May our Readers have a well and Happy New Year!
First Editorial of the BDDR online
Some difficulties are evident when placing the Buddha Dhamma
online. For instance, we do not have control over who downloads the
information or where it will go to. The words of Buddha Dhamma are
potent. Users who wish to download material from this Website, must
store it in a clean place to guard their wealth and health. Believe
it or not, putting it in a dirty place will destroy health and
wealth. If users are not prepared to do this, we advise that they
read this information only.
We are able to make merit in
three distinct ways when writing Buddha Dhamma for Dana.
Firstly,
our will to begin writing (bhuppa chetana) is kept strong. Secondly,
our motivation during the progress of writing (munchana chetana) is
also kept strong. Finally, we are determined with our post-intention
(aparapara chetana) to distribute the writing and extend our merit to
benefit others.
Phra Ajaan Plien Panyapatipo (1991) of Wat
Aranyawiwake (Baan Pong) at Chiangmai, Thailand has explained four
reasons for error in merit making.
The four errors
are:
Performing virtue in the wrong place, performing virtue
to the wrong person, performing virtue at the wrong time and
performing virtue with no follow-up to one’s virtue.
In
the month of November 2000 CE, we placed the full text and picture
files of our BDDR Volume 10. No. 2 online. It is currently available
at two of our web sites:
www.bdcu.org.au
and
www.companyontheweb.com/buddhamap
We put
identical material on two of our web sites as part of our contingency
plan, so that if one became unavailable users would still be able to
view our BDDR.
These portable document files, known as pdf
files, can be downloaded and then unzipped using WinZip; they can be
read with a pdf reader such as Adobe Acrobat and can be easily
printed.
Our Website policy was needed for the 21st General
Conference of the World Fellowship of Buddhists, to be held in
Bangkok, Thailand in December 2000.
How can an Editor who
wishes to practice in accordance with the Dhamma keep writing to
reach persons who have minds well developed from western education
but uncultivated from the viewpoint of Dhamma?
This Editor
began writing professionally over four decades ago in the field of
industrial property, including writing and processing patents and
trademarks. At this time, this discipline was not taught at any
University in Australia.
Many persons helped to guide this
editor in developing his writing style, but fundamentally he taught
himself.
In those days, from the English language structure
viewpoint, there was one style handbook above all others that was
consulted regularly - Fowler’s Modern English Usage.
Fowler
has been criticized for being too strict, old-fashioned and
prescriptive, especially by Jespersen.
Fowler agreed with
Swift, who stated that “Proper words in proper places make the
true definition of a style”. Fowler, a perfectionist who
regarded writing as a craft, aimed for the highest standard choosing
precise words in a careful and orderly arrangement that has been
criticized for relying too much on Latin grammar for these
principles.
In part he admitted the charge. He pointed out
that “we English” now recognize that “the iron has
entered into our souls” that “our grammatical conscience”
has by this time a Latin element inextricably compounded into it, if
not predominant.
This Editor still follows Fowler’s style
advice, with the exception that at times the need to have all
prolixities docked.
This main rule useful for Buddha Dhamma
commentary is that a match ought be made for the order of thought and
logic of an original text.
For example, some of the Buddhist
Canon writing involves high order logic.
This logic has
stayed in place even when some could be seen to attack this logic
from following current theorists like Derrida, Foucault and their
American progeny.
We care for the words that have been
written about in many Buddha Dhamma texts.
In particular,
words used for classical chanting map into a definite level of
sunyata. This fact is known to the clear minds of lineage Masters,
such as, for example, those who teach the Gyuto Monks to voice Buddha
Dhamma.
Their method of multi-harmonic chanting requires more
restraint than a notional commitment to themes of unlimited
openness.
Accordingly, our editorial policy takes a firm
position against the endless relativity or “freeplay” of
meaning, which (according to Derrida’s Yale disciples) exploit
the excitements of freeplay - that is supposed to recall the
“logocentric” nature of all possible
discourse.
Deconstructing the language of symbol is well known
by those who attain and use more than a 15th level of sunyata. (Arupa
sphere of emptiness).
