Saturday, 25 September 2010

Chiếc kẹp tóc thơm tho

Phạm Duy: "Một ngày kia xuống phà qua con sông Hậu Giang, tôi gặp một bé gái bán vé số. Bé xinh xắn, sạch sẽ, lễ phép... Tôi muốn tặng bé ít tiền nhưng cháu không nhận. Tôi bèn mua ít tấm vé số với giá đặc biệt. Khi phà sắp sửa tách bến thì cháu chạy vội xuống, dúi vào tay tôi một chiếc kẹp tóc còn thơm mùi tóc dậy thì con gái. Có lẽ đó là món trang sức đắt giá nhất trên người cháu. Cháu tặng tôi như một cử chỉ đền đáp, vì cháu không muốn nợ ai thứ gì cả. Tôi không thể không nhận. Cầm chiếc kẹp tóc nhỏ trong tay, trong lòng tôi cứ dâng lên nỗi xúc động. Cũng như bé gái ấy, tôi không muốn nợ ai bất cứ thứ gì. Tôi thích sự sòng phẳng. Bé gái và tôi, chúng tôi đã gặp nhau."

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Thế rồi có ngày hồi hương
Cuộc đời trăm phương nghìn hướng
Tạm thời ngừng cuộc lãng du
Cho qua đi những ngày mưa nắng
Ngày đầy hay ngày thưa vắng
Cho đi theo cảnh đất trời xa
Quên đi cảnh đất trời xa.

Thế rồi tôi bước về quê
Sau nhiều tang thương dâu bể
Bao phen vật đổi sao dời
Quê hương mình vẫn là nơi
Để tìm về lẽ sống mà thôi
Mình tìm ra chính mình thôi.

Thế rồi tôi xuống Hậu Giang
Tôi qua bến phà sông lớn
Đang nhìn những cánh bèo trôi
Bỗng nghe rộn rã câu mời
"Mua xổ số ông ơi
Ông ơi
Mua xổ số ông ơi!"

Tôi nhìn em bé thật xinh
Guốc mộc, áo lành không rách
Mắt tròn, trong sáng và to,
Đôi má em và môi em đỏ
Mái tóc dầy, mùi tóc thơm tho,
Với chiếc kẹp tóc đơn sơ.

Thế rồi tôi móc túi ra
Tặng em chút quà không nhỏ
Lắc đầu em cứ nhìn tôi
Em không muốn xin tiền người
"Mua xổ số đi thôi
Ông ơi
Ông ơi
Mua xổ số đi thôi"

Thế rồi tôi cũng phải mua
Dẫu rằng tôi chẳng tin xổ số
Tôi mua một lúc hai mươi tờ
Em cười đôi má đỏ hoe
Em cười đôi má đỏ hoe

Thế rồi phà tới bến quê
Thế rồi tôi bước lên xe
Bé thơ chạy tuốt lên bờ
Rút kẹp tóc ra
Rút kẹp tóc ra
"Con tặng cho ông đó"

Thế rồi tôi vẫn còn đi
Trên đường giang hồ đây đó
Mang theo hương vị quê mùa
Hương nồng từ đất quê ta
Đến từ kẹp tóc em thơ
“Chiếc kẹp tóc thơm tho”

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Nghe: Đức Tuấn hát (YouTube): 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOR9JKtdPGY  

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Monday, 20 September 2010

The lost art of listening

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald, 20th Sept 2010,
http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/blogs/the-venture/the-lost-art-of-listening/20100919-15hsa.html
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At a recent business dinner, half the table checked emails or phone text messages during a lull in the event. At a meeting the next day, some attendees couldn’t go an hour without checking their phone. How pathetic to have a phone on silent, sitting on your lap, under the table.

I shouldn’t be surprised: a recent US survey found a quarter of all internet users think its okay to be online during sex. Slightly more said it’s okay to be “plugged in” during their honeymoon, and 8 per cent think it’s alright to surf the web during religious services.

Someone should set up Cyberholics Anonymous: “My name is John. I’m 45 years old, sleep with an iPhone next to my bed and check emails upon waking. I have sore thumbs from texting, and waste half the day replying to useless emails. I’ve forgotten how to listen and have a real conversation. I am now a manager of emails – not people.”

What’s your view: is technology in the workplace getting out of hand? Are you frustrated when somebody spends half their time texting while you talk to them? Can you share examples of cyber-addiction in your workplace?

