Dharma Lessons Through Practice

Today's release life activity bore a special significance: it's the very first time we had Bhante Dhammawansha to grace the occasion. Bhante Dhammawansha is a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka based in Clearwater. He has been delivering Buddhist teaching in the Bay area for the past 5-6 years, including giving Buddhist talks and participating in inter-faith dailog in area churches and synagogues. The first Annual Robe Offering Celebration of the Dhamma Wheel Meditation Society that we have participated on Nov 12, 2006 and that I have blogged here was held at his residence.

As usual, seven of us first assembled at our usual place, the 24-hour McDonald's Restaurant along North Dale Mabry just north of the I-275 flyover (or viaduct as is called here). All seated in my car (an 8-seater Minivan), we crossed the Bay via State Road 60 over the Courtney Campbell Bridge and picked up the 8th passenger, Bhante Dhammawansha, at his residence. Then it was off to the Clearwater Beach for the release life activity.

This is a revisit for many of us, Clearwater Beach being a popular site of choice for our activity. En-route, Bhante and us warmed up mutually pretty fast and he started sharing his experience with us, including the contrast of the condition now and the time when he first came to the area 5-6 years ago.

He was in an eminent position to do that because he had resided in one of the ocean front condo units along Clearwater Beach for a period of about seven months, thanks to an Indian lady who housed him in her own condo.

Now so many high rise condominiums are sprouting up along the ocean frontage in the Clearwater Beach Area like young shoots after a nourishing rain that the ocean view is no more like before, unbroken vista of the beach expanse and the distant horizon. I replied matter-of-factly that that's the price we pay for development, but knowing deep down inside me that it doesn't have to be that way.

While cruising over the newly opened bridge that leads us to the Clearwater Beach, we saw what Bhante meant: closely spaced condominiums, some still under construction, rising like a curtain at the water's edge to crowd out the ocean view.

We first bought the fish and shrimp juveniles from the bait shop and placed them in pails to be carried over to the site, which is the wooden jetty next to the bait shop. We also brought along a battery operated aerator (the yellow instrument attached to the top of the pail in the image) to keep the juveniles in a healthy condition while on transit to the jetty as well as during the mantra chanting session.

We then proceeded to the wooden jetty behind the bait shop where, led by Bhante, the party chanted Buddhist mantras in Pali amidst Bhante's explanation of the significance of releasing life. Above all, the act of releasing life fosters compassion, nurtures virtue and perpetuates love for all sentient beings. The resulting purification of the mind is akin to cleaning us of the rust that have encrusted us, thereby facilitating us coming into closer contact with our true self on the route to attaining buddhahood. Buddhist teaching emphasizes the humanistic approach, and upholds adherence to precepts through practice.

I find Bhante to be a resourceful teacher: employing a captivating story telling style, citing analogies and using simple language, wearing a perennial smile, adopting an approachable stance, and displaying great listening skills. These he evinced comfortably in his interaction with us, both in the car while waiting for one of us to run an errand at the local post office, and during lunch at the Thai House at the Largo Shopping Mall.

A case in point is the notion of rebirth, as distinct from reincarnation. While the latter entails wandering spirits in a limbo for a period of 7 days, the former is instant and occurs the moment the present life ends. Also, in biological terms, there are only two essential ingredient for a human birth to occur: a fertilized egg, and a womb for the gestation. But Buddhism adds one more element: the best attempt at an English translation is the sub-consciousness. And the rapt attention on my wife's face says it all.

The Thai House is frequented by Bhante, while it's the first visit for the rest of us. Other than the symbols of Thai Buddhism, the wall is also adorned with the names of regular patrons, which I thought is a novel move and is likely to entice repeat business. At the end of it all, the courteous waitress was kind enough to offer to take our group picture, with the Smiling Buddha standing guard behind. The delicious lunch was an early Christmas gift from Susie, the lady in pink standing to the right of Bhante.

Thanks to Yu Huai Chen, again, for organizing the activity, all participants for taking time to display compassion, and Bhante Dhammawansha for both gracing the occasion, and for enlightening us on some of the important lessons of the Buddhist teachings within such a short span of time.

The East and West Shall Meet

Last night, we continued the Dharma talk session at a devotee’s house. As usual, we arrived early and after putting our stuff (notebook, pen, lecture notes) on the table, I scanned the book shelves with the intention of doing some brief reading before the session started.

