WeiShen's First BC Meet

Disclaimer: These are my own personal thoughts/feelings about the meet. So, take it with a pinch of salt.

Yesterday evening, we had our first buddhist circle (BC) meet. I tagged along because WeiShen was organising it. Show support lar. I've already let him know my personal views about the BC. So, no point reiterating them here. The food was great! The undergrads were saying that there IS a difference between postgrad and undergrad cookouts. Yes there is okay! Most of the undergrads here cannot even fry an egg properly! Most of the postgrads already have had several years of cooking experience (and burnt eggs) for themselves. Of course lar got difference! Maybe I should also cook up a feast one day for my UG friends. The lame excuse is lack of time. I'd probably do it at least once lar. However, lack of room and facilities is a problem. Maybe I'll need to hijack a NewHall kitchen.

Then, there was a short lepak and sharing session in their common room. Damn, these mature/grad colleges have good facilities. Magdalene sucks in that sense. Cannot even get a decent lepak room in Magdalene. Anyway, the sharing session was interesting and informative. Although there were a few problems.

Firstly, was mandarin. Most of the postgrads who attended spoke mandarin and were from all parts of the mandarin speaking world. So, the translation matrix in my head was working overtime. Having to filter out the various accents before deciphering what they were saying. Difficult leh. At the end I was quite tired and spaced out a bit. But the rest of the BC will be done in English and those will hopefully be okay.

Secondly, I disagree with one of the things said about Buddhism, which is that there is theory and practical. Dhamma is the theory and the practical is meditation. The practical aspect of Buddhism is applying the teaching in your daily life. Meditation is a 'tool' to train the mind in order to allow it to function correctly. It's like physical exercise is a tool to train the body so that it can perform necessary work. However, it certainly isn't the practical aspect of Buddhism nor does it serve to show anyone 'the way'. WeiShen has told me that the BC will not do any meditation. However, there will be short metta meditation periods during the Buddhist talks.

Thirdly, the idea of the BC being a support network among friends is a laudable one. We all need people to hold our hands at various points in life. However, I do not belief in mixing religion with social (or politics for that matter). And when using the power of prayer to help your friends was mentioned, more alarm bells went off in me. To people who do not understand this, it may sound like some new-age mumbo jumbo. The power of prayer only serves to help if you're genuinely close to the person. And if you're really that close, I'm sure that there are plenty of more substantial ways that can help aside from having a prayer session. There isn't any use in joining a prayer session blindly. Prayer for the sake of prayer won't help.

I can see where this is coming from. I've been a buddhist since I was a wee kid. I've seen various different kinds of approaches used by different people at different points in time. Having socials like cookouts and origami and singing is all fine and well. However, I don't think that it's a good way of introducing Buddhism. There's a reason why the Buddha didn't use those techniques! With young kids, you tend to tell them stories like buddhist history, Jataka tales and such. With older kids, you tend to introduce basic Dhamma and some simple analysis of situations. With young adults, you tend to handle more complex situations, some synthesis of ideas and introduce deeper concepts of the Dhamma. With serious people, it is then possible to extrapolate all the Dhamma concepts by introducing Abhidhamma.

So, with this group of people, I would think that the best approach is to just talk. Start with what the Buddha started: The Four Noble Truths and then take things from there. Do it like a healthy supervision session with lively discussions. Invite questions from everyone and when there are none, toss out a few questions. Better still if it's possible to throw in real-life examples into the mix. Buddhism invites analyses and questions. That's the most beautiful thing about it. So, make use of this openness and just let things take it's course.