Monday 21 January 2008

preparing for the new year

A couple of days ago I got an email from Roselin the SRE coordinator for the NSW Buddhist council. The Council's president has organized a taxation office recognized charity, so they can take tax-deductible donations. The council plans to use part of this money to pay for teacher's expenses. Luckily I do not need mine  to be paid, but I am sure it will help a number of people out there who do a lot of teaching or have a lot of traveling expenses.

After the email my mind somehow spinned off (as they do) thinking about what I would do if I earned the Lotto (not that I ever play). I added 'create scholarship for non-English speaking monk or nun' to the list. There are so many wise and compassionate Sangha members that could help teaching to a wider audience, if 1) they were here in Australia 2) had good English communication skills. It is now written in stone (well on a digital one)...

Roselin also mentioned that she will be organizing a meeting with all the teachers at the end of March. I look forward to it. Regrettably I was overseas for the one at the end of last year.

Wednesday 16 January 2008

Learning from hatred

I have felt the impact of being hated for the first time in my life, and I am trying to learn from this. Although this started over a year ago, this week I realized how far this person's delusion has gone, and it may me think about the issue again. I still have to learn to live with these situations better.

So far, I could say that I have been very lucky. I was born white, straight, ... so I did not have to suffer any hatred from people who did not even know me. While meditating, one of the visualizations we use is to send loving kindness to people who with had disagreements with. I always interpreted that as wishing well to those who have wronged us. But what I am writing about is different, it is about someone who decided to hate us, so I am thinking how to extend (for personal use) this exercise.
 
It seems that at some point this should happen, and according to the 'Sunday Dhamma school' book, these things make us stronger.

By keeping a compassionate life we are less likely to get into trouble. I think people notice that we only wish them well and this way we are able to keep good relationships. At least in my personal life this has worked well. We will always have the ocasional person who might not like what we do, but so far I never had someone who I would say 'hated' me.

When our jobs give us positions that affect other people's lives, this affects their views about us, and this views can be very strong. They may perceive that we have ulterior motives, hidden agendas... they attribute things that happen to their fantasy characters, and everything we do only feeds their delusions.
I believe that in these jobs we have a responsability to do our best . I have always made my best effort, and in general I think I have done well. Of course we make mistakes, and when this happens we might be making people unhappy. The responsability is to then learn from the experience, so we can do better next time, and ask for forgiveness when necessary.

It also happens that some people have stronger seeds of delusion and hatred. They have not been touched by the Dhamma, and they do not even see those seeds.
When that hatred is directed to us (at least in my case), it produces confusion, doubts in ourselves. I first tried to understand what had triggered it. I asked this person what I had done, but only small meaningless things came up. I even apologized for any suffering I might have caused. Nothing helped.  I have wished him well (from within and explicitly). Recently when through his web page I learned that he was moving on, I was happy. Then, through his web page I also learned that his hatred was still there. It had actually become so irrational that some people told me to be careful, because the person could be dangerous (I don't think so).

This is an opportunity to learn. Family and friends have told me that I should just let it go. Ricard's book says that when this happens we should meditate and send them metta -loving kindness-, and I am trying this. It really helps, but the pain still languishes inside. I am not wise enough yet.



Thursday 10 January 2008

Matthieu Ricard talks about happiness

I recently started reading Matthiew Ricard's new book: "Happiness: A guide to developing life's most important skill".

The book is fantastic, as this scientist, who became a Buddist monk.
Riccard has been working with scientists in uncovering the meaning of happiness from the neurophysiological point of view.

This short video is an interesting lecture that summarizes the book's first chapters.

Tuesday 1 January 2008

Great experience - although not many parents

Regrettably not many families were able to come to the temple. I think part of the reason was me getting wrong the dates the temple could receive visitors. My first letter was incorrect, and only when I was in Europe I learned that I had to change it. Although I faxed the School they were not able to tell all parents about the new date... I sent a new letter again when I came back, on the last week, but by then the mistake had been made...
I apologize for the inconvenience this caused.
I also had to apologize to the monks and nuns, since I prepared a nice curry but forgot to *not* use onions or garlic. My mom and the guest liked it though.

Venerable Rong gave a very nice lecture in the main hall. She combined the type of factual information that is interesting for adults with that interesting for kids. We did not get to sit, but this is probably to short a visit for that.

Photo Exhibition about buddhist temples in NSW

Through the Buddhist Council of NSW website I found Michael Wu's very nice photo exhibition.