The Buddhist Hour Radio Broadcast Archives

The secret name of the present times we live in could well be the "Age of Barbarous Noise".

Human minds are becoming noisier.

When did it begin?

When the simple manual technology of farming life was left behind and the industrial age began.

Milton foreshadowed it:

"I did but prompt the age to quiet their clogs,
By the known rules of ancient liberty,
When straight a barbarous noise environs me
Of owls and cuckoos, asses, apes and dogs".

John Milton 1608-1674 wrote these words at the beginning of the Age of Noise.

Our Western world has become a noisy place.

The hums of our file-server and computer drives are omnipresent in the modern open office.

Will things become noisier as the population density increases, and more and more mechanical machinery comes into use?

It would appear so.

Although we wish for more work machinery, we may have forgotten to wish for quieter workstations.

It appears to be true that style in current world culture is to market more noise.

Noise can be sounds out of context.

We can think of noise as mobile phones that do not ring but play music.

But surely the zaniest noise out of context is programmable alarm clocks that make rooster noises during the day.

When advertisers talk about a car having more "grunt", are they suggesting it is a louder pig than its predecessors?

Persons who study car noises may remember that in ancient times an Austin 7 automobile was fitted with a "fishtail" over its exhaust pipe.

The result was the sound was much louder than is credible and which was more exciting given its small engine capacity and that made it more memorable if you like that sort of thing.

If you want more noise, it would be easier to leave off the exhaust pipe.

However, apparently, culturally, this is not permitted at present.

Can we imagine any of the various local Hills tourist attraction steam trains generically called "Puffing Billy" proceeding without the shrill squeal of the steam siren?

Some knowledge is nearly impossible for us to recall if we do not have the mental wake up call of the steam whistle to help us think about steam engines.

In earlier days, steam whistles were used at factories to mark start and stop work times.

We emphasise in fact that such common noise recall culture is not now the monopoly of a social class, but is now something to which we respond to as if we had an ineradicable need for elevating human life to the relational level.

In earlier times, in our Victorian railway system, different social classes travelled in different carriages, because there was different charges for 1st class and 2nd class of railway travel.

The seating comfort in a 1st class carriage was more than in 2nd class carriage.

Carriage design was such that the noise level in a 1st class carriage was lower than that in 2nd class carriage. The seat colours were different.

Different classes had different travel experiences on the same train.

The same difference applies on some aircraft today.

The basic factors of creativity and cultural transmission prevent us from dividing or arresting culture, that is, from seeing it otherwise than as one permanent contemporary whole.

Culture has not reached the stage were we would give much support to the notion that mothers giving birth should be exposed to noises such as that of Puffing Billy or the exhaust note of an Austin 7 with a fish-tail exhaust.

We have yet to argue that the sooner our children acclimatise to noise the better.

The great danger is hearing climatisation to excessive noise can take place through hearing loss.

In ancient times, most boilermakers suffered hearing loss because they did not protect themselves against high noise levels at work.

Hearing loss is well known by pop musicians who work with high-powered sound systems.

So, having rejected such noise culture as suitable for new babies or their mothers or the medical staff at the hospital­ is it reasonable to ask how we would design a culture of what noises we think are appropriate for the involved and committed persons present on such an occasion?

It seems we have little data relating to what a person is hoping to hear and would care to listen to when he or she comes to birth as a baby.

We suggest rest and quiet may be most useful although some words of comfort from the Mother may be useful after the pain of being born.

Perhaps we were not in the mood to send loving kindness to all who helped in our birth process from our first "birth" - our conception to our second birth when we leave our Mother and as we know it.

It might be thought that all humans without exception are twice born, but according to Buddha Teachings there can exist a type of human being who are spontaneously born.

When such beings pass away, they do not leave a dead body behind. They appear to be fully-grown, as adults but do not change by ageing. Human beings, born in this manner, must be rare because there is very little written about them in literature.

In Burma, there are reports of Buddhist Monks who passed away without leaving a body.

They told their fellow Monks that they would pass away the night before they vanished.

Somehow the notion that we leave behind a dead corpse to be buried or cremated with ceremony religious or otherwise, with the appropriate noises, is something we want to hear about ourselves to make us feel important even after death.

For knowers of the Buddha Dhamma, facts relating to re-birth is a matter of direct memory.

But to do this memory recovery, several types of fear must be conquered because we remember our own death in the life before.

