Is it god, Darwin or the Buddha?

Is it god, Darwin or the Buddha? - Daily News

V. Dahanayaka





Mahinda Weerasinghe

ORIGIN OF LIFE: Mahinda Weerasinghe is a man with an extraordinary message. Not only is he contesting the creationists’ theories of life, but also challenging the scientific establishment’s alternative to divine creation.

We finally caught up with him holidaying leisurely in Mt Lavinia, on a quick visit to Sri Lanka to launch his work in late August, and posed some relevant questions.

Interviewer: - Vijitha Yapa publications has just released your enlarged third edition of ‘The Origin of Species According to the Buddha’. In that you not only summarily dismiss the creationist version of life, but also the scientific establishment’s alternative to it; obviously I am speaking of Darwin’s ‘Theory of Evolution’.

Mahinda Weerasinghe: Curiously enough the global opinion concerning theories of life is divided between these two schools of thought. The Creationists profess that species were fashioned in their present form.

When I say creationist we must include all shades of Judeo- Christian sects. They are of the opinion that pig was created as pig, man as man, and evolutionary process of species is only a figment of our imagination.

Then we have the Darwinists; who maintain that ‘natural selection’ is the ‘scientific base’ for the evolution of species.
External forces

If we go by both these two schools of thought, then it would simply mean that external forces had determined and controlled our coming into being. Then how in the world can individuals be called to answer for their actions?

I: Can you clarify that?

MW: Just consider; no individual that we know of has put in a request to be created, or be begotten. If a creator had created us in our present form, then our body and mind would have been the handiwork of this loving creator too.

Whether he is a pervert, an imbecile or a ‘Hitler’, all individuals perform actions using the body and mind awarded to them, naturally. So how indeed can individuals be responsible for their actions?

On the other hand we have the ‘natural selection’ explanation of Darwinists.

Here too individuals are helpless pawns as we have come into being through a whole series of ‘luck by chance’ events. In other words we had no power to navigate over our own destiny by what we have inherited in this hapless process of accidents. So how can such helpless individuals be responsible for their actions?

I: But the whole scientific establishment accepts that natural selection explains the evolution of species. And a lot of research has been put into it.

MW: Perhaps, but some main ingredients of life are missing in their theories such as 1. An action theory 2. An ethical theory 3. The conditioning process or conditional genesis of creatures 4. The pleasure and pain principle 5. Cause and effect - to name a few.
Unscientific values

I: But these are unscientific values hence inapplicable vis-à-vis evolution.

MW: OK but then if ‘survival of the fittest’ is good enough to be applied for other species, why is it not good enough for humans too. In fact the UN is creating human rights laws to protect the under dog.

Acts of genocide by various human racial groups are condemned by the world body, so shouldn’t we also apply Darwin’s theory to humans and let the fittest of these groups survive, as that’s what is supposedly happening in nature or do Darwinists believe human animal is a special creation and has to be protected?

I: Naturally if we reject God as our creator, then all we have is to fall back on a natural explanation, but I do not see how Darwin’s theory should be applied to human types.

MW: Indeed the original third theory of life has been kept hidden from the global society where the individual has some control over his destiny.

I: What do you mean by that?

MW: I am speaking of the two and a half millennia old rational explanation as to why creatures struggle to survive and cling to life, in spite of adversity, hardship and suffering.

And in doing so they ignored the Buddha’s main discovery upon which the Four Noble Truths are underpinned.
Law of impermanence

I: What have they ignored?

MW: The law of impermanence. Do the Darwinists truly believe that the Buddha, while stating that all compounds are impermanent and all things are fleeting, made species an exception to this all embracing principle?

It is not only that species were not holding a status quo but Buddhist scriptures provide a clear explanation as to how the becoming process of species is fired.

I: You mean to say that all these professors and pundits of the past and present never connected Buddha’s explanations vis-à-vis species when it is clearly penned down in the scriptures?

MW: That is the intriguing mystery of all. Soon people will be questioning, how in the world did Buddhists fail to grasp what was staring in their face.

I: So how does Buddhist philosophy square with the evolutionary process of species?

MW: In this connection it is inappropriate to use the word ‘evolution’ to explain this subtle process.


The Buddha never used the word evolution to project its intricate dynamics. Instead, he used the word, ‘becoming’, more precisely, ‘sensory becoming’. For the becoming process can go either way, progressively or regressively, depending on the individual’s circumstance, conditioned state of mind and resources available.

I: Can you be a little bit more specific?

MW: Indeed according to the Buddha, individuals are driven by craving (sensory greed), which is the fuel for one’s existence. But craving is not holding on to a status quo too, and it is in a dynamic process of becoming.

Take away the ‘fuel of sensory craving’ of an individual, and he does not exist. Craving for what? Craving for all varieties of sensory stimulants. Tasty food, stimulating music and carnal greed. Books can be written on the subject. All the worlds’ industrial products one way or other are catering to this sensory greed of human species.

I: How is the transformation of species is fired according to the Buddha?
Sensory extension

MW: In order to cater to these needs individuals need to act. Actions are constrained by conditioned body and mind and the resources available. Numerous actions, mental and physical, are performed in order to cater to one’s needs.

These in time will bring in their wake positive or negative resultants. But within that process of catering to one’s sensory needs one is stressing and straining one’s body and mind, which in turn will galvanise the direction of future sensory extension.

I: Is that why you call it sensory becoming?.

MW: In fact, survival then, according to the sensory becoming principle, is not an objective in itself, but to experience that what lies beyond, a stepping stone for a more important goal.

Biological evolution, it seems, is subservient to a pleasure principle. Its net results are creatures with progressively developed sensory potential.

This in its turn would heighten their sensory experience, i.e. pleasures of seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, touching and thinking. Just look around and you will recognize the truth of this extraordinary principle.

(Note: According to Darwinists, creatures are competing for survival in order to produce their prototypes. And the fittest in a species will survive and reproduce.)
Colour vision

I: It is not quite clear what you mean.

MW: As an example let us simply consider a single sensory instrument of humans, the eye. The eye simply documents how subtly advanced the sensory becoming process is.

We are informed that, man can distinguish 7 pure colours, such as red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, and about 17,000 mixed colours, plus about 300 shades of grey between white and black. So our optical sense can take in 5 million shades of colours altogether.

What emerges when compared with other creatures is that man’s colour vision, like the way he sees an image, is not a matter-of-course affair, for it requires a nerve system that is simply short of miraculous.


What is the necessity for such advanced piece of sensory apparatus for survival? There is only one answer that fits in smoothly, if its usefulness is to be justified; visual experience and all the related pleasures that it caters to its owner.

Such stimulations do not play any role whatsoever in the survival of its owner. Indeed humans can walk on two feet, dance, run and swim or climb trees. The sex act is so powerfully motivating that it can be an elaborate, long drawn affair if one has mastered the art of love play, which no other creature can imitate.

The human penis is the biggest of all, when compared to all other apes, including gorillas. Why? We have specialised our body to make it a pleasure gorging machine. All varieties of music, all sorts of gourmet foods. But isolate this ape in a desolate, unfriendly island and he probably would not survive in spite of its advanced body and mind.

I: So we are nothing but simply pleasure guzzling sensory machines?

MW: I have outlined in very simple terms the most advanced and only none deterministic theory in existence, so you have to get hold of a book and read it to really grasp the subject, as this tropic will come to dominate the next generations.

I: How can the Buddha’s sensory becoming principle help the modern society?

