Adultery is evil
Four misfortunes befall a careful man who commits adultery; acquisition of demerit, disturbed sleep, thirdly blame, fourthly a state of woe.
Niraya Vagga - The Dhammapada

All set for the grandest Katina Pinkama in recent Lumbini history

Malini Govinnage

LUMBINI: Lumbini, small town in Nepal will witness the grandest ever religious celebration in its recent history, when All Ceylon Buddhist Congress will take part in the 2550th Buddha Jayanthi and Katina Pooja on 26th and 27th of this month at this place. Lumbini is the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha.

Laying the foundation for a new pilgrims' rest which will be built by the Congress also takes place on the second day, the 27th.

The Maha Bodhi Society of India and the government of Nepal join with All Ceylon Buddhist Congress in the celebrations and ceremonies which will be attended by many Sri Lankan Buddhists who have already congregated to Lumbini.

The celebration programme starts with the devotees taking the vows of Eight Precepts (Ashtanga Uposatha) administered by Ven. Pathegama Sumanarathana Thera.

The main event of the celebration is the seminar which takes place at Lumbini Centre.

Minister for Culture, Tourism, and Civil Aviation of Government of Nepal Pradip Kumar Gaikwal will be the Chief Guest of the seminar which will be chaired by Director of Lumbini International Research Institute Dr. Chirstoph Cueppers.

At the second session of the seminar, which will be chaired by President of ACBC Jagath Sumathipala two papers will be presented; Most Venerable Vivekanda Thera on World Peace Through Buddhism' and Superintendent of State Museum of Orissa Dr. Chandrabanu Patel on 'Buddhist Monuments in Kalinga'

A whole night Parithrana chanting will start at 8.00 pm on the same day, and the Katina Chivara procession starts at the early hours (4.00 am) on the following day, 27th October. Maha Sangha Dana (alms giving for Bhikkhus) and Katina Chivara Puja organized by ACBC will take place at 11.30 am.

There will be a Pradeepa Puja around Ashoka Pillar which was erected by Emperor Asoka to mark the birthplace of Siddhartha and Paritana Chanting for world peace at the same venue.

Ven. Pallegama Hemarathana Thera, Chief Incumbent of Ruwan Weli Maha Seya and Ven. Eetalawetunu Wewe Chandarathana Thera, Chief Incumbent, Mirisawetiya, Anuradhapura will also participate in Parithrana chanting. Laying of foundation stone for the new pilgrims' rest by Sri Lankan Ambassador to Nepal Sumith Nakandela and ACBC president Jagath Sumathipala will take place at 6.00 pm.

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Two aspects of Dharma practice

Bhikkhu Bodhi

Here, I want to suggest that to learn from the Buddha, in a practical context, primarily means to learn two aspects of the Dharma that ideally should run parallel. I will call these self-transformation and self-transcendence.

The final goal of the teaching, enlightenment or liberation, is attained through an act of self-transcendence, an act by which we step beyond the limits and boundaries of the conditioned mind and penetrate the unconditioned truth. This act is exercised by wisdom. However, liberating wisdom can arise only in a mind that is properly nurtured, and the process of nurturing the mind is the work of self-transformation.

Self-transformation

Self-transformation means that we cultivate ourselves in order to progress step by step towards the arising of genuine wisdom. Self-transformation involves two processes: one is elimination; the other is development. I will briefly discuss each in turn.

"Elimination" means the removal of unwholesome qualities from our lives. It means the avoidance of unwholesome actions of body, speech, and mind; the control and subduing of unwholesome thoughts; the rejection of false views and deluded ideas. Just as a gardener who wants to develop a beautiful garden must first eliminate the weeds and rubbish, so we have to wipe out the weeds and rubbish from our minds.

In learning from the Buddha we are trying to understand ourselves, to understand our own minds. The Buddha holds up a mirror to our minds and hearts, showing us the defiled mental states that bring harm to us and to others. Thus, by studying the teachings of the Buddha, we gain a better understanding of our weaknesses, the defects we must strive to overcome.

