News
Update
A Celebration of the 2550th Year of the Buddha Jayanti by
All Theravada Buddhist Universities from around the World
9 – 11 March 2007/2550.
As the name indicates, 17 out of 22
Theravada higher learning institutes (college/universities)
in the world have so far been
invited and have confirmed their attendance. Mostly the delegations will
be led by their highest or second highest
academic-administrators, and most of them are monks. They are coming from
ten countries.
Apart from working out a process of
collaboration, we aim to popularise meditation at some of
those universities where meditation is not officially
taught. There will also be academic papers aimed at
exchanging experiences in teaching Pali and Abhidhamma.
In terms of ceremony, they will
celebrate the 2550th Year of the Mahaparinibbana (the
Passing away) of the Lord Buddha and this kind of
celebration is called in Pali Buddha Jayanti. In practice,
they will discuss how to work together in maintaining,
developing and also propagation of Buddhism as handed down
in the Theravada tradition.
Now an update. I have
been informed today that the Ven. Wei Wu, founder and
Council Chairman of International Buddhist College (IBC) in
Hat Yai and the Than Hsian Buddhist Research Institute,
Penang cannot attend ITBMU conference himself; he instead is
sending two senior academics, one with a
PhD from New Zealand, and the other from
Canada, to Yangon. This is a very kind
gesture of his; and it also shows how much he places
importance to this conference, given that he has only eight
lecturers. Well, I went to meet him personally in Penang on
3rd of Dec. last year. It seems a personal bond has been
crucial here.
Ven. Weiwu is such an
able monk; as a layperson he studied computer software in
New Zealand before becoming a software consultant/analyst;
he gave all that up to ordain and now he has a model
temple in Penang where you can see a Home for the
Aged; a kinder garden; a counselling centre for Buddhist
workers in factories nearby; a meditation retreat centre; a
conference hall; free vegetable meals everyday for all
factory workers or in fact for anyone; and a Buddhist
university with 120-acre campus situated just over the
border in Hat Yai in Thailand. (The reason the campus is on
the Thai soil is because the Malaysian government would not
give his visiting (Buddhist) lecturers visas.)
One thing very special of him is that in
his academic approach, he is non-sectarian. A Mahayanist
monk, he has arranged classes of Buddhist and Pali
University of Sri Lanka since 1994. Last year, he had a very
high profile international Buddhist conference with many
Buddhists scholars from all over the world attending; some
big names from Harvard and other US university and Asia went
there. Strange though, he did not invite any from UK. Maybe
he did not have contact.
In terms of the participants,
with two senior academics from IBC who are both Malaysian
Chinese, and with one Singaporean Chinese lady who has a PhD
and a Pali lecturer in Singapore, and also with principals
of two Indonesia Buddhist colleges, we are having a
good mix. This is a new landscape of Theravada
higher learning world. The traditional scene when
initiatives are all taken from Burma, Thailand and Sri Lanka
might just begin to give way to this newly emerged grouping.
One of those who will add to this new
order of Theravada learning world, Rector of
Vietnamese Theravada College for Buddhist Studies
in Hue City has just confirmed of his attendance today;
he and the Laotian heads of two Sangha colleges do not
speak English! The Vietnamese is bringing a translator who
is also a professor at his college at his own expenses. So,
this is just a buy-one-get-one-free
for me! He asked if I would allow his professor/translatorr
to come, also. How can anyone with slightest common sense
say no!
The two Laotian rectors will have a
Laotian graduate student from MCU translate for them. So,
these three rector-monks just have to sit and smile, and
from time to time exchange visiting cards at the conference!
You can be very jealous of them, indeed. Myself, having
lived in the English speaking world nearly twenty years
(Colombo, London and Oxford), I never thought of language
problem in such details! I near got caught for negligence.
Luckily, things work out by themselves!
Again, this morning, Prof. Bhikkhu
Satyapala from Delhi University, an Indian
origin, cancelled his trip to Bangladesh to go to Yangon and
he rightly said that this conference is the first of its
kind and very important. He has been the supervisor of some
of the professors at ITBMU in Yangon and Mahachula in
Bangkok.
Well, as things start falling into
places, I want all the
sponsors to feel good and joyous about their
involvement in this project. I have personally initiated the
idea for this academic gathering; have been single-handedly
organising it; and have received a lot of moral support from
fellow-educationists.
However, I have no government to back me
financially for this project; and it is not possible to find
grant from any other sources at such a short notice, because
the authorities waited four months before they decided if I
would be allowed to organise this at the university where I
have been a professor for one and half year. Anyway, now I
am so grateful to the authorities that they have granted
permission for me to go ahead with this project. In fact,
they will support the conference by providing
accommodations, meals and transport inside the country for
all foreign participants. It is a very nice gesture, really.