MW: Today we find Judeo-Christian sects are at each others throats. Why is this? Because each of their sects promotes a club mentality to its adherents. Absurdly each sect firmly believes that they own an exclusive truth, provided exclusively by a loving God to them and that God is on their side.

It is declared by each sect that its members are unique, special and chosen; no wonder the resulting violent global conflicts. The Darwinists’ theory of evolution did not help either, as they promoted a mechanistic version of life.

The result is that the world is in turmoil presently, thanks to such fatalistic and mechanistically deterministic theories of life.

No wonder the intelligent people are searching for a nondeterministic version of life. The only rational, logical and realistic one around and indeed the only non-deterministic one in existence is the Buddha’s ‘Sensory Becoming’ principle of life.

Equipping oneself with it can be an advantage for one’s personal progress and gain. It will also make the world a healthier place for everyone to live in.

style="font-style:italic;">My website on these matters is :

http://evolution-becoming.com
Australian efforts in uncovering Buddhist history

Shar Adams

Buddhist History: Researchers around the world are moving a little closer to understanding the early history of Buddhism with the help of Australian scholarship and science.

Carbon dating performed by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) has confirmed that ancient manuscripts that surfaced in Afghanistan in the 1990s are among the earliest Buddhist texts ever found and also the earliest Indian manuscripts.

Australian researcher Dr Mark Allon says ANSTO confirmed that two manuscripts from what is known as the Senior Collection, were compiled between 130AD and 250AD, and three manuscripts from the Schoyen Collection (named after its Norwegian owner), date between the first and fifth century AD.

Dr Allon, who is considered to be the first person to read some of the texts since they were written, said that prior Buddhist texts had been written in ancient Pali and Sanskrit language but the actual manuscripts were quite recent, as late as 17th, 18th, and mostly 19th Century, “So here you have a manuscript witness to the story that goes back thousands of years before,” he told the ABC.

The manuscripts are extremely important to an understanding of the history of Buddhism in the North-West of India, he said, particularly, as it was through this region that Buddhism was transmitted to Central Asia and China.

“They are the oldest extant Buddhist manuscripts. They open up a new field of studies, namely the study of Buddhist manuscripts and Buddhist literature from the North-West of the Indian subcontinent.”

The Buddha, who lived in the North-Eastern Bihar and Uttar Pradesh regions of India, passed away around 400BC and left no written texts. Sermons and stories of his Enlightenment were initially passed through word of mouth, but were later written down in early languages of the Indian Gangetic Plains.

Although these earlier writings and later commentaries did not last in their original form, they were rewritten in various language groups including Sanskrit and Pali to constitute a vast written tradition.

“Buddhism was originally an oral tradition, but little is known about how it developed from spoken word to written word,” Dr Allon said. “So the discovery and date confirmation will give us a unique insight into the development of Buddhist literature.”

Dr Allon, a lecturer in the Department of Indian Subcontinental Studies at Sydney University, is part of an international team of scholars, the main group of which is based at the University of Washington in Seattle under Professor Richard Salomon.

Their field of study comprises three different collections of ancient Buddhist material: the British Library Collection (the British Library also possesses the Diamond Sutra, the oldest printed book to bear a date (868BC), found in China’s Dunhuang Caves in the early 1900s by Hungarian explorer Sir Aurel Stein); the Schoyen Collection that surfaced in caves in the Bamiyan area of Afghanistan made famous more recently by the Taliban’s destruction of its massive Buddhist carvings; and the Senior Collection which came from the ancient Gandhara region corresponding to the modern day Afghanistan and North-West Pakistan.

Dr Allon is one of the few scholars versed in Gandhara language which he says is related to Sanskrit and Pali, the language of present Buddhist texts in Thailand, Sri Lanka and Burma.

“It [Gandhara] is not the earliest language used,” Dr Allon explained to The Epoch Times.” It is just that the manuscripts that were written in those languages have survived because of the climate, because of the dryness in that area.”

“As monks moved into different areas they translated the texts into local languages so local Gandhara is the language that was current in North_”West India at that early period from about the third century BC to the fourth century AD”.

Dr Allon said the Buddhist manuscripts are also fundamental to understanding the transmission of Buddhism to China “since Buddhism came to China primarily through the North-West of India, through ancient Gandhara and many of the early Chinese translations of texts were probably in the Gandhara language”.

While there have been many new insights into the transmission of Buddhism and the particular period in history that the manuscripts were written Dr Allon says what is most remarkable is the consistency of Buddhist teachings.

“It is often amazing when you think, here is a text preserved in Sri Lanka and a text preserved in ancient Gandhara, huge distance apart in different languages and yet they are so similar.

“It tests a degree of fidelity in the tradition,” Dr Allon said.

Epoch Times

THE SIX PATHS and THE FOUR NOBLE WORLDS

How To Live as Humans:
THE SIX PATHS and THE FOUR NOBLE WORLDS

What separates humans from animals is less distinct than we might expect. The examination of human nature not only holds interest for philosophers, but concerns all of us directly. How should humans live? If we trace our lineage in the context of life’s evolution on the Earth, we find that our species is a comparatively recent phenomenon. The Earth is about four and a half billion years old. The origin of the ancestral stock of the African apes and humans, although uncertain, seems to be no earlier than thirteen million years ago. The Neanderthals, an early relative of modern human beings, are believed to have lived about 100,000 to 30,000 years ago. Although scientific investigation has not yet pinned down the moment of divergence between humans and apes, it is clear that we have a far longer history as animals than as humans.

In the course of evolution, Homo Sapiens have developed the ability to reason as this name "man the wise" indicates. Animals live predominantly according to instinct. As a result, their influence cannot exceed what is prescribed by their natures. Through our intelligence, however, humans can exercise good or bad influence far beyond what seem to be our natural limits. A shark may bite a surfer’s leg dangling beneath the surface, but it cannot make a bomb capable of annihilating all life on the planet. Perhaps due to our long history as animals, we amplify--ironically through intelligence--our animalistic impulses to seek selfish pleasure and thus destroy what we fear and bring harm not only upon ourselves, but also upon many other species.

From various perspectives, Buddhism throws light on the workings of human nature. One Buddhist concept that does so is the Ten Worlds, originally described as distinct realms into which people are born according to their past actions (karma). From the lowest, they are the worlds of hell, hungry spirits, animals, asura (warlike demons from Indian mythology), human beings, heavenly beings, voice-hearers, cause-awakened ones, bodhisattvas and Buddhas. In Nichiren Daishonin’s Buddhism, however, the Ten Worlds are viewed as various states of being we experience from moment to moment, rather than distinct physical realms or categories. Then Ten Worlds, therefore, may be understood as the following states: (1) Hell--intense suffering and despair, (2) Hunger--insatiable desire, (3) Animality--selfish stupidity, (4) Anger--arrogance and belligerence, (5) Humanity--temporary balance and tranquillity, (6) Heaven--passing joy and pleasure, (7) Learning, (8) Self-realization, (9) Bodhisattva--altruism, and (10) Buddhahood--supreme happiness characterized by compassion and wisdom.

Buddhism classifies those Ten Worlds into two categories. The six lower states are called "the six paths," and the four higher states "the four noble worlds." Such distinction is made because those who dwell in the six paths are controlled by their environment or physical condition; they experience any of those six states at any moment in response to changing circumstances. People of the four noble worlds, on the other hand, are self-aware, striving to improve themselves regardless of external conditions. The Daishonin succinctly explains the six paths as follows: "Rage is the world of hell, greed is that of hungry spirits, foolishness is that of animals, perversity is that of asura, joy is that of heaven, and calmness is that of human beings" (The Writings of Nichiren Daishonin, p. 358, "The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind"). Common to all six is that they are passive states. It may be said that animals like dogs and cats manifest those states whenever they have an appropriate stimulus. Those of the six paths are slaves to their desires and environment though sat times they may seem carefree, doing whatever is pleasurable. Simply put, those of the six paths are trapped in the dungeon of desires and external circumstances, and have locked the gate to true happiness from the inside through ignorance of their higher potential.