But, as Christopher Norris (1982) made
clear, the case for determinate meaning rests on a philosophy of mind
and language totally opposed, but by no means immune, to skeptical
reduction.
We do not write for foolish persons, only for
those who want to learn.
In Buddha Dhamma words take on
special meaning.
What the world conventionally calls “Death”
is the termination of a life-time. But according to Abhi-Dhamma there
is a strange but true saying that the succession of thoughts that
goes on in life is not interrupted by death, and there is no interval
between the dying thought (cuti-citta) in this life and the re-birth
thought (pati-sandhi-citta) in the next life.
If writing is
half done or not completed then it cannot produce good result, like a
half-built house cannot produce an income. We need to reference our
writing.
For those persons who persist against the four errors
in merit making and make the effort to do things straight in the
beginning, middle and end of merit making by download, there is the
possibility of nibbana access if you practice well.
When
access is obtained to this nibbana framework, “the space of a
dispersion” collapses sooner rather than later and space ceases
to be so troublesome.
The purpose of our online BDDR version
is to give methods and purpose to practice that enables a person to
resist incorrect notions themselves that tend to disperse his or her
thoughts.
We suspect from past experience that we would like
to dwell and write in the space where 500 former arhats dwelt.
“Perfuming” of such places by merit means they do not
function as a dispersion space. Most persons feel comfortable in such
settings.
Although our Australian Temple is not a place where
500 arhats lived, we do “perfume” it by doing sound and
intense practice at the best of times, and, even at the worst of
times, remove persons who just want to waste our resources to no
purpose and those who persist in making many errors even when
admonished .
Although we have our opponents, our Centre is
fortunate in that our protectors make it difficult for mischievous
persons to arrive on our site. Just as we would not plant rice in
sand or on a seashore, so we do not waste our scarce resources on
fools or persons opposed to sila (morality).
Our Members
increase their Dhamma understanding and practice every year. Because
we requested help from our trusted protectors to help create this
Volume 10 Number 3 of our enhanced online Buddha Dhyana Dana Review,
several good omens were seen at our Temple this month.
Our
multiple websites were established with minimum cost. Another good
omen was our Teacher received an invitation to join a New South Wales
Buddhist Organisation as their Vice-president.
Another good
omen was that a “magical” Bodhisattva pigeon appeared and
made a nest at our Centre.
To a newcomer to editing Dhamma,
the intermittent character of the tasks of an Editor of the Buddha
Dhyana Dana Review and other Dhamma publications may appear daunting
as the “enigma” of an “old hand” somehow fitting
the new matter into the old according to the same etymological plan;
in verifications of meanings, new and old, and in the justification
for the insertion of references to the literature and to the
authorities.
We guard against the law of human liability to
error that is especially applicable to the development of writing
about Buddha Dhamma in the English language by proof reading again
and again.
We want our publication in many media to hold sound
Buddha Dhamma instructions.
We are not put off by
mistakes.
Sir M. Monier-Williams (1899) made reference to an
author of a well-known Dictionary of whom it was said that the number
of mistakes which his critics discovered in it were to him a source
of satisfaction rather than annoyance.
The larger a work, he
affirmed, the more likely it was to include errors; and a
hypercritical condemnation of these was often symptomatic of a
narrow-mindedness which should not take in the merit of any great
performance as a whole. (See BDDR Volume 5 No. 3, 1995).
This issue of BDDR on the Internet is planned to be a much larger publication than our paper version. Our paper version will contain abstracts of the online publication.
More and more we plan with good economic sense so
that our Dhamma teaching is delivered by Internet.
We are
developing more and more Internet sites so if need be, they can
operate under many different censorship regulations. In 1999, the
European parliament initialled an amendment to the Copyright
Directive that would outlaw random, illegal copying of material on
the Internet.
We avoid infringement of copyright by strict
guidelines. When we produce original writing we are sure we hold
copyright in such material within our organisation. Then, when we
place this original material on our web sites, we know we are
adhering to copyright regulations worldwide.
Examples of our
well researched writing are our radio broadcast scripts created
in-house at our Centre every week for more than two years. These can
be viewed online on our Website “www.bdcublessings.one.net.au”.
These broadcast scripts are written within our five styles.
