Program
| Day 1: Saturday 12th July | |
|---|---|
| 8.00-9.00 | Registration |
| 9.00-9.30 | Opening ceremony, President's Welcome, Brian White's message |
| 9.30-10.30 | Touching the Void - Ven David Lungtok |
| 10.30-11.00 | Participant Morning Tea |
| 11.00-12.00 | Buddhist Answers to Wise Questions - Ven Heng Ch'ih |
| 12.00-12.30 | Learning from Inspiring Stories - Ven Hue Can |
| 12.30-1.30 | Participant Lunch |
| 1.30-2.30 | Break out Session |
| 2.30-2.45 | Meditation |
| 2.45-3.25 | 2500 Years of Evolving Truth - Ven Shravasti Dhammika |
| 3.25-4.00 | Fear of Freedom - Ven Sujato |
| 4.00-4.15 | Afternoon Tea |
| 4.15-5.00 | Q & A forum |
| 5.00 | Dedication of Merits |
| Day 2: Sunday 13th July | |
|---|---|
| 8.00-9.00 | Registration |
| 9.00-9.30 | Opening ceremony, Short Film - Life after the Begging Bowl |
| 9.30-10.30 | The Buddha's Teaching - Simple, Practical and Powerful - Ven U Vamsarakkhita |
| 10.30-11.00 | Participant Morning Tea |
| 11.00-12.00 | Life Experience and Transformation - Ven Robina Courtin |
| 12.00-1.00 | Multi-faith Panel - Ven Tejadhammo, Rabbi Zalman Kastel, Rev Bill Crews, Shaykh Ibrahim al Ansari |
| 1.00-1.45 | Participant Lunch |
| 1.45-2.45 | Break out Session |
| 2.45-3.30 | Four Thoughts on Reality - Ven Yeshe Chodron |
| 3.30-4.15 | Authenticity - Ven Mudita |
| 4.15-4.30 | Afternoon Tea |
| 4.30-5.15 | Q & A forum |
| 5.15 | Dedication of Merits |
Main Lectures
Life Experience and Transformation - Ven Robina Courtin
Throughout this brief lifetime we are all affected by the events and phenomenon we experience. However, what sparks a moment of realization and transformation for one person may cause another person to enter a state of inner turmoil. What is it that causes us to process experiences differently? How does the way we process experience affect us? How can we turn all events into catalysts for personal growth? The capacity to truly see all of our experiences as an opportunity for positive transformation underpins our ultimate happiness. And the secret to this is our state of mind. The experience of living is the very source of transformation for the conscientious person. The Buddhist Mind training practices teach us to transform every experience whether derived from negative or positive mental states into the source of enlightenment.
Buddhist Answers to Wise Questions - Ven Heng Ch'ih
While embarking on a spiritual path, we often find ourselves dealing with four common question words such as : How? What? Where? Why? This lecture will provide the answers to the following fundamental questions from a Buddhist perspective : How did we get here? Where are we going? What do we do now? and Why does it all matter? To look into these important questions, Ven Master Bhikshuni Heng Ch'ih will use the wisdom found in major Mahayana texts and apply it to this current age with its current issues.
The Buddha's Teaching - Simple, Practical and Powerful - Ven U Vamsarakkhita
Throughout the world there is and has been a vast thirst for things spiritual. Spiritual 'experience', spiritual 'understanding', spiritual 'freedom' are some of the descriptives sought after by the modern day seeker. But because the actual number of humans who have had a bone fide spiritual awakening is statistically approaching zero there also abounds a great deal of gullibility and superstition concerning a viable path to truth. This credulity often begets an array beliefs rooted in future promises and hoped for magical or mythical events. The perennial draw to the teaching of the Buddha is its immediate and practical benefits which are available to those who engage in the theory and practices of Buddhism as a lifestyle. No waiting necessary....This talk will outline the elements of the practical and powerful simplicity which is the hallmark of the Noble One's universal message.
2500 years of Evolving Truth - Ven Shravasti Dhammika
The nature of truth according to the Buddha, the different theories of truth and the concept of evolving truths are some of the ideas Venerable Dhammika will examine in this talk. Always challenging and thought-provoking, Venerable Dhammika will also raise the question of whether Western Buddhists have yet made the distinction between Asian traditions, myths and beliefs, and truth, and if so, what needs to be done about it.
Touching the Void - Ven David Lungtok
All beings want happiness, yet as Buddha taught in the First Noble Truth, life is pervaded by suffering. Why? All of the confusion, problems and disappointments that we so often encounter are rooted in the fundamentally mistaken way in which we experience and relate to the world. Understanding 'Voidness' or 'Emptiness' - the true nature of Reality in which everything is seen to lack inherent existence - is the key which opens the door to Liberation and Enlightenment. In this lecture Ven.David Lungtok will explain the concepts of Emptiness and Dependent Arising, revealing them to be the essential Wisdom that all practitioners must cultivate in order to properly understand the teachings of Buddha and make meaningful progress on the spiritual path.
Fear of Freedom - Ven Sujato
Humans are curious creatures. We are born naked and free, with no possessions other than our body and mind. But then, without consulting us, a birth certificate is made, and the ownership of our body is given over to the State.
We are left with just our mind, which we proceed to program with a thing called 'education'. What education is is by no means obvious, but it is given as it were a gift. But again, we are not consulted as to whether we actually want it, and by the time we are competent to judge, it's too late. We are educated: our thoughts flow easily along pathways kindly laid down for us by the experts, that is, those who have thought the same things in the past.