On the contrary, the four noble worlds only emerge when we make deliberate efforts to develop ourselves beyond our natural tendencies. Buddhism, in this sense, defines our humanity in our active will for self-reflection and self-improvement. Regarding those four higher states, the Daishonin comments as follows:" "The fact that all things in the world are transient is perfectly clear to us. Is this not because the worlds of the two vehicles are present in the human world? Even a heartless villain loves his wife and children. He too has a portion of the bodhisattva world within him. Buddhahood is the most difficult to demonstrate. But since you posses s the other nine worlds, you should believe that you have Buddhahood as well" (WND, 358, "The Object of Devotion for Observing the Mind"). Here "the worlds of the two vehicles" refers to the states of learning and self-realization. As people see the transience of the world around them, they come to realize the shallowness of letting their self-worth raise and fall with the ups and downs of circumstance, and seek to expand their knowledge of themselves and the universe. The Daishonin also points out that we are all capable of extending our love and care to others despite our baser instincts. Regarding the state of Buddhahood, the Daishonin also points out that we are all capable of extending our love and care to others despite out baser instincts. Regarding the state of Buddhahood, the Daishonin urges us to overcome our disbelief and reveal this supreme state of happiness through faith. What characterizes people of the four noble worlds is their awareness of the slavish reality of the six paths and their conscious efforts to free themselves from the shackles of selfish desire and attachment.

In once sense, Shakyamuni and other Buddhist teachers expounded their teachings so that people might escape the entrapment of the six paths and pursue more humane ways of living. In early monastic Buddhism, practitioners were encouraged to establish the states of learning and self-realization. Mahayana Buddhism stressed the altruistic state of a bodhisattva. The Lotus Sutra, the supreme teaching of Mahayana Buddhism, illuminates the path of Buddhahood. In this regard, Buddhism teaches us the importance of transforming the animalistic, passive conditions of the six paths into the self-aware, humane states of the four noble worlds.

The necessity to transcend our animalistic nature is stressed not only in Buddhism, but also in many intellectual traditions of the West. For example, in medieval and Renaissance Europe, the human existence was divided into the four categories of the mineral, vegetable, sensual and rational. The man of stone is a man of despair and sloth. He exists but has no will to act; his existence is living death. The vegetable man only lives; he is a man of gluttony who eats, drinks and procreates. The sensual man, like many animals, lives and feels; he seeks pleasure and avoids pain. The rational man, unlike the previous three, lives, perceives and understands; he knows, chooses and acts. An image of the rational is a man at his book, trying to expand his awareness and understanding. As in the Buddhist concept of the Ten Worlds, Renaissance philosophy characterizes humans by their active will to challenge themselves.

In reality, however, it is easy for us to fall into the lifestyle of the six paths where we mistake pleasure for supreme happiness and fail to challenge our weaknesses. This maybe the result of our long history as animals. But if we truly wish to experience the profound sense of fulfillment as human beings, we must, as taught by the wisdom of both East and West, challenge ourselves to manifest the higher states, especially those of bodhisattvas and Buddhas.

Plato quotes his teacher Socrates: "I only wish that ordinary people had an unlimited capacity for doing harm; then they might have an unlimited power for doing good, which would be a splendid thing, if it were so." The ominous first half of his wish has come true with the arrival of the nuclear age. The fulfillment of the rest of Socrates’ wish, it seems, depends greatly upon how willing we are to challenge ourselves to live as humanly and humanely as possible in the twenty-first century.

July 2000
Living Buddhism
Page 6
By Shin Yatomi, SGI-USA vice Study Department chief, partly based on Yasashii Kyogaku (Easy Buddhist Study), published by the Seikyo Press in 1994.

The Roots of Today's Buddhism

The Roots of Today's Buddhism
By PETER STEINFELS


Even though the historic Buddha, Prince Siddhartha Gautama, is said to have lived approximately 2,500 years ago, Buddhism is often viewed as the most modern of world religions.

Nontheistic, nondogmatic, nonviolent, emphasizing individual practice rather than institutional membership or obligations, the Buddhism expounded by, say, the Dalai Lama fits nicely with a modern, largely Western world view based on science and respect for the individual. Maybe that explains why it seems to attract so many physicists and psychotherapists.

Is this modernity surprising? Not really, because this Buddhism is itself a modern creation, a late-19th-century development deeply influenced by Western ideas even while emerging as a counterweight to Western colonial domination.

That, at any rate, is the intriguing point made by Donald S. Lopez Jr., a leading scholar of Buddhism, in his introduction to "A Modern Buddhist Bible: Essential Readings from East and West," just published by Beacon Press and excerpted in the fall issue of the Buddhist review Tricycle.

Professor Lopez, who teaches Buddhist and Tibetan studies at the University of Michigan, describes how a handful of cosmopolitan Buddhist intellectuals from Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Thailand, Burma (now Myanmar), China and Japan created this modern Buddhism. They were aided, curiously enough, by an American, Col. Henry Steel Olcott.

In 1875, Olcott co-founded, with Helena Blavatsky, the Theosophical Society for the study and propagation of an esoteric religious knowledge drawing on spiritualism, Eastern religions and 19th-century science. Five years later, Olcott and Blavatsky went to Ceylon where he embraced Buddhism and was soon founding a Young Men's Buddhist Association, publishing the first "Buddhist Catechism," trying to unite all the different forms of Asian Buddhism around a common denominator of beliefs and encouraging the leaders and intellectuals who would reshape Buddhism for their time.

Naturally, this new Buddhism presented itself as a return to the authentic teachings of the Buddha. The Buddhism of the Buddha's experience of enlightenment was seen, Professor Lopez writes, as "most compatible with the ideals of the European Enlightenment, ideals such as reason, empiricism, science, universalism, individualism, tolerance, freedom, and the rejection of religious orthodoxy, precisely those notions that have appealed so much to Western converts."

In effect, this modern Buddhism distanced itself from the actual Buddhism surrounding it. It rejected many ritual elements, Professor Lopez writes, implicitly conceding the charges of Western officials and missionaries that Buddhist populations were ridden by superstition and burdened by exploitative monastic establishments: "The time was ripe to remove the encrustations of the past centuries and return to the essence of Buddhism."

That essence was to be found in Buddhist texts and philosophy, not in the daily round of "monks who chanted sutras, performed rituals for the dead and maintained monastic properties."

The pervasive Buddhist practice of venerating images and relics of the Buddha, which Christian missionaries had considered idolatry, was de-emphasized. Traditional lines dividing monks and lay people were blurred. Important roles were restored to women. The fundamental Buddhist concern to bring an end to suffering now encompassed support for social justice, economic modernization and freedom from colonialism.

Central to modern Buddhism was meditation, an emphasis, Professor Lopez says, that "marked one of the most extreme departures of modern Buddhism from previous forms," which had made meditation only one of many spiritual activities and not necessarily the highest, even within monastic institutions.

Meditation now became a practice recommended for everyone, and also "allowed modern Buddhism generally to dismiss the rituals of consecration, purification, expiation and exorcism so common throughout Asia as extraneous elements that had crept into the tradition," he writes.

