visitors to return to our web sites, we have decided to concentrate on practicality and friendliness on one site, Brooking Street Bugle, and scholarship and professionalism on another, Buddha Dhyana Dana Review.

The Buddha Dhyana Dana Review is an independent provider.

The information market place will offer us many more people to contact and therefore will force us to be more selective in how we structure our entourage of contacts from the hundreds of millions of possibilities to give them a sense of belonging to an organisation that is an independent provider.

Our ability to deal with technological complexity is no less limited than our ability to handle an independent providers’ social complexity.

Speed-reading and use of icons and images can improve the speed with which humans can handle information.

If we were to call people continuously, we would feel the stress from overload.

It is the same with the information market place.

There is ample evidence that our emotions will pass through the information market place.

But you never trust a new acquaintance based on a few phone calls only.

It seems likely the information market place will “pass” human relations only partially. (Michael Dertouzos, Director MIT Laboratory for Computer Science, 1997).

No matter how consumed we become with our daily pursuits, we are never more than a mental half step away from a much greater awareness of our existence on this planet.

Business people are creating new jobs across the humanities - technology divide.

The poor nations and the poor people cannot even get started on our web sites. They will tend to under-use our information resources because they cannot afford them.

The hardware and software cost a great deal of money in a poor country. But we believe it will be more affordable soon. Meanwhile, we must try to give some help to give our poor Buddha friends an entrée to the information market place.

In one case, we provided computers but they did not have any technical persons to get them operating.

We must help ensure that with respect to this critical gap in the information market place, our friends are not “left to their own devices”.

As an independent provider, we do not wish to become too technically elitist.

If we were to provide CD-ROMs that took half a day to load on to a machine, we should not be surprised if they were not used.

Some of our information delivered may be in many colours but others may be black and white for reading or printing with the lower end of technological equipment.

We must avoid successive complexity in delivering information that can only be read by a handful of very fast computers, for example.

We know how to measure the horsepower of our motor cars but can we measure the horsepower of our computer.

Do we know how many horses or people or other workers it replaces?

We think our best systems with an ISYS search engine to get information quickly, such as, for example, when we write radio scripts, replaces about 22 persons using the old fashioned library search methods in finding subject matter.

When used for editing, spell checking, word- count, percentage of passive sentences, and reading difficulty, we believe it would save about 42 persons doing the same work manually.

We cannot see any significant improvement becoming available in these areas. We can do abstracts from our machines provided we have the material in digital form at a pace that ninety people could do manually.

Colour is useful to heighten the reality of the persons and scenes shown.

Our ability to take colour digital photographs by the hundreds makes our web sites more human and subject matter can be more clearly taught from this media.

Our current plans are for the purchase of space or larger sites.

When we can get larger sites, we will load a series of one-hour videos of our Teachings through Internet. We will have many good Prajna Paramitta teachings ready for this purpose.

When we get larger sites, we will load hundreds of hours of edited audiotaping to our sites.

We have 20 years of audiotapes of teachings ready for this purpose.

We own the copyright of far more ‘good information’ than our current web site capacities can hold.

As we setup new web sites with greater space available we can make more of this good information accessible.

We hold the view that our current position is improving.

How do we measure our performance of work as output?

Each week we receive detailed traffic reports from Site Meter at www.sitemeter.com.

Site Meter online also offers traffic predictions.

The total number of visits to our web sites, average visits per day, and the traffic prediction for the coming month are as follows:

Web site: bdcu
Total Visits and date from: 4,521 visitors since 18 January 2001
Average number of visitors per day: 8
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 214

Web site: bdcublessings
Total Visits and date from: 2,864 since 28 September 2002
Average number of visitors per day: 5
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 97

Web site: bddronline
Total Visits and date from: 478 since 22 June 2001
Average number of visitors per day: 2
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 13

Web site: bsbonline
Total Visits and date from: 595 since 20 September 2001
Average number of visitors per day: 2
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 44

Web site: buddhamap
Total Visits and date from: 506 visitors since 15 January 2001
Average number of visitors per day: 1
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 13