(We also learn the methods to overcome them, for this is exactly the strength of the Buddha's teaching: it gives us, with remarkable precision, the medicines to eliminate all the illnesses of our minds. What is so astounding in the early Buddhist teachings is their incredibly detailed insight into the human mind.

Self-transcendence

These teachings give us a different kind of psychological analysis than we encounter in western psychology. The aim here is not so much to restore pathologically disturbed people to what is considered a normal level of mental health, but to treat "normal people" so that they can rise above all the limitations and bonds of the normal mind and realize their hidden potential, the utterly purified and awakened mind.

This requires an entirely different approach, an approach that is the outstanding contribution of the Buddha to the understanding of human nature).

The Buddha offers us not only an analysis of our defects, but a catalogue of our potential strengths. He also teaches the means to make these potential strengths real and effective. He gives us an extraordinarily pragmatic teaching that we can apply to our everyday lives for rising step by step to the ultimate realization.

To move in this direction is the meaning of development. "Development" means the cultivation of wholesome qualities, the qualities that promote inner peace and happiness and make our lives effective channels for bringing peace and happiness to others.

The Buddha offers a wide range of such wholesome practices, ranging from basic ethical observances to such practices as the five spiritual faculties the Noble Eightfold Path, and the six or ten paramitas. To learn about these, we should study the Dharma extensively and in depth.

Then we should learn how to apply them to our own lives in the most realistic and beneficial manner. The second major process that we learn from the Buddha is self-transcendence. Though the Buddha speaks about eliminating unwholesome states and developing wholesome ones, he does not aim merely at making us happy and contented people within the mundane limits of the world.

He points us towards a transcendent goal; he leads us to the unconditioned reality, Nirvana, the calm and quiescent state beyond birth, old age, suffering, and death. This goal can be achieved only by a full and clear comprehension of the ultimate nature of things, the final mode of existence of all phenomena.

While this reality has to be penetrated by direct experience, we need specific guidelines to understand it. The goal itself transcends concepts and words, but the Buddha and the great Buddhist masters have provided us with a wide variety of "photographs" that give us glimpses into the real nature of things.

None of these "pictures" can capture it completely, but they do convey some idea of the things we should be looking for, the principles that we need to understand, and the goal towards which we should be aspiring.

To engage in a study of the principles relevant to self-transcendence is a philosophical enterprise, but this is not philosophy as mere idle speculation. For Buddhism, philosophy is an attempt to fathom the real nature of things, to use concepts and ideas to get a glimpse of the truth that liberates us, a truth that transcends all concepts and ideas. (Buddhist philosophy is a great stream flowing from the Buddha, continually refashioned and extended to bring to light the different facets of reality, to expose different aspects of a truth that can never be adequately captured by any system.

When we study Buddhist philosophy, we must always remember that these philosophical investigations are not undertaken merely to satisfy intellectual curiosity but to aid in the task of self-transcendence. They do this by pinpointing the nature of the wisdom we need to obliterate ignorance, the primary root of all bondage and suffering).

Learning the Buddha's mind

I have been speaking about "learning from the Buddha" as if this always involves learning teachings explicitly recorded in texts. But that is only part of what learning from the Buddha involves. To learn from the Buddha means not only to study his words; it also means to learn from his conduct and his mind. Buddhist tradition has left us many records of the Buddha's deeds in his lifetime in this world and in his previous lives, and these form a major part of the narrative heritage of Buddhism.

The life, conduct, and mind of the Buddha provide us with a model to emulate, the ideal standard that we, as followers of the Buddha, should try to embody in our own lives. The Buddha is the model of a human being who had been an ordinary person like us, but who had reached the pinnacle of human perfection.

To learn from the Buddha we should not only seek to find out what the Buddha taught. We should also try to mould our own lives in accordance with his qualities: his immaculate purity, his unhindered spiritual freedom, his great wisdom and compassion, his unshakeable peace and balance of mind.