I can understand teenagers texting and emailing themselves silly. But grown adults in business? One entrepreneur I know spends half his day at cafes emailing and social networking with contacts. Good for him if it works, though I doubt that alone can identify and solve customer problems.

Technology offers great benefits to small business owners. But has it gone so far that entrepreneurs and their staff are forgetting how to listen – really listen – and ask the right questions?

Is listening becoming a lost art when so many answers are in electronic printed short form and attention spans have compressed to seconds and minutes?

Are we too eager to tell others what we think via rapid-fire email?

Is this disease spreading to business?

The ability to ask questions and listen is vastly underrated in entrepreneurship. There should be courses on it. The best entrepreneurs I’ve interviewed over the years, those who’ve made the BRW Rich 200 and BRW Young Rich lists, have these skills in spades.

At times, you feel they are interviewing you to get information. The worst entrepreneurs engage in one-sided conversations about them and don’t care what anybody else thinks.

If you’re worried technology is denting the ability of staff to ask the right questions and listen to customers, consider these tips from Michael McQueen, founder of The Nexgen Group, an international training consultancy.

McQueen’s piece, Becoming a Master-Asker, has some terrific ideas (in bold):

1. Avoid closed questions that lead to a yes or no response: Ask questions that encourage dialogue, not one-word answers.

2. Don’t start questions with “why": That can make respondents feel they are being backed into a corner and needing to justify their response.

3. Ask one question at a time: How many times have you heard a journalist ask two or three questions at once, and the poor interviewee struggle to remember them?

4. Don’t ask loaded questions that solicit the response you want.

5. Ask questions with a curious, enquiring and interested tone.

6. Never ridicule or dismiss a response: All too often, we can’t wait to give view on an answer rather take time to reflect on it.

7. Be genuine: Don’t ask the question if you’re not interested in the response.

I’ll add some extra ideas:

8. Respect time: If someone is good enough to let you ask questions, be grateful for the opportunity.

9. Prepare, prepare, prepare: Strong preparation leads to strong questions.

10. Ask for permission to record the conversation if it’s important. That way you can listen deeply to the response rather than furiously scribble notes.

11. Start with broad questions first: Encourage more dialogue and build rapport, than move to detailed questions during the conversation.

12. Be prepared to probe: The best interviewers think on their feet and go where the responses take them to flesh out responses, rather than rigidly stick to a question sheet.

As more people become technology addicted, knowing what to ask and being able to listen will make a huge difference in truly understanding what customers want - and innovating.

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Thursday, 16 September 2010

Five Regrets of the Dying

by Bronnie Ware
Source: http://littlebang.org/2010/09/08/five-regrets-of-the-dying/
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For many years I worked in palliative care. My patients were those whohad gone home to die. Some incredibly special times were shared. I was with them for the last three to twelve weeks of their lives.

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learned never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again. Here are the mostcommon five:

1. I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.

This was the most common regret of all. When people realise that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled. Most people have had not honoured even a half of their dreams and had to die knowing that it was due to choices they had made, or not made.

It is very important to try and honour at least some of your dreams along the way. From the moment that you lose your health, it is too late. Health brings a freedom very few realise, until they no longer have it.

2. I wish I didn’t work so hard.

This came from every male patient that I nursed. They missed their children’s youth and their partner’s companionship. Women also spoke of this regret. But as most were from an older generation, many of the female patients had not been breadwinners. All of the men I nursed deeply regretted spending so much of their lives on the treadmill of a work existence.

By simplifying your lifestyle and making conscious choices along theway, it is possible to not need the income that you think you do. And by creating more space in your life, you become happier and more open to new opportunities, ones more suited to your new lifestyle.

3. I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings.

Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace withothers. As a result, they settled for a mediocre existence and never became who they were truly capable of becoming. Many developed illnesses relating to the bitterness and resentment they carried as aresult.

We cannot control the reactions of others. However, although people may initially react when you change the way you are by speaking honestly, in the end it raises the relationship to a whole new and healthier level. Either that or it releases the unhealthy relationship from your life. Either way, you win.

4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.

Often they would not truly realise the full benefits of old friends until their dying weeks and it was not always possible to track them down. Many had become so caught up in their own lives that they had let golden friendships slip by over the years. There were many deep regrets about not giving friendships the time and effort that they deserved. Everyone misses their friends when they are dying.

