News from Melbourne Buddhist Centre

Issue #2 Volume #3

April 2008

Welcome to this bumper edition of our newsletter; we look forward to your feedback on the variety of contributions.

Mudita is designed to keep you in touch with Melbourne Buddhist Centre events and the activities of our Sangha.

Haiku

Autumn's tears of trees

Once fallen as countless tears

Now Love sweeps togeth'r.

Flowers of autumn

This Treasure-tree of friendship

Always in blossom

written by Siladasa

From the Men's Easter retreat 2008

What's On

On May 3rd we will be celebrating Buddha Day, or Wesak as it is known in Asia. We will have a day of activities, including meditation, puja and dharma talk. This is a significant festival in our calendar, celebrating the Enlightenment of the Buddha.

Starting 22nd May, Shantidevi will lead a six week meditation course for those who are already familiar with Mindfulness and Metta practices and wish to explore their meditation more.

Saddhavijaya will lead a six week Buddhism course on the Wheel of Life, starting Tuesday 20th May, which will interest and inspire you in your understanding of Buddhism.

Check our website for all up-to-date event information.

News

Fund-raising Evening

Reflections by Siladasa on Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter...& Spring

Thanks to the efforts of Linda Williams, Ainslie Hannan and Vidyatara, more than 70 of our Sangha and friends were treated to a film evening on the 4th of April when we watched Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring by Korean director Kim Ki-duk, made in 2003.

The film's title evokes the endless cycle of seasons and the eternal nature of change itself. The story's multiple themes all radiate from the axis of karmic law: actions and their consequences. At the heart of the interplay between the characters and the seasons is the principle of kindness and compassion that is emphasised in a number of climactic and poignant moments.

The setting of the film, in a floating temple on a lake in the wilderness of South Korea, displays its own metaphor yet there are abundant symbols and juxtapositions of sets and props that catch the eye and provoke curiosity and reflection. There are doors and gates, or frames of these without walls, shores and boats for all manner of entrances and exits, comings and goings that mark a careful and deliberate cinematic construction. The plot concerns the training of a young boy by an old Master of Dharma. There are some scenes that may be quite challenging, provocative even, to our sensibilities and will no doubt stimulate discussion and debate, such as the violent rebuke the errant young man receives at the hands of the Master. Likewise, the latter's death, an immolation on a rowboat, may raise questions on the taking of life as part of the Buddhist path.

What also strikes me about Spring, Summer... is the implied meeting of an old world Buddhist tradition with the modern secular world. As a Western Buddhist of this industrial and consumerist age, I am struck by the cultural differences in personal relationships and behaviours shown in the film, and stimulated to think beyond my own conditioning. The film also teaches that no matter how perfect our life and environment is, it is the state of mind that determines our experience.

Like all worthy films, there is respite from the existential pain in humorous and quirky moments, and several scenes of enduring charm and many of great beauty. Metaphor, allegory and symbols aside, this is a drama of the eternal human predicament and as such appeals to our empathies; I believe that this film succeeds in the emotional domain as well as in its appeal to the prospect of transcendence. In its closing scene of the figure of Maitreya, the future Buddha, seated atop the mountain, the tiny floating temple can be seen in the midst of an endless nature; beauty and Wisdom come together in the breath of Compassion.

Meditation note

Meditation is not a way of making your mind quiet. It is a way of entering into the quiet that is already there &mdash buried under the 50,000 thoughts the average person thinks every day.

Deepak Chopra from Perfect Health Three Rivers Press, New York.

Reflections of a reluctant practitioner

Like many meditators, I struggle with the metta practice. To sit still is challenging enough, but to sit still and calm the mind and then will yourself to feel positive is like juggling cats with a budgie balanced on your head. When I was still living in Canberra over 2 years ago, I purchased a CD from a wonderful online resource called Buddhanet. It was a loving—kindness practice CD with a quite hilarious orange cover; the teaching was delivered in an all-too-familiar aussie accent. I made a few half-hearted attempts but it just wasn't what I expected. Quickly, it was tossed aside.

Soon afterwards, I moved to Melbourne and began my day to day life of long distance commuting. I live in Coburg, but work at the industrial park at Clayton in the south eastern suburbs. After a few months of making this huge and perilous journey every day my personality changed dramatically. I became angrier, more impatient, and more aggressive behind the wheel. My own behaviour shocked and alarmed my husband. I began to think earnestly about how I could turn the tide but did not really consider the metta practice.

Confused, repelled by myself and desperate, I started listening to my old Thich Nhat Hanh tapes in the car. He told me that a Buddhist without a spiritual community (or Sangha) is like a tiger that comes down from the mountains. Quickly, it will be caught and killed by humans. I was the tiger, bereft of any shelter, lost and lethal.

