Venerable Wei Wu's Thursdays' Talks

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Brother Lye Hin

Week 1 (1/6/2006) ( related in third person )

Shifu expressed the fact that it had been a long time since he talked to the staff. Shifu apologised and explained that for the past few months, IBC had required Shifu's full attention. Even when Shifu was not in IBC he had been occupied with the affairs of IBC and communicating with the people in IBC through emails.

Shifu mentioned he was happy to be able to participate in the joined birthday celebration of the staff. Shifu reminded everyone that their birthdays were when their mothers went through great suffering to deliver them into this world so they must have gratitude for their mothers.

Shifu then introduced Venerable Dr Dhammanandi, a Korean bhikshuni who had studied in India and graduated with a doctorate in Sanskrit. Venerable Dhammanandi had been to Than Hsiang several times but did not have the opportunity to talk to the staff. Venerable Dhammanandi expressed her thanks to Shifu for giving her the opportunity to say a few words to the staff. She said that her role in IBC was that of a language teacher. To her, language is a means of communication, a means of expressing feelings. Although Sanskrit and Pali are no more used as means of communication, it is still important to learn them as the original suttas of the Theravada tradition were written in Pali, and the sutras of the Mahayana tradition were written in Sanskrit. As a teacher of Sanskrit, she felt so happy and proud when her students could grasp the concept of the Sanskrit language. She said there is a saying in Sanskrit, “Murkhasya bhessajjam na asti” (“For the fool, medicine no”). She explained that, “The saying means Dharma is for those who can think for themselves the consequence of their actions. So not only do we learn Sanskrit but we also learn the Dharma.”

Shifu then introduced Venerable Thien from Vietnam. Venerable Thien said she was very happy to be in Than Hsiang. It was her first time here and she had no experience for sharing as a teacher as she was still a student. She shared her feelings of happiness inside her, saying, “What wrong had been done, was done. Don't do it again. Learn from the sutra and go ahead from there.” Through her meditation, she felt dharmic joy and happiness inside and could share this with others.

Shifu expressed appreciation to Venerable Dr. Dhammanandi as well as Venerable Thien for their sharing with the staff.

Shifu then proceeded to give his talk in Mandarin. He informed those who did not understand Mandarin, that he would repeat the two stories that he shared on the following Thursday.
Week 2 (8/6/2006) ( related in first person )

Shifu: For the benefit of those of you who do not understand Mandarin well, let me repeat the essence of the two stories that I shared last week:

In the first story:

In ancient China, there was a famous grand Buddhist master who had many capable Buddhist disciples. Some were abbots while others held important positions in different temples and monasteries in different parts of China. Once, one of these disciple monks got himself drunk in public and created quite a scandal. News like this spread very fast and it reached the grand master himself. Upon hearing the scandal, the grand master sent a letter to this disciple and ordered him back. Thus, everyone anticipated that the disciple would be punished. When the disciple returned, the bell at the main hall was struck, signalling for all the residents in the temple to assemble. The abbot announced to the assembly in the hall that he felt very ashamed and guilty because he had not properly guided his disciple and asked the monk in charge of discipline to hit him with the ‘xiang ban' (flat wooden strip).

This is a case in point where the grand master punished himself rather than the disciple who committed the misdeeds. This is really putting into practice the exchanging of oneself with others. This special teaching was given by the great master Dharmarakshita and also his disciple, the great master Atisha. If we know how to practice the exchanging of self with others, it can even lead to the development of Boddhicitta and ultimately the attainment of Buddhahood. At least if we don't aim that high, we should learn from the grand masters about forgiving others and being strict to oneself. For most people, they are very good in forgiving themselves easily and others hardly. When they do something wrong, they say, “Never mind” and they forgive themselves. But when others do something wrong, they don't forgive as easily. Indeed, they blame and criticise instead. As we are good in forgiving ourselves we should forgive others. Similarly or conversely, as we are very good in criticizing and blaming others, then we should now criticise and blame ourselves. This is the morale of the story.

Of course for the disciple, if he had been punished publicly, he might have behaved himself well for sometime, but when temptation was strong he might again resume taking alcohol. However, when the grand master bore the punishment instead of punishing him, it was an incident that he would never forget for the rest of his life. This is the highest form of education, so we should learn to forgive others but be strict with ourselves.

The other story is one that happened more recently in a big Taiwanese monastery. This monastery organizes regular visits to the main monastery for groups of people coming in tourist buses. They would stay there and wake up very early in the morning, at about 4.00am and start doing the ‘three steps, one bow' from the entrance to the main shrine hall. Once, a young lady participated in one such activity. She developed what could be described as a great dharma joy while taking part in the three steps making one bow ceremony. Indeed, she was extremely happy.

