Vote for a Good Cause : Nalanda Free School Project

Dear friends,

Nalanda is a Buddhist Society in Sri Kembangan, Selangor (Malaysia) and one of their projects is the "Free School Project", which offers free academic tuition classes (in subjects such as English, Science and Mathematics) to needy Malaysian children, e.g. those who are from low-income or single-parent families. 

There is now an opportunity to raise additional funding and sponsorship for this project - please see e-mail below, and there's also a really good video (~2 mins) on www.nalanda.org.my, which I highly recommend to watch, and be inspired.

It will only take 5 minutes to register and vote, but it will be for a really good cause :) 

Appreciate your time and if possible, please vote!

Thanks,

PY, a friend on the Dhamma path

Dear Friends,

We are pleased to inform that our meditation teacher Visu Teoh will resume his weekly meditation class at our Inward Path premises at 

14 Phuah Hin Leong Road 

from the Thursday of Dec 15, 

starting at 7:30pm

We hope to see you and continue with our practice of sitting an hour and discussing the Dhamma for another hour — considering how we may live beautiful and meaningful lives while aspiring for our final goal of Nibbana, the Cessation of all Strife and Dukkha.

If you have any friends or family members who would like to learn meditation or come along please do bring them. Visu will be happy to instruct beginners.

If you are coming we will appreciate if you can let us know so we can have an idea of how many people to expect. You can phone, sms or email me, Sunanda Lim Hock Eng,

mobile phone: 012-430 2893; 

email: sunandahelim@gmail.com.

Visu will be guiding us in both Vipassana (Insight) and Metta (Lovingkindness) Meditation. He will also be teaching the Meditations on Compassion, Appreciative Joy, Equanimity, and Death. 

Visu has been practising and teaching meditation for some 28 years, 17 of which as a monk. He returned recently with his wife Barbara from their five months teaching tour in Europe. Attached are pix of some of the retreats he led in Germany, Ireland, Holland and Czech Republic. 

Visu leading retreat in Rotterdam, Holland

Retreat in Czech Republic

Retreat in Ireland

Retreat in Groningen, Holland

Visu and Barbara in Germany

We hope to see you every Thursday evening from Dec 15 and look forward to spending a meaningful and beneficial time meditating together and discussing the Dhamma. Please note that Visu will be with us only until June when he and Barbara will leave again for Europe. The classes will be on-going till end of May. There may also be a few Thursdays when Visu will be away and the class will be informed accordingly.

May all beings be happy. 

May the Dhamma last long for 

the welfare and happiness 

of all beings. 

Yours in the Dhamma,

With Metta,
Sunanda Lim
Inward Path Publisher

Sala Appeal

Growing nuns in Australia. Allowing the heartwood (Dhammasara) to grow taller and spread wider!

Dhammasara Buddhist Nun's Monastery provides a unique and rare opportunity for women in the Buddhist Theravada tradition to train, ordain and practice in a secluded forest setting ……… to live the simple life of a samana (renuncient)…… to walk the path laid by the Buddha………

Currently we have eight kutis (individual meditation huts) and a small cottage for communal activities. With the growing demand of women seeking the monastic path, we are planning to expand the facilities at Dhammasara allowing more women to join our community and take up the monastic path.

For more information, please visit the following website

 http://www.dhammasara.org.au/sala-appeal.html

JESUS of NAZARETH

BBC Documentary:  

Jesus was a Buddhist Monk

This BBC 4 documentary examines the question "Did Jesus Die?". It looks at a bunch of ideas around this question until minute 25, where this examination of ideas takes a very logical and grounded turn with surprising conclusions that demonstrate...

The three wise men were Buddhist monks who found Jesus and came back for him around puberty. After being trained in a Buddhist Monastery he spread the Buddhist philosophy, survived the crucifixion, and escaped to Kashmir, Afghanistan where he died an old man at the age of 80.

National Geographic:

Secret Lives of Jesus

  

Amazon.COM:

Jesus Lived in India

"It is simply of vital importance to find again the path to the sources, to theeternal and central truths of Christ's message, which has been shaken almost beyond recognition by the profane ambitions of more or less secular institutions arrogating to themselves a religious authority. This is an attempt to open a way to a new future, firmly founded in the true spiritual and religious sources of the past." ~ Holger Kersten

 

Thus begins Holger Kersten's book "Jesus Lived in India". This German book is a thorough, methodical and authoritative examination of the evidence of Christ's life beyond the Middle East before the Crucifixion and in India and elsewhere after it.
 
This article is a summary of Kersten's exhaustive research into Christ's travels after the Crucifixion, his arrival in India with the Mother Mary and finally his death and entombment in Kashmir. Kersten notes the many parallels of Christ's teachings with other religious and cultural traditions and suggests that at least some of these figures may have been one and the same personality. It is not possible, Kersten asserts, to disprove that Christ went to India. The current information documenting Christ's life is restricted to the gospels and the work of Church theologians. One can hardly trust these sources to be objective considering their obvious interest in maintaining the authority of their Church and its grip on the masses.
 
