Saturday, April 27, 2013
Saturday, April 20, 2013
SPEECH FROM THE MOON
Good morning!
Mr. President, Vice President of Republic of Union of Myanmar,
Your Excellencies and Ministers,
Excellencies, Ambassadors of many countries,
Ladies and gentle men!
I am very
happy, very glad in this great occasion of inauguration of our (opening)
ceremony, Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in Yangon (2011). I
founded Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in Sagaing Hills, which is the
main campus, since fifteen years ago. We are contributing the Teachings of Lord
Buddha to international students as well as national students. Mostly our
academic students are Theravada Buddhist monks from Theravada Buddhist
countries, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia and Sri Lanka. Most of students are Myanmar
(Burmese).
I opened a new campus of Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in
Mandalay Hills (2009), at the foot of Mandalay hills, which is affiliated from
the main campus, Sagaing. Now we open a new campus of Sitagu International Buddhist
Academy in Yangon (2011), which is the second affiliated campus.
In other countries, I saw many academies, for example, navy
academy, air-force academy, military academy, defense academy, etc. In the
world today, in the Buddhist world also, we must establish Buddhist academy. In
this Buddhist academy we are teaching Theravada Buddhist Scriptures (Theravada
Buddhist teachings).
In our academy we founded the department of Vinaya, codes of
Discipline, department of Suttanta, discourses, department of Abhidhamma,
Buddhist Philosophy, and department of Missionary and Religion,
comparative study of religions, most important department is the department of Meditation.
Meditation is very wonderful technique. In this morning I would like to
interpret what does meditation mean. Meditation means a technique how to train
our mind to be cultured, how to train our mind to be polite and how to search
for the realistic nature and true nature within ourselves.
According to Buddhist Philosophical stand point as long as we do
not realize the true nature and realistic nature within ourselves, we can't
solve the problems of our life. So, to solve the problems of our life, we
must learn meditation, we must train meditation. It is not for religious
purpose and religion for worship. Meditation is for mental training or
spiritual training. Therefore, in our Buddhist Academy, the department of
meditation is most important department. We are running the above six
departments.
For the diploma students, they have to study for three years. For
the B.A, under graduate students, they have to study another four years. For
the Master Degree, post graduate students, they have to study and write their
dissertation for two years. And then they can upgrade their academic
study with their Ph.D. This is very brief information of Sitagu International
Buddhist Academy.
Now all of my dear brothers and sisters, ladies and gentle men,
your Excellencies, our Lord Buddha, after his enlightenment he lived as a
Buddha for forty-five years. At the age of eighty (580 BC), he passed away.
Within forty-five years, what the Buddha taught? He taught only Dhamma. Dhamma
is a very wonderful teaching taught by the Buddha himself. It is not a kind of
religious system but it is a system to learn, to practice, to train, to realize
for those who are keen to turn a new leaf of life. This is very brief meaning
of the Dhamma. Our Sitagu International Buddhist academy is teaching,
learning, training, practicing to realize what I am, where I am, what I have to
do. These three main points are very important to understand. This is
called right understanding to convert from evil to noble. Therefore, Dhamma is
the mighty technique to solve the problems of mankind.
Many religious leaders, many political leaders, many social leaders,
organize and form, reform many organizations in order to solve the problems of
their respective nation. For example, United Nation is a unique example in the
world. But unity and diversity, diversity and unity, love and hate, hate and
love, association and separation, etc., are unavoidable dualism in the world.
Nobody can find out ultimate solution of a nation in the world today. Science
and technology also never can find out the solution of the spirituality and
they can search, research the solution of material only. But these science and
technology can never reach to the end of the solution of the problems of in the
world, repeatedly researching latest solutions, but there is no latest solution
in the world today.
You’re Excellencies, ladies and gentle men! The world of living
being is composed of both, mind and matter. One of the Buddha's message, I
would like to contribute this morning "Mano Pubbangama dhamma"
very beautiful words of the Buddha. Mind is forerunner, mind makes everything,
mind mould human life, and mind is the master of a man. Human beings are
architecture of their own life. So, in order to create a beautiful life, we
should train our mind to be beautiful. This is called 'meditation'. Now-a-day
the whole world is full of the kills, full of the evils, full of battle, full
of crime, full of the sorrows, full of the suffering. These unpleasant
situations and miserable events are generated by the evil mind, wicked mind. In
many Buddha's messages, it is mentioned that the starting point of this
miserable event is selfish, thought of ego centric world.
The beginning of a competition or a conflict is the thought of
jealousy and unhappy of the other's progress and other's success. Therefore,
the Buddha emphatically stated that you should exert to convert your mind from
selfishness to selflessness, from jealousy to joy, from evil to noble.