The emergence of modern Buddhism, as Professor Lopez describes it, played out a little differently in each Buddhist land. It did not touch Tibetan Buddhism, for example, until the Dalai Lama left Tibet and interacted with a Western audience.

Professor Lopez also notes that this idea of periodically reforming Buddhism from inevitable decline by returning to its roots was found within the tradition itself. But a Westerner reading this history cannot help but think of another religious response to modernization, the Protestant Reformation, with its claim to restore a pure primitive Christianity, its emphasis on equality rather than hierarchy and its rejection of sacrament and ritual in favor of individual piety and introspection.

Protestant as well as Enlightenment ideals were of course very much part of the Western modernity that these Asian Buddhist thinkers were coming to terms with. After all, the British arrived in India, where Buddhism had begun and once flourished, centuries after it had died out there. So they found "Buddhist texts, artifacts and stupas," Professor Lopez said in a phone conversation, "but no Buddhists."

Thus Buddhism, he said, was a screen on which Europeans could project many of their own notions: the British in India, for example, sometimes calling the Buddha the "Luther of India" because he had supposedly challenged the Vedic priesthood and its rituals just as Luther had the Catholic priesthood and its sacramentalism.

Not only did British ideas of Buddhism reflect Victorian anti-Catholicism, he said; sometimes they carried a whiff of anti-Semitism, too: Buddhism could be admired because, unlike Judaism, Christianity and Islam, it had no Semitic origins.

Professor Lopez, it should be emphasized, is not questioning the authenticity of this modern Buddhism; he wants to give its creators, who have often been dismissed by scholars, their due.

Of course, his account does give the lie to the idea that the Buddhism the West, and even some of the East, now knows is the one true Buddhism, rather than one of the many Buddhisms that have evolved as an ancient teaching has interacted over two millennia with different cultures.

But that idea should be disturbing only to those who believe that great religious traditions can remain immutable and untouched by history.

Buddhism and the Blues

Buddhism and the Blues
Buddhist psychology's core techniques of meditation and awareness may have much to offer ordinary Westerners.
By:Hara Estroff Marano



To most people Buddhism is an ancient Eastern religion, although a very special one. It has no god, it has no central creed or dogma and its primary goal is the expansion of consciousness, or awareness.

But to the Dalai Lama, it's a highly refined tradition, perfected over the course of 2,500 years, of analyzing and investigating the inner world of the mind in order to transform mental states and promote happiness. "Whether you are a believer or not in the faith," the Dalai Lama recently told a conference of Buddhists and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, you can use its time-honored techniques to voluntarily control your emotional state.

Yes, the Dalai Lama is the spiritual leader of over 300 million Buddhists worldwide. Yes, he is the head of the Tibetan government in exile. But in the spirit of Buddhism, the Dalai Lama has an inquiring mind and wishes to expand human knowledge to improve lives. At its core, Buddhism is a system of inquiry into the nature of what is.

He believes that psychology and neuroscience have gone about as far as they can go in understanding the mind and brain by measuring external reality. Now that inner reality—the nature of consciousness—is the pressing subject du jour, the sciences need to borrow from the knowledge base that Buddhism has long cultivated.

A comprehensive science of the mind requires a science of consciousness. Buddhism offers what MIT geneticist Eric Lander, Ph.D., called a "highly refined technology" of introspective practices that provide systematic access to subjective experience. Yet Buddhist psychology offers more than a method of investigation. Its core techniques of meditation and awareness may have much to offer ordinary Westerners, whose material comforts have not wiped out rampant emotional distress.

Over the past 15 years, starting with his own personal interest, the Dalai Lama has set up discussions with Western scientists in an effort to further knowledge about the emotions. The recent meeting, held at MIT, was actually the eleventh in a series of annual conversations sponsored by the Colorado-based Mind & Life Institute. But it was the first one that was open to other participants.

The Buddhist view of how the mind works is somewhat different from the traditional Western view. Western psychology pretty much holds to the belief that things like attention and emotion are fixed and immutable. Buddhism sees the components of the mind more as skills that can be trained. This view has increasing support from modern neuroscience, which is almost daily providing new evidence of the brain's capacity for change and growth.

Buddhism uses intelligence to control the emotions. Through meditative practices, awareness can be trained and focused on the contents of the mind to observe ongoing experience. Such techniques are of growing interest to Western psychologists, who increasingly see depression as a disorder of emotional mismanagement. In this view, attention is hijacked by negative events and then sets off a kind of chain reaction of negative feeling, thinking and behavior that has its own rapidity and inevitability.

Techniques of awareness permit the cultivation of self-control. They allow people to break the negative emotional chain reaction and head off the hopelessness and despair it leads to. By focusing attention, it is possible to monitor your environment, recognize a negative stimulus and act on it the instant it registers on awareness. While attention as traditional psychologists know it can be an exhausting mental activity, as Buddhists practice it it actually becomes a relaxing and effortless enterprise.

One way of meditation is to use breathing techniques in which you focus on the breathing and let any negative stimulus just go by—instead of bringing it into your working memory, where you are likely to sit and ruminate about it and thus amplify its negativity. It's a way of unlearning the self-defeating ways you somehow acquired of responding catastrophically to negative experiences.

Evidence increasingly suggests that meditation techniques are highly effective at helping people recover from a bout of depression and especially useful in preventing recurrences. Medication may be needed during the depths of an acute episode to jump-start brain systems, but at best "antidepressants are a halfway house," says Alan Wallace, Ph.D., head of the Santa Barbara Institute for the Study of Consciousness. But meditation retrains the mind to allow ongoing control over the content of thoughts and feelings.


Basic Meditation Exercise

1. Sit with an alert and relaxed body posture so that you feel relatively comfortable without moving. (You can sit either in a straight-back chair with your feet flat on the floor or on a thick, firm cushion three to six inches off the floor.)

2. Keep your back, neck and head vertically aligned, relax your shoulders and find a comfortable place for your hands (usually on your knees).

3. Bring your attention to your breathing. Observe the breath as it flows in and out. Give full attention to the feeling of the breath as it comes in and goes out. Whenever you find that your attention has moved elsewhere, just note it and let go and gently escort your attention back to the breath, back to the rising and falling of your own belly.

4. When you can maintain some continuity of attention on the breath, try expanding the field of your awareness "around" your belly to include a sense of your body as a whole.

5. Maintain this awareness of the body sitting and breathing, and, when the mind wanders, bring it back to sitting and breathing.

Buddhism Comes to the West, by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Buddhism Comes to the West, by Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

An extract of a talk by Bhikkhu Bodhi from a seminar on "The Necessity for Promoting Buddhism in Europe," held on the first death anniversary of Ven. Mitirigala Dhammanisanthi Thera - Colombo, Sri Lanka 2nd July 2000.


The topic of this seminar is very timely, for in many Western countries today Buddhism is the fastest growing religion. In North America, Western Europe, and Australia-New Zealand, hundreds of Buddhist centres have sprung up almost overnight, offering teachings and meditation retreats even in remote regions. Today Buddhism is espoused not only by those in the alternative culture, as was the case in the 1960s, but by businessmen, physicists, computer programmers, housewives, real-estate agents, even by sports stars, movie actors, and rock musicians. Thousands of books on Buddhism are now available, dealing with the teachings at both scholarly and popular levels, while Buddhist magazines and journals expand their circulation each year.