Nevertheless, without air tickets, many
of the foreign participants would and could not come; but we
must get them if this project were to succeed; they are
important because they run Theravada colleges and university
in the world. So, it is here
where you, the generous sponsors, make a difference.
You are literally bringing them to the
conference. Nearly all of you the donors happen to be
patrons and devotees of the OBV from all over the world. To
name a few: from Bangkok we
received financial support from the Rama 9 Abbot; Police
Col. Nowarat Charoen-Rajapark & family; Madam Dr. Sotsai;
Dr. S. Kunjara na Ayutthaya and friends; Laungpi Both's
relatives. From Yangon,
Sitagu Sayadawgyi Ven. Dr. Ashin Nyanissara; the Destination
Mandalay Tour & Travel; and Flying Tiger Cigar Company.
From Singapore, Mary Ng &
friends; and Emma TT Myint, Lee Boon Chuan, Soe Min + Kaythi
and friends. From Brunei, of course, no
other than, our long time devotee, Paediatric Consultant Dr.
TT Nwe (Doris) and her friend-doctors who sponsor three
tickets altogether. From England
itself, many of the young computer scientists, most
of who have known me since their student day have chipped
in; Dr. K. M. Thaung and family have also been very
supportive; with one email, they acted and have done so very
quickly and happily.
To be honest with you, that all the
sponsors of the tickets are OBV supporters is
NOT a co-incident.
Except those who know me, I have no other sources to turn
to; so, being connected with the Oxford Buddha Vihara, you
are the ones I look to on such crucial moments. You have not
disappointed me. Originally, I aimed only for 16 tickets;
then, 18. All of them have been sponsored by yesterday.
But I still feel Indonesia should be
represented more: out of six Theravada
Buddhist colleges, we have invited only one.
So, I wish to have at least one more. And, that is achieved
with one more sponsor from Yangon today.
Too ambitious! Maybe. But I still think
we will do more justice if we can invite more Indonesians.
They live in a non-Buddhist country that was once full of
Buddhist kingdoms and heritage. I visited them in last Nov.
As soon as I heard of the Buddhist colleges mushrooming
there in Indonesia, it was impossible for me to resist going
there. Many of you have already read random parts of my
travel diary that includes a trip to Borobudour. That diary
indicates some of my enthusiasm for the Dhamma in Indonesia.
The reasons that I think we should get
more of them to Yangon are twofold: first, many
of them are applying for accreditation from the government.;
for this, they need at least two MA degree holders in
Buddhism; but they have not got one at the moment, in the
whole country, literally. They need contact with the world
of Buddhist higher education. So, this networking conference
is rather vital to them.
Second, the owner of
Manohara Restuarant, itself situated at the
foot of the great Buddhist monument, Borobudour, is a
Buddhist who runs a chains of hotel business, among other
things. She names her four kids: Metta, Karuna, Mudita and
Upekkha. She names all the halls in the restaurant with the
names of the Pali scriptures such as Jataka, Avadana. Now,
she wants to build a meditation centre at the opposite site
of the restaurant. Remember, Manohara
means food for the mind. But so
far, the restaurant gives only food for the body; she now
wants to add real food for the mind by constructing a
meditation centre there.
Many of you, not least Mary Ng and Mary
Goh from Singapore who went there with me, will think that
this is too ambitious. Mustn't everybody go through a bomb
scan to reach the restaurant and Borobudour due to the 1983
bomb plant by the Islamist fundamentalists? Well, this
Indonesia lady is not deterred by any of that.
Next to the proposed meditation centre,
she is planning to build a Buddhist university. What a noble
but extremely ambitious project! The university will focus
on four main subjects:
Buddhism, medicine, agriculture and business management, all
for the sake of the native Indonesians, not just Buddhists.
But she wants this to be an international institution. She
has already been in touch with both leading Theravada and
Mahayanist monks for this. And, all of them think this
project is feasible.
Whether or nor we will have an
international Buddhist university at Borobudour, the
trend is that the demand for Buddhist education in Indonesia
has never been higher. So, to contribute to this, I
wish we could invite more from other Indonesian Buddhist
colleges. If there are more air ticket-sponsors, surely this
is what I wish to do in the next few days.
So much for the academic conference. Many
of you have been asking me the same question since I started
my seven-nations trip two and half months ago and then since
I came back two weeks ago: are you still physically OK with
all these workloads?
Yesterday, I was not that well
physically. A late bath was mainly to blame, but that was
only a trigger. I have needed more rest. So, yesterday I
cancelled a planning meeting and today the actual
meeting between SANE and OCBS. SANE is a high profile
charity on mental illness in the UK; OCBS is The Oxford
Centre for Buddhist studies at the university where I am a
trustee.
After some rest, I feel both physically
and mentally OK now. The good rest has helped produce this
long report which I am keen to get it to you.
May the blessings of the Triple Gems be
upon you and with you!
Yours always with metta and in the Dhamma,
Venerable Dhammasami (Ajahn Khammai)
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