For our own peace, persons seek to avoid looking at the deep sense of loss that may occur at death.

To stop the arising of painful memories, persons may seek stimulation, such as loud noise to "blot out" or override the unpleasant feelings they experience.

Mass marketing involves moneymaking to create or encourage a culture of noise. It would be hard to imagine a football grand final where the crowd of supporters did not roar their approval or disapproval.

It is very difficult to convey to persons who live in a land such as Australia, which does not have a long history of Buddha Dhamma, that persons could gather and practice in a culture of quiet surroundings.

It takes special skill to resolve what is of benefit to you and what is harmful to you. It takes special skill to know if a person you associate with is benefiting you or harming you.

A corrupt person cannot know if another person is corrupt. The corrupt mind is noisy and cannot discriminate particularly well. The disappearance of Buddhist Teachings and the throwing into confusion of persons' minds, rather than the untangling of persons' minds, is characterised by five things. These are: the Monks do not master the Teachings, they do not teach Dhamma in detail to others, they do not make others speak the Dhamma in detail, they make no repetition of Dhamma, and they do not review the Dhamma in their minds.

The type of talk that results from cutting the roots or basis of wisdom is a form of noise to the mind. The systematic exposition of some topic is not noise to the mind. If persons discourse in the correct form, then they can deepen their cultural being, find the foundations of their traditions, and make them autonomous to the extent that they can detach themselves from themselves and attain a form of critical consciousness, which is useful for analysis.

To do this, one should take account of the action of the text used through generations, find out which are the essential parts of that action, practise that action, make oneself responsible for it, and then one is in a position to judge the results of the action in future times. No one has the power to compel us to make a judgement about a text; no one can intervene in the intimate tete-a-tete with the author of the text.

Since the fields of inner experience are autonomous, personal and private, culture cannot be subjected to a purely rational examination.

In a noisy environment, we are unable to perform an analysis of our inner experience because we become too enmeshed in playing the external world, owing to the fact we have little mastery over our senses. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching and smelling, when they are at high intensity, swamp our finer discriminating minds.

To practise Buddha Dhamma at our Centre, our Teachings are conducted in a quiet environment, and our Members are trained to go against their natural tendencies of being noisy when they do cleaning, washing, and other daily activities concerned with the upkeep of the Centre.

We do not clean or wash dishes when Teaching is in progress.

This is our culture ­ the way we do things around here.

There are several sorts of things which grip us ­ the recent eclipse was an example of many persons making fun of others because of some superstition gathered from a former life. We do not give much weight to the doomsayers who will fill up many pages of newspapers with their fin de siecle forecasts. The fact that it is the end of the millennium does not help the noise in persons' thought patterns to become any clearer. For Buddha Dhamma practitioners, it is the year 2542.

To help the thought patterns become less noisy, firstly, you need to make merit by doing good deeds for others ­ this provides us with the mental energy to practise to remove noise from our minds. Secondly, we need to maintain our morality to give us the willpower to drive our mental energy to remove noise from our minds, and finally, we have to straighten our minds by untangling the tangle that likes to incorporate noise into our mental continuum.

To some extent, from time to time, we need to undertake periods of time when we abstain from idle chatter.

Without wishing to disparage the intellect or motives of most newspaper journalists, it might be said that some idle chatter occurs in their writings.

Within Buddhist literature, there are viewfinders in the form of checklists of topics that are not conducive to quietening the mind. When the mind becomes quiet, the noise ceases, and the real is seen each for himself or herself.

We read newspapers for reportage of events in Australia that fall into the type of views and opinions that do not amount to unimportant chatter.

Over time, we encourage our Members to read more, understand more, and grasp what is supposed to be grasped, and master what is to be mastered.

We suggest to Members that high cognitive skills are needed to study Buddha Dhamma.

What offers resistance to a systematic theory or to a scientific metalanguage is not language or even languages as general, constituted structures, but living speech or personal style.

This is true even when we have two opposite viewpoints in relation to the same object, culture sub specie aeternitatis, geometrized as it were, as opposed to culture broken down into acts which form a whole.

For example, we all learn to live with notions of loss and gain, blame and praise and so on across a range of the events and our behavioural response to them in the course of one day.

Most of us are not particularly rational or consistent in our behaviour towards others. Our ability to "think on our feet" varies daily. If we were honest with ourselves, we would know that this is an unsatisfactory way to live. We would seek a better way.