It is common for anyone in a busy lifestyle to let friendships slip. But when you are faced with your approaching death, the physical details of life fall away. People do want to get their financial affairs in order if possible. But it is not money or status that holds the true importance for them. They want to get things in order more for the benefit of those they love. Usually though, they are too ill and weary to ever manage this task. It is all comes down to love and relationships in the end. That is all that remains in the final weeks, love and relationships.

5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.

This is a surprisingly common one. Many did not realise until the end that happiness is a choice. They had stayed stuck in old patterns and habits. The so-called ‘comfort’ of familiarity overflowed into their emotions, as well as their physical lives. Fear of change had them pretending to others, and to their selves, that they were content. When deep within, they longed to laugh properly and have silliness in their life again.

When you are on your deathbed, what others think of you is a long way from your mind. How wonderful to be able to let go and smile again, long before you are dying.

Life is a choice. It is YOUR life. Choose consciously, choose wisely, choose honestly. Choose happiness.

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Friday, 10 September 2010

How the internet makes us stupid

by Nicholas Carr
Source: http://www.smh.com.au/ , 10-Sept-2010
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ALTHOUGH the worldwide web has been around for just 20 years, it is hard to imagine life without it. It has given us instant access to vast amounts of information, and we're able to stay in touch with friends and colleagues more or less continuously.

But our dependence on the internet has a dark side. A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the net, with its constant distractions and interruptions, is turning us into scattered and superficial thinkers.

I've been studying this research for the past three years, in the course of writing my new book The Shallows: How the Internet Is Changing the Way We Think, Read and Remember. But my interest in the subject is not just academic. It's personal. I was inspired to write the book after I realised that I was losing my own capacity for concentration and contemplation. Even when I was away from my computer, my mind seemed hungry for constant stimulation, for quick hits of information. I felt perpetually distracted.

Could my loss of focus be a result of all the time I've spent online? In search of an answer to that question, I began to dig into the many psychological, behavioural, and neurological studies that examine how the tools we use to think with - our information technologies - shape our habits of mind.

The picture that emerges is troubling, at least to anyone who values the subtlety, rather than just the speed, of human thought. People who read text studded with links, the studies show, comprehend less than those who read words printed on pages. People who watch busy multimedia presentations remember less than those who take in information in a more sedate and focused manner. People who are continually distracted by emails, updates and other messages understand less than those who are able to concentrate. And people who juggle many tasks are often less creative and less productive than those who do one thing at a time.

The common thread in these disabilities is the division of attention. The richness of our thoughts, our memories and even our personalities hinges on our ability to focus the mind and sustain concentration. Only when we pay close attention to a new piece of information are we able to associate it ''meaningfully and systematically with knowledge already well established in memory'', writes the Nobel prize-winning neuroscientist Eric Kandel. Such associations are essential to mastering complex concepts and thinking critically.

When we're constantly distracted and interrupted, as we tend to be when looking at the screens of our computers and mobile phones, our brains can't forge the strong and expansive neural connections that give distinctiveness and depth to our thinking. Our thoughts become disjointed, our memories weak. The Roman philosopher Seneca may have put it best 2000 years ago: ''To be everywhere is to be nowhere.''

In an article in Science last year, Patricia Greenfield, a developmental psychologist who runs UCLA's Children's Digital Media Centre, reviewed dozens of studies on how different media technologies influence our cognitive abilities. Some of the studies indicated that certain computer tasks, such as playing video games, increase the speed at which people can shift their focus among icons and other images on screens. Other studies, however, found that such rapid shifts in focus, even if performed adeptly, result in less rigorous and ''more automatic'' thinking.

In one experiment at an American university, half a class of students was allowed to use internet-connected laptops during a lecture, while the other had to keep their computers shut. Those who browsed the web performed much worse on a subsequent test of how well they retained the lecture's content. Earlier experiments revealed that as the number of links in an online document goes up, reading comprehension falls, and as more types of information are placed on a screen, we remember less of what we see.

Greenfield concluded that ''every medium develops some cognitive skills at the expense of others''. Our growing use of screen-based media, she said, has strengthened visual-spatial intelligence, which can strengthen the ability to do jobs that involve keeping track of lots of rapidly changing signals, such as piloting a plane or monitoring a patient during surgery. But that has been accompanied by ''new weaknesses in higher-order cognitive processes'', including ''abstract vocabulary, mindfulness, reflection, inductive problem solving, critical thinking, and imagination''. We're becoming, in a word, shallower.