But it was almost a year after migrating to Melbourne and becoming a full-time nomad that I started drifting into the MBC for guided meditation. And every other week the meditation instructors insisted on taking us through a loving-kindness practice. Oh, I thought smugly, I know this. But week after week the experience of happiness and love evaded me, in fact, I felt worse! How could this be? It reminded me of my tai chi classes back in Canberra where 5 minutes of every class was spent simply holding one's arms in front of the torso at shoulder height. We called it the 'Chinese Torture', at the time unaware of the irony. So I began to view metta as the equivalent. Necessary, sure; I mean I trusted my meditation instructors as I trusted my tai chi master. But I stubbornly refused to see the point or really commit to the practice.

So on I went for many months, battling the traffic and feeling ever more road rage. And then showing up to the MBC with my stiff neck and sore back to sit on the cushion while being told to feel loving-kindness towards not just my enemies, but myself. Which was clearly ridiculous.

Anyway, like many commuters I have long maintained my sanity with a trusty MP3 player loaded with groovy tunes. And one day, after a particularly hideous peak-hour journey home replete with homicidal truckies, old folks driving 40kms under the speed limit then trying to merge into my car and soccer mums in gigantic SUVs I ripped my loving-kindess CD to the old hard drive of my computer and dragged it over to the mp3 player.

My regimen was simple, and one certainly NOT recommended by any meditation instructor at the MBC. I would sit for as many minutes as I could muster in the morning before work, then hop in the car and start up my loving-kindness soundfile. As always I would struggle with the various stages, occasionally feeling guilty for not being able to, say, sit in a relaxed posture or close my eyes as the instruction dictated. But I persisted, and now it's a habit I just can't break. And without any hope or expectation I have lost the road rage. You just can't feel it if you're doing the practice even halfheartedly. I've gone from crazed to cucumber cool. I drive slower, I gladly let others merge in front of me, I leave the 5 second safety gap religiously, I see the 20-something speedfreaks in their V8 utes and simply want them to reach their destination without killing themselves. As for the soccermums and homicidal truckdrivers, who knows? Maybe they all moved to Sydney.

I spread loving-kindness to the entire city from my magnificent vantage point on the Bolte bridge. I send loving-kindness and well wishing along the Monash tollway and all of its tributaries, to the airports and the seaports, across the oceans and through the air... and onto the world. I don't doubt that if I stopped the practice the benefits would quickly drop off. So I will keep taking my medicine. Who knew I would come to love it?

Dharma Talk Extract

Why Bother with Ethics?

Why is ethics the first step on the Threefold Way? If we understand the most fundamental teaching of Buddhism to be the principle of conditioned co-production, or dependent origination, then we can see that connecting with all of life is the basis for the arising of wisdom and compassion. Without some sense of that connection, we will not be able to deepen our practice. Any action that leads into connection with others is preferable to action that disconnects us from others. Living an ethical life concerns our connection to others and is also the first step to gaining greater understanding of this principle of interconnectedness.

Our task is to broaden our understanding of ethics from the Western view we learned as we grew up, to include and encompass the Buddhist approach to morality. There is a clear distinction between Western and Buddhist approaches. Western ethics is made up of elements from Greek and Roman culture, from Judeo-Christian teachings, and some elements from Anglo-Saxon paganism. In the West ethics is usually considered a branch of philosophy. Many Western religious and philosophical traditions claim that evil behaviour is the result of the inherent imperfection of the human condition (the 'Fall of Man') and ethics is concerned with imposing rules to control the results of this imperfection. Buddhist ethics is not a branch of philosophy or law but associated much more with psychology; it is not associated with the legal system of social control but is about taking personal responsibility for our actions. That is, it concerns action rather than rules about action.

In a talk called 'Stream Entry or the Point of No Return' (Tape 80 in his audio lectures), Sangharakshita has said:

'There is no such word as Morality in Buddhism. It is equivalent to what traditionally is known as Skilful Action. Buddhists in the East don't talk about morals, they talk about skilful action. And skilful actions are actions expressive of skilful mental states: in other words, mental states free from the grosser forms of craving, aversion, and ignorance; which therefore do no harm either to self or others and which may even benefit them.'

Each of us brings an inherited idea of Western ethics into our Buddhist practice &mdash our task is to integrate these two systems. This integration, or union is exemplified in a statement by 20th-century German philosopher Albert Schweitzer : Ethics is nothing else than reverence for life. His view was that Western civilisation was in decay through the gradual abandonment of its ethical foundations —those of affirmation of life. Ethics, according to Schweitzer, consists in the compulsion to show the same reverence toward the will-to-live of each and every being as one does to one's own.

Most of us have inherited a form of ethical absolutism from the Judeo-Christian tradition that tells us that some actions are absolutely right and good and some actions are absolutely wrong and bad, or evil. The Buddhist tradition acknowledges that life is complex and throws up many difficulties, and it does not suggest that there is a single course of action that will be the best one in all circumstances. What decides the outcome of an action is the intention behind it, more than the action itself.