Then she noticed that an older lady, in front of the person immediately in front of her, became slower and slower after bowing for so many times. The lady, right behind the old lady, became impatient. When the old lady was out of sync with the rest, the lady behind her pushed her. The young lady became upset and agitated upon witnessing the act. She started asking herself, “How could a decent Buddhist do that? How could that woman be so cruel as to push the elderly lady who nearly fell down when pushed?”

From then onwards, the young lady was very disturbed and she had to endure a great internal struggle for the rest of the three steps one bow ceremony. Eventually they completed the ceremony and they had lunch. It so happened that the grand master of the monastery was present. The grand master came out to meet these members and gave a short teaching. The young lady was still very disturbed while taking her meal. Finally, she could not control herself any more, so she went up to the grand master and related what she saw. She asked, “How can a Buddhist do this?” The grand master just looked at her and said, “When we have a ruler to measure how well we perform as a Buddhist, remember that this ruler is meant for oneself. Never use it for others.” So that was that. Now this young lady was very bright and intelligent. She immediately understood the message and felt very ashamed of herself. This story has a better ending. Eventually the young lady decided to renounce and became a very good bhikshuni in that monastery.

So these are the two stories that Shifu related last Thursday. After Shifu witnessed the birthday ceremony here, Shifu suggested that something like that could be done in the International Buddhist College (IBC) and we did just that on Monday. We not only celebrated the birthdays of those born in the months of May and June, but also the anniversary of those whose renunciation fell on May and June, as there were so many Sangha members in IBC. We thus had a meaningful celebration there.

When I was there, the semester was coming to an end and the students were having their examinations. Time flies very fast. The staff and students came out for a lecture tour of Malaysia during the last semester holidays. They would again have a break starting from 16 th June. Many of them had studied hard for their examinations. Most had completed their examinations and had gone back. I told both the students and staff, that many people would ask them about their life in IBC when they go back to their own temples in their respective countries, or come out to attend the Sakyadhita Conference in KL, or stay in temples of their fellow Thai students. I told them that when they were asked this, they should share the good points about IBC with their friends.

There is a saying that you should only share the good points with outside people and not the weaknesses. These weaknesses are only to be shared with the people inside. I think it is very good if you can do that, but I don't completely agree with this. I told them that while it is good to start talking about the good points of IBC, in fact, one should start in a positive manner but at the same time it should not be done with the intention to mislead. Of course, there are many, many shortcomings in IBC at this stage, so it is OK to even share the shortcomings with outsiders.

It was alright for our staff and students to start talking about the good points of IBC and then to talk about some weaknesses. I even suggested to them that when they share the weaknesses of IBC, they should do so in a positive manner. They should say something to the effect that, “OK, these are the shortcomings of IBC, but I, as a member of IBC, and also other fellow students and staff members, are aware of these shortcomings and we take collective ownership of both the good points of IBC and its shortcomings . W e are determined to continue to work to improve the operation of IBC so that in the next year, IBC would be better than the second year of operation.” That was the message I shared with our students and staff members of IBC and I repeat this to all of you here.

Generally speaking, there are many things in Than Hsiang that people at large in our society appreciate. We should be happy that collectively we have created a positive image of Than Hsiang. Of course when you work in one of the units in Than Hsiang, you know many shortcomings of your own unit. Maybe you are quite an expert in seeing the shortcomings of other units in Than Hsiang, but when you talk to outside people, please talk about the good points of Than Hsiang first. Always be positive, but it is also OK for you to talk about our weaknesses if you take the ownership of this, because in the Buddhist teachings, this is our collective karma. If there are any shortcomings, it is not due to one person. The shortcomings plus of course the good points are not to be attributed to one person or a small group in Than Hsiang. We should take collective ownership of both the good points and weaknesses of Than Hsiang and we should develope that great sense of ownership of these problems. We should face these problems bravely and working as a group, let us collectively work on these weak areas and together improve Than Hsiang.

Remember, when you come here, don't just take this as a place where you find a job only. Take this as a place where you can practice the Buddha's teachings also. Take this as a place where you can practice accumulation of merit and wisdom, so that ultimately you can become a Buddha and nothing less. If you have that, then when you see something not so pleasant or not so positive in Than Hsiang, you will not have that internal struggle. You will not blame it on others, but you will take this as a problem, as a weakness we must collectively resolve and you must have the patience to collectively resolve these weaknesses one by one. It is not helpful for you to see the weaknesses and attribute it to others in the organisation.

Similarly, when something goes well, even if you have made a very big contribution towards that particular activity, always never get carried away and say that, “I am the one who contributed the most.” It cannot be because you are one among many, many members of this big family. When something goes well you should always, develop gratitude to all your colleagues, and all the members who contributed. Never praise yourself.

