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The ever vigilant give up defilementsThe defilements of those who are ever vigilant, who discipline themselves day and night, who are wholly intent on Nibbana, are destroyed. Kodha Vagga - The Dhammapada

The recent tsunami tragedy brought out an unprecedented outpouring of Buddhist attitudes (karuna, maithree) and action (dana) among Sri Lankan Sangha and lay Buddhists alike. The temples along the Sri Lankan coast, small and big, opened wider their already open doors for those running away from the tsunami. Each temple became a centre of refuge, not only for Buddhists, but also for Hindus, Muslims and Christians alike. Innumerable are the stories being told of acts of true Buddhist generosity in these temples.

Monks gave their robes to bandage victims, looked after children and babies, fed them from the meagre provisions they had, and comforted them. There can be no clearer example of true Buddhist attitudes than those in the remote Eastern province temple of Arantalawa. Here LTTE death squads had once hacked to death young Buddhist monks.

Now, Arantalawa opened itself to nearly thousand refugees of whom the majority was from the Tamil community. It was as if the times of the Buddha had arrived once again.

Hearing of the tragedy, fellow Buddhists around the world flocked into Sri Lanka to help. They came from Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, as well as from the West. They rushed to the temples and other welfare centres; fed and clothed the needy, and arranged for medicine and medical camps.

It was a coming together of Buddhist generosity both from Sri Lanka as well as from sister Buddhist countries and Buddhist communities around the world. It was as if in the Buddhist world unplanned, the Buddhist equivalent of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent had come into being spontaneously. Buddhists from Sri Lanka and several other countries who were exposed to this experience, have now felt that the time is appropriate to launch a Buddhist initiative on the lines of the Red Cross and the Red Crescent.

For this purpose, as well as a mark of deep respect for the Buddhists and temples, both Sri Lankan and international, who helped the needy at that time of disaster, an international conference of Buddhists is being organized in Colombo on March 19 and 20, 2005.

These dates roughly coincide with the three-month act of Dana (conferring merit) to the departed. It will bring together on one platform Sri Lankans and Buddhists from around the world who volunteered help at this critical time in a spirit of nissaranadhyasa, another Buddhist value which means without any expectations in return.

You are kindly invited to participate in this unique international conference which will see the formal emergence of an international Buddhist humanitarian movement.

Chanting known as 'Paritta' in Pali and pirith in Sinhala is a very popular aspect of Buddhism having an important socio religious significance.

When we view Buddhism from the functionalist perspective of sociology, the role that Buddhism plays in society in bringing social cohesion by means of psychological support to its adherents is more real than apparent in the practice of Buddhist chanting. Part one of this article appeared on January 12, 2004.

Sri Lankan Buddhist monks light lamps at a religious service in Colombo, 14 February 2005 , to counter Valentine’s Day celebrations. Monks lead a campaign to denounce Valentine’s Day events.

Dhajagga Sutta is employed as a paritta to avert fear, trembling and horripilation that may arise when confronting dangerous situations and facing unexpected calamities.

The sutta states that the recalling to mind either the god Sakka or any other god would not be helpful on such occasions, because they are not free from desire, malice and delusion. The sutta further recommends recalling the nine qualities of the Buddha or the six qualities of the Dhamma or the nine qualities of the Sangha. In this connection, the famous three formulae "Iti'pi so bhagava... have been cited.

In addition to the Mahakasapatthera Bojjhanga, the Mahamoggallanatthera Bojjhanga and the Mahacundatthera Bojjhanga, the Girimananda Sutta is recited for health and speedy recovery of patients. Included in "The Great Book of protection" there are two other parittas worthy of note. They are the Atthavisati paritta and the Jinapanjara.

The former is an invocation of the blessing of the twenty-eight Buddhas for the patient's recovery. Their truth, virtue, patience and loving kindness are recalled to bestow health and happiness to the sick.

The Jinapanjara is composed as a protective enclosure constituted of Buddhas and Arahants called Conquerors (as they have conquered defilements) and parittas are used for protection of the respective parts of the body of the person. At the end of the chanting, blessing is invoked to destroy all inauspicious influences, calamities, bad omens, obstacles, anxieties, bad dreams and other influences by the grace of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha.