The book that caught my attention was entitled “Diamond in the Rough” by Barry J. Farber published in 1995. As I was flipping through the pages, I jotted down several snippets on motivation as follows:

• Each of us is a diamond in the rough … unpolished stones hidden among the rubble.
• Failure isn’t failure as long as we learn from it.
• “Catch a passion for helping others and a richer life will come back to you.” William H. Danforth, author of “I dare you”.
• 3Ds of positive attitude: discipline, desire, and dedication

Then I saw something that seemed familiar:

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” John Homer Miller

In an earlier post, I’ve blogged about an essence of Buddhist Teaching, “The change in our inner world is brought about by our reaction to changes in the material world. Thus we are constantly in battle against extraneous thoughts that invade our mind.” Then it hit on me, the uncanny resemblance of the message embodied in the two. One is passed down through the ages dating back to the BC era while the other one is a more contemporary and perhaps secular expression of a similar thought. In order to peg a time to the Miller’s quote, I googled him. To my surprise, his is a very popular quote; almost every hit that turned up has his quote referenced; but strangely enough, none on Miller the person. Even Wikipedia has no topic on him too.

As the hits were too numerous, I started skipping every 10 and chanced upon a more complete version of the quotation, but better still, it has two dates spanning his life:

"Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens. Circumstances and situations do color life, but you have been given the mind to choose what the color shall be." JOHN HOMER MILLER (1722–1791)

So I know now that he lived in the 18^th century, and that’s a bit of Internet sleuthing and pleasant surprise #1.

During the intermission (the 2-hour long Dharma talk session has a 10-min break in the middle), I continued my book scan (Oh, in case you were wondering about my “unauthorized” snooping, I did ask and get the permission of the host for doing so. This is basic etiquette). Hey, look at what I found.

In another previous post, I’ve referred to a book, the Philosophy of Being Number Two, by the Venerable Master Tsing Yun. I’ve read the original version in Chinese, and remember thinking how nice it would be if it were translated into English to benefit interested parties from the English-speaking side of the world. And that’s exactly what I found, but with a slightly different English title, “The philosophy of Being Second”. Well, different names, same context.

Believing that even a few brief words can touch countless lives, the Venerable Master has started the Hsing Yun Hundred Sayings Series and this book is one of the many outcomes of that benevolent effort.

It contains the many anecdotes gleaned from encounters during a perpetual odyssey. The Venerable Master, on the occasion of the 40^th Anniversary of Fo Guang Shan Monastery coinciding with his 80^th Birthday this year, has decided to undergo a one-year period of self-containment during which he would devote his sole attention to thinking and writing about Dharma matters, thus actualizing his fervent belief in the wise dispensation from the Buddha that “the day will come when the riches we donate will be exhausted. Our donation of knowledge, skill, truth, and the Dharma treasure, however, has no limit and cannot be overdrawn.” This is the message in an extract from the Diamond Sutra that states:

Merits gained from donating the seven treasures of the cosmos of the three thousand great chiliocosms will not equal the merits gained from upholding a short verse of wisdom.

The many first-person narratives are grouped into the following chapters:

• Being moved is most beautiful
• Endurance is power
• Words should be like sunshine, flowers or clear water
• Compassion
• Reappraising value
• You’re important, he’s important, I’m not
• Spread happiness around the world
• Being used by others shows ones’ true worth
• Let’s not perish together
• The philosophy of being second

Personally I feel that some of the English translations do not do justice to the profound thoughts and intents enshrined in the original Chinese phraseology, but reading the anecdotes therein will definitely enlighten the readers as to the truism that permeates the book: He who devotes himself to helping others succeed, even while working hard to actualize himself, truly becomes his own master. (While further clarification may seem superfluous, the male gender as used here is all-inclusive to encompass the female gender as well.)

I’ll endeavor to share some of these lessons from my own personal reading of the book in subsequent posts. For now, I’ll leave this quote taken from the Preface in the book:

"As paddies produce crops of rice and the lotus thrives in mud, the state of the environment is not nearly as important as our being a healthy seed. For only a good seed produces fruit. One must allow the nature of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, the wind, frost, rain, and snow to become the causes and conditions of one’s growth. Through all vicissitudes, we must never lose sight of growth and progress as our purpose in life."