The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

Buddhist Hour
Script No. 382
Broadcast live on Hillside 88.0 FM
on Sunday 22 May 2005CE 2548 Buddhist Era

This script is entitled:

Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century
Part II

Last week we presented the idea that Versak, the celebration of the birth, death, and enlightenment of the Buddha, is a great opportunity to recall the kindness and effort of the many beings who brought us the Dhamma. We also proposed that it is an opportunity to turn our minds towards the future of Buddhism, towards what challenges it may face, and also, the opportunities that the communication age can offer.

In preparation for this, Master John D. Hughes wrote a paper entitled ‘Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century”.

In last week’s program, we discussed the key importance of information technology as a means of sharing the Buddha Dhamma with a global audience.

John D. Hughes outlined important concepts such as the need for closer relationships between eastern Buddhist Scholars, the evolvement of an English Buddhist heritage, and also the need to abolish illiteracy from the world.

Today’s program focuses on the ways in which smaller temples can sustain themselves, and how through the use of information technology, the Dhamma can be preserved and shared with many generations to come.

We will now continue the reading of ‘Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century’. We hope that in doing so, we can shed some light on the challenges and opportunities Buddhists face in the coming age of communication, and inspire them to take action.

10. The Role of Immigration in Spreading Buddha Dhamma

In a world where immigrants are increasing, both within a given country and from a given country to another country, it is difficult to believe that future migrations of the educated Buddhist elite will not occur towards the richer western countries of the world.

With increasing population growth, it is assumed that the present tendency for Buddhist refugees to settle in richer countries will increase year by year.

On the assumption that Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and the U.S.A. have sufficient land and infrastructure to continue to generate more wealth in the 21st century, it appears likely these places could accept any Buddhist refugee Monks and Nuns.

By way of example by simple karma might suggest that Canada and France seem obvious places for immigrant persons, such as the Vietnamese, who have a background of French colonial cultural history.

The complex reasons for the suggesting of other western countries is outside the scope of this paper.

There does not seem to be much limit to the absorption of qualified Monks and Nuns into these societies.

It is a torturous path to see at what point demand and supply could be said to be balanced because, if in excess, the educated player could migrate to another country.

For example, Myanmar (Burma) has a long history of great Masters and Scholars.

The amount of important Burmese texts that remain to be translated into the English language is likely to be extensive.

If the karmic conditions that allowed relocation of English speaking Mayanmarese Scholar Monks to other countries was studied against the colonial past, it is probable that a number of English speaking Mayanmarese Scholars and Monks could be expected to relocate into English speaking countries in the 21st Century.

Apart from war as a cause, a natural disaster on a medium scale such as a virus in crops in Myanmar could drive potential immigrants to seek haven in other countries.

11. Building and Maintaining Sustainable Temples

It would be nice if more sustainable Temples, able to last 500 years or more, could come into actuality.

The western world has a tendency to go to excess in good things. It expects to have an increasing living standard year by year.

Some tend to like to believe that the world is really a very nice place.

This belief is reinforced by high living standards and superior medical systems.

The basis of these things leading to good life is thought to be made possible by good government regulation, not individual kusala kamma coming from the individual’s own good actions.

Buddhist morality, which is not given as commandments from a creator God, challenges and clarifies the raison d’être of notions of the Ten Commandments derived form the Christian canon.

The moral training is not God given but can be deduced from a knowledge of cause and effect.

There is some common ground in practice of morality between various religions and all can converge with compassion. Buddha Dhamma does not end training with the development of compassion.

The limit to wisdom development does not go beyond the ten Perfections.

For example, there is not need for an Arhat to build a temple.

The task of building and maintaining temples belongs to the laity. In the western world experience, the absence of suitable viharas has meant that certain Monks and Nuns occupied themselves with construction techniques that may be rated too lavish for the functions required.

As Buddha Dhamma becomes more widespread, the need to generate good causes in this life becomes better understood.

Because of clever marketing, there is a perception that the size and quality of a dwelling, whether private or business, reflects the worth of a person or organisation.

‘Bigger is better’ is not questioned by mass advertising in a consumer society.

