The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Broadcast 309 for Sunday 28 December 2003

Glossary

ardour (ardor): (a feeling of) ardent passion or desire; eagerness, intensity of feeling; a fierce or burning heat; fire; a radiant spirit

fallacious: containing a fallacy; deceitful; deceptive, misleading; causing disappointment, delusive

imputable: that may be imputed to; chargeable, attributable; liable to imputation; culpable

inure: in use, in practice; accustom or habituate to, harden or render impervious; put into effect or operation, practise, perform; take effect, come into operation; accrue

vituperate: blame, abuse, find fault with, in strong or violent language; vilify, revile



This script is entitled: Happy New Year.
What happy seeds will each of us sow in 2004?

Down through the ages people have written again and again about the search for happiness.

In 340 B.C. Aristotle noted: Happiness is at once the best, the noblest and the pleasantest of things.

In 1672 Richard Cumberland stated: there is no other way by which the individual can attain to his own happiness than that which leads to the common happiness of all.

Henry Moore stated in 1667 that happiness is that pleasure which flows from the sense of virtue and from the consciousness of right deeds.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama said: "whether one believes in religion or not, whether one believes in this religion or that religion, the very purpose of our life is happiness, the motion of our life is toward happiness."

The Dalai Lama has repeatedly emphasised that inner discipline is the basis of the spiritual life. It is the fundamental method of achieving happiness.

Buddha Dhamma practitioners understand the Law of Cause and Effect and live their lives making good causes for their future happiness.

The merit made by our members' chanting at the start of this program is dedicated to you finding the way to create your own happiness in 2004.

Thank you for having us at your place.

We wish to thank Hillside FM Radio station management for their help and support over the last five years, particularly this year during the illness and loss of our Founder John David Hughes.

We dedicate the merit of this program to the staff of Hillside FM radio.

We wish to come together with them again and again to bring the Buddha Dhamma to persons like you, now and in the future.

The present and future results that we each experience arise from past causes made by actions done by body, speech and mind.

The general belief is that one will be happy once we get what we want.

If we were granted a wish, would it not be better to wish that we were so contented that we didn't need any more wishes?

If you continue to do what you always have done you will get the same results you have always got. You need to find out - do you want the same results, or do you want something different?

To get different results you first need to change your actions - in body (physical actions), speech and mind (in thought).

A helpful affirmation is:

Generate the intention
Arouse the energy
Make the effort
Apply the mind
Put ardor on top

So, if you want different results in the present or future to what you currently experience, you ought to change your current actions.

The Buddha taught persons to make causes using body, speech and mind to come out of suffering and come to happiness.

The Karma Sutra (translated as the Sutra on Cause and Effect) is called, by the Lord Buddha, the Golden Precepts.

It has changed the lives of many who read it for it explains the direct results of causes. Here is the reproduction of the Karma Sutra:

"At one time, at a gathering attended by 1,250 followers, the Venerable Ananda, after circling thrice with folded hands around the Buddha and bowing with respect, asked:

"In the present Dark Age, where the majority of our people are indulgent in unrighteousness, disrespectful to the Lord's Teaching, undutiful to their parents, immoral, miserable and sordid, among them some are deaf, some blind, some mute, some idiotic, some are handicapped in other aspects, and most people inured to killing, how could we understand the cryptic and fundamental principle or causes that have brought about this reality and what consequences each individual is to suffer eventually for his or her deeds. My Lord, would you kindly explain these to us?"

The Enlightened One then answered, "Listen carefully, I will now expound the Law of Karma.

Because of karmic effects inherited from previous lives, some people are poor, some rich, some happy and some miserable.

These are four rules inseparable in obtaining happiness and prosperity for your next life. They are:

1. Be dutiful and respect our parents.
2. Respect the Buddhas, the teachings of Buddha (Dhamma) and the Buddhist Monks (Sangha).
3. To abstain from killing and set free sentient beings.
4. To abstain from eating meat and be charitable".

The Buddha proceeded on the Karmic Sutra:

"Destiny is aggregate karmic effects from the past. To believe in and practise this Sutra will bring you eternal prosperity and happiness".

Learn the Law of Karma expounded as follows:

To be able to hold office in the government is a reward for your building of Buddha Images in previous lives. For building Buddha Images is likened to molding yourself, and to protect the Tathagata is protecting yourself.

To be able to hold a high-ranking position in the government is reward for you putting gold on the Buddha Images. To be a public officer cannot be taken for granted, for without practising Buddhism it will not happen to you.

Your present enjoyment of various transportation facilities without getting foot-worn is a reward for your help in the construction of bridges and roads in your past life.

To donate clothing to monks will ensure you are well provided with clothing in future lives or in your next life. (This refers to the offering of Saffron Robes during Kathina Festival).

