The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives
Buddhist Hour
Radio Broadcast on Hillside 88.0 FM
Script 356 for Sunday 21
November 2004CE
2547 Buddhist Era
This script is titled:
After The Honeymoon and on and on.
To begin the July Ch'an class John D Hughes asked the
two students... are you ready?. If they were to die next second where
would they take rebirth, which country, which state, who would be
there parents?
Without knowing the answer, how could they
plan for their next life?
To wake the Students up, the
Teacher directed them to circumambulate the Ch'an Garden counting
every flower they saw. By only one third the way around they had
counted over 1900 flowers each.
Where did these flowers
come from? Past causes. Just that. Because the teacher had given many
flowers in the past.
When the honeymoon period of meeting the
Buddha Dhamma this life is over, what can the student do?
The
initial period, when you find out about Buddha Dhamma, is full of joy
and eagerness to learn more and more. Then comes the hard work of
applying the teachings. How does one continue to make causes to learn
the Buddha Dhamma?
The answer is to continue to make merit and
plan to learn.
As Venerable Santitthiko said when we pay
respect to Buddha images and Monks and Nuns and Teachers, we remember
the three “Rs” 1. Remember the Buddha Dhamma, 2. Recollect
the Teachings, and 3. Remind us of what to do.
Dhamma in the
mind brings such a sweet feeling that often it has been compared to
tasting honey.
The Buddha Dhamma theory of causation, as
explained by Daisaku Ikeda in the publication Buddhism: The Living
Philosophy (published by The East Publications, Inc., 1st edition
1974), describes the present self as an accumulation of actions from
the past.
All past causes contribute to the present effect.
As Buddha Dhamma sees it, fate is the continuous working of cause and
effect in life; it is a stream of strict cause and effect relations
extending back into a limitless past and forward into a limitless
future.
Buddha Dhamma teaches that by revising ones view of
life in each present moment, one can gradually change the course of
one’s resultant kamma.
What is Kamma?
In a
lecture given by the Venerable Sayadaw U Sobhana in 1972, on the
‘Theory of Kamma in Buddhism’, and reproduced in a
publication titled An Introduction to Buddha Dhamma, (donated by U
Kyaw Thein Lwin and family)the pali term ‘kamma’ literally
means action or doing. Venerable Sayadaw U Sobhana stated that “any
kind of intentional action whether mental, verbal or physical is
regarded as Kamma. It covers all that is included in the phrase
thought, word and deed.”
Generally speaking, all good and
bad actions constitute kamma. In its ultimate sense, kamma means all
moral and immoral volition. Involuntary, unintentional, and
unconscious actions, though technically deeds, do not constitute
kamma, because volition, the most important factor in the determining
of kamma, is absent.
The Buddha says: “I declare o
Bikkhus, that volition is Kamma. Having willed one acts by body,
speech, and thought. ” (Anguttara Nikaya)
We learn that
it is only by doing good actions of body, speech and mind that one
can creat good results in the present and future.
For example,
the practice of working on flower stalls enables Members and Friends
of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd to practice our five
styles. These are: friendliness, practicality, professionalism,
cultural adaptability and scholarship. The merit of these actions
assists in
removing hindrances to learning. As Mahasi Sayadaw
states in the book One Truth Only published in 1983:
“There
are five causes of deterrents, called hindrances, to the attainment
of concentration and wisdom. These are: sensual desire, ill will,
laziness, restlessness and doubt. Here, laziness means reluctance to
hear or practice the Dhamma and getting bored or dejected during
meditation. Restlessness is worry or anxiety over one’s mistakes
in the past, and doubt refers to doubt about the Buddha, Dhamma and
Sangha, or about the way to the attainment of the supreme
supramundane path, fruition and Nibbana.”
Remember!
Beautiful
gardens are not made
by saying how lovely
and sitting
in the shade.
We make decisions in the context of where we
are going - which is to use our lives to generate causes for creating
new possibilities of growth for the propagation of Buddha Dhamma.
As
is our culture we teach Students to create causes for learning Buddha
Dhamma in the future by improving learning conditions at our
Centre.
Usually, because of past slander of Teachers, few
persons these days can cognate Buddha Dhamma methods which are taught
through seeking inflexibility in the dictionary meanings of
words.
In most cases today, persons tend to spiral around in
their minds before the true meaning of the words enters their stream
as awareness of Buddha Dhamma.
Because of his or her past
causes, using a language other than English may be useful to wake a
person up to meaning.