Studies of our behaviour online support this conclusion. German researchers found that web browsers usually spend less than 10 seconds looking at a page. Even people doing academic research online tend to ''bounce'' rapidly between different documents, rarely reading more than a page or two, according to a University College London study. Such mental juggling takes a big toll. In a recent experiment at Stanford University, researchers gave various cognitive tests to 49 people who do a lot of media multitasking and 52 people who multitask much less frequently. The heavy multitaskers performed poorly on all the tests. They were more easily distracted, had less control over their attention, and were much less able to distinguish important information from trivia.

The researchers were surprised by the results. They expected the intensive multitaskers to have gained some mental advantages. But that wasn't the case. In fact, the multitaskers weren't even good at multitasking. ''Everything distracts them,'' said Clifford Nass, one of the researchers.

It would be one thing if the ill-effects went away as soon as we turned off our computers and mobiles. But they don't. The cellular structure of the human brain, scientists have discovered, adapts readily to the tools we use to find, store and share information. By changing our habits of mind, each new technology strengthens certain neural pathways and weakens others. The alterations shape the way we think even when we're not using the technology.

The pioneering neuroscientist Michael Merzenich believes our brains are being ''massively remodelled'' by our ever-intensifying use of the web and related media.

In the 1970s and 1980s, Merzenich, now a professor emeritus at the University of California in San Francisco, conducted a famous series of experiments that revealed how extensively and quickly neural circuits change in response to experience. In a conversation late last year, he said that he was profoundly worried about the cognitive consequences of the constant distractions and interruptions the internet bombards us with. The long-term effect on the quality of our intellectual lives, he said, could be ''deadly''.

Not all distractions are bad. As most of us know, if we concentrate too intensively on a tough problem, we can get stuck in a mental rut. But if we let the problem sit unattended for a time, we often return to it with a fresh perspective and a burst of creativity.

Research by the Dutch psychologist Ap Dijksterhuis indicates that such breaks in our attention give our unconscious mind time to grapple with a problem, bringing to bear information and cognitive processes unavailable to conscious deliberation. We usually make better decisions, his experiments reveal, if we shift our attention away from a mental challenge for a time.

But Dijksterhuis's work also shows that our unconscious thought processes don't engage with a problem until we've clearly and consciously defined what the problem is. If we don't have a particular goal in mind, he writes, ''unconscious thought does not occur''.

The constant distractedness that the net encourages - the state of being, to borrow a phrase from T. S. Eliot, ''distracted from distraction by distraction'' - is very different from the kind of temporary, purposeful diversion of our mind that refreshes our thinking. The cacophony of stimuli short-circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively. Our brains turn into simple signal-processing units, shepherding information into consciousness and then back out again.

What we seem to be sacrificing in our surfing and searching is our capacity to engage in the quieter, attentive modes of thought that underpin contemplation, reflection and introspection. The web never encourages us to slow down. It keeps us in a state of perpetual mental locomotion.

The rise of social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, which pump out streams of brief messages, has only exacerbated the problem.

THERE'S nothing wrong with absorbing information quickly and in bits and pieces. We've always skimmed newspapers more than we've read them, and we routinely run our eyes over books and magazines to get the gist of a piece of writing and decide whether it warrants more thorough reading.

The ability to scan and browse is as important as the ability to read deeply and think attentively. What's disturbing is that skimming is becoming our dominant mode of thought.

Once a means to an end, a way to identify information for further study, it's becoming an end in itself - our preferred method of both learning and analysis.

Dazzled by the net's treasures, we have been blind to the damage we may be doing to our intellectual lives and even our culture.

Daily Telegraph, London
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Thursday, 9 September 2010

Sự tồn tại của Diệu Pháp

Tương Ưng 47.25
Người Bà-la-môn


Trong kinh nầy, Ðức Phật giảng rằng Diệu Pháp chỉ tồn tại khi nào pháp hành Tứ Niệm Xứ được tu tập sung mãn.


Như vầy tôi nghe.

Một thời Thế Tôn trú ở Sàvatthi, tại Thắng Lâm, khu vườn ông Cấp Cô Ðộc. Rồi một Bà-la-môn đi đến Thế Tôn; sau khi đến, nói lên với Thế Tôn những lời chào đón hỏi thăm, sau khi nói lên những lời chào đón hỏi thăm thân hữu rồi ngồi xuống một bên. Ngồi một bên, vị Bà-la-môn ấy thưa với Thế Tôn:

-"Do nhân gì, do duyên gì, thưa Tôn giả Gotama, khi Như Lai nhập Niết-bàn, Diệu pháp không được tồn tại lâu dài? Do nhân gì, do duyên gì, thưa Tôn giả Gotama, khi Như Lai nhập Niết-bàn, Diệu pháp được tồn tại lâu dài?"