To learn from the Buddha ultimately means that we learn to be 'Buddha', to become awakened human beings, pure, wise and compassionate, peaceful and magnanimous.

To advance at least a few steps in that direction should be our purpose in joining this Dharma Retreat.

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Sacred symbol of gratitude

S.N. Goenka

On the occasion of the enshrinement of the Sacred Buddha Relics, in the Global Pagoda in Mumbai on 29th October.

The magnificent Global Pagoda being built near Mumbai is a sacred symbol of our boundless gratitude towards the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha; towards Emperor Asoka and his teacher Arhant Moggalliputta Tissa Thera, who held the third and final Synod in India on 326 AD, 218 years after the Mahaparinibbana of the Buddha.

Like the previous two Synods, the Words of the Buddha were ratified and established again in the authentic form. Along with Vipassana meditation, they sent this authentic literature with Emperor Asoka's son Arhant Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitta Theri to Sri Lanka. Similarly, they sent the Arhants Sona Thera and Uttara Thera to Suvannabhumi (Myanmar and Thailand).

What if they had not sent Vipassana and the Words of the Buddha outside India? Within fifty years after Emperor Asoka, an unscrupulous commander usurped the throne at the capital of Magadha, Pataliputra, and together with some conspirators started to destroy the teaching of the Buddha and its teachers. They killed most of the teachers who had memorised the entire Tripitaka and almost all Vipassana teachers. Those who survived fled to the neighbouring countries to save their lives. Thus, the original Words of the Buddha and Vipassana both became extinct in India.

If Emperor Asoka had not sent the Words of the Buddha and Vipassana to the neighbouring countries, they would not have survived anywhere in the whole world. Fortunately, some wise Bhikkhus of Sri Lanka and Myanmar as well as of Thailand, Cambodia and Loas preserved the Dhamma literature in its pristine purity through the teacher-student tradition for more than two thousand years.

Similarly, meditation teachers preserved the technique of Vipassana in Myanmar until recent times. If they had not done so, the theory and the practice would have been completely lost.

We are grateful to the eminent Bhikkhu Ledi Sayadaw Thera, who foresaw that within the next 100 years, the first Buddha Sasana of 2500 years would come to an end, and at that time, the Saddhamma preserved in Myanmar would return to its country of origin, India, and from there, it would spread throughout the world.

He also realised that this important mission could only be fulfilled by a householder. Therefore, after centuries, the Venerable Ledi Sayadaw opened the door of Vipassana to householders. He taught Saya Thetgyi and established him as the first lay Vipassana teacher in modern times. Saya Thetgyi fulfilled this responsibility with great dignity, skilfullness and competence. He was accepted by many lay people as well as Bhikkhus as a lay Vipassana teacher.

Saya Thetgyi taught Vipassana to Sayagyi U Ba Khin Thera, who was also recognised and accepted as an accomplished lay Vipassana teacher. Sayagyi U Ba Khin had complete faith in the traditional belief that on completion of 2500 years of the first Buddha Sasana, this technique would return to India and from there, it would spread throughout the world. He believed that Myanmar was indebted to India and had to repay this debt. The time had come to return this invaluable technique to the land of its origin.

Nineteen fifty-four was the last year of the first 2500-year Buddha Sasana and 1955 was the first year of the second 2500-year Buddha Sasana. Sayagyi U Ba Khin became very happy when an unpolished stone came in contact with him in this year.

For fourteen years, by diligent cutting and rubbing, this skilled sculptor transformed this ugly stone into a beautiful statue and adorned it so that it may prove to be a worthy exhibit of this great master's skill. Sayagyi U Ba Khin was like a philosopher's stone that had come in contact with a valueless piece of metal, which, by its constant touch was not only transformed into valuable gold but into a valuable philosopher's stone in the form of his representative.