For this reason, when a question of the size of any temple is considered from the western frame of reference, there is a tendency to go to extremes. It is not enough to build a small temple for some western persons, they must build the biggest or most lavish to rival the luxury of a Hilton Hotel.

The conditioning of person’s minds is so nearly complete, that there is no hesitancy in choice of the desirability of having as many rooms as possible within a given structure.

The belief system is so strong that a person choosing a lesser number of rooms within a given structure would be considered as lacking judgement.

It is not a matter of the number of rooms but of the right sizing to get the optimum use from a temple structure. Right sizing is entering the business spectrum of Global Culture at present, so, it can imagined that the 21st century will bring better resolution of temple dimensions and locations to fit the practice that is planned ahead of construction.

12. The Role of Technology may affect the Sizing of Temples Used for Teaching Buddha Dhamma

Monk and Nun training could be helped from a central location via Internet systems. A portion of each future temple may be equipped with a workstation of considerable power.

As the cost of computing lowers and viharas can communicate with one another with ease, it may be that Monks and Nuns actually do less travel and, therefor, do not suffer from disturbances associated from cultural shock.

Multiple teachings in real time become commonplace because of multimedia technology becoming more and more affordable.

The strength and affordability of technology will produce some remarkable changes in the influence of larger temples.

A small temple will have the same capabilities as a large temple to service persons reading from the Internet.

It may be that superior Monks and Nuns prefer that atmosphere of small size viharas.

Without doubt, they would certainly have longer life in such a suitable environment and Teachers may live to be 120 to 149 years old or more.

Their teaching period may be multiplied by an equivalent time factor of more than 50,000 at least. This is a combination of an increased life span and the ability to guide 100 or more groups simultaneously.

There are several persons in training at present who either this life or next life can attain to this capacity.

The author remembers with affection the suitability of simpler vihara constructions in Bangladesh villages with superior Monks in attendance.

These Monks were trained in the Burmese traditions of practice and run their viharas accordingly. Within the temple grounds, an ancient Bodhi tree stand and stupas hold the relics of four generations of teacher in their tradition. It is evident that there must have been a series of viharas in that specific location going back to the 12th century.

Were teaching to be conducted by the Abbott of such a temple by multimedia to a global audience, the project would be well suited for the practitioner and it would be affordable to maintain and operate.

When the operating costs of this small, suitable vihara in Bangladesh are compared to the operating costs of some large establishments built in western countries, the natural advantage of the Bangladesh vihara becomes quite evident.

Quality of guidance appears in different parts of the world because of past conditions and cannot be manufactured through wealth alone.

13. Concepts about Sharing Resources Equally

It is not possible to share resources equally.

In ancient times, the Chinese had by no means the same ideas as Europeans who came to their shores on the subject of commerce.

Kouan-tse, a celebrated economist of the Celestial Empire, who lived more than two thousand years ago, expresses himself thus: “The money which enters a kingdom by commerce only enriches it in the same proportion as that which goes out. There is no commerce permanently advantageous but the exchange of things useful and necessary. The trade in articles of pomp, elegance, or curiosity, whether carried on by exchange or by money payments, supposes the existence of luxury; now luxury, which is the abundance of what is superfluous among certain citizens, supposes the want of necessaries of others. The more horses the rich put to their chariots, the more people will have to walk on foot; the more their houses are vast and magnificent, the more those of the poor are small and miserable; the more their tables are covered with dainties, the more people there are reduced to eat only rice.”

This notion has been left behind in modern times but it is evident that balance of trade must have some meaning.

There is an attractiveness in facilitating quality Teaching regardless of national boundaries. It might be that economic rationalism of some sort would exclude high overhead temples from offering their services because their costs could be out of proportion to what is offered elsewhere.

At that point, the reputation and desirability of using Monks and Nuns to 'Show the Way’ within the backdrop of their smaller viharas would be empathised with by many persons.

The energy of utilisation of a good resource regardless of its locality is a property of modern management. As the global new service, CNN, has shown, it does not take that much energy to deliver visual images from anywhere in the world to anywhere else in the world.