-"Do bốn niệm xứ không được tu tập, không được làm cho sung mãn, này Bà-la-môn, khi Như Lai nhập Niết-bàn, Diệu pháp không có tồn tại lâu dài. Do bốn niệm xứ được tu tập, được làm cho sung mãn, thưa Hiền giả, khi Như Lai nhập Niết-bàn, Diệu pháp được tồn tại lâu dài. Thế nào là bốn?

Ở đây, này Hiền giả, Tỷ-kheo trú, quán thân trên thân, nhiệt tâm, tỉnh giác, chánh niệm, nhiếp phục tham ưu ở đời; trú, quán thọ trên các thọ ...; trú, quán tâm trên tâm ...; trú, quán pháp trên các pháp, nhiệt tâm, tỉnh giác, chánh niệm, nhiếp phục tham ưu ở đời.

Do không tu tập, không làm cho sung mãn bốn niệm xứ này, này Hiền giả, khi Như Lai nhập Niết-bàn, Diệu pháp không được tồn tại lâu dài. Do tu tập, do làm cho sung mãn bốn niệm xứ này, này Hiền giả, khi Như Lai nhập Niết-bàn, Diệu pháp được tồn tại lâu dài."

Khi được nghe nói vậy, Bà-la-môn ấy bạch Thế Tôn:

- "Thật vi diệu thay, thưa Tôn giả Gotama! Từ nay cho đến mạng chung, xin Ngài cho con được trọn đời quy ngưỡng".

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SN 47.25

A Certain Brahmin

Thus have I heard.

On one occasion the Blessed One was dwelling at Savatthi, in Jeta's Grove, Anathapindika's Park. Then a certain brahmin approached the Blessed One and exchanged greetings with him. When they had concluded their greetings and cordial talk, he sat down to one side and said to the Blessed One:

"Master Gotama, what is the cause and reason why, after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbana, the true Dhamma does not endure long? And what is the cause and reason why, after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbana, the true Dhamma endures long?"

"It is, brahmin, because the four foundations of mindfulness are not developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma does not endure long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbana. And it is because the four foundations of mindfulness are developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma endures long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbana. What four?

Here, friend, a bhikkhu dwells contemplating the body in the body ... feelings in feelings ... mind in mind ... mental phenomena in mental phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, removing covetousness and displeasure in regard to the world.

It is because these four foundations of mindfulness are not developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma does not endure long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbana. And it is because these four foundations of mindfulness are developed and cultivated that the true Dhamma endures long after a Tathagata has attained final Nibbana"

When this was said, that brahmin said to the Blessed One: "Magnificent, Master Gotama! From today let Master Gotama remember me as a lay follower who has gone for refuge for life".

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Wednesday, 1 September 2010

The First Theravada Bhikkhuni Ordination in North America


Source: Aranya Bodhi Hermitage,http://awakening-forest-hermitage.blogspot.com/

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We awoke the morning after to find the forest filled with and pervaded by joy.

It was a day of joy.

On August 29th 2010, our Dhammadharini support foundation celebrated its five year anniversary with the full ordination of four women novices at our Aranya Bodhi Hermitage.

It was a beautiful day and the culmination of years of effort by so many monastic and lay friends and supporters. It was also a new beginning for both the new bhikkhunis and for Buddhism in North America, as this was the first Theravada Bhikkhuni ordination ever to be held here performed entirely by the Theravada Bhikkhuni Sangha together with the Theravada Bhikkhu Sangha. Around 200 friends came to celebrate and witness the event, including eminent Dhamma teachers Ruth Denison from Dhamma Dena Desert Vipassana, Ajahns Anandabodhi and Santacitta from the Saranaloka nuns' community, and Sylvia Boorstien representing Jack Kornfield and the entire Spirit Rock community. It was wonderful to have so many dear friends in Dhamma gathered together on in the heart of our forest hermitage, and the hall and whole area was decorated and adorned by Deva Flower's friends Sumana and Apple. Amidst the chanting of "Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu," flower petals were sprinkled upon the long line of processing monastics and candidates as the gong was rung and they silently walked up the road to the ordination platform between rows of friends and family.