What is characteristic of Western Buddhism in its present phase of development is the focus on Buddhist practice, especially the practice of meditation. In this phase it is not the academic study of Buddhist texts and doctrines that dominates, or the attempt to interpret the Dhamma through the prism of Western thought, but the appropriation of Buddhism as a practice that can bring deep transformations in one's innermost being as well as in the conduct of everyday life. This does not necessarily mean that Buddhist practice is being taken up in accordance with canonical or traditional Asian models. Adaptations of the Dhamma to Western culture and ways of thinking are commonplace, but Buddhism is viewed principally as a path to awakening, a way that brings deep understanding of the mind and makes accessible new dimensions of being.

The Need for a Living Transmission

Today, as Western interest in Buddhism increases, it is left to those of us who continue Asoka Weeraratna's legacy to find a systematic way to establish the Theravada Sasana in the West. Here I must stress an important point. It is not merely texts and ideas that Westerners are looking for, not merely the Buddhism of the books, but persons who display the truth of the teaching in their lives. Thus when we consider how to establish Buddhism in the West, we should not think merely of the pure canonical Dhamma, but of a living transmission.

This takes us to the heart of the issue. Theravada Buddhism, in its orthodox mould, has always looked upon the monastic order, the Sangha, as the bearer of the Buddhist heritage. Thus, if Theravada is to take hold in the West, it seems it should come about through a monastic transmission, guarded and upheld by lay support. Without this, we would probably wind up with a watered down version of the Dhamma.

The need for a monastic transmission, however, immediately runs up against a practical problem. In Sri Lanka today there is a severe shortage of monks who exemplify the personal qualities needed by a Buddhist "messenger of Dhamma" (dhammaduta). This shortage has negative repercussions for the whole project of propagating Theravada Buddhism abroad, making the Theravada something of a still backwater on the otherwise lively Western Buddhist frontier.

The Problem of Monastic Education

Although I do not have an easy solution to this problem, it would be wise to make a preliminary diagnosis of its origins. I would suggest that the fault lies partly with the system of monastic education that prevails here in Sri Lanka. This system is extremely inadequate and needs drastic revision with respect to the aim, depth, and breadth of monastic training. If a monk is to go abroad to spread the Dhamma, he must have not only a thorough knowledge of his own Theravada tradition, but some acquaintance with other subjects too. These include the history and schools of Buddhism, comparative religion, and English. He should also know, or be ready to learn, the language of the country in which he will work.

Beyond these specific areas of competency, he will need the intellectual openness and acuity to comprehend the dispositions, attitudes, and worldviews of people from a different culture and relate to them in meaningful ways. He must have some grounding in the practice of the Dhamma, too, for knowledge of books and doctrines, however wide, will be fruitless if not coupled with dedication to the practice. Unfortunately, it is almost impossible to find a monastic institute that can impart the necessary training, and the Buddhist prelates, due to their conservatism, are resistant to changes.

The Need for Revitalization

This problem may also be aggravated by the sharp distinction found in the Theravada monastic tradition between the so-called "village and town monks," devoted to preaching and community service, and the forest monks, devoted to full-time meditation. Thus we face this dichotomy: educated town monks without deep personal insight into the Dhamma or experience in meditation, and meditation monks without much inclination to propagate the teaching.

Since it would be inappropriate to prevail upon monks devoted to full-time meditation to take up a more active vocation, the remedy needed to redress this imbalance seems to require a revitalization of meditation practice within the bhikkhu training institutes. But meditation practice does not occur in a vacuum. It occurs under the impetus given by a clear understanding of the foundations and objectives of the Buddhist spiritual life. Thus what we really need is a rejuvenation of the spiritual challenge at the heart of Buddhist monasticism.

Personally, I do not think it is prudent to try to create institutions expressly for the purpose of training monks as dhammadutas. Such institutions could well attract monks keen to go abroad for the wrong reasons -- to gain prestige, to become popular, perhaps to find employment and disrobe. It is wiser, I feel, to strengthen programmes in the existing bhikkhu training centres. At the same time, we should keep an eye open for capable bhikkhus enrolled in these programmes who display the qualities needed to propagate the Dhamma in the West.

A Quiet Service

Despite the shortage of qualified dhammaduta monks, scattered across the West there are a few Theravada viharas and Buddhist centres whose incumbents, in their own quiet and non-assertive way, are working to spread the Dhamma. Prominent among them we find Sri Lankan monks, who often must take up this task with much hardship and self-sacrifice. Such monks generally do not have large organizations behind them, or financial backing from home, but through their dedication to the Dhamma and compassionate concern for others, they actively seek to help Westerners find their way to the Buddha's path. Their selfless work deserves appreciation and support from all sincere Buddhists in this country.

-----buddhanet.net

Buddhapadipa Thai Temple -

:: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple-----buddhapadipa.org
Written by Roy Allan on 09/05/2007

My talk this evening continues on the theme of the ten contemplations found in the Girimananda Sutta that we have been discussing over the past three weeks.

Background and continuity

And just by way of background and continuity for anyone who missed the previous sessions, I will start by putting the Girimananda Sutta in context.

From my own readings of the Buddhist Suttas, it is clear regular demonstrations of the utmost compassion and caring for the sick were a prominent feature of the Buddha’s everyday life. "He who attends on the sick attends on me," was a famous statement he made on discovering a monk lying in his soiled robes, desperately ill with an acute attack of dysentery. With the help of Ananda, the Buddha washed and cleaned the sick monk in warm water. He used this occasion to exhort his disciples on the importance of ministering to the sick, reminding the monks they have neither parents nor relatives to look after them, so they must look after one another. If the teacher is ill, it is the duty of the pupil to look after him, and if the pupil is ill it is the teacher's duty to look after the sick pupil. If a teacher or a pupil is not available, then it is the responsibility of the community to look after the sick.

But it was not always necessary for a sick monk to be physically nursed back to full health. For example, a number of suttas advocate recitation of the seven bojjhanga or factors of enlightenment for the purpose of healing physical ailments (and we have covered the seven bojjhanga in other sessions). On two occasions, when the Elders Mahakassapa and Mahamoggallana were ill, the Buddha recited the enlightenment factors and it is reported the two monks regained normal health. The Bojjhanga Samyutta also reports that once when the Buddha was ill, he requested Cunda to recite the enlightenment factors to him and was so pleased with the recitation, he soon regained health. It is interesting to note that the monks concerned were all Arahants, and had therefore fully developed the enlightenment factors. An Arahant of course is a term for the Buddha and the highest level of his noble disciples, being ‘worthy ones’ or ‘pure ones’ with minds free of defilement and thus not destined for further rebirth.

And then we have the occasion that gave rise to the Girimananda Sutta, the focus of this series of talks.

The sutta describes how Ananda told the Buddha about the monk Girimananda suffering from a serious disease and being gravely ill. Ananda suggested it might benefit Girimananda were the Buddha to visit him ‘out of compassion’. The Buddha replied ‘Should you, Ananda, visit the monk Girimananda and recite to him the ten contemplations (sometimes called ten perceptions - dasa sañña), then having heard them, Girimananda will be immediately cured of his disease. Whereupon the Buddha gave Ananda a lengthy discourse on the ten contemplations. With his prodigious memory, Ananda memorised the Buddha’s words and in due course relayed them verbatim to Girimananda who promptly recovered from his disease.

Healing properties of words v hands-on nursing/medicine

If you will allow me to digress for a moment, being raised in the Christian tradition (and thus being very familiar with biblical stories of Jesus healing the sick, making the blind see etc), whilst researching this talk, a question formed in mind. I found myself wondering why the Buddha elected to use the recitation of words for healing in certain cases rather than perform hands on healing – even if it only took the form of simple nursing and administering whatever medicines were available at that time.

