The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

Buddhist Hour
Script No. 381
Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0 FM
on Sunday 15 May 2005CE 2548 Buddhist Era


This script is entitled:
Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century
Part I

On the full-moon day of May each year, Buddhists around the world celebrate Versak. It is the celebration of the birth, enlightenment and death of Shakyamuni Buddha, the historical Buddha.

Versak presents a special opportunity for us to reflect on the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. It also gives us a chance to see how fortunate we are to have the Dhamma in the world more than 2,500 years after the Buddha’s passing into paranibbhana.

If we look at the efforts that have been made to make the Dhamma available to us in written form, it is immediately apparent that there were many, many hundreds of thousands of beings who have helped to preserve the Dhamma for the sake of future generations. We ought to try to develop vast gratitude toward all these beings whose efforts have brought this rare gift, the opportunity to practice Buddha Dhamma.

It is also apparent that the Dhamma cannot be sustained in a world where there is no-one to practice and preserve it, and so we should strive to repay the kindness of past practitioners by taking steps to preserve the Dhamma for future generations.

In 1998 Buddha Dhamma teacher John D. Hughes saw the urgent need for steps to be taken on addressing these matters. He wrote a paper titled "Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century" presented at the bi-annual conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists at the Nan Tien Temple in Wollongong, New South Wales Australia.

In reading this paper again today we aim to re-kindle our wish to work towards a World Buddhist Catalogue of written Dhamma materials and abolish illiteracy from the world.

Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century by John D. Hughes.

John D. Hughes began with the following introduction.

Before coming to the intentions of this discussion paper, it is fruitful to remind and make clear to practitioners that the Dhamma is akaliko, that is, not dependent on time. Furthermore, it is useful to consider that authentic written Dhamma is intact in the World at present in various forms.

1. The Use of New Technology to Reproduce Buddha Dhamma.

Since the copyright of present written Dhamma will expire next century, it means it will enter the public domain. This means it can be copied for free distribution without royalty payments. Unfortunately, much written Dhamma is printed on acid papers. Such paper does not have long life like rice paper.

It is certain to break down at the oxygen bridge atom of their cellulose molecules, resulting in the paper turning to dust.

In most cases, reprinting is out of the question on economic grounds. When copyright has expired or if the legal owner of the copyright gives consent, it is legal to scan the information on the pages into electronic form.

It is clear that the future capability for electronic reproduction and transfer of data will become more and more affordable.

The electronic text equivalent to a hundred books can be obtained for the cost of one paper-based book.

The capital cost of devices to read this electronic data are a fraction of what they were a decade ago and could become more affordable.

The task of electronic listing of names of key volumes of the unabridged Dhamma has yet to be put on a systematic basis, although many organisations have compiled useful databases on the whereabouts of some of this material.

For example, Dr. Richard Gard’s pioneering work in compiling electronic data bases about Buddha Dhamma for the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, formally at Princeton University, U.S.A., was praiseworthy.

Other attempts at distributing on Internet as a part of the Electronic Buddhist Archives, which are available via. Anonymous FTP and/or COOMBSQUEST gopher on the node COOMBS.ANU.EDU.AU, were non-sustainable.

A useful collection of Chinese Buddhism/State of the Field, by John McRae, apparently lasted from March 1992 to November 1993.

It is necessary to be very careful about what we write when dealing with Buddha dhamma if we expect a project to be ongoing.

Probably one of the causes of the short life of the text Chinbudd was a malediction reading, “Quoting this paper with permission will result in your spending three immeasurable eons in the avici hell, listening to endless recitations of neo-Confucian doctrine!”



2. Buddhist Education – the Creation of a Buddhist World Catalogue

At the 5th International conference on Buddhist Education held at the institute for Sino-Indian Buddhist Studies in Taipei, A.K. Narain (1986) discussed the notion there is no difference between “Buddhist Studies” and “Buddhist Education.”

There was a need to plan a system of instruction and training in such a way that “education” precedes “Buddhist” and does not follow it.

General education must precede “Buddhist Studies” and “Buddhist Studies” must precede “Buddhist Education”.

One leads to another and it should be open to all. “Buddhist Education should aim at producing not merely what it considers good Buddhists but good humankind.”

The task of compiling the presently-known unabridged written Dhamma in it’s various forms electronically has been started in many countries.

What is needed and proposed is to start a Buddhist World Catalogue of what and where electronically stored Dhamma is available in the world. This project would be extensive and ongoing but could be affordable within the scope of 21st century technology.

It is proposed that interested persons attending the 1998 W.F.B. Conference, who are interested in preserving and spreading the Buddha Dhamma, form and informal Coordination Committee to study how the Buddhist World Catalogue should be set up.