Something in us, however, retains its yearning, born of an inexpressible, unquantifiable unease with what our lives have become. Having spent our entire lives building our own prison, we sit in the cell, gazing through the little barred window at the birds flying free in the sky. And we cannot help but wonder: 'Are even birds free from the chains of the skyways?'
Learning from Inspiring Stories - Venerable Sister Hue Can
Everyone has a story. But what makes a story inspiring? Does it require someone to battle adversity; where it is not the winning, but the battle that's important? Or upon hearing a story, does it require the listener to change their behaviour or outlook? Sister Hue Can will be telling stories that may seem commonplace. Basically they’re about how we relate to one another. These stories are inspirational because they are the stuff that our lives are made of and show that everyone suffers. You don’t need to have a chronic illness or to be climbing Everest to be challenged. We can all learn from these everyday stories by relating them to what Buddha said about freedom and applying these teachings to our daily lives.
Four Thoughts on Reality - Venerable Sister Yeshe Chodron
Within the Tibetan tradition, four thoughts on reality help us to internalize our understanding of the Four Noble Truths. These four thoughts that turn the mind to Dharma also help us to overcome our habitual inertia, and provide the impetus and motivation for our Buddhist practice. The four thoughts that turn the mind to Dharma are taken as a profound contemplation leading us to a direct confrontation with our own personal reality: the preciousness of our human birth and the opportunity that it affords us to practise, the transitoriness of all phenomena including the very temporary and short-lived nature of our opportunity to practice, the importance of taking Karma into account and recognizing that what we do with this opportunity does make an enormous difference; and the unsatisfactoriness of samsara and the appreciation that there is really no good or useful alternative to applying ourselves to the study and practice of the Dharma.
Authenticity - Ven Mudita
The subtitle of this talk is How to "keep it real" as a Buddhist. Living in a world which asks us to be ourselves, to get real and to pursue our own dreams, what does it mean to follow the path of the Buddha? If we are all fundamentally empty of Self how can we reconcile these demands? Venerable Mudita will explain how a life authentically in tune with the Dhamma is possible - one which avoids the pitfalls of pessimism and the horrors of hedonism: finding the middle way of truth, clarity and inner-peace.
Multi-faith Panel - Ven Tejadhammo, Rabbi Zalman Kastel, Rev Bill Crews, Sheikh Ibrahim al Ansari
Four speakers representing Buddhism, Sufism, Judaism, and Christianity, will hold a discussion forum on the issues surrounding the road to peace. Although the concept of peace is very familiar to many of us on a personal level, there is a practical side of peace that must be studied before global change can occur. In situations of conflict, fueled by religous and cultural differences, what realisations are necessary for a peaceful resolution? What compromises must we all make before we can make peace a reality?
Day 1 Break Out Sessions:
Active Dharma - Youth Focus
Things, states, entities: the world of thought is populated by static objects. But the world of experience is fluid, messy, dynamic. In meditation we learn to attune ourselves, in stillness, to the unceasing change that is the mind. But the Dharma of change is not just in the mind. Always and in every way movement, process, activity are the stuff of the world. So, far from being a philosophy of 'do-nothing', Buddhism teaches us that doing is intrinsic to being. Our lives consist of our choices: living them, and living with their results. This is the meaning of Dharma.
The Power of the Mind
Buddha's expertise is the mind. He's saying that what occurs in our mind is what creates our reality. This is the down-to-earth meaning of karma. Every micro-second of every thought is a karma, an action, that necessarily leaves an imprint in our consciousness that necessarily ripens in the future as our own experiences: negative ones bring suffering and postive ones bring happiness. It's a simple, practical thing. We are the creators of ourselves. External conditions play a role in our lives, there's no doubt, but our minds are the creators. When we can begin to get this, we are beginning to understand how to become enlightened.
Bodhisattva Path and Mystical Vision of Reality
(based on the Avatamsaka Sutra - The Flower Adornment Sutra)
The Avatamsaka is an enormous and fascinating Buddhist scripture depicting the path of the Bodhisattva (Buddha in training) and the mystical vision of reality that he sees as his mind approaches that of a Buddha. Also called the Flower Adornment Sutra, the text retains the principle of emptiness that we have already encountered in the Prajnaparamita literature and adds a key new idea: the fundamental unity and 'interpenetration' of all things. Everything is literally 'contained' in everything else.
The Net of Perfect Wisdom
(based on the Brahmajala Sutta - from Digha Nikaya)
The Brahmajala Sutta is a famous Buddhist scripture which describes the very detailed elaboration of 'beliefs', focusing on how the beliefs (faiths) come to be and the way they are described and declared. The elaboration ends with the Buddha's statement about the danger of clinging to these beliefs, as they are still influenced by desire, hatred, and ignorance that its faithful followers will not end in the final liberation but still in the cycle of samsara. Believers of these faiths are compared to small fish in a pond which will be captured by a fine net no matter how much they want to escape, while those who see reality as it is are beyond the net of samsara.
Day 2 Break Out Sessions:
- The Dharma of Non-Clinging
- Sphere of Consciousness (The Science of Buddhism)
- The Beauty of Change
- The Truth about Reality
- Backpacker on the Road
- Against the Stream
- The Ultimate Refuge
- Prison Break
- Can Destiny be Changed?
- The Buddha – Doctor of the Mind
- Love, Bondage and Desire
- Stories and Parables
- Meditation : Does it Pay off ?
- Healing the Body, Healing the Mind
- Dealing with Emotions
- Freedom and Control
- In Doubt We Trust
- Idealistic and Realistic
- The Martial Arts in Buddhism
- Healing through Emptiness
- Misconceptions about Selflessness
- Making Friends with Death
- Glimpse of Insight
- Creating a Buddha Field
- Classical Virtues