The Sivali paritta and the Jaya paritta are chanted for material gain. Arahant Sivali was the foremost of recipients. His life and deeds are recalled in the chant for blessing. The Jaya paritta is chanted for victory in household life to avert all that are inauspicious.

In the chant, the truth of admirable qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha are enumerated together with the physical and psychological features of the Buddha for one's success.

The chant has a very appealing note at the end. By the grace of the truth that is recounted, request is made to bestow long life, wealth, prosperity, fame, strength, complexion, happiness and at the same time to ward off sorrow, disease, anxiety, malice and numerous other kinds of obstacles.

The efficacy of chanting is mentioned particularly with reference to the Metta Sutta and the Ratana Sutta. The story of Ayuvaddhana found in the Dhammapada commentary relates how chanting prolonged the life span of the baby oy Ayuvaddhana.

There were two hermits practising austerities together for many years. Later one left the forest dwelling and got married. After a son was born, the family visited the hermit and paid their respect to him.

The hermit blessed the parents saying, "May you live long!" But when the child was made to pay respect, he said nothing. When the parents questioned him about it, the hermit said the child would live only seven more days and that he himself did not know how to prevent the child's death, but perhaps the Buddha might know what they should do.

Then the parents took the child to the Buddha. When the parents paid respect, the Buddha blessed them saying. "May you live long!" He said nothing when the child was made to pay respect. Later, when asked, the Buddha also said that the child did not have many days to live and to prevent his death, seven days continuous chanting service should be performed. It was to be conducted by monks in a pavilion built at the entrance to the house, the child was to be put on a couch in the middle when the chanting is in process.

On the seventh day, the Buddha also participated and Devas were also in attendance. At the end of the chanting, when the child was made to pay respect, the Buddha blessed him saying, "May you live long!" and said that he would live up to a hundred years.

The episode of the youth Chatta relates how he was born in heaven after his untimely death at the hand of highway robbers.

Chatta returned home from Taxila for his teacher's fee. When he was returning to Taxila, he met the Buddha on the way. The Buddha taught him three stanzas known as "Chatta Manavaka Gatha" and asked him to recollect them if he is in any danger. On the way, highway robbers attacked and killed him. Forthwith, he was born in heaven and appeared at his own funeral and revealed how he was born in heaven reflecting of the stanzas taught to him by the Buddha.

Mahajayamangala Gatha is considered as a fitting conclusion to the paritta chanting. The Buddhists recite the first two stanzas of the gatha three times before setting out from the house for any business seeking its fulfilment.

Maha karuniko natho
hitaya sabba paninam
puretva parami sabbe
patto
sambodhimuttamam
Etena saccavajjena
hotu me jayamangalam
Jayanto bodhiyamule
sakyanam nandi
vaddhano
Evam mayham
jayo hotu
jayassu jayamangalam

The belief in efficacy of holy water is quite old and goes back to the time of the Buddha. The holy water chanted over with the Ratana Sutta was stated to have sprinkled in Vesali to ward off threefold calamities.

In connection with Angulimala paritta we saw how the holy water chanted over with the paritta was given to the mother in labour pains to ease her pain and deliver the child safely. In the Telapatta Jataka, holy threads and holy sands are mentioned. According to the story, a Benares prince proceeding to Taxila was given holy thread and holy sands by some paccekabuddhas and by the grace of which he was able to avert all the demonic influences on his long journey and became the king of Taxila.

The Janapanjara, Atthavisati paritta, the Mahajayamangala, Jaya paritta, sivali paritta are somewhat later compositions in view of the language and the contents found in them. The composition of these chants seems to have been necessitated by the growing social and religious needs for alternatives to brahmanic practices in the subsequent centuries.

The Mahasamya and the Atanatiya found in the Digha Nikaya form a class by themselves.

These discourses are recited to ward off non-human evil influences and invoke blessing. Both of these suttas, therefore, fall into a different category of chants and are often chanted to seek protection from non-human evil influences, by the power of the virtues of the Buddha.

Buddhists do not believe that chanting is omnipotent or efficacious for every occasion in every respect.

The Buddhist stance on chanting and its efficacy has been nicely illustrated by Venerable Nagasena in his reply to a dilemma put by king Milinda to him.

In his lengthy reply while elucidating the point he summarizes three fundamental reasons which nullify the efficacy of chanting:

(a) If the person to whom the paritta is chanted is to experience the evil effect of a weighty kamma he has done in this life or in a previous life, the chanting would not be effective for him (kammavaranata).