It is suggested that persons under the protection of Bodhisattva Manjushri are the best attendants for this task. Under such a condition, the drive to have a Buddhist World Catalogue is likely to become all-pervasive as efforts are made to increase the literacy of persons by presenting them with access to written Buddha Dhamma.

It is by merit that our present written Dhamma becomes available. It did not happen by chance.

To drive this Buddhist World Catalogue suggestion to resolution, Buddha Dhamma followers need to raise funds and become active in supporting educational systems using the new technology.

This is the main challenge of the 21st Century.

3. Strategy for a Buddhist World Catalogue

The strategy is an approach that identifies broad actions to assist all heritage collections in different countries. The scope of this strategy is the conservation and preservation of all types of heritage collection, whether they are held in viharas, museums, libraries, archives, galleries, universities, historic sites, or in both the private and public domain.

The proposed strategy does not cover all activities associated with heritage collections, such as exhibition development.

The success of the strategy implementation will depend on the effectiveness of developing key partnerships across the sector.

The strategy is organised into five main elements: significance, skill development, collection management, research, and awareness raising.

Significance refers to assessing an object’s value to provide the context for appropriate conservation and preservation.

Skills’ development encompasses activities that create the conservation and preservation expertise of those responsible for caring for collections.
Collection management is a strategy that addressed the promotion and achievement of improving conservation processes. Research activities aim to achieve a national research strategy to encourage research projects and disseminate results.

Awareness raising proposes actions to create a culture of caring for and treasuring heritage collections.

4. The Worth of Having Literacy

The author has no intention of slandering the intellect or motivation of persons who cannot read and write.

For the project to stay useful there is a need for persons involved to make the merit to gain insight, each for himself or herself, into cause and effect of how persons become literate or otherwise.

For written Dhamma to be useful, it is a precondition that persons can read, or have someone to read to them.

It is recommended that a portion of the merit of the project be dedicated to address persons in the world who are functionally illiterate at present.

There is a need to sanction information technology as a good thing at an affordable cost and promote is as a primary means to give persons a chance to raise within themselves passable elements of literacy.

The secondary use of such information systems is to make written Dhamma available to the men folk.

Special ought to be directed to those persons who constitute that 25 per cent of the world’s population who are functionally illiterate.

Sincere followers of the Middle Way, by making an intention to raise literacy in the world, need to raise their energy and concentrate their vision.

Bothers and Sisters in the Dhamma please understand the unprecedented opportunity that waits to help show the way to literacy for the future generations.

Surely this vision is not as difficult a task as removing smallpox from the world. Yet the removal of smallpox has been achieved.

Present operations taken at our Centre and elsewhere are driven by the reflection that it is possible to make more and more Dhamma texts available to persons in the 21st Century.

For example, the scouting movement’s policy in Australia is to encourage the study of many religions and our Centre has provided them with suitable material for many years.

We wish to promote the notions that we have been privileged to read Dhamma accumulated to date by our ancestors in the two and half millenniums that have passed in this sasana.

Should we not act in such a way to help others to find a true Guide/Shower of the Middle Way?

We do not wish to be remembered as persons deficient in gratitude.
If we arrange to set up the causes to give out Dhamma, then Dhamma will come to us in future times.

Remember, if you are fortunate, you may be born human in this world next life and continue to practice Dhamma.

Buddha Dhamma put into actions is the antidote of suffering.

Remember that the consequence of a person’s non-practice of Dhamma for lack of a living Shower of the way or ability to read Dhamma is really the cause of oceans of tears over many lives.

Without the Dhamma, every tear a person sheds is without purpose, merely dukkha caused by himself or herself by former unwise (Pali: akusala) actions.

Two things can motivate us: knowing the time left in this sasana is short for merit-making and the greatest gift merit gift is Dhamma Dana.

5. Moving towards Dhamma Dana globalisation

As we approach the next century, we can already see many of the fundamentals of our world’s social and economic systems changing. Already, in the last few hundred years, we have seen the basic domain of commerce change from the level of the local village and province to that of the nation, and more recently to that of the region.

Now, we are closer to the broader notion of the entire globe as the domain.

By effort, the world is becoming more prosperous.

World trade rose from $US 2,256 billion in 1980 to $US 6,170 billion in 1995, an increase of significance.

Trade in services has risen from $US 361 billion in 1980 to $US 1,234 billion in 1995.

By effort, the current financial downturn will pass away.

6. A Need for Closer Relationship between Eastern Scholars

Drawing on an impressive range of thinking by Scholar Monks and Nuns, in collaboration with University Professors and Graduates, the last decade has seen the appearance of many English and other European language translations of well written Buddha Dhamma.