Web site: buddhatext
Total Visits and date from: 457 since 11 February 2001
Average number of visitors per day:
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 19

Web site: buyresolved
Total Visits and date from: 368 since 6 March 2001
Average number of visitors per day: 1
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 31

Web site: j.d.hughes
Total Visits and date from: 286 since 11 February 2001
Average number of visitors per day: 1
Visitor traffic predicted in the next month: 32

Aggregate for all sites

Total Visits for all sites since counters have been put on: 10,147
Average number of visitors per day for all sites: 20
Aggregate Visitor traffic predicted in the next month for all sites: 478

So far there have been no reported onsite parking problems from the extra traffic!

May we come to understand causes and effects that arise and cease in the continuity of beings at every instant of the day.
May we master higher orders of thinking.
May we read a broad range of subject matter.
May you be well and happy.
May all beings be well and happy.


Today’s script was written by by John D. Hughes, Anita Hughes, Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls, Amber Svensson and Pennie White.



References

Mon, Dr. Mehm Tin (1995) The Essence of Buddha Abhidhamma, Mehm Tay Zar Mon, Yangon.

Lane, Bernard, (2002) ‘Unwebbish website’ wins with substance over style’, The Age Newspaper, Media, July 4-10 2002, p. 10.

Brown, Lesley (Ed.). The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1993.

Our Web Sites:

www.bdcu.org.au
www.bdcublessings.net.au
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhamap
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhatext
www.bddronline.net.au
www.bsbonline.com.au
www.skybusiness.com/j.d.hughes
www.buyresolved.com.au

Document Statistics

Counts
Words: 2826
Sentences: 138
Paragraphs:153
Syllables: 4099

Averages:
Words per sentence: 20.5
Sentences per paragraph: 9.9

Percentages:
Passive Sentences: 25.0

Readability Statistics
Flesch Grade Level: 12.3
Coleman-Liau Grade Level: 14.2
Bormuth Grade Level: 10.9
Flesch Reading Ease Score: 52.3
Flesch Kincaid Score: 10.5

Readability Statistics

Displays statistics about the document's readability, such as the Flesch Grade Level and Flesch Reading Ease Score. These statistics help you determine if you are writing at a level your audience can understand.

Flesch Grade Level: Flesch Grade Level indicates the Flesch Reading Ease score as a grade level. See the Flesch Scoring Table.

Coleman-Liau Grade level : Indicates the grade level of the document based on the average number of letters per word and number of sentence per 100 words.

Bormuth Grade Level: Indicates the grade level of document based on the average number of letters per word and per sentence. These scores indicate grade levels ranging from 6.3 to 11.6.

Flesch Reading Ease Score: Indicates how easy the document is to read based on the number of syllables per word and number of words per sentence. These scores indicate a number between 0 and 100. The higher the score, the easier the document is to read. See the Flesch Scoring Table.

Flesch-Kincaid Score : Indicates the grade level of the document based on the number of syllables per word and number of words per sentence. This score predicts the difficulty of reading technical documents, and is based on Navy training manuals that score in difficulty from 5.5 to 16.3. It meets military readability specifications MIL-M-38784 and DOD-STD-1685.

Flesch Scoring Table

Flesch Reading Ease Score Flesch Grade Level Reading Difficulty
90-100 5th Grade Very easy
80-89 6th Grade Easy
70-79 7th Grade Fairly easy
60-69 8th-9th Grade Standard
50-59 High School Fairly difficult
30-49 College Difficult
0-29 College Graduate Very difficult

(Reference: Lotus Word Pro Help Files)


This Radio Script is for Free Distribution. It contains Buddha Dhamma material and is provided for the purpose of research and study.

Permission is given to make printouts of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY.

Please keep it in a clean place.

"The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts".


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 another source accessed through our website(s).

Accordingly, we accept no liability to any user or subsequent third party, either expressed or implied, whether or not caused by error or omission on either our part, or a member, employee or other person associated with the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.

For more information, contact the Centre or better still, come and visit us.


May You Be Well And Happy


© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.

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