Without the kusala (wholesome) kamma of
retaining meaning of words from past times, it may take a person many
words to say in English what another language says in a single
word.
Other causative factors also come into play and
often it is their combined effect that determines the result. A
single cause cannot produce a result, much less many
results.
According to Buddha Dhamma, things are not
causeless (a-hetuka), nor due to one single cause (eka-hetuka).
We
do not believe in "luck". For us, life is too precious to
gamble. Our Centre prospers from honest work with added value. We
make our own luck by moral actions based on cause and effect. By
helping others, we make causes which help ourselves.
Teachings
about Buddha Dhamma methods are not for lazy persons who wish to
gamble, because persons who are addicted to gambling are unlikely to
have the mental space capable of turning their thoughts away from
greed into right action.
There is no doubt that the crazy
gambling mind is destroyed by Buddha Dhamma practice.
Many
of the 227 Buddha rules for Monks and Nuns are designed to stop the
notion of living by chance within the Sangha life. Although
originally designed for Monks' training, these rules are not sexist -
they also apply to Nuns.
For example, agitating to re-open
an issue, knowing that it was properly dealt with, is an
offence.
Not informing other bhikkhus of a serious offence
which one knows another bhikkhu has committed, either out of a desire
to protect him from having to undergo the penalty, or out of a desire
to protect him from the jeering remarks of other bhikkhus, is an
offence.
Refusing to give up the wrong view that there is
nothing wrong in intentionally transgressing the Buddha's ordinances,
after the third announcement of a formal rebuke in a meeting of the
Community, is an offence.
Saying something as a ploy to
excuse oneself from training under a training rule, when being
admonished by another bhikkhu for a breach of the rule, is an
offence.
Using half-truths to deceive others into
believing that one is ignorant of the rules in the Patimoksha, after
one has already heard the Patimoksha in full three times, and a
formal act exposing one's deceit has been brought against one, is an
offence.
Complaining about a formal act of the Community
to which one gave one's consent, if the act was carried out in
accordance with the rule, and one knows that it was, is an
offence.
Getting up and leaving a meeting of the Community
in the midst of a valid formal act, without having first given one's
consent to the act, in hopes of invalidating it, is an offence.
As
you will now know, it is uncommon for these simple rules to be held
by ordinary householders who are lay men or women. These rules are
far removed from the way householders behave in their ordinary
life.
It would come as a surprise to most persons that
following a few of these simple rules is potent enough to destroy the
mind that gambles. That being so, if you incline to gamble, pay
special attention to what we are about to disclose. If you like what
you hear, put it into practice.
It would make life simple
if these rules were applied to ordinary life.
Some of our
Members are invited to consider holding some of these as additional
precepts.
Since experience shows that the more training rules
observed, the greater the benefits of Buddha Dhamma practice, wise
persons retain the good idea that when the time is right, they could
observe a few extra rules.
These rules are not harmful and
since you are less likely to become more selfish or immature if you
observe these rules, they can help you uncover the Middle Way.
If
you care to examine and practice each of these rules, you become
aware that if you and others in your organisation tried them, they
have the effect of cutting things out of your life, therefore, it
saves time and money to follow them.
The knowledge you
learn in the practice of Buddha Dhamma is that living is extremely
complex and if you try to cut out the wrong things your life will not
work for long because you cannot meet the suitable timelines of what
must be done.
It is like balancing the books at the end of
the financial year, it must be done at the right time.
We
obey this rule and prepare our final balance sheet of assets and
liabilities at the end of each financial year on 30 June and prepare
quarterly Profit and Loss Statements.
At other times, we
must make the financial effort to have funds at the right place at
the right time if we are to win peace of mind.
On the
Vesak full moon in May we celebrated Lord Buddha's birth anniversary
at our Centre.
Our Members attended Versak celebrations at
other temples to offer Dana ( food and flowers) to the Sangha (
Buddhist community of Monks). Members who attended the celebrations
found, to their surprise, they could practice with ease and gain many
insights on that day.
This uncomplicated fact of right timing
has been known to Buddha Dhamma practitioners for thousands of
years.
Vesak month celebrations continue at our Centre and
throughout the world for this turning point in world
history.
Giving money to print, post, email and upload
good information is one way we make merit to ensure we meet with
Buddha Dhamma (Buddha's Teachings) again and again both in this life
and in future lives.
This action is a cause to obtain writings
about Buddha's Teachings. Our Members win by their good actions taken
over time. They donate paper and ink for our printers, they pay for
web site registration and Internet costs, they scan and create
internet documents to load onto our websites.