It is by study of Dhamma and applying it to our life we come to peace in our minds.

At the same time as they study Dhamma, we say it makes sense to increase our Member's proficiency in the work force, so we encourage them to undertake further formal study.

We do not issue any type of certificate to indicate study at our Centre.

We recommend Members study at TAFE or university to improve their cognitive skills.

The type of talk that develops can be a system of mutual help where are graduate Members become, to some extent, de facto coaches for those who study.

This brings the level of discussions to a better level than if we were to talk about such passing items as the cancellation of the overseas marching bands proposed for the opening ceremony for the Australian Olympic games.

How can such nationalistic talk bring peace of mind or reduce noise?

We are not training Members to become noise-seeking customers.

We would rather find ways of exploring how we could develop quieter machines at the Centre.

At present, we have some equipment to install piped vacuum cleaning fittings in our Hall of Assembly where the noisy vacuum cleaner motor unit is external to the building.

There are further advantages in such a system because it reduces the risk that a mobile electric motor operating near our disc drives could destroy or corrupt magnetically encoded data.

Members can see that cleaning by this system would remove of the harmful effects of noise for those reading in our library.

Please consider your actions and how you contribute to noise levels.

When to generate noise and when not to generate noise is a question of being mindful of the well being of other persons and animals.

When you are to generate noise from using power tools, you provide persons working near you with hearing protection, such as earmuffs to protect their hearing.

Many animals are more sensitive to noise than most humans.

When the local fire siren sounds, the dogs bark. Why?

They hear more of the higher frequencies of the siren's sound than we do. For them, it is so loud that it gives them pain.

When we use electric saws, the sound spectrum of its operation causes animals distress. We use earmuffs, but what can we do to warn animals we are about to make noise? We can sound the Buddha bell.

Our bell sounds causes most animals either to close their hearing down to some extent or move their ears out of the way or both.

In ancient times, there lived a Bodhisattva Monk who carried a staff with metal rings to warn animals that he was approaching.

They would move out of the way when they heard that ringing sound.

Even some persons who are likely to be born animals in their next life are likely to respond to noise in the same manner as animals.

The best teaching conditions for many things is that the background noise be as quiet as possible.

The noise levels that arise in the evenings when persons sit on the verandah and talk at any time should be carefully controlled so as not disturb our neighbours.

It is likely to be more disturbing in the evenings, because sometimes the sound carries for four half a kilometre on a still night.

When talking at smoker's corner, members should keep their voices down to a quiet level.

In this way, they noise will not disturb our neighbours.

Uncontrolled laughter, in particular, is antisocial because not only does it carry some distance, but also thoughtless persons are not aware of the volume of their laughter.

Therefore you should make conscious effort to become aware of the volume of your laughter.

On the verandah of our Centre, the roof acts as a sound shell.

With spring coming in, and the new Pavilion being used, it is likely that members will dine outdoors. Once again, the volume of the talking ought to be controlled. When there are 16 persons eating, even if each person is fairly quiet, the sum total of the noise could be unacceptable to our neighbours.

In general, all Members must stay aware of the need to be well behaved in terms of the amount of idle chatter they generate at all times.

We respect the rights of our neighbours to peace.

It is not our custom to use public address systems in the garden.

We rely on our own unaided voices.

When visitors come and they use their public address systems, they should be in encouraged to keep the volume down.

Members are advised not to over-rev their car engines or sound their horns when they are in the street, or leaving the premises.

Members are advised not to talk to each other in loud voices from one vehicle to another.

The need for noise to be reduced as the mental construct is desirable.

Until this mental formation has become habitual among our Members, there is very little chance they will investigate better and better ways of reducing noise.

When they have attained a regular mind which attends to business, they will follow noise reduction as a matter of habit.

When this cultural change is complete, occupational health and safety training becomes better.

From that time onward, members will be able to think and plan for this noise reduction as a normal state of mind.

There may be a case for substitution, for a petrol driven motor mower to use an electric mower.

The other possibility is to add extra exhaust pipes to the present driven motor.

Further thinking about noise reduction is essential within the next decade. If we start now, within about two years, we should be proficient in this way of thinking.

It requires a lot of training to be able to comprehend what the background noises we are listening to are.

May all beings live without excessive noise.

May you be well and happy.

This script was written and edited by John D. Hughes and Leanne Eames.

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".

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

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