Newest two e-book on Taking Care of Elderly Parents and Teenagers

 We are happy to announce the newest e-book on counselling and social issues.

   

Donating Food (Rice and Cooking Oil) to the Needy Persons on 4 and 5 August 2024

 On the ten-anniversary of Aggacara centre and Sayagyi Aggavati's birthday, we donated rice and cooking oil to 100 families. The food can last for one week. Sadhu to all donors, especially the online Aggacara Abhidhamma and Pali students.

Graduation ceremony for Pali students (2023/2024) in May 2024

 

Request donation for dining hall and solar electrcity installation

 Due to the political and economic situation in Myanmar, the cost for building material for the dining hall has increased a lot. We need support to finish the current construction project. 

The electrcity blackout is very frequent. Sometimes, we have 12 hours without any electrcity, or worst 2 days without electrcity. Solar panel +battery + inverter is necessary to provide electrcity and wifi for our education purpose, and for the Dhamma talks.

Please donate to

Bank name : KBZ bank

Account Name: Agga Vati

Account number:07030107000698701

Kpay: +959421088185

Thank you.

12 April 2024 Back to very basic nature of life

Back to very basic nature of life in the hot summer:

Today, I shared with my Abhidhamma students about the difficulty of maintain the life in Myanmar, and this material body called rūpa in Abhidhamma.
There was total electricity blackout for 2 days, so I was busy trying to make sure all everyone (7 persons, more if the neighbour children come here) here have enough water. Because our water pumps need electricity to pump the water from the underground.

Without electricity, life is difficult. In addition, it is now summer, hot as 38 to 41 degree from 12 to 4pm.

Night time was about 31 degree. so everyone needed to take showers few times a day. This is contemplation of difficulty of maintaining the rūpa. Rūpa (material, body) was the previous topic in my Abhidhamma lesson.

We need to give food to the body (rūpa), make sure it has enough nutriment and stay with sufficient water. Need to give it coolness to maintain the body, by drinking water and taking shower, and also staying in shady place, if not the body will be overheated in this summer time. Few people in Yangon had died due to overheat and own medical condition.

If Malaysians are complaining the weather is hot in Malaysia, imagine my life here. - no electricity, lack of water, no aircon, not even aircooler when there was electricity failure - for the previous two days. And also internet/wifi is on and off depending on the state of battery.

I am fulfilling my khantiparami while studying in my university and doing good deeds in Aggācāra centre.
Thanks goodness the electricity was restored to quite normal condition today.

We have solar panel + battery + inverter for one fan + few light + wifi + refrigerator But because the usage was too much, so the battery was always low power, and the inverter connected to the battery was giving warning sign for previous two days.
Two days ago, I had to turn off all electrical equipment, only left the refrigerator turned on. This is also a good contemplation of nutriment. We need to preserve the food at the most optimum condition so that we can use food ingredient for the next day. We can live without light, wifi, internet, aircon/aircooler. But we cannot survive without any food or water.

Finally, at night, where no more electricity coming from solar panel, the inverter made a loud noise, informing of low battery. So, I had to switch it off. So we left without electricity from government already, and at that time also without electricity from the solar. There was no source of electricity at all. Even the refrigerator cannot run anyway.
Thanks goodness there were sufficient drinking purified water for everyone. This is really back to very basic life, living with very minimal needs.

This reminded me of the life of Aggācāra at the very starting time about 10 years ago. There was no electricity and only water coming from manual water pump pumping out water from underground. It was a very basic life condition at that time.

Now, the electricity came back. but there is always 5 or 6 hours blackout.
While teaching and sharing on the rūpa in the Abhidhamma class, I had an actual experience about maintaining rūpa (material/body) in these two days on how to survive in very hot weather in summer, without electricity.

As the Buddha said, let the body (Rūpa) suffer, not the mind (nāma) suffer. That means even though there is dukkha in the body, we have to accept it, not let the mind be affected by the dukkha. This is maintaining equanimity in the mind.

This also implies the suffering in the rūpa is unavoidable, the suffering in the mind is optional. By accepting the suffering of the body due to the extreme hot weather, then there is less disturbance in the mind.


Now summer -life is difficult for everyone. last from Mac, April, May. In June, it is raining season, so the weather will turn up to be nicer.

Education Trend Nowadays

 We are happy to share my computer knowledge with the youths. Many old computers become unusable due to the hardware failure. Still, some are in good working condition.

