Thursday, January 28, 2010

One Way To Help Others

Those for whom you have sympathy, those with whom you communicate - your friends, intimates, kinsmen and relations - all should be told about, grounded in, established in the Four Limbs of Stream-Winning. What are these four? Faith in the Buddha, faith in the Dhamma, faith in the Sangha, and virtue that is dear to the Noble Ones and conducive to concentration of mind. S.V.364

3 comments:

Alessandro S. said...

Yes, it's me again with the same kind of question: is S.V. the collection of the Sutta Vibhanga from the Vinaya?

Shravasti Dhammika said...

Dear Alessandro,
This is Samyutta Nikaya, volume five, page 364. Without knowing it, you have given me a subject for tomorrow’s post. Thanks,

Alessandro S. said...

Thank you, Bhante.
Today my eyes fell on this title: "11,000 people convert to Buddhism in Ahmedabad"

http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=42,8883,0,0,1,0

It says:

«Ahmedabad, India -- Cose to 11,000
people, including those from the
Koli and Kshatriya communities as
well as Christian families,
embraced Buddhism at a function in
Saijpur Bogha here on Sunday.
Buddhist monks from Bhante
Pragnyasheel administered the
pledges to the new converts. The
Ahmedabad district collector,
however, said no conversion could
be effective unless an official
permission was granted.

«"Five Hindu Dalit families that
had earlier converted to
Christianity also converted to
Buddhism at the function," said
Balkrishna Anand, convenor of the
Bauddh Dhamma Deeksha Angikar
Abhiyan (Gujarat). "We were
working on the event for the last
few months, touring many districts
and conducting meetings to
mobilise people," he said, adding
that in all, 350 meetings were
held to spread the message
across the state.

Maintaining that nearly 11,000
people converted to Buddhism at
the function, Anand said the
neo-converts had come from
places as far as Patan,
Surendranagar, Rajkot, Vadodara,
Junagadh and Mehsana. Renowned
Buddhist leader Kalpana Saroj
was the chief guest at the
function, which was presided
over by five Buddhist monks
from various parts of the
country.»

I don't know much about buddhism in India, so I don't know what to think about this. Since you ordained in India, do any of the names that appear on this piece of news tell you something? Are we to believe these "convertions" true and deeply thought out and motivated, or should we think that these people tomorrow could as easily convert to Islam, or become Jainists, re-convert back to Christianity or whatever?

With kind greetings,