To be free from hunger and starvation is the result of your providing food to the poor in your previous life.

To be miserly and unwilling to help the needy gives rise to future starvation and lack of clothing.

To have ample housing is a reward for donating food to monasteries in your past life. (Offering of dana to the Monks).

To build temples and public shelters will give you future prosperity and happiness.

For your respecting and offering of flowers to Buddha's altar in the past, the reward is being pretty or handsome.

To abstain from eating meat and to pray constantly to Buddha will assure you to be reborn a very intelligent child in your next rebirth.

To have a good wife and son is reward for your disseminating Buddha's teaching in your past life.

Furnishing Buddhist temples with hangings and tapestries will enable you to have a good marriage in your next rebirth.

To have good parents is a reward for your respecting and helping those who were lonely and desolate in your past life.

Being a bird hunter in your previous life has resulted in your being an orphan now.

To have plenty of children is attributable to your setting birds free in your previous life.

To be heirless now is the result of destroying flowers habitually in your previous life.

Your longevity is due to setting free sentient beings in your past life.

Being short-lived is the result of committing too many killings in your previous life.

To steal the wife of another man will cause you to have no spouse in your next rebirth.

In your previous life, by being disrespectful to your husband has resulted in you being a widow now.

To be a serf at present is the result of being ungrateful in your previous life.

To covet another man's wife will cause you to have no spouse in your next rebirth.

To distort the truths habitually will cause you to suffer blindness in your next life.

To have a wry mouth is due to your intentionally blowing candles before the Buddha's altar in your past life.

To vituperate your parents will cause you to be reborn a deaf mute in your next birth.

Being a hunchback is a punishment for jeering and laughing at the Buddha's followers in your previous life.

Having disabled hands is the result of committing evil with your hands in the past life.

Your being lame is imputable to your being a robber in your previous life.

For your denying of your debts in your previous life is the result of being born a horse or an ox.

To be reborn a pig or dog is the punishment for your deceiving and hurting others in your previous life.

Suffering of constant illness now is the result of offering flesh to the monks in your past life.

To be free of illness and diseases and be healthy is a reward for offering drugs and medications to save the sick and wounded in your past life.

Your present imprisonment is the cause of your relentlessly perpetrating evil in your previous life.

Plugging snake-pit and mouse holes habitually will cause you to starve to death in your next birth.

To intentionally poison a river or water source will cause you to die of poison in your next life.

Being forlorn and friendless is the punishment for being unfaithful and deceitful to others in your past life.

Disrespecting Buddha's teaching will bring you constant starvation in your next rebirth.

To spew blood is the punishment for eating meat while praying to Buddha.

To have attended Buddhist Instruction with levity in your previous life is the cause for your present deafness.

To be afflicted with ulcers is the punishment for offering flesh before the Buddha's altar in your past life.

To have bad bodily odor is the punishment for selling incense with dishonesty in your previous life.

To hunt animals with rope and net will predestine your death by hanging in your next birth.

Being unduly envious and jealous in your past life is the cause for your being lonely or bereft of spouse at present.

To be struck by lightning or burnt by fire will be the punishment for dishonest trade dealing. (For example, cheating with the scales, overcharging customers, supplying inferior quality goods and charging for quality goods).

Being attacked and wounded by wild beasts and snakes tells you that those creatures were your enemies in your previous life.

Whatever you do will come back on you, so accept whatever justice and retribution that happens to you.

Be not mistaken that karma is fallacious. You will live to bear the consequences of your deeds, either within this lifetime or in your future life.

Should you doubt the virtue of practising Buddhism, look and see the happiness of the Buddha's followers.

Past karma determines your present destiny. Present karma is to mold your next life.

Whoever slanders this Sutra will not be reborn again a human being.

Whoever accepts this Sutra will witness the truth.

Whoever writes this Sutra will prosper in successful lives.

Whoever carries this Sutra will be free from mishaps.

Whoever preaches this Sutra will become a very intelligent person in successive lives.

Whoever recites this Sutra will be well-respected by people in his or her next rebirth.

Whoever distributes this Sutra free to all will become a leader to humanity in his or her next life.

If karma did not produce effect, what prompted Wu-Lin, a dutiful son, to rescue his mother under grave danger by journeying to Hades realms to save his mother's soul from punishment by the Hell soldiers?

Whoever is faithful to this Sutra will not fail to witness the eternal paradise.

The Law of Karma works forever, and the fruit of good deeds will come in due course. The Buddha taught that "all things spring from a cause" and he clearly laid down the nature of good and bad karma. Karma is action; it refers to the fruits of action as well as the effects of causes and so on.

If there is a cause, an effect is inevitable, where there is an effect, there must be a cause.