Consider our
library.
Our library website at www.bdcu.org.au can now be
accessed through the Australian Libraries Gateway at
www.nla.gov.au/libraries.
This good entity link is caused
by the wholesome causes of giving out free Buddha Dhamma writings to
many persons over decades.
The link that has been created is a
blessing to us because it will have the effect of increasing the
number of new books and journals we receive which are needed to build
up our library resources.
Many nice things happen when you are
concerned with helping inhabitants in our secular country access good
information about our training methods.
Our development plan
has the integrity, wisdom and maturity for accumulating sufficient
library materials from all over the world, which enable us to become
a third rate library by world standards.
This in turn creates
some of the many causes to meet the Buddha Dhamma in this and future
lives.
Even though the full moon of Vesak has waned, our
Members continue to practice and their determination does not wane
like the moon. If anything, our Member's clarity about what is
practice and what is not has become better understood this
year.
Consider the Venerable Dae Poep Sa Nim who was born in
Korea in 1946, the youngest child in a family of eleven
daughters.
By the time she was 13, although she was from a
Christian family, she went looking for a good Teacher in the
mountains.
After a long search, she found her Teacher, an old
master who lived away from others. She studied with him for five
years and was given transmission.
She left Korea at the age of
19 and settled in Hawaii. She decided that she wanted ten years of
social life experience before she started teaching.
She went
to university, had a family, worked and travelled, practised
privately, and never told persons of her attainment. After ten years,
she opened the Dharma Buddhist Temple of Hawaii, and began
teaching.
In 1985, she received the "World Peace
Award".
In 1985, with Zen Master Seung Sahn, she founded
the Centre Zen in Paris, France.
She was the first woman in
1,500 years of Korean Buddhism to receive the title "Dae"
meaning "great".
How does rapid development of a
person to "great" happen?
Persons who understand
even a little of Buddha's Teaching can explain such accomplishment
because they have heard of cause and effect.
For persons who
are "outsiders", persons who do not understand cause and
effect, the whole concept remains a mystery and they postulate about
the causes of attainment.
For persons who do know cause
and effect, they do not believe such remarkable talent is given from
Mother or Father, nor that it is God given.
As cause and
effect (karma) becomes more widely taught to more persons with their
classical Western culture, there will be less "outsiders"
guessing, rather, they will be looking for themselves, at each stage
of development of such persons.
Just as it is going to be hard
for computer literate generations to imagine a pre-electronic world,
it is hard for persons who are passably literate by the standards of
a print culture, with all its standardised lettering, to imagine life
in the now vanished scribal cultures, the worlds of clay tablets,
papyrus rolls, parchments and manuscript copying.
It is only
recently that our societies have begun to acknowledge there are
millions of persons in the industrialised world with literacy
problems.
For example, what is called for when the honeymoon
time for relationships is over?
According to the teachings of
Korean Dharma Master Dae Poep Sa Nim, persons have a hard time making
decisions in their relationships, especially romantic
relationships.
When the honeymoon phase is over in our
friendships and one of the friends thinks the time has come for
cutting off a relationship, the Buddha Dhamma teachings can
help.
The Venerable taught that a difficult situation in
this life is the result of not having a good relationship in a former
life.
The persons have made kamma (action - wise or
unwise), in former times which they now inherit as events experienced
together in these times. The phonetic spelling of the word for
"action" in Sanskrit K -A -R -M -A may be spelt in Pali K
-A -M -M -A.
At our Centre, in general, we treat both
words as if we were in the ancient times, where they had identical
meanings.
You must make an effort to eliminate or moderate
your karmic output.
The person who has a good relationship
has a great energy advantage.
Therefore, you might observe
if you had not been friends in past lives, unless you do something
different, it is unlikely you will become friends this life.
So
when you have problems getting along, do not argue over the
situation, just try to respect each other and the solution will come
automatically in most cases.
But remember, problems may
not be resolved by pleading that you love
someone and for that
reason alone he or she should treat you in some different
manner.
The strength of feelings between persons, like
everything else in the world, is subject to change.
The
Pali word "anicca" means change or impermanence, and is a
fact of all our lives.
As a wise Monk in Thailand put it:
"You must remember if two persons sit down to eat, one must
finish first".
You are not greatly different from the
person with whom you are having difficulties.
In some
cases, you may need professional help if you are too far gone into
mad, bad or sad scripts of functioning.
When you are
well-practised, you can put mental states of loving kindness or
compassion or sympathetic joy or equanimity into a given situation so
you do not walk away leaving hate behind you.