When something goes wrong, even though you know that a particular person, or a small group of persons, is responsible for that, you should be more forgiving. You should contemplate that something has not gone well because you have not involved yourself enough to help prevent this from happening.

This is the spirit of working in a big family like ours. I know that many of our family members unfortunately do not do that. Many of them are very unhappy with what they see and then they go and advertise this to outsiders. I think this is very, very unfair, because the outsiders can never understand the complexity of the problem as they are not involved. It does not help the outsider to have an imbalanced picture of Than Hsiang. It is very unfair to the person who is singled out. It is actually also very unfair for that person to do that upon himself or herself and it is not going to help him or her to do that.

So remember, always praise others and always practise humility . This is again changing of self with others. Of course, Shifu understands that there are situations you witness that are very, very hard for you to keep quiet about. Someone has done something obviously uncalled for or contradicts the teaching of the Buddha. When that happens, what do you do? When that happens, practice patience or forbearance. In Pali, it is Khanti, in Sanskrit Kshanti. There is a saying, “One who aspires to learn to be a Bodhisattva does what is most difficult to do, and endures what is most difficult to endure.”

Shifu would like to share something with you today. Actually I feel very bad that I did not spend enough time with all of you here in Than Hsiang. For the past five years, I spent most of my efforts on IBC, going there almost once every week. But even when I was not there, most of the time I have to put IBC on top priority. When I checked my email on Tuesday, after coming back from going to IBC on Monday, I found I had 64 new emails. So I read all of them, not in sequence though. Although I had just come back from IBC, I read and answered all the email related to IBC that same night.

There was, for example, one email sent by Zhen Xin Shi to report on the Youth Camp. I replied to her, “Thank you for making the Camp successful but I have no time to read the detail report yet; I will do this later.” Then I received another report, which I have not read. I apologise for that, because things in IBC are very urgent. IBC is new, and because a new semester will begin on 3 rd July, we want to make sure that we prepare IBC well so that the beginning of the new academic year will be better than the first and second academic year.

Many of you, I know, complain that Shifu doesn't show concern, that Shifu no longer goes to the birthday parties of the Kindergarten kids or that of the Wan Ching Yuen Lao Pusa (senior citizens). I don't mind if you blame me for this. Our students in IBC also don't understand. Do you think they appreciate my spending a lot of effort there? They also complained that I don't spend enough time there. One of the students, when she did her sharing during the IBC lecture tour, said something to the effect, “I admire all the people in Than Hsiang because Shifu is so close to you. You all see Shifu everyday.”

All of you must be laughing and thinking, “Yes, we see Shifu everyday. Shifu is so close to us, but he seems so far away. He never shows concern for us. He does not, for example, attend the birthday parties in Wan Ching Yuen nor the Kindergarten any more. He is not concerned about the Lao Pusa in Wan Ching Yuen and Xio Pusa (kids) in the Kindergarten.” So is that true? Yes, Shifu has to admit that it seems to be true to a certain extent, and I ask you to be more forgiving and more understanding.

I am happy to inform you that IBC is now on track and that Shifu no longer has to spend 80% of our total resources on IBC like in the past five years. We are now ready to continue to expand in Malaysia.

We have slowed down in Malaysia in the past five years; and I think that suited a lot of people here also because I often heard complaints, “Why does Shifu want to run so fast? We find it very difficult to follow him.” Let me explain to you that actually, we are running very slowly in the Buddhist circle as compared to foreign Buddhist organisations. They came to Malaysia and they are more proactive. They go at a faster pace. It is very good that they do that because they keep us on our toes; so that we don't become complacent but work more diligently. Please remember that our lives are very limited, so please make good use of this precious human rebirth to do something meaningful for yourself and others in this life and future lives.

We are not talking only about Buddhist organisations that come from other countries. We also have the foreign deviant groups; they are very, very aggressive. If we don't spread the teachings of the Buddha diligently, many people will be led (or misled) into these deviant groups. I say ‘misled' because they are using the name of Buddhism while their teaching is actually deviant from the true teachings of the Buddha. We will, therefore, feel very, very sorry for being so slack if we do not work harder to spread the true teachings of the Buddha.

(So let us work hard together to spread the Buddha's teachings through the various activities of Than Hsiang. Let us also work with other Buddhist organisations to achieve this. After that, let us work with other religious organisations to bring peace to this world.)

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Sharing by a staff member after the above talk by Shifu:

“Shifu gave a very inspiring and motivational talk this morning. This has given new direction of how to truly work in Than Hsiang not only as an individual but also as a good Buddhist with Bodhicitta in our hearts, collectively working towards the common good for all beings - for the good of the many.”