In Girimananda’s case, though he didn’t get a visit from the Buddha, he got the next best thing ie a visit from the Venerable Ananda (the Buddha’s constant companion and personal assistant for the last 25 years of the Blessed One’s life) reciting the Buddha’s exact discourse on the Ten Contemplations. As a result, Girimananda recovered swiftly but nevertheless, it seems he did so helped by words alone and nothing else.

In seeking an answer to my ‘words v nursing/medicine question’, I came across a website article written by Lily de Silva, a Professor of Pali and Buddhist Studies at the University of Peradeniya in Sri Lanka. In it she said the Buddha recommended a monk should not relax his energy and determination for spiritual progress even when he is ill (according to the Anguttara Nikaya collection of discourses). If the illness prevails and one’s health deteriorates, care should be taken to advance spiritually as much as possible. Neither should one be negligent on recovery or remission because if there is a relapse, the chances of gaining higher spiritual attainments obviously diminish.

From the Anguttara Nikaya and other canonical texts cited, it appears the Buddhist method of ministering to the sick attaches great importance not only to proper medical and nursing care, but also to directing the mind of the patient to wholesome thoughts.

There seems to be a belief that attention paid to doctrinal topics, especially the recitation of virtues which one has already cultivated, is endowed with healing properties. In the case of the Buddha and Arahants, the recitation of the bojjhangas restored normal health. In Girimananda’s case, he was probably not an Arahant at the time of his illness, so it was a discourse on the ten contemplations that restored his good health. Similarly, Anathapindika was a sotapanna (a ‘stream entrant’ or first stage in the realization of nirvana) and a discussion on the special qualities of a sotapanna was instrumental for his speedy recovery.

So Professor Lily concludes by hypothesizing that, when one is reminded of the spiritual qualities one has already acquired, great joy arises in the mind. Such joy is perhaps capable even of altering one's bodily chemistry in a positive and healthy manner. Just a thought to leave you with on this matter.

Contemplation on the disadvantages (dangers) of the body

In the Girimananda Sutta, the Buddha first lists the ten contemplations for Ananda in order, of which ‘disadvantages of the body’ is the fourth, after impermanence, anatta (no permanent self or soul) and foulness, which Lionel talked about last week.

Towards the end of last week’s discussion, Chulan suggested the ten contemplations appear in the order given because each is underpinned by and carries on from the previous one.

This certainly seems the case to me because the third ‘foulness’ contemplation focuses on the physical material and ‘stuff’ that comprises a body, pretty much all of which is hidden from human view by the skin. And when not hidden, it (ie blood, guts, viscera etc) is pretty ghastly to look at, even when fresh. And when it isn’t fresh, and is say rotting on a corpse, then unless you are a trained medical clinician or mortician or some such, these days, ‘sickening’ and ‘horrific’ are more likely to be used than ‘foul’, which is rather milder.

By contrast, the fourth contemplation’s focus is not on the stuff the body’s made of but what can go wrong with it, and there’s a long list of ailments the Bhudda sets out, thus:

"What, Ananda, is contemplation of disadvantage? Herein, Ananda, a monk having gone to the forest, or to the foot of a tree, or to a lonely place, contemplates thus: 'Many are the sufferings, many are the disadvantages of this body since diverse diseases are engendered in this body, such as: Eye-disease, ear-disease, nose-disease, tongue-disease, body-disease, headache, mumps, mouth-disease, tooth-ache, cough, asthma, catarrh, heart-burn…………”
The list goes on to over 40 items, finishing with

“… diseases originating from adverse condition (ie faulty deportment), from devices (practiced by others), from kamma-vipaka (results of kamma); and cold, heat, hunger, thirst, excrement and urine. Thus he dwells contemplating disadvantage in this body. This Ananda, is called contemplation of disadvantage.”

I’m sure in using the term ‘adverse condition’ the Buddha also had in mind the physical self-harm one can do on account of life style choices such as becoming sedentary, ‘sitting around all day’ – stemming perhaps from depression or fear of one’s perceived physical frailty due to advancing years. Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his bestselling book entitled ‘Full Catastrophe Living’ – how to cope with stress, pain and illness using mindfulness meditation’ states that:

Even if there is nothing ‘wrong’ with your body, if you don't challenge it much, you may be carrying around a highly restricted image of what it (and you) are capable of doing. Physical therapists have two wonderful maxims that are extremely relevant for people seeking to take better care of their bodies. One is “if it’s physical, it’s therapy” whilst the other is “if you don’t use it, you lose it”. The first implies it’s not so much what you do that’s important; it’s that you are doing something with your body. The second maxim reminds us that the body is never in a fixed state. It is constantly changing, responding to the demands placed upon it. If it is never asked to bend or squat of twist or stretch or run, then its ability to do these things doesn’t just stay the same, it actually decreases over time. This decline is technically known as disuse atrophy. When not maintained by constant use, muscle tissue atrophies. That is, it breaks down and is reabsorbed by the body.

From personal experience, I know that doing nothing is not an option, otherwise one’s body just wastes away. When I was 23, a very bad car accident put me in a hospital bed for 16 weeks. I had to stay there all tied up to a metal frame for that time in order to let my broken bones grow back properly. I ate reasonably well throughout my 112-day long lie and did daily, though very limited ‘keep fit’ routines. Yet at the end, when I finally was allowed to get out of bed and stand on a pair of scales, I was appalled to discover my weight had dropped by 40lbs (18 Kilos) – 20% of my body mass immediately before the car accident. So doing nothing, for whatever reason, is not an option because one’s physical body simply wastes away. And if that’s not a disadvantage, I don’t know what is!!

Summary of the body’s disadvantages

Walpola Rahula’s book ‘What the Buddha taught’ gives the Buddha’s excellent summary of the many afflictions that can befall one’s body. The Buddha said:

“O bhikkhus, there are two kinds of illness. What are those two? Physical illness and mental illness. There seem to be people who enjoy freedom from physical illness even for a year or two….even for a hundred years of more. But, O bhikkhus, rare in this world are those who enjoy freedom from mental illness even for one moment, except those who are free from mental defilements” (ie except arahats).

Body contemplation – The Four Foundations of Mindfulness

For this reason, the Buddha’s teaching, particularly his way of ‘meditation’, aims at producing a state of perfect mental health, equilibrium and tranquillity. There are two forms of meditation – samatha meditation for one-pointedness of mind and vipassana or insight meditation – and both forms can take the body (kaya) as their focus.


The Four Foundations of Mindfulness represents one of the Buddha's most significant teachings on meditation, being seen as a direct method through which - for those who practice it assiduously - enlightenment is certain. There are four aspects to it: contemplation of the body (kayanupassana); contemplation of feelings; contemplation of the mind; and contemplation of mental objects.

The Kayagata-sati Sutta

The Kayagata-sati Sutta is a middle length discourse in which the Buddha spoke of ‘mindfulness with regard to the body’ or ‘mindfulness immersed in the body’, during which one contemplates, among other things, the ‘disadvantages of the body’.

This is what the term Kayagata-sati means – mindfulness immersed in the body – and sometimes it is used to refer only to contemplation of the 32 parts of the body whilst at other others to all the various meditations comprised under the first of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness.

So here is the Sutta and I am grateful to the Venerable Sangtong for providing me with this modern English translation of the Pali text:

I have heard that on one occasion, the Buddha stayed at Jetavana temple in Savatthi City.

There, after breakfast, there was a conversation about the benefit of contemplation of the body among his disciples. The Buddha asked them, "What is the conversation about?". They reported the conversation to him.

