A MODEL

A MODEL FOR MISSIONARY WORK (11 April 2012)

Recently I met a 22-year old New Zealander who is in Malaysia for missionary work. He is doing missionary work before he decides to go to iniversity. He is on a 2 year contract. He has to work to save some money to contribute to the church and the church will use his contribution to pay his monthly allowance. He is on a 2 year contract.

INVOCATION

OPENING INVOCATION

Oh Buddha,
My spiritual master and refuge,
I seek your guidance,
Blessings and protection.

The Dhamma,
Holy saints and spiritual teachers,
Bodhisatta,
Dhamma protectors and devas,
I seek Your Blessings,
Guidance and protection.

Oh Blessed One,
Help me to set my Heart right,
May my actions and thoughts
Reflect your love and wisdom.


CLOSING INVOCATION

Oh Buddha,
My spiritual master and refuge,
I thank you for Your Blessings,
Guidance and protection,

The Dhamma,
Holy saints and spiritual teachers,
Bodhisatta,
Dhamma protectors and devas,
I thank you for Your Blessings,
Guidance and protection.

May the Buddha be at my head,
And the Dhamma in my heart,
And the Sangha by my side,
To protect and guide me always.

from Buddha Puja by Victor Wee

Bhante Jinadata's teaching

From the discussion I had with Bhante Jinadata, this is what I have learnt: We should learn to tolerate the variance and varieties of views presented by people; learn to distinguish opinion from fact, train ourselves to discern conventional reality from ultimate reality; learn to know when to accept and when to act; dhamma per se is dry and not easily acceptable so dhamma has to be spiced up with mysticisms, customs and traditions, superstitions, etc to make it functional within a socity.

The frog, the centipede and the firefly

Bhnate Jinadata gave us an analogy of how most people perceive their experience and ability in his talk at SP Dhamma Centre. Three animals, a frog, a centipede and a firefly, were exploring the world when suddenly each of them was covered by a coconut shell. In the darkness of the covered coconut shell, the frog jumped and its head hit the coconut shell and it exclaimed,"How marvelous am I for now I can reach the sky!"

The centipede could not jump like the frog but it could crawl and so in the darkness of the coconut shell it crawled to the coconut shell and it crawled around the edge of the coconut shell and then exclaimed,"How fantastic I am, I can crawl to the edge of the world!"

The firefly could not jump nor crawl but it could fly. As it flew around the dark, enclosed space of the covered coconut shell, it exclaimed,"How magnificent I am, I can lit up the whole universe!"

The moral of the story is that most of us perceive our knowledge, skill, ability or achievement like these three naive creatures.

(retold by hoh foo kong, not exactly as I had heard it)