Most Venerable Bhante Walpola Piyananda's 80th Birthday Celebrating - Collected Essays

them to volunteer for these positions, and those that have done so
have been richly rewarded spiritually.
• We need to continue to educate Westerners about the practical and
spiritual applications of Buddhism, and point out any incorrect
notions about what it is not. We are still up against the perception
that Buddhism is “idol worship” in some uninformed populations.
• Put the emphasis on the young people. All of the ethnic Asian
temples in America and other Western countries will vanish
after one generation if we don’t educate our young people in the
Buddha’s teachings. In this case I’m mentioning our very own
Sri Lankan, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. young people, who are the
children of our adult temple members. These children very quickly
become Westernized, and if we don’t provide an interesting, happy,
and informative temple experience for them, we will lose them
to other religions. I am all-too-familiar with the ethnic Asian
Buddhist temples in America that are dying off because there is
nothing to attract the young people. Many Christian churches offer
day-care for toddlers and full-scale youth programs complete with
youth ministers, rock music, and savvy teachers. Western Buddhist
temples need to follow these examples and beef-up their Sunday
school programs to include music, community service programs,
speech and writing competitions, and other attractive activities.
• At my temple in Los Angeles, the children are our first priority,
we have been very successful at keeping our children interested
and engaged in Sunday school, thanks to our adaptation of modern
and innovative teaching modalities for Dhamma education. One
Bodhicari, Dr. Stephen Long, uses Dr. Barbara Wright’s “Metta
Map” in his Sunday school classes (Dr. Wright is also a Bodhicari).
The older children have completely taken to this three-dimensional
presentation of the Dhamma, and their knowledge of Buddhism has
increased dramatically as a result of their interaction with this new
teaching tool. We are also very engaged in internet technology;
updating our website weekly, and keeping an active Facebook page
for all our friends to see.
• Asian temples must learn the Western way of providing hospitality
to guests when they visit their premises, and adopt Western
administration techniques, such as maintaining a database of
members, e-mail lists for frequent message blasts, and birthday
lists for annual acknowledgements.
• Finally, Asian temples must learn to appreciate the female members
of their congregations, and give them equal status with their male
counterparts. At my temple I make a point of assigning key roles
to females during ceremonies, such as having a young girl carry
the relics on her head during a puja procession. I know that in Sri
Lanka this is contrary to custom, but I feel that we must expand
our acceptance of females in all facets of society, including temple
society, which I’m certain is something the Buddha would have
intended for citizens of the 21 st Century world.
The above examples are just some of the ways we can begin to
more fully integrate Buddhism into Western culture; I’m sure there are
many more. I continually attempt to educate the Asian Buddhist clerics
in America on this subject, and more and more I am able to sway them
to an understanding of the realities I have expressed above. I invite you
all to think of new ways we can reach out to our Western friends, and
please let me know your ideas.
7
Self-Discipline: Cornerstone of the Dhamma
The Buddha was the supreme example of the benefits of his
teachings based on self-mastery. The Fourth Noble Truths proscribes
in detail in the Noble Eightfold Path instructions for us to carefully and
continually observe the mind. It is this observation which leads us to
disciplining our ego or false sense of self; thus enabling us to make
conscious corrections in our behavior. The thinking and feeling that
takes place in one’s internal environment influences all the external
manifestations of one’s life. Taming the mind ultimately leads to
enlightenment.
Development of self-discipline and restraint is the basis for
cultivating mindfulness, the technique employed for the rooting out
and elimination of the causes of our suffering or stress stemming from
our clinging to attachments arising from false identifications. The
Buddha taught self-discipline to the Sangha members of his day, and
to the countless lay persons he interacted with in his forty-five years of
ministry. In essence, the Buddha’s fundamental core message to all of
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