Those Ordained

Ven Suvijjana had her samaneri pabbaja on the mountain saddle adjacent to the Awakening Forest just over two years before, and has been training with Ayya Tathaaloka at Dhammadharini Vihara, the Bodhi House and at the hermitage for the past four years. Ven Adhimutta was ordained a novice by Ayya Tathaaloka even before that in Australia at Santi Forest Monastery where she trained under the tutelage of Bhante Sujato. Ven Phalanyani has trained as a nun in Thailand with Ajahn Suphan and Ajahn Noah at Wat Ram Peong and ordained as a samaneri with Ayya Tathaaloka at our hermitage. Ven Thanasanti had been a samaneri for the very longest time, having her pabbaja with the venerable Ajahn Sumedho in England nineteen years ago

The Ordaining Sangha

Venerable elder bhikkhunis Ayya Gunasari and Ayya Satima traveled from the Mahapajapati Women's Monastery in the Mohave Desert and from the Minnesota Buddhist Vihara, and Ven Madika came from the Great Determination Hermitage in Ohio to fulfill the quorum for the ordaining Bhikkhuni Sangha. Ayya Sudhamma and Ayya Sobhana, both of whom trained at the Bhavana Society with Bhante G (and thus have excellent Pali-language pronounciation) served as the Kammavacacarinis or Chanting Acaryas for the ordination. Ayya Tathaaloka Theri, having surpassed 12 vassas since her own bhikkhuni ordination, was appointed by the Bhikkhuni Sangha as the Pavattini or Preceptor for the ordination of her students.

One by one, all four women were ordained on one side by the Bhikkhuni Sangha, while friends and family members bore witness together sitting outside our sima ordination platform.

After being ordained by the Bhikkhuni Sangha, the four one-sided bhikkhunis then went over to the assembled Bhikkhu Sangha for the confirmation of their ordination which completes the bhikkhuni upasampada.

Bhante Henepola Gunaratana, founding abbot of the Bhavana Society and legendary Dhamma teacher, was the senior bhikkhu present and served as the Ovadaka Acarya, which means that he had the honor of giving the new bhikkhunis their very first Dhamma teaching directly after their ordination. The abbots of American Buddhist Seminary Temple in Sacramento and Buddhi Vihara in Santa Clara together served as the bhikkhu Kammavacacaryas or Masters of the Chanting. Venerable Ajahn Pasanno, abbot of Abhayagiri Buddhist Monastery, Bhante Pannasara, Bhante Punnananda, Ajahn Yatiko, Bhante Wimalaratana and Ven Varanyano Bhikkhu more than filled the quorum for the Bhikkhu Sangha completing the ordination.

Bhante G gave a beautiful Dhamma talk on the special meaning of a buddha being born in the world, and on his own dedication to women's ordination in his 60 plus years of monastic life. He spoke of how glad he was that two of his students, venerable Ayyas Sudhamma and Sobhana had served as Acaryas for such an important and historical occasion.

Ven Bhikkhu Bodhi had recorded Dhamma words of Anumodana on video to be shared with everyone as well in his absence that was not able to be uploaded, but fortunately all the bhikkhunis were able to hear it from him live via Skype.

After the ordination, friends had prepared many trays to offer Sanghadana to the entire Ubhato Sangha - the word the Buddha used for the highest blessing of the complete Bhikkhu and Bhikkhuni Sangha together. Sylvia Boorstien offered a beautiful large standing Kwan Yin image from the Spirit Rock community together with a yurt heating system, and Kerstin Hall of Padmasambhava Peace Institute offered a Tibetan prayer wheel that turns powered by solar panels! These were wonderful gifts for an off the grid women's monastic hermitage.

And after the Sanghadana, the entire Sangha, including bhikkhus and bhikkhunis, siladharas and anagarikas -- and most importantly new bhikkhunis -- all chanted traditional Pali verses of blessing together led by Bhante G.

It was a beautiful and joyful day, with so much mudita so strongly pervasive at time that it seemed the air was alive and fragranced by this quality. One friend reported feeling tsunamis of joy. Other friends mentioned that it felt like a deep healing, the turning of a bend, and coming out into the clear and wide open way of the Buddha's.

And joy filled the forest and resounded through it, from the tops of the mountain trees, deep into the silent redwood fairy rings, and down to the flowing waters of the creek, out to the ocean.

"It is good when the Sangha gathers in harmony together, Ananda, it is good" (The Buddha).

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See also: The First Theravada Bhikkhuni Ordination in Australia, 22nd October 2009