From beginning of time, there has been a chain of three cycle cause and effect (karma) rotations in human existence and these karmas have been continuing and will continue in human lifetime. It seems that these three existences (past existence, present existence and future existence) must obey the Law of Cause and Effect - karma.

Life is governed by 70% past existence and 30% present existence, therefore, the life span of an individual cannot be changed but his or her luck can be changed depending upon his or her behaviour and everyday actions.

Buddha has said:

"If you wish to know the past, then look at the present which is the result of it", "If you wish to know the future, then look at the present which is the cause of it", "By karma the World moves, by karma men live and by karma are beings bound, as by its pin the chariot wheel rolls. By karma one attains glory and praise, by karma bondage, ruin and tyranny. Knowing that karma bears fruit manifold, why say, 'In the World karma does not exist?'

Having spoken the above Sutra to Ananda and the followers, The World- Honored One added, "there are innumerable examples of Karmic Law, but I have only mentioned a few".

Then Ananda said, "Until the end of the present Dark Age, most human beings would have, through successive lives, accumulated countless misdeeds because of their ignorance of the karmic consequences, but thanks to our Lord and the Sutra he has so kindly given us, whoever writes and reads, prints and distributes this Sutra, upon praying to the Buddha, will be blessed with eternal happiness and be admitted to see Amitabha Buddha, Kuan Shih Yin P'usa and all other Buddhas in the heavenly paradise".

After Ananda spoke, all Buddha's disciples and followers felt ecstatic and enlightened and after bowing respectfully and vowing to abide by this Sutra, took their journey home".

Over 2500 years later, the Dalai Lama wrote in his book 'The Art of Happiness':

'One begins by identifying those factors, which lead to happiness, and those factors that lead to suffering. Having done this, one sets about gradually eliminating those factors which lead to suffering and cultivating those which lead to happiness. That is the way.'

To make good conditions for ourselves we first need to know what makes good condition and what makes unfortunate conditions. Lucky for us the Buddha has set out rules of personal conduct, that when followed are said to lead out of suffering to true happiness.

Living your life according to the Noble Eight Fold path, knowing the Four Noble Truths is a sure recipe to happiness.

We invite you to start your personal search for happiness with us online at www.bdcublessings.net.au.

May you find your own happiness in 2004.

We wish you and your family long life and good health, harmony, happiness and prosperity for the New Year and always.

This script was written and edited by Julian Bamford, Evelin Halls, Leanne Eames, Anita Hughes, Lisa Nelson, Julie O'Donnell and Pennie White.


References

His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Cutler M.D., Howard C. "The Art of Happiness"1998. Australia. ISBN 0 7336 0858 2.
A New Dictionary of Quotations. Selected and Edited by H. L. Mencken. New York. Alfred A. Knopf. 1991
1. Karma Sutra, Ming, Kuan, Popular Deities of Chinese Buddhism, 1985, Kuan Yin Contemplative Order, Malaysia.

2. Xian, Sheng, Journey To The UnderWorld, 1987, Tan Temple Tai Chung, Taiwan.
MAY ALL BEINGS RECEIVE BLESSINGS FROM THE BUDDHAS, ARAHANTS, BODHISATTVAS, DEVAS AND NAGAS
By Alphonsus Marie Ee (Feng Shui Consultant). On behalf of my Teacher Venerable Phra Khu Gunasilaporn (Chief Abbot), Wat Uttamayanmuni (Thai) Temple, Singapore.

Brown, Lesley (Editor), 1993, "The New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary", Clarendon Press, Oxford

Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd, "Buddhist events during other religion's holy days", Buddhist Hour Script 117, Broadcast Date: Sunday 24 December 2000, LAN 1 file reference i:/km/radio/radio117, May be accessed at URL http://www.bdcublessings.net.au

Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd Reviewing the last Millennium", Buddhist Hour Script 118, and Broadcast Date: Sunday 31 December 2000, LAN 1 file reference i:/km/radio/radio118, May be accessed at URL http://www.bdcublessings.net.au

Counts
Words: 2480
Characters: 11874
Paragraphs: 122
Sentences: 120
Averages
Sentences per paragraph: 1.1
Words per Sentence: 19.0
Characters per word: 4.6
Readability Statistics
Passive Sentences: 7%
Flesch Reading Ease score: 61.1
Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score: 9.4

Readability Statistics

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Flesch Reading Ease score

Rates text on a 100-point scale; the higher the score, the easier it is to understand the document. For most standard documents, aim for a score of approximately 60 to 70.

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level score

Rates text on a U.S. grade-school level. For example, a score of 8.0 means that an eighth grader can understand the document. For most standard documents, aim for a score of approximately 7.0 to 8.0.
 
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