And then he said to them, "The contemplation of the body has a great benefit as being mindful of the physical actions, starting from the mindfulness of breathing to the movement of the body, or physical postures. Behold monks, all postures should be known clearly; you should not be careless of those postures or actions. You should make an effort to observe them. This is called the contemplation of the body.

On the other hand, you should know that your body consists of four elements; the combination of many components. If you observe your body from the feet to the head, you will see that it is composed all of these parts together and also that they are subject to sickness, ageing and death. When you see that, you will use it in the right way; don't destroy it. As long as this body lives, you can learn and practise to develop yourself for the better.

Monks, you should not be careless about this body because you are young and strong. Anything can happen to you unexpectedly, life is uncontrolled, so you should be careful about it, you know? The body is of the nature to get old, sick and dead or to dissolve. When the time comes, you cannot dispute this. So when you are still alive, you should be eager to improve yourself. Because when you die, you cannot do anything; even if you still have a perfect body, but all the organs stop working; they are just either sensationless or feelingless", and the Buddha added, "If you practise the contemplation of the body, you will be fully concentrated; knowing what life is. And at the same time you will be wise and be with the present moment".

The Buddha explained more by saying, "Behold monks, if you don't practise observing your own body, you are careless and leave a gap for unwholesome thought, feeling, speech and action. On the contrary, if you practise contemplating the body, you are careful or aware of your own life or action. There is no gap left for unwholesome things to enter. A lot of practice will make you fully mindful and you will be capable of understanding Dhamma and life; seeing things as they really are. This is because you will have mindfulness as a good cause.


The great benefits of contemplating your body are as follows:

You will tolerate feelings of like and dislike. You will be free from them and will get rid of them if they occur.

You will tolerate fear, you are free from it and will subdue it if it occurs.

You will tolerate pain/suffering, both physical and mental, heat, cold, thirst, hunger etc.

You will get one-pointed contemplation and contented happiness.

You will have psychic powers.

You will obtain ultra-conscious insights, for instance, the divine ear etc.

You will be able to read or realize the human mind (Roy assumes: of others you come into contact with).

You will recall previous lives.

You will know the decease and rebirth of beings.

You will reach deliverance of mind and liberation through wisdom.

Behold monks, if you practise the contemplation of the body and obtain full concentration, you can obtain those benefits as I have said".

When the monks heard that, they were delighted with what the Buddha said and they determined to practise meditation. Some got great benefit according to their own efforts.

End of Sutta

Conclusion

The impressive list of benefits given by the Buddha in the Kayagata-sati Sutta is potentially available to all of us as practicing Buddhists, depending on the level of mindfulness practice we achieve. And for me, that’s quite an incentive in its own right.

However, I am realistic enough to accept the possibility that despite by best efforts, I may not get all – and in the worst case – any of those benefits in this particular incarnation.

But even allowing for that bleakest of scenarios, I am not in the slightest disheartened because from the Jon Kabat-Zinn book I mentioned earlier, I know if I do regular body contemplation, the least it will do is help me cope successfully with a wide range of problems such as medical symptoms (including HBP and broken sleep patterns), physical and emotional pain, anxiety and panic, time pressures, relationships, work, food and events in the outside world.

According to Kabat-Zinn, thousands of non-Buddhists are getting those basic health and well-being benefits by following his body mindfulness practice that comes primarily from the Buddhist meditative tradition, so why not me? Indeed, why not you?


Thank you.

Buddhism and the badge

Buddhism and the badge
By Debbie Howlett, USA TODAY
MADISON, Wis. —

An internationally known Buddhist monk who teaches non-violence will lead a five-day retreat for police officers and others in public service here to help them handle job-related stress.

At least 12 city police officers are among more than 500 workers and their families scheduled to attend the retreat starting Monday. The retreat will include meditation, silent meals and instruction in the practice of "mindfulness," a basic tenet of Buddhism to be aware of the consequences of one's actions. The retreat will also offer golf, swimming and hiking.

Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh (pronounced tick-not-hawn) will lead the retreat, which is called "Protecting and Serving Without Stress or Fear." It is billed as a health and wellness event for those in "community service ... desiring a more peaceful, non-violent way of life." (Related item: Chat with Thich Nhat Hanh on Buddhism at 7 p.m ET on Wednesday, Aug. 20)

Capt. Cheri Maples, the Madison Police Department's director of training and recruiting, organized the retreat. She says it is non-sectarian. "This is not about converting anyone," says Maples, a practicing Buddhist. "This is just about giving people another coping tool."

Madison police officials say the retreat is secular and is not sanctioned by the city. Police officers will be given leave to attend, but they must pay the $600 cost.

Constitutional questions

Organizations such as Americans United for Separation of Church and State have objected. "Just as the city may not promote Christianity, Judaism or Islam, it may not advance Buddhism," Barry Lynn, executive director of Americans United, says in a letter to the city. "Encouraging (officers) to go to a religious retreat doesn't pass constitutional muster."

Maples says she has received hundreds of similar letters and e-mails.

Nhat Hanh, an exiled Vietnamese monk, is among the most respected Buddhist leaders and is nearly as revered as the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists. He was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1960s by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The retreat is aimed at police and other public-service workers in stressful jobs, such as firefighters, prosecutors and paramedics, and their families. "Together we will look deeply into the challenging situation we face in serving our communities, in our work places, as well as in our families and our personal lives," a brochure for the retreat says.

Police officers who have problems in their personal lives often attribute them to the stress of their job. Fewer than 100 police officers, on average, die yearly in the line of duty nationwide, but as many as 300 commit suicide each year, according to a 1999 FBI study. The study showed that the police suicide rate — 22.1 per 100,000 — is twice the rate in the general population.

"Cops are taught to 'stuff' their feelings deep inside. At some point that black hole gets full and manifests itself in violence, alcohol, gambling or other undesirable behaviors," says Renae Griggs, a former South Florida police officer who runs the National Police Family Violence Prevention Project.

Kevin Gilmartin, who has written extensively about police stress and is a consultant to police departments, says police officers work in a constant state of "hyper-vigilance." In their off hours, mundane chores such as mowing the lawn can't provide the same intensity as their work.

"Police have to view the world as one big felony in progress," Gilmartin says. "That's a tough way to live."

Buddhism may seem an unlikely antidote to the stresses of fighting crime. But Maples says stereotyping police officers as tough and insensitive is part of the problem, especially in Madison, a traditionally liberal city of 214,000 that is the state capital and home to the University of Wisconsin.

Few rank-and-file officers have objected to the retreat, says Officer Scott Faber, the department's union representative.

"We're a different kind of department," he says. "Most of our officers have four-year degrees. And we have a higher number of women (32%) than any other police department."

The difference is clear for Maples, who has a law degree and a master's degree in social work. Before she became a police officer 19 years ago, at age 31, she was an advocate for battered women.

"A lot of the skills that work so well in policing don't work so well at home," she says. In searching for ways to handle stress, she went to her first Buddhist retreat in 1990, led by a follower of Nhat Hanh.

Monastery visit

Last year, she spent three weeks at Nhat Hanh's monastery, Plum Village near Bordeaux in the south of France. During the visit, she reconciled the idea of being a police officer with a respect for life that includes not killing any living creature. "One of the nuns said to me, 'Who else would we want to carry a gun except someone who does it mindfully,' " Maples recalls.

She says the idea was so powerful to her that she invited Nhat Hanh to Wisconsin to talk about policing and the principle of mindfulness. He is also scheduled to lecture in Chicago; Denver; Boulder, Colo.; Estes Park, Colo.; and Washington, D.C., where he will give a talk and offer a retreat for members of Congress titled "Leading With Courage and Compassion."