The message of the Buddha is absolutely tolerance. And in-tolerance
is the greatest enemy of all human beings. The Buddha advised his disciples not
to become angry, not to be discontent, even not to be displeased when the other
spoke of ill. In the Buddha's teachings, if you show displeasure you will not
bring yourself into happiness, you will bring yourself only into the danger of
spiritual law. Do not be angry but develop your loving-kindness. This is a very
wonderful Buddha's message. The tolerance is the foundations of a unity and peace;
another one of his profound message is to exercise the loving-kindness to every
living-being making no distinction, whosoever. He clearly stated that
loving-kindness and tolerance are the foundations for brotherhood spirit of all
nations and all religions. This universal brotherhood spirit of
loving-kindness, bondless compassion and great tolerance will break down all
barriers separating one nation from another. If we all followers have different
faith, because of different faith, different believe, different idea, if we
could not meet on a common platform like brothers and sisters, this is simply
because we belong to different religion, then surely the noble religious
leaders would have failed. Noble religious leaders also would have failed to
work our noble missionary and ministry services to humanity.
You’re
Excellencies! Therefore, we all national leaders and religious leaders try to
remove such evil spirits of internal enemies of everyone from respective
religious stand point. To solve the common problems of all nations, therefore,
we should build the common platform to work together. These are our common
platform which is the thought of selflessness, the thought of compassion, the
thought of tolerance, the thought of right understanding what we are, where we
are, what we have to do.
You’re
Excellencies, ladies and gentle men! What we are now doing is establishing of
the academy, Buddhist Academy, we invite all of the Buddhist students from
various countries, and different faiths to come gather and together to learn,
to practice, and to train our wicked mind to be noble and to turn a new leaf of
our life from evil to noble.
I would like
to cordially invite all of my dear brothers and sisters, to come our academy to
learn. Especially today I would like to announce for the lay people, not only
for Buddhist monk-students and nun-students, we going to offer a course 'The
Fundamental Buddhism' to lay people. We are now preparing a curriculum how
to teach lay people, how to train lay people to give the best service to the
man-kind. Anyone can come and study here in the morning. We are going to open
morning classes for lay people. This is our brief information and short
information and the purpose why I open Buddhist Academy in Yangon.
All of my
dear brothers and sisters, ladies and gentle men, especially, Excellencies, our
Vice President of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar, and other Ministers, I
am very happy and glad to come and join in this great grand opening ceremony of
our Buddhist academy.
May all of you be
peaceful! May all of you be happy!
May all of you be
successful in any attempts for all of the nations!
Dr. Ashin Nyanissara
(Ph.D., D.Litt.)
Aggamahapandita,
Aggamahasaddhammajotikadhaja,
The Chancellor of
Sitagu International Buddhist Academy
The Chairman of
International Theravada Buddhist Universities
May the Sublime Dhamma prevail in its pristine purity in every
corner of the world.
ရန္ကုန္ေက်ာင္းဖြင့္ပြဲ speech ကို ကူးယူ ေဖာ္ျပပါသည္။
သီတဂူစမ္းလပမာ ခ်မ္းျမသာယာရွိၾကပါေစ။
ကိုရင္အာယု (မန္းသီတဂူ)
Friday, April 19, 2013
ABHIDHAMMA AND VIPASSANA
Venerable Sitagu Sayadaw U Nyanissara
'Abbhidhamma' means dhamma
which is exceedingly subtle, deep, difficult to comprehend, and vast in
scope. 'Dhamma' means reality and truth. It means the law of
cause and effect, the essence of things and the way things are by nature. It
means knowable reality; a reality in which there are no beings, and which is
fixed in the order of its manifestations. In short, 'Dhamma' means Reality
and Truth in the absolute sense.
That exceedingly subtle, deep, difficult, excellent and wide Abhidhamma,
which is real and correct because it speaks of the selflessness of beings and
the natural essential condition of things, it was taught by the Buddha in the
realm of the gods. Because no distracting objects or hindrances interrupted
the mental continua of the gods, they could immediately listen to this very
difficult dhamma with undivided attention and fully comprehend it. In the
human realm, the nuisances of having to eat, sleep and defecate, etc.,
interrupt and obstruct the performance of every task. And because whenever we
focus our thoughts upon any given endeavor, physical weariness, the call of
nature, and hunger and thirst always intervene, our concentration becomes
broken even while we work. For this reason, there would have been no benefit
in teaching piecemeal a doctrine as deep as the Abhidhamma in the
realm of human beings.