Sooner
rather than later, hate will be associated with other sicknesses
which make it difficult for you to reason.
Remember, just
as we service our car or our printer, we must make sure to have a
medical check-up from time to time. So remember to see your
doctor.
Sooner or later, persons ask the question “
Do I have to make merit every day and practice the various
perfections ?”.
The answer is: "Yes! - if you
wish to come out of suffering"; Make merit every day and use
volition to know and meet the Buddha Dhamma this life and next life
and the next life.
Although the Buddha was the son of a
King, and on occasions, advised Kings, and gave advice to the four
classes of persons, he was not involved with too much discussion of
what we call the social contract.
Professor George Catlin
in his book published in 1950 on a history of political philosophers
gives five references to Buddha Sakyamuni.
In his
introduction, he asks: "(Was) Buddha or Christ (concerned) with
party membership? Were they ‘dividers of goods’?".
He
suggests that Buddha "... led one of the greatest of all
religious successions. A route away from the oppressions and
injustices in caste- organised society was found..."
The
Buddhist sage strove for neither power or wealth. He suggests Buddha
was uninterested in war and in calls of "justice and honour"
between nations.
In Catlin's view, Buddha was uninterested
in money and in "social justice" as a matter of wealth
between men.
He was uninterested in "liberty"
and caste or servitude or emancipation.
Catlin's view is
that Buddha was uninterested even in the striving to perpetuate human
life, whether of the individual or the species.
In his
reading, Catlin concludes that the perfection of goodwill is the end
of striving and that what he calls "primitive Buddhism" was
not interested in any talk of gods or spirits, immortality or sacred
writings and that it had no bearing on emancipation in this life and
in this world.
In his text, Catlin italicises the words
"IN THIS LIFE AND IN THIS WORLD".
We praise
developments which are well thought out and transcend gambling on
outcomes.
Conversation that focuses not on faults but on
ways of overcoming them is within our culture.
Discussion
is fine, plans are fine, but the work remains to be done. Grand
schemes are just things unless they can be funded without
gambling.
We do not believe in "luck". For us, life
is too precious to gamble. Our Centre prospers from honest work with
added value. We make our own luck by moral actions based on cause and
effect. By helping others, we make causes which help ourselves.
Our
culture is for each student to develop causes for 'Life Times of
Learning”. This begins with writing your life plan. First for
this life and then for the next.
An example of how to create
causes for lifetimes of learning and causes to meet the Buddha Dhamma
is to:
1. Generate the intention to follow the Buddha
Dhamma,
2. Arouse the energy to follow the Buddha Dhamma,
3.
Apply the mind to follow the Buddha Dhamma, and
4. Put ardour on
top to follow the Buddha Dhamma.
Your daily practice must
consist of the ten perfections:
1. To practice Generosity
2.
To practice Morality
3. To practice Renunciation
4. To practice
Patience
5. To practice Wisdom
6. To practice Joyful Effort
7.
To practice Truthfulness
8. To practice Determination
9. To
practice Concentration
10. To practice Equanimity
We have
many merit making activities that you can participate in at our
Dhamma Centre and for more detailed information on these Ten
Perfections and how to write your life plan, please contact our
Centre at 33 Brooking Street, Upwey, or phone (03) 9754 3334.
MAY
YOU BE WELL AND HAPPY
MAY ALL BEINGS BE WELL AND HAPPY
MAY
YOU WRITE YOUR LIFE PLAN THIS LIFE
MAY ALL BEINGS WRITE THEIR
LIFE PLANS THIS LIFE
MAY YOU PRACTICE THE TEN PERFECTIONS
THIS LIFE
MAY ALL BEINGS PRACTICE THE TEN PERFECTIONS THIS
LIFE
This Script was written and edited by Julian
Bamford, Anita Hughes, Helen Costas, Julie O'Donnell and Leila
Igracki.
References
ISYS Search 20 November
2004:
Buddha Dhyana Dana review Volume 10 No. 1
Gathered from
page 4 / 5 of ]ref PC10 word\admn0001 (3/8/99)
Buddha Dhyana Dana
review Volume 9 No. 2
Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast “ Beyond
The Honeymoon”
Readability Statistics
Word
count: 2775
Disclaimer
As we, the Chan Academy
Australia, Chan Academy being a registered business name of 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 Chan Academy
Australia (Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd.)
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".
© 2002. Copyright. The Buddhist Discussion Centre
(Upwey) Ltd.