Now, we are no longer doing the copy+paste format -that is the study method existed 200 years ago until now. That means, the students read the books, memorize all, and write exactly in the exam.

The trend of education is

1. Thinking and analytical skill

2. Team work

3. Leadership quality

4. Spiritual level like kindness, patience, etc.

We give them a project to work on, and let the youths discuss among themselves. They can use own thinking, creativity, etc. to complete this task. They have been doing document, voice editing, powerpoint, and they will do movie-editing.

Part-time Māra Youth to Full-time Deva Youth

24 March 2024

Now in this March, in the summer time, we have one month children and youth education. I teach the youth computer and English. And my senior Sayagyi Aggavati takes care of young ones and teaches Buddhist culture  and English. This is our paññādāna, offering of knowledge to the needy children and youths. It is good to share our knowledge, good to cultivate bodhi seeds in their young minds. We have few young ones staying here, from age 7 to 14.

It is a headache dealing with some youths or teenagers here! At one moment, they look like angel or deva/devi, having nice manner and cute like children, with the innocence and eagerness to learn. The next moment, they are like Māra: disobedient, do whatever they want to do, hide their bad characteristic and pretend to be a good one! One teenager came with her grandmother  and stayed here. Her Grandmother said, before as a child, she was very obedient. After moving on to teenagerhood, she became naughty and disobedient.

At one moment, when I talked to them, they seemed to be an adult, understand things and be able to help tasks like sweeping and taking care of small kids. The next moment, they forget everything, just talking endlessly, forget their duties, and even get into arguments with the small kids! They become lazy, stubborn and difficult to talk to. This is because they are emotionally not stable yet, not wise in nature!

But yet, some teenager are born mature wise. This is called born with three roots which are non-greed, non-hatred and non-delusion in Abhidhamma. From young, they like to contemplate the meaning of life, seek to do good, wanting to help others, willing to practise meditation and like chanting. When they see their relatives past away, they understand the impermanence in life and the important of spirituality.  

I think, some of youths sent to our Buddhist centre are lacking of wisdom, that is why their parents are willing to send to them  here. This is for them to acquire more discipline and morality, to learn Dhamma and learn to chant and do meditation.

That is why, in the Buddhist culture course, the children and youths chant every day and do sitting meditation. Sayagyi Aggavati also teaches them some Dhamma like Maṅgala sutta, 10 wholesome deeds and 10 unwholesome deeds. Today is a public holiday -Full moon of Tabaung, one of the important full moon day. She brought the young ones for pilgrimage, sight-seeing so that their minds are happy with religious event.

At first, it was very difficult to tame the monkey mind of those youths, which are jumping here and there, doing whatever they like. I have to give Sayagyi Aggavati credit-she spent many hours talking to them nicely, imparting knowledge, making friends to them, made them understand the importance of discipline, obedience, hardworking, education, and also believing in the Triple Gem and the working of kamma.

I think, not all parents have this teenage rebellion problem. Some are so lucky as their children are so good and sweet. In my home town, there was a devotee with 5 children. She gave birth to them without much problem. Her husband had passed away when her children was quite young. When she was tired, the children also kept quiet and not disturbing her. They did not give her any problems at all. After she suffered from a disease, they took turn to take care of her in their house. And she passed away surrounded by children.

Her life was very smooth and less obstacle. Her demeanor was always calm and quiet. Her children’s manners are like her too. She was a serious Vipassanā practitioner and she practised till her last moment. This kind of people like her have good wholesome vipāka (result), so she enjoyed good human rebirth, had good companion, good family and good Dhamma teacher and friends.

In conclusion, if a child is born to parents who are wise like her, then the child will grow up to be wise. Being born in a good family is the result of past kamma. Even if no such good kamma, if they have the opportunity to learn Dhamma in a Buddhist center, they can learn the ways to be wise, to avoid problems, to cultivate more good minds. This is acquiring wholesome kamma in this life, thus creating good kammic result in this life and future lives.

What is our future destination? It is past results + present result. Our destiny is still within our control, we can change it for it be a better result. That is why Buddhism is a practical religion. It is not just a depressing religion talking about suffering in life and impermanence of good things.

Now in our centre, we are transforming those part-time māra youth into full time deva youth. The process is still going on with four Brahmavihāra (mettā, karuṇā, muditā, upekkhā) and require lots of equanimity in mind.