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:

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

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

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  3. 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,

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