Natural Morality and Conventional Morality

Acknowledging the inheritance of values that Western Buddhists are working with, Sangharakshita makes a useful distinction between two kinds of morality: Natural Morality and Conventional Morality. Natural morality has a psychological foundation that consists of actions expressive of skilful mental states. The second kind, conventional morality, is simply a matter of custom, of opinion, very often local to one's culture, and probably with little moral significance. So, when we talk of morality as the first stage of the spiritual path, we mean not conventional morality, but natural morality. When you practise natural morality, you are involving yourself in the law of karma. To put it in its simplest form: natural morality is based on the law of karma, not on human opinion or social convention. In natural morality actions have consequences based on the motivation that produced them. Conventional moralities can differ from one society to another, but natural morality cannot. Perhaps natural morality is universal amongst human societies as it is based on our innate ethical sensitivity, rather than on learned rules of behaviour.

So, is it that shaving one's head, wearing robes and refraining from sexual activity make one a monk or nun? No, these are outward expressions of an inner desire for simplicity. By unthinkingly following the rules one is adhering to religious formalism. This is conventional morality— it does not require taking responsibility and uncovering one's motives, it just requires obedience. But that monk or nun is, we hope, responding to an inner urge towards simplicity, and the quelling of craving, which is an expression of natural morality.

Interconnectedness

If we accept the interconnectedness of everything as the fundamental law of the Dharma then we must see the necessity for basing our behaviour on metta; on connection to others rather than disconnection from others. This is not just a Buddhist notion:

Shelley, the early 19th-century English Romantic poet, stated: A man, to be greatly good, must imagine intensely and comprehensively; he must put himself in the place of another and of many others; the pains and pleasures of his species must become his own.

Ethical observance is not about keeping a tight rein on oneself but about freeing one's imagination, connecting with the feelings of others as strongly as with our own. Therefore, learning to be more ethical is an art, a faculty we can continually refine. In case we fear that we will lose ourselves in self-analysis, the Buddha outlined five basic precepts, the following of which will lead us onto more and more skilful pathways. They are not rules; they are generalised guidelines, which still require us to act with integrity, awareness and responsibility.

Dharma To Reflect on

I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.

I am of the nature to have ill-health. There is no way to escape having ill-health.

I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.

All that is dear to me and everyone I love is of the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.

My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground on which I stand.

Shakyamuni Buddha

News from the Bookshop

Just arrived at the bookshop is a fresh and fragrant selection of Japanese incense: Oriental Breeze, Golden Pavilion, Autumn Leaves, Bamboo and Green Tea. There are also new Tibetan greeting cards depicting beautiful photos of landscapes, people and temples. Look out for the one of a field of butter lamps. New books to the centre include Hello at Last—Embracing the Koan of Friendship and Meditation and A Path for Parents — this could make an excellent mother's day gift!

Also available are the three Breathworks^© CDs, Body Scan, Mindfulness of Breathing and Kindly Awareness. Coming soon is the new book by Reginald Ray—Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realisation in the Body, and A Question of Dharma:108 Questions and Answers on Practising the Buddhist Path to Liberation by David Smith.

A new item is the enso meditation clock. Enso is the Japanese symbol of enlightenment, elegance and the universe. This image, traditionally painted with a single clockwise brush stroke, is the central display feature of the clock. Time intervals can be set to create an overall session to suit your practice. The end of each interval is marked by your choice of sounds, from a Tibetan bowl, Japanese chime or Zen woodblock. The clock comes with its own stand and neat zipped bag.

A Book Recommendation

During her life (1911 - 1989), Dipa Ma was a major presence in contemporary Buddhism. She was an accomplished yogi and an inspired teacher who found great freedom through profound levels of insight. She exemplified in her every action deep kindness, generosity and mindfulness. The book Dipa Ma: The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master written by Amy Schmidt (BlueBridge, May 2005) tells her remarkable story and is enriched by reminiscences of her students, including Sharon Salzberg, Joseph Goldstein and Jack Kornfield.

Published by Windhorse Publications, this book is currently available in the MBC bookshop for $29.

1. Choose one meditation practice and stick with it.

   If you want to progress in meditation stay with one technique.

2. Meditate every day.

   Practice now. Don't think you will do more later.

3. Any situation is workable.

   Each of us has enormous power. It can be used to help ourselves and help others.

4. Practise patience.

   Patience is one of the most important virtues for developing mindfulness and concentration.

5. Free your mind.

   Your mind is all stories.

6. Cool the fire of emotions.

   Anger is a fire.

7. Have fun along the way.

   I am quite happy. If you come to meditate you will also be happy.

8. Simplify.

   Live simply. A very simple life is good for everything. Too much luxury is a hindrance to practice.

9. Cultivate the spirit of blessing.

   If you bless those around you this will inspire you to be attentive in every moment.

10. It's a circular journey.

    Meditation integrates the whole person.

is taking a break this issue

Send any news items or images you can offer to news@melbournebuddhistcentre.org by June 15th for inclusion in the next newsletter.

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Copyright Melbourne Buddhist Centre, 1 Pitt St, Brunswick, VIC 3056. April 2008

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