As Professor Wang Gungwu, Chairman of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore noted, the immediate antecedents of Asian studies in Europe and North America enjoyed an arrogant stage.

A more humble and scientific attitude has evolved in the post-colonial period, and it can be guessed that the residue of the superiority found in some western approaches to Buddha Dhamma will vanish in the global context of the 21st century.

Chinese Buddhist studies of other countries date back 1,600 years to Fa Hsien’s Record of Buddhist Kingdoms. This was followed by Japanese and Korean studies of Chinese Buddha Dhamma.

What has recently attracted attention is the impression that, although scholars from each Asian country established close relationships with their counterparts in western universities, relatively few have done the same with fellow scholars in Asia.

Recently, a meeting was held a Hua Hin, with Chulalongkorn University Institute of Asian studies as host, to collect detailed information about each of the 16 territories covered.

The President of the Asian Studies Association of Australia, Anthony Reid, was invited to chair the meeting.

South and Southeast Asian countries are more prone to look to the West that to one another.

Some Buddha Dhamma scholars seem to be swept up in this tendency.

7. Understanding Morality

In the 21st Century, Buddha Dhamma scholars in Asia may blossom in many countries, write adequately in the English language, and understand that a careful examination of their own oral and written heritage can be used to stimulate their intellectual interest.

The question of what appears to be fresh, stimulating and worthy in the Western paradigms will be shown, in part, to be an outcome of persons who neglect to undertake the precept of no intoxicants that cloud the mind.

If there is on thing clear from the past, it is that no insight wisdom can come from those who ignore Sila (the precepts on morality).

The globalisation of Buddha Dhamma has been rapid in western countries in the last two decades and extended just in time to countries which, for some time, were serious in their thinking about a need to destroy one another, en masse, with nuclear warfare.

As Freud (1915), writing on repression, noted, one of the vicissitudes an instinctual impulse may undergo is to meet with resistance, the aim of which is to make the impulse inoperative.

From this viewpoint, it might be said repression has caused a movement away from mass killing – meaning that the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) script prevented World War 3.

Current killing in the world is now more at an individual level, in the hand-to-hand sense, and localised. Perhaps, if more effort was made, further reduction in killing could happen in the human world.

Human fortune is under the influence of heavenly beings to some extent.

Perhaps a word about Buddhist views on climate change would help frame some compassionate actions.

Firstly, we should note that the slaughter of farm animals in higher that at any time in recorded human history.

At times, an animal is slaughtered by a farmer and due to merit is reborn a deva or devata in a lower heaven world.

The newly born deva or devata pleads with the God of that Heaven to punish the farmers responsible for killing many animals.

Flooding of the farmer’s land can result.

In the 21st century, it is likely more pujas will be held for dead animals.

8. Viewpoints of Naïve Persons Need More Attention

Unfortunately, at present, naïve persons are inclined to believe that monoculture resulting for ‘balkanisation’ of new nation states done along ethnic or religious lines is appealing.

Some persons proper when civil war arises because prolonged major killing expeditions appear to guarantee expenditure on arms.

The notion of the right of citizens to bear private arms may be foregone in the 21st century because arms are a supporting factor for killing.

In Australia, vast quantities of privately owned guns were destroyed after the Port Arthur Massacre in Tasmania.

From the Buddhist viewpoint, it is not right action to carry arms or right livelihood to trade in arms.

There is a need to concentrate on ways of making this supporting factor less appealing.

The horrors of war dull the senses and seem less real when they are viewed again and again on television World news in your living room.

There is a need to change the format of the content matter of television news, and this may be done if other commercial material were available.

We hope that major research of existing Buddha Dhamma will give practitioners in the 21st Century a method of finding and marketing an alternative format of television news. A method that would allow the viewing of news in such a way that it gives sufficient training for many persons in the precept of no killing.

9. The Evolvement of an English Buddhist Heritage

Major aide projects are needed to overcome the major crisis that will exist from scarcity of essentials in some countries.

Sympathetic Joy (Pali: mudita) can reach out into the future, to discern several alternative futures for particular countries, where persons organise or do not organise their lives within a Buddhist heritage.

That a real change of heritage has occurred is identified by the fact that the W.F.B. Conference was held in the U.S.A., and will soon be held in Australia.

Although these countries have a multicultural tradition because the migrant who settled in these countries came from just about every country in the world; their master language written and spoken is the English language.

The translations into English by the Pali Text Society over the last century have provided a reading background of incomparable use for those who wish to taste the flavor of Dhamma.

It is not surprising, given the 90 per cent of Internet sites are in America that many English Dhamma commentaries appear on Internet sites.

We all need a common language to trade with each other Chances are that English as a second language will become more common.