The will to achieve such quality guidance ought to come from practitioners in the western world who may not be content with the conventional wisdom, the larger the organisation, the higher the quality of the product.

Westerners will become more discriminating of what they wish within the 21st century and this in turn will raise the discrimination level of traditional Buddhist countries.

Japan could become revitalised by the commercial exploitation of the new technology and the availability of suitable Teachers in many underdeveloped countries.

Since this represents a New World market for a product that will bless persons, it is feasible that any country in the world could exploit the obvious advantages of this path.

Th author wishes that parts of Australia could generate the intention and raise the energy to reach this objective within the 21st century.

The energy with which westerners build their Viharas is commendable, but not enough energy is poured into sustaining the structure after it is built. It is as if they do not wish for future generations to have anything to do! They want to present a ‘perfect’ building as soon as possible. There is no patience in this practice and the only outcome is great wealth in a future life for the persons engaged in this type of building.

Buddha Dhamma does not limit a person to continue to develop the four qualities of the mental state of the Brahma World beyond a certain development.

A combination of a spreading of teachings by Ajarns and well-written Dhamma literature to back up such teaching, within the last two decades have de-mystified question of why one should take refuge in the Triple Gem in at least one of the four possible ways.

14. The Future Distribution of Dhamma

Within the materialistic western world, some scientifically trained persons reject eternalism by considering that the belief in an eternal creator God is unscientific.

Other persons live within a nihilistic framework by rejecting the notion that rebirth and redeath are not the norm.

In some cases, this challenge has encouraged Buddha Dhamma collaboration by university professors and graduates, and the last decade has seen the emergence in publication of many translations of classic well-written Buddha Dhamma.

This material has been traded in printed form as a world commodity. Affordable costing makes material widely available and in many cases, due to the generosity of many organisations, written Dhamma is available for free distribution.

In addition, Dhamma materials are appearing in electronic formats on Internet and as compact disks readable by computers.

Communication by electronic mail will become so widely available at low cost, it would be possible and likely that the WFB would link together their Regional Centres to compile a World Register of Monks, Nuns and Lay Dhamma Teachers with examples of their current training methods.

Webmasters could run these systems with voice systems from either their present location or anywhere else worldwide.

As more and more persons will work from home in the information age, and home entertainment increases in convenience, some persons could become disinclined to leave their home.

For such persons, a demand for Buddha Dhamma equivalent culture piped into their home may become the norm.

With ‘convenient’ web systems using voice synthesis, it would appear likely that known texts could be verbalised by virtual Monks and virtual Nuns.

A cost-efficient ‘convenient’ web system would be an offshoot of a commercial system that would appear with universal language skills to overcome the need to use the English language as a world language.

The ‘convenient’ Web systems could address national audiences on request in their own Dhamma languages at any time day or night.

In time, for such an audience, it may become difficult for those living Monks and Nuns and laypersons who wish to compete against the synthetic Web voices.

Those who incline to speak ‘live’ would need some very pleasant speech to hold the attention of persons with restless time-driven minds who may be conditioned not to travel from their work-wired homes.

15. More Future Challenges for Buddhist Followers

There is more wealth to build, maintain and deliver services to and from Buddhist Institutions.

This wealth has caused fundamental changes in the structure and distribution of communities.

Much of this is being driven by a confluence of factors which are shaping the world of the next century in terms of a more global community and market place.

Patterns of demography and distribution of wealth may also be expected to change which will set increased pressures on global resources including the environment.

At the same time, the human qualities of covertness and greed do not appear to have substantially abated and are likely to also continue into this new century.

This will create an evolving set of challenges for Buddhism to both recognise and adapt to so that it may continue to flourish.

What are these challenges?

We are seeing the proliferation of information and communications technology which is extending into almost every corner of the globe.

The cost to access these communication channels is coming down rapidly making them accessible on a scale that has not been possible before.

We are also seeing a convergence of communication technologies in which computing, television, telephone and interactive multimedia are coming together merely as different enablers of communication through the recognition that the basis of all these technologies is digital technology.

Accompanying this is an increasing concentration of communications media ownership that will be powerful in both informing and shaping the global agenda.