Sayagyi U Ba Khin needed a Myanmar citizen of Indian origin to repay the debt to India who would go to India and teach Dhamma in Indian languages. The time came for the fruition of his resolve. His Dhamma son devoted himself to fulfil his Dhamma father's noble wish. Initially, eh had great doubts and hesitation about his worthiness and capacity. But he did not have to do anything.

All the work was being done by Dhamma, by his Dhamma father. The Dhamma son was simply a medium for this great work. The firm resolve of this great saintly person was bound to be accomplished. Anyone could be the apparent cause for its accomplishment.

At the start of the second Buddha Sasana, the radiance of Vipassana spread not only in India but throughout the world.

What would have happened if Emperor Asoka had not sent Saddhamma outside India, and if the Bhikkhu Sangha of Myanmar had not preserved it, if the eminent Bhikkhu Ledi Sayadaw had not opened the door of this Vipassana technique to lay people? How would it have spread outside of Myanmar? But Vipassana was bound to spread outside.

The medium that was needed to accomplish this purpose was chosen. Infinite gratitude to Ledi Sayadaw as well as to Sayagyi U Ba Khin because their boundless compassion enabled India to regain its invaluable technique and paved the way for the people of the whole world to learn Vipassana.

Therefore, all the people who have spread the technique of Vipassana outside India in the past nearly four decades are filled with feelings of infinite gratitude for Sayagyi U Ba Khin.

The Global Pagoda that is being built is a sacred symbol of the gratitude of all of us.

It will also be a sacred symbol of gratitude of all those who have received Vipassana and will receive it in the future during the present Buddha Sasana. This huge Pagoda will endure as a sacred symbol for more than a thousand years.

That is why instead of cement or concrete, the Global Pagoda is being built with stones based on the ancient architectural style of India. The first part of the pagoda encloses a hall with 20-feet thick walls, with 280-feet diametre and 90 feet height unsupported by any pillars. This is itself a wonder in the entire world. It is a shining example of Indian architecture. When the construction of this 320-feet high glorious Pagoda is completed, it will be evoke much more wonder and admiration.

However, the Global pagoda is not merely an architectural wonder. It will contain a wonderful exhibition about Vipassana, the ancient meditation technique of India.

Understanding their responsibility, all present and future Vipassana meditators will complete this vast inspirational work for the benefit of the people of the world. For centuries to come, they will gain the merits of the spread of Vipassana in the entire world.

This will shed light on the infinite benevolence of Emperor Asoka and Bhadant Moggaliputta Tissa Thera to Arhant Ledi Sayadawa, lay teacher Saya Thetgyi and my revered teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin not only in India but the entire world.

The construction of the first one-third of the Global pagoda was far from easy. Beyond measure are the merits of those enthusiastic servers who worked untiringly day and night to complete it. Similarly, inspired by the memory of the infinite benevolence of Sayagyi U Ba Khin, the merits of those people throughout the world who donated the huge amount of money required for its construction, according to their capacity ranging from the price of one stone to hundreds, thousands, lakhs or crores of rupees is immeasurable, incalculable, invaluable.

There is an ancient belief that whenever the construction of a Pagoda is started, it should be completed, particularly a Pagoda in which the Sacred Relics of the Buddha will be enshrined. This pagoda will proclaim our boundless gratitude towards our great benefactor Sayagyi U Ba Khin.

For hundreds and thousand of years to come, the people of India and the entire world will remember the great saint from Myanmar whose sole strong Dhamma desire was that the technique of Vipassana, which had been preserved in Myanmar for thousands of years, should return to India and benefit India and the entire world.

This Pagoda dedicated to him will inspire innumerable people towards Dhamma. The merits acquired by any assistance given for its construction will be truly priceless, invaluable. Bhavatu Sabba Mangalam - May all beings be happy!

The inauguration of the dome of the Global Pagoda and the enshrinement of the Sacred Relics of the Buddha will be held on October 29, 2006.