In the 21st century, with automatic translation facilities for the English language becoming common, and many European nations speaking English as a second language, many Centres will form Buddhist joint enterprises with other regional centers.

In the 21st century, at Websites or with the World Fellowship of Buddhists Website or the proposed International Buddhist University Website, development in the English language will follow natural.

By the 21st century, the refugee scholar Monks and Nuns from the areas from Cambodia to Vietnam, who have established themselves in Western World countries will have appointed their successors.

Their successors could come from anywhere provided they have completed some sturdy moral training system of Buddha Dhamma fit to be introduced into the Western World. Their educated successors may be helped less by netattha-Dhamma (teaching the meaning of which has been inferred) than by nittattha-Dhamma (teaching with an implicit or evident meaning).

In any event, their successors could not support a platform that is uccheda-sittha (nihilst) or sassato-ditthi (eternalist).

This concludes the first part of 'Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century.'

Our Centre’s brand “Chan Academy Australia” means respect for scholars and sustaining long term scholarship. We appreciate that scholars operate best in suitable environs.

Our Scholars and their associates deliver good well-researched information fit for practitioners’ use.

This valuable resource and working environment has been generated over the last 25 years at the Chan Academy Australia with sustained and focused effort.

Our lemma is “lifetimes of learning”.

The Chan Academy Australia is interested in trans-generational preservation and propagation of Buddha Dhamma. We plan for our Chan Academy library information services and Chan garden to be maintained in good condition for at least 500 years.

In accordance with our key objectives, which are to:

1. To introduce a philosophy of life based on Buddha Dhamma.
2. To encourage the study, practice and realisation of Buddha Dhamma.
3. To preserve the Buddha Dhamma teachings.
4. To promote activities associated with Buddha Dhamma and Buddhist culture in Australia and overseas.

Over recent years we have developed and now maintain 12 Buddha Dhamma websites recording over 20,000 hits since we began metering visits.

Our websites form the online gateway for the John D. Hughes Collection multilingual Buddhist reference library, with written Buddha Dhamma online for a global audience. The physical collection holds over 10,000 books, journals and texts brought together by its founder over three decades. Titles of about 4000 of these texts are catalogued online at www.bdcu.org.au. Information about the collection is available through the National Libraries Gateway at website http://www.nla.gov.au.

Within our Centres five styles we practice the style of scholarship. One indicator of our outputs is our website www.bdcublessings.net.au. The website contains our weekly Buddhist Hour Radio Script Archive, with over 300 broadcast radio scripts totaling in excess of 750,000 words; plus video clips, Buddha Dhamma Chanting, sound files and photographs.

In mid 2004 we began work on the John D. Hughes Collection Preservation Plan.

In June of that year one of our senior members attended the Multicultural Documentary Heritage Workshop at National Library of Australia in Canberra, held with the co-operation of the National Archives.

In the opening speech Sir James Gobbo, Chairman of the National Library of Australia Council, said, "Materials such as photographs, letters, videos, oral history, newsletters, reports, minutes of meetings collected by ethnic communities are an important part of Australia's heritage. These items need to be preserved for future generations because they document migrants' experiences of settling in Australia and their significant contribution to Australian life".

Sir James Gobbo noted the philosophy of multiculturalism has three parts:

1. Everyone that comes to this country must have a primary loyalty to Australia
2. Everyone must be free to maintain their own cultural heritage
3. Everyone must have respect for religions

The multicultural task force has the projects that the story of each group should be told, and that an encyclopaedia of the Australian people is produced.

The main aims for our heritage collection are to preserve, make accessible, and grow, for a long, long time.

The John D. Hughes Collections forms part of the mainstream repositories like the Australian National Library.

An important step is that the community, we as members and friends of the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. do the maintaining and collection, that we as a community own the asset, not individuals.

Teachings by our Founder John D. Hughes held at the Buddhist Discussion Centre (Upwey) Ltd. from 1984, 1988 and 1990 have been converted from the original audio tape recordings to digital format and burnt to CDs. Transcriptions of these Teachings are loaded as text and MP3 audio files to our website at www.edharma.org. We loaded our first MP3 files to www.edharma.org in November 2004.

We invite you to tune in next week for the conclusion to Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century.

May written Buddha Dhamma be preserved and cultivated for the sake of future generations.
May you create the causes for your own scholarship this very life.
May every man women and child have the benefits of literacy and access to Buddha Dhamma.
May you be well and happy.

The paper ‘Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century’ was written by John D. Hughes. The script for the program was prepared and edited by Julian Bamford, Frank Carter, Evelin Halls, Anita Hughes, Alec Sloman and Lainie Smallwood.


Word count : 3832


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