Richard H. Brown, Chief Executive of Cable and Wireless PLC, states they are the most international company in the World by having substantial operations in 55 countries and a presence in over 70.

They are arranging for a single dedicated management team that will target multinational companies directly instead of operating through the national companies.

Part of their plan will be to sink their roots in markets where they can really make a difference and take control of their destiny.

What this means is that the Cable and Wireless team must practice a form of global multiculturalism having values which use logic to help build momentum in an industry which is open-ended.

It is this very open-ended nature of the industry which allows it to overcome lack of direct eye consciousness by giving, in an affordable form, what can be considered a world-wide ‘celestial eye’ substitute for many persons.

16. The Power of Storage-Area Networks (SAN)

The impact, intensity and apparent realism of fiction has always had power to guide the formation of views.

Under the 227 Vinaya rules, Monks and Nuns are advised to avoid watching or listening to common plays pageants or theatre where dancing persons move their bodies to music.

In ancient times, such shows were not frequent in the countryside so it was not too difficult to observe this rule.

The significance of the intense development of SANs at present is a guarantee that such entertainment will be easy and affordable in many, many places in this century.

It does not take much vision to see that suitable feed stock for the future SANs is ready in the marketplace, held by copyright.

So apart from re-runs of sporting events, persons who have tested positive to popular global appeal in the 20th century would extend their global shelf life with ‘spin off’ marketing on SANs.

Risk-free appeal may last several generations because exposure to the deceptive charm of popular singers, such as, the Three Tenors or Spice Girls equivalents is held to be conducive to pleasant feeling.

The global availability of an audience that wishes to share a common delusion equivalent to specific virtual seduction by sight or sound and other major theatrical sense base spectacles is a strong reason to develop product.

When product is mass-produced for a complete market profile, it means it would be nice from the producer’s point of view if present conventions of what is accepted as suitable juvenile, vis-à-vis adult products, was left unquestioned.

By linear projection of what would have been considered suitable for general exhibition 50 years ago and what is considered suitable with the same rating today, it can be predicted that the present ratings for ‘mature adults only’ and so on will vanish in many countries.

In the entertainment industry, there appears to be little hard evidence to suggest that any person went bankrupt by allowing bad taste to prevail in their presentations.

It may be difficult for children educated from birth in a permissive society which allows them to view the full content of the future SANs to make sense of a precept prohibiting viewing of such subject matter.

As an indicator of this trend, the author has noted that popular music groups are used at fund raising events in local temple grounds even while the Monks and Nuns are still in residence.

17. Buddha Dhamma Networked Data Storages

The educational potential of networked Buddha Dhamma data storages (SANs) could be very high.

It is suggested that by using skilful method and means and without much effort the possibility of setting up 21st Century Buddha Dhamma network sites ought to be investigated by interested Centres of the W.F.B.

To be commercially viable, perhaps it could reward viewers financially (with the equivalent of frequent viewer points) and emotionally (by being polled for their response to the instructional material).

From the author’s experience in setting up our Buddha Dhamma site at www.bdcu.org.au this year (1998) and our Local Area Network, it can be sated that, provided Dhamma practitioners believe they are certain their organisation can master technology, they can do it.

SANs are being developed which permits high-speed access to multiple storage displays, where such items as video clips might be archived.

Research of SAN is moving quickly and it is most likely SAN will replace the need for face to face contact with live Teachers who can teach logic.

The character of search engines developed to date can find more references that are held in local libraries and automatic translation of foreign texts appears to be nearly ready for key word searches at an affordable cost.

This ends the second part of ‘Buddha Dhamma and Challenges in the 21st Century. We encourage our listeners to tune in next week for the conclusion.

May you be well and happy.
May the Buddha Dhamma be preserved and shared around the world.
May we take up the opportunity to use technology to many people’s benefit.

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 Alec Sloman, Anita Hughes, Leanne Eames, Leila Igracki, Frank Carter, Julie O'Donnell and Helen Costas.

Document Statistics.
Word count: 3817

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 print outs of this publication for FREE DISTRIBUTION ONLY. Please keep it in a clean place.

"The gift of Dhamma excels all other gifts".

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


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

Back to Top