The Russian scholar, Nicolai Notovich, was the first to suggest that Christ may have gone to India. In 1887, Notovich, a Russian scholar and Orientalist, arrived in Kashmir during one of several journeys to the Orient. At the Zoji-la pass Notovich was a guest in a Buddhist monastery, where a monk told him of the bhodisattva saint called "Issa". Notovich was stunned by the remarkable parallels of Issa's teachings and martyrdom with that of Christ's life, teachings and crucifixion.
 
For about sixteen years, Christ travelled through Turkey, Persia, Western Europe and possibly England. He finally arrived with Mary to a place near Kashmir, where she died. After many years in Kashmir, teaching to an appreciative population, who venerated him as a great prophet, reformer and saint, he died and was buried in a tomb in Kashmir itself.

Buddha - A Documentary About Buddhism

This documentary is made by filmmaker David Grubin and narrated by Richard Gere. It tells the story of the Buddha's life, a journey especially relevant to our own bewildering times of violent change and spiritual confusion. It features the work of some of the world's greatest artists and sculptors, who across two millennia, have depicted the Buddha's life in art rich in beauty and complexity. Hear insights into the ancient narrative by contemporary Buddhists, including Pulitzer Prize winning poet W.S. Merwin and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

REACHING OUT

TRIP TO CAMERON HIGHLAND

Donating Old Clothing & Stationary to Indigenous People

 

THE PATH TO FREEDOM

 

It is like us wanting to drive somewhere; 

we first need to know how to drive. 

We need not actually need to know about the car’s
mechanism and how it runs. 

In the same way if we want to end suffering
we must first know at least how to 

walk the path as taught by the Buddha.

Problems in life start with birth. Otherwise, if we hadn’t been born, would we be subject to aging, sickness and death? Instead of seeing life’s unsatisfactoriness, many of us see its problems as something good: even desirable. 

Ignorance is the problem that is the starting point of the problem of existence itself. For those of us who realise problems arising as problems, some are deluded enough to search for external solutions — by praying, propitiating gods and deities, or consulting astrologers. That is why right understanding is crucial as a start; otherwise, we would not be able to proceed further in uncovering what the Buddha taught.

The author Ashin Dr. Nandamālābhivaṁsa will show us in this booklet how to overcome life’s problems through the cultivation of right vision and learning the Dhamma. 

This transcription is from one of his many Dhamma lectures at the Centre for Buddhist Studies, and the Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in Sagaing between 2004 and 2005.

SAYADAW DR NANDAMALABHIVAMSA, born in Myanmar (Burma) in 1940, was educated in Mandalay and with 16 years of age he already passed Dhammacariya (Dhamma teacher) and then most difficult Bhivamsa-examination. He also studied in Sri Lanka at the Kelaniya University in Colombo (M.A.) and got his Ph.D. in India. Because of his excellent knowledge of the Buddhist scriptures and his his teaching experience he was rewarded many high distinctions and titles.

In Myanmar together with his elder brother he is leading the traditional, well-reputed study-monastery “Mahasubhodayon” in Sagaing Hills. He is rector of the “International Theravada Buddhist Missionary University” in Yangon and of “Sitagu International Buddhist Academy” in Sagaing. In Myanmar and aboard, since some years in Europe too, he is giving courses mainly on Abhidhamma for Western Vipassana-teachers, -students and meditators.

He is the founder and leader of Dhammvijjalaya, Centre for Buddhist Studies (CBS) in Sagaing, which is connected to Mahasubhodayon Monastery and serves foreigners for further studies and practice.

The Sayadaw’s teaching method is very individual, lively, practical and practicable with many examples and references from daily life, from the Suttas, Abhidhamma books and commentaries. Sayadaw is teaching in English and with a lot of humour and Metta.

Self-study is necessary within all his Abhidhamma courses, to become familiar with the structure and logic of Abhidhamma and the most important Pali-terms. Formal meditation-periods are included too.

 

Get Free Copy

This Gift of Dhamma is sponsored 

in Loving Memory of

Yeap Hong Pin (28th May 2010)

Lee Beng Seng (29th July 2010)

AND

See Lay Choo & Family, Yeap Soo Lian, 
Yeap Saw Luan, Yeoh Bee Hoon, Yeoh Bee Bee, 
Yeoh Bee Lee, Yeoh Bee Tuan,Yeoh Bee Suan.

Satipatthana Meditation Centre (Singapore), 
Ms Chui Chui (Medan, Indonesia),
Lim Beng Soon (IMO Lim Hock Teng, 
Lim Swee Hun and Ooi Cheng Eam),
Dr Ooi Chee Lean and Family (IMO Ooi Beng Ngoh), 
IMO Tan A Han (Medan, Indonesia),

Denny Jiun and Family, Peggy (Melbourne, Australia), 
Swee Imn and Family, Swee Seng

Get FREE Copy Here:

www.inwardpath.org

For Penangites, kindly collect your free copy at our centre:

No.14 Phuah Hin Leong Road, off Burma Road

10050 Georgetown, Penang 

(click here for the map)

Please give us a call (012-4302893) before coming. 

Thank You