Mindfulness is essentially total awareness of what is happening at each particular moment and deciding how to respond in that moment, Maples says.

Responding to stress with compassion and kindness, rather than cynicism, would allow a police officer to do the job and go home at night without anger, Maples says.

Lynn of Americans United still objects.

"Religion plays many positive roles," says Lynn, who is an ordained minister. "But government is not supposed to be the preacher of religious values, whether Buddhist or fundamentalist Christian."

Buddhist Opinions For Your Knowledge !

Buddhist Opinions For Your Knowledge ! --buddhapadipa.org


# Hope is the light of peace, confidence and loving-kindness so keep it in our mind.
# Let everything be according to its nature. You may hold, but don’t grasp.
# Don't leave the gap left for unwholesome things to enter
# No complaining, no blaming, Just doing it.
# Experience it for what it truly is without forming any opinion.
# Fully understanding the mind leads to the highest state of wisdom.
# When we associate with the good and wise man, it leads next to learning and listening to his advice.
# The heart of the Buddha’s teaching describes how to avoid bad actions.
# There is nothing as uplifting as loving-kindness and compassion.
# Think good, speak good, then you will find only good thing in life.
# If we are content with what we have, it is true that happiness will be in our hearts.
# All human beings have the ability to learn, more or less, so we must learn to improve our life.
# The experience of problem enables us to be stronger.
# A weapon to get rid of hatred or ill will is metta, loving kindness, because it will not cause any trouble afterwards.
# Spiritual life is another thing which develops insight within life. This development gives life delight, cheer, joy, happiness and merriness.
# Don' t be merciless to yourself and others as we have unconditional love towards all beings.
# Everything that happens has a specific cause and causes and there must be some relationships between the cause and the effect.
# Purification of the mind is the most important thing in Buddhism.
# Some people simply go through life under the influence of their past habits, without making an effort to change them and falling victim to their unpleasant results.
# The Buddha taught us out of compassion and we, Buddhist, teach others out of compassion.
# The world today needs a kind-hearted population so that the world will be in peace.
# Train yourself and you will know you have great potential ability.
# If we are mindful or conscious about life, we don’t repent later.
# It is advisable to take some time to analysis the information. Investigate it thoroughly and wisely before coming to any conclusions.
# The first thing we should bear in mind is ‘we can do it’.
# We should pay more attention to our own kamma, especially good kamma, which can lead us to having a happy life.
# The standpoint of the non-self teaching is not to attach to any idea and to see things as they really are, without forming any opinion based on imagination or visualisation.
# I am rich, it is not because I have a lot of money, but it is because I am satisfied with what I have.
# For a patient person, even the long difficult hour lasts only 60 minutes.
# Human beings are capable of knowing cause and effect. This capability makes us successful in life as we can use it in our work or future planning.
# "Indeed the sign of happiness is in your heart, you have to nurture and develop it."
# Wisdom cannot be bought, not even for money. We must have direct experience through our own study and practice.

:: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

:: Buddhapadipa Thai Temple

Today, Buddhism is found in Thailand, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Japan, China, etc, and in some parts of India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, also in the European countries and the USA. It is believed that the Buddhist population of the world is over 500 million.

The Buddha's teachings consist of three basic principles; they are:-

o Sila
o Samadhi
o Panna

Sila is the development of morality. While Samadhi is the tool to purify the mind on order to see its nature, how to control it, how to develop it, and make use of it. Panna is wisdom or enlightenment – the realization of the true nature of life and universe at large. The whole teaching of the Buddhais based on the three pillars. They are some time called "Majjhima Patipada" or the Middle Path of life. These are:

o Right Understanding
o Right Thought
o Right Speech
o Right Action
o Right Livelihood
o Right Effort
o Right Mindfulness
o Right Concentration

It is the Middle Path as it avoids the two extremes: the Sensual Pleasure, and the Self-mortification in the different form of asceticism. Both of them are useless, ignoble, and unprofitable though long in practice. The Buddha had first tried these extremes before but found them useless. He discovered the Noble Eightfold path through his personal experiences, which gives vision, knowledge, leading to peace,insight, enlightenment and Nibbana.

The Buddha attained Enlightenment only by the development and and use of superhuman energy. He became Enlightened not by praying, sacrificing or making offerings to a god nor by performing, rites and rituals, nor by any aid of external power.

He attained Enlightenment only after he managed to develop himself through self-discipline, self-restraint, self-sacrifice, and abstaining from all kinds of evils; and practicing morality, rejecting worldly pleasures, sacrificing his own comfort for the sake of others spiritual development, and by purifying his heart and mind and realising the true nature of life and the world. Thus this diversity of teaching was introduced by Him. Buddhism is saturated with the spirit teaching of the open mind, and the sympathetic heart which lights and warms the whole universe with rays of wisdom and compassion. Another outstanding feature is his teaching of the law of cause and effect or the natural law that describes the existing universal cosmic order. This law of cause and effect, the doctrine of Kamma explains the secrets of the inequalities and the differences that occur amongst men and other creatures.

Is The Buddhist TV worth as expected?

Is The Buddhist TV worth as expected?- Priyantha De Silva

The only Buddhist satellite TV in the Asia “The Buddhist TV” now on air via Dialog Satellite TV. When we get the religious channels in the world with comparing “God” is the most popular one as religious channel. It’s a very organized channel with many aspects. Comparing with others “The Buddhist TV” is as a baby of one month. But it must be developed faster but not so. Sad to say, nothing happening as we expected like before “The Buddhist TV” beginning. Satellite TV station is a very powerful one so it can be able to convert some people’s thinking and feelings. To bad or to good. From “The Buddhist TV” it must come to the point “The Best” not to “good”.
There are many people who speak Hindi, Tamil, mostly English( Can understand if they can’s speak) Bus most programs air on BTV are from Sinhala. But most Sinhala speaking people know about Buddhism and listen preach in Sinhala via Radio. But less of other language people know the stem of Buddhism or nothing. Then it must broadcast even one program from other languages everyday to popularize in the region. If not the most suitable resolution is to give subtitles for every program in Hindi or English, better if it comes from both. So add “The Buddhist TV” to the Tata and the Dish TV lineups with others.

To develop “The Buddhist TV” much better,
* Introduce many Live coverage events around the world regarding the Buddhism. (It’s very easy via internet)
* Introduce “Buddhist News” telecast every day.
* A live sermon everyday or recorded one with subtitles much better.
* Create Buddhist songs , specially from the language of Hindi and English.
* Add “The Buddhist TV” station for the lineup of other satellite providers.
* Don’t show “Bhakthi Gee” programs , they aren’t popular even in Sri Lanka or anywhere else. It only decrease the popularity of the station.
* Make subtitles for “ Gangodavila Soma” thera’s sermons from Hindi and English. Get all the past programs from other stations , every ones from TNL with Chamuditha Samarawikrama.
* Make Subtitles for “Podina Sakachchawa” of swarnavahini.
* Introduce live program that people can ask (live) questions and receive answers.
* Don’t show the programs that show miserable life with sad feelings, if so others think Buddhism is a religion for the dead people, not for the ones live.
* Introduce a WEB SITE for “The Buddhist TV” with schedule page least for one week time range.
* Give a hour time in every week for “Pitaduwe Siridhamma Himi” to what ever he weants to do.
* Get and show a cartoon program every day for children with matter of Buddhism.
* Show the series of the “Kun fu” again ( That broadcasted on Rupavahini).

******* Many things to do to the development of The Buddhist in the future more than that.Let the time to come ..............