The time-scale in the realm of the gods is vastly different from our own. One
hundred human years equals only one day in Tavatimsa heaven, Because of this,
the times for eating and sleeping, for example, are separated by extremely
long intervals. Moreover, the gods neither defecate nor urinate, and they
feel no bodily aches or weariness. Therefore, they were able to listen to the
entire exposition of the Abhidhamma in a single sitting, and - for what was
to them only fifteen minutes - to attend to the discourse with a stream of
thought that was undivided and continuous. In contrast, it took the Venerable
Sariputta, who was the most intelligent of the Buddha's disciples, ninety
days and ninety separate trips to Tavatimsa to learn and then preach in the
human realm that Abhidhamma which was taught to the gods in one
uninterrupted sitting.
The Abhidhamma which the Venerable Sariputta heard in brief from the
Buddha he preached to his five hundred disciples in a way that was neither
brief nor extended. The monks who learned the Abhidhamma from the
Venerable Sariputta were newly ordained, having entered the Order on the day
the Buddha ascended to Tavatimsa heaven. These five hundred sons-of
good-family took ordination at that time - the full moon day of 'Waso' -
because they were inspired to faith by a display of miracles performed at the
foot of a white mango tree. On the following day, they listened to the Abhidhamma;
and it was this Abhidhamma which became for those monks their Vipassana.
And why was this? Those five hundred monks, all of whom became arahants
during the rains-retreat of that year (the seventh rains-retreat of the
Buddha), also became by the end of the retreat, masters of the seven books of
the Abhidhamma (abhidhammika sattapakaranika). The Buddha first
assembled the entire Dhamma and taught it all together (as the Dhammasangani).
He then analyzed it into separate parts and taught (the Vibhanga). He
further analyzed it in detail according to elements (producing thereby, the Dhatukatha).
Again he assembled it together and again analyzed it into minute parts, this
time in relation to individuals, (and so taught the Puggalapannati).
After that, the Buddha examined and compared the different doctrines existing
in the world and taught (the Kathavatthu). Thereupon, he examined and
taught the Dhamma in pairs (Yamaka); and finally, taught the
doctrine of causal relations in detail (Pathana).
The seven methods of examining Dhamma presented in the seven books of
the Abhidhamma; that is to say, 1) the analysis of mind (citta),
mental factors (cetasika) and matter (rupa) when taken
together, 2) the analysis of the same when distinguished into parts, 3) the
analysis of elements, 4) the analysis of individuals, 5) the comparison of
doctrines, 6) the analysis of Dhamma into pairs, and 7) the
examination of causal relations, are in truth none other than seven
exceedingly deep methods of Vipassana practice. For this reason it can be
said that the day the five hundred monks mastered the Abhidhamma -
this being the teaching of Abhidhamma-Vipassana they had listened to
since their ordination - was the very day they mastered the practice of Vipassana.
Vipassana is a method of wisdom that searches for truth and peace in
diverse ways by observing, inquiring into, and penetrating the nature, the
essence, the set order, the absence of being, the selflessness and the
ultimately reality of mind and matter. For example, one method of Vipassana
accomplishes this goal through ten kinds of knowledge whereby one comes to
understand the nature of matter as producing effects in mutual dependence on
matter; and similarly, the nature of mind as producing effects in mutual
dependence on mind. Another method which achieves the same end; that is, the
seeking out and penetration of reality, relies on an ascent through the seven
purifications. In both instances, Vipassana and Abhidhamma are
identical.
Since Vipassana meditation takes the Abhidhamma as its sole
object of contemplation, Vipassana and Abhidhamma cannot be
separated. And while it may not be said that one can practice Vipassana
only after one has mastered the Abhidhamma, Vipassana meditation and
the study of Abhidhamma remain one and the same thing. Because mind,
mental factors and matter are forever bound up with this fathom-long body,
the study and learning of this subject, and the concentrated observation of
the nature of mind, mental factors and matter are tasks which cannot be
distinguished.
Since at the very least one would have to say that there can be no Vipassana
without an understanding of mind and matter, surely then it is not possible
to separate Abhidhamma and Vipassana. It is explained in the Abhidhamma
that the root causes giving rise to the seven elements of mind and matter
are ignorance (avijja), craving (tanha) and volitional action (kamma).
It is further pointed out that the supporting conditions for these same seven
elements are kamma, mind, climate (utu) and nutriment (ahara).
Only by grasping these abhidhammic truths will one possess the
knowledge which comprehends conditional relations (paccayapariggahanana),
and achieve the purification of mind necessary for overcoming doubt. These
excellent benefits are pointed out by paticcasamuppada and pathana.
Therefore, since it is the case that Vipassana and Abhidhamma
are not separate but are mutually dependent, it is rightly submitted that Vipassana
yogis ought not to let go of that wise method of learning about the human
condition called the Abhidhamma.
(
Note: - This is the talk , Sitagu Sayadaw gave on a special occasion of Abhidhamma,
translated into English by the Department of Research and Compilation,
International Buddhist Academy, Sagaing Hill, Myanmar )
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