(b) If the person is engulfed in unwholesome defiling thoughts when the chant is in process, it will not be effective (Kilesavaranata).

(c) If the person does not concentrate his mind and repose confidence in the Buddha, the doctrine, the community of monks and the efficacy of chanting when he is being chanted for, the desired effect would not be achieved (asaddahanata).

Therefore when chanting is performed, one must be free from these defects in order to get the desired effect of chanting.

Schumacher's legacy of small-scale, sustainable economies lives on in the work of many people worldwide.

Fritz Schumacher first came to Britain aged 18 as a Rhodes Scholar at New College, Oxford. He then taught economics at Columbia University, New York, before returning to Germany and joining a small team engaged in international trade. To escape Nazism he cut short this successful business career and settled in England in early 1937.

With the outbreak of the Second World War he did a spell in a British internment camp and was released to become a farm worker in Oxfordshire. A new career was launched when he wrote a paper setting out proposals for post-war international monetary reform. This was acclaimed by the economist Lord Keynes and political leaders of the day.

In 1949 Schumacher was appointed economic adviser (and later head of statistics) to the British National Coal Board, where he remained for some 20 years. In 1973 he published Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, which caused a storm, even leading to death threats on his subsequent speaking tour of the US. 'He changed the thinking of a generation,' was how Barbara Ward summed up Schumacher's legacy when he died in 1977.

Schumacher's work in developing countries began in 1955, with a United Nations assignment to advise the government of Burma about its development programme. It was then that, as a student of Buddhism, he asked himself what an economics based on Buddhist values would look like. He concluded that at least in two fundamental ways it would be the exact opposite of conventional Western economics, the economic thinking that has resulted in 'globalisation'.

First, he argued, a Buddhist approach to economics would distinguish between misery, sufficiency and surfeit. Economic growth would be good only to the point of sufficiency. Limitless growth and limitless consumption would be seen to be disastrous.

Secondly, a Buddhist economics would be based squarely on renewable resources: an economics of permanence. In his search for a new approach to development, inspiration came not from conventional economics but from Gandhi.

Whereas the starting point of Western economics is always the production of goods, Gandhi's economic thinking always started with people - their needs, resources and skills. Schumacher made that his starting point, too. The challenge was how to make the poor more productive; and he was convinced that the answer must lie not in large-scale factories and mass production but in production by the masses.

Schumacher's opportunity to address this task came in 1962, when India's Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, having read his paper on Buddhist economics, asked him to advise on India's rural development. It was then that Schumacher came up with the idea of 'intermediate technology'.

Typical rich-country technology, he argues, was very large scale and very expensive, capital- and energy-intensive, and environmentally damaging. There was no way it could provide the millions of new workplaces desperately needed in India and other developing countries.

That need could be met only by technologies specially designed to fit into small rural economies. They would be relatively small, simple, capital-saving (instead of labour-saving) and environmentally benign; tools and equipment that could be owned and operated by poor people.

At the time of Schumacher's death, the world was at the high point of corporate organisation, of mass consumption, of mass employers, of geo-political blocs. Big seemed destined to succeed. But in reality, this world was already starting to come apart.

Since then, the large employers shed jobs, the state shed functions, mass production started to give way to mass customisation. The inhumanities and abuses of power have not gone away, but the new models of organisation are different, appearing to focus on networks rather than on hierarchies.

At a shallow level, from cars to computers, the new consumer society, oriented to the personalisation of goods and services, has embraced the allure of the small. And yet not all that is small scale is human scale, or carries the virtues of community, spiritual connection and ecological balance.

The struggle for the kind of society Schumacher envisioned has moved on to new forms of articulation and organisation, while holding true to the same enduring truths and insights.

Schumacher's work lives on, not least through the UK and US Schumacher Societies and Schumacher College. The New Economics Foundation was started to take forward Schumacher's call for a new economics that gives human and environmental values a central place. The Intermediate Technology Development Group and the Soil Association also owe a debt to the work of Schumacher.

Institutions like these, and many more across the environmental, labour and consumer movements rely not on the fat profits of economic success but on the vision and inspiration of leaders such as Schumacher. They are far more than a counter-narrative to the wrongs of today. They are our best hope of a better tomorrow. - Third World Network Features