In time, our broadcast scriptwriters are introduced to the needed
technical terms and rigour of Buddha Dhamma methodologies and are
swift to use Pali canonical references to support.
The
acquisition of literacy skills also requires that the
lexical-semantic-syntactic channel be treated differently. In oral
communication, words may be used to refer to elements present in the
situation and to its participants because the physical and temporal
situation is shared by the speaker and the listener.
This
type of reference, where a word refers to an element in the context
of the situation, is exophoric.
Decades ago, this editor
visited one Chinese Mainland Temple having 500 life sized images of
the Arhants.
As Tripitaka Master Chen Hwa, Abbot for the
Shiang Kwang Vihara in Taipei states in the book The Sacred Virtue
of Buddha and Bodhisattva, “In Buddhist books, there is a
historical record illustrating “500 bhiksus assembly” in
the synod led by Mahakasyapa after Buddha’s entering nirvana.”
There are many more stories about 500 Arhants.
Many
famous Temples that worship the image of 500 Arhants can be found in
China: Shih Chao Temple in Tien Tai Mountain, Chin Tze Temple in
Hangchow, Chin Ka Ming Temple in Kiangyin, Jui Fu Temple in Fuchien,
Si Yen Temple in Kinhwa. There is also a 500 Arhants Temple in Tokyo.
In the texts something remains of arhat virtues.
The
images worshipped in those Temples are not there to show the
achievements of the Arhants but rather the images are “shown for
believers’ respect to Arhat’s dwelling on Buddhadharma and
prevailing it”.
It is hoped such an approach be made to
our written material.
Because we do not have the restraint of
high printing and paper cost and postage costs as in the past, we
will arrange for our online BDDR to have more text and photographs
than our paper versions.
Our tactic is that future printed
BDDR paper editions will be have abstracts of the web versions we
publish on our two Websites. By such a method, we can contain our
print and postage costs. We hope our readers approve of our making
the change from economic necessity. Advantages follow.
We can
give more text and have the site machine searchable as a further
index service.
We try to avoid our version of cultural
decadence which can take the form of an obsessive pre-occupation with
scientific fact. European scholastic discipline insists that there be
substantial evidence for some of the assertions made by early
Buddhist Scholars of different nationalities and different
disciplines.
We can judge insight consistency by comparison
methods.
Buddhist myths and legends have a much stronger
foundation than some of the Western academic communities would credit
them.
The richness and originality of Australian Buddhist
myths and legends that are maintained and evolve here has rarely been
documented in western scholarship to date.
In a multicultural
Australia, Buddhist festivals are taking on a hybrid form of
expression not seen elsewhere where three concentric elements: the
festival, the site and the myth are forming useful teachings.
Our
Centre has video recorded many of those over the last two decades and
will endeavor to put these rare sources onto our Websites.
The
Bodhisattva as an artist requires a different method of analysis to
get definite viewpoints about Dhamma meaning and there is much
scholar’s work to be done to get this understanding into western
culture wording.
We intend that our successors will explore
this great task over the next 70 years.
May all readers of
this Website be well and happy.
References:
Johansson, Rune E A, 1973, Pali
Buddhist Texts, Curzon Press Ltd, London and Malmo.
Fowler,
H W, 1965, Fowler’s Modern English Usage, (2nd Ed),
Oxford University Press.
Phra Ajaan Plien Panyapatipo, 1991,
How to Get Good Results from Doing Merit, W.A.V.E
Attisani,
Antonio, 2000, “A Proposal for Interdisciplinary Collaboration
in the Study of A ce lha mo”, The Tibet Journal, Vol.
xxv, No. 2, A publication for the study of Tibet.
Norris, C.
(1980) "After the new criticism by Frank Lentricchia",
cited in, Wall and Ricks (Eds.) (1982) Essays in Criticism,
Vol. XXXII, No. 1.
Robertson, Alec, 2000, “The Buddha’s
Concept of Reality”, Suhrullekha Dharma, Quarterly
Journal Vol. II Issue 3, India.
Master Chen Hwa, The Sacred
Virtue of Buddha and Bodhisattva, China Cosmos Publishing House,
Taiwan, Republic of China.