Proverbs About Solving Problems

    ...there are a good many proverbs which characterize strikingly the typical procedures followed in solving problems, the points of common sense involved, the usual tricks, and the usual errors. ....It would be foolish to regard proverbs as an authoritative source of universally applicabal wisdom but it would be a pity to disregard the graphic description of heuristic procedures provided by proverbs.
     It could be an interesting task to collect and group proverbs about planning, seeking means, and choosing between lines of action, in short, proverbs about problem solving......The proverbs quoted will be printed in italics.
1. The very first thing we must do for our problem is to understand it: Who understands ill, answers ill. 
 We must see clearly the end we have to attain: Think for the end before you begin.
..."respice finem" is the saying in Latin.  Unfortunately, not everybody heeds such good advice, and people often start speculating, talking, and even acting fussily without having properly understood the aim for which they should work.  A fool looks to the beginning, a wise man regards the end.  If  the end is not clear in our mind, we may easily stray from the problem and drop it.  A wise man begins in the end, a fool ends in the beginning.
.....We have no chance to solve a difficult problem without a strong desire to solve it, but with such desire there is a chance.  Where there is a will, there is a way.

2. Devising a plan, conceiving the idea of an appropriate action, is the main achievement in the solution of a problem.  A good idea is a piece of good fortune, an inspiration, a gift of the gods, and we have to deserve it: Diligence is the mother of good luck.  Perseverance kills the game.  An oak is not felled at one stroke.  If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.  It is not enough however to try repeatedly, we must try different means, vary our trials.   Try all the keys in the bunch.  Arrows are made of all sorts of wood.
We must adapt our trials to the circumstances.  As the wind blows you must set your sail.  Cut your coat according to the cloth.  We must do as we may if we can't do as we would.  If we have failed, we must try something else.  A wise man changes his mind, a fool never does. We should even be prepared from the outset for a possible failure of our scheme and have another one in reserve.  Have two strings to your bows....Do and undo, the day is long enough.  We are likely to blunder less if we do not lose sight of our aim.  The end of fishing is not angling but catching....The expert has, perhaps, no more ideas than the inexperienced, but appreciates more what he has and uses it better.  A wise man will make more opportunities than he finds.  A wise man will make tools of what comes to hand.  A wise man turns chance into good fortune.  Or, possibly, the advantage of the expert is that he is continually on the lookout for opportunities.  Have an eye to the main chance.

3. We should start carrying out our plan at the right moment, when it is ripe, but not before.   We should not start rashly.  Look before you leap.  Try before you trust.  A wise delay makes the road safe.  On the other hand, we should not hesitate too long.  If you will sail without danger, you must never put to sea.  Do the likeliest and hope the best.....
We must use our judgment to determine the right moment.  And here is a timely warning that points out the most common fallacy, the most usual failure of our judgment:  We soon believe what we desire.
 Our plan gives usually but a general outline.  We have to convince ourselves that the details fit into the outline, and so we have to examine carefully each detail, one after the other.  Step after step the ladder is ascended.  Little by little as the cat ate the flickle.  Do it by degrees.
 In carrying out our plan we must be careful to arrange its steps in the proper order, which is frequently just the reverse of the order of invention.  What a fool does at last, a wise man does at first.

4. Looking back at the completed solution is an important and instructive phase of the work.  He thinks not well that thinks not again.  Second thoughts are best.
 Reexamining the solution, we may discover an additional confirmation of the result.   ....such an additional confirmation is valuable, that two proofs are better than one.  It is safe riding at two anchors.

5. ....Certain more systematic and more sophisticated aspects of the process of solution are hardly within the scope of the Wisdom of Proverbs.  ....Here follow a few "synthetic" proverbs which describe somewhat more sophisticated attitudes.
The end suggests the means.
Your five best friends are What, Why, Where, When, and How.  You ask What,, you ask Why, you ask Where, When and How --and ask nobody else when you need advice.
Do not believe anything but doubt only what is worth doubting.
look around when you have got your first mushroom or made your first discovery; they grow in clusters.

Source:
Polya, G.  How to Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method.  (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1945, 2nd ed. 2004), pp. 222-225. 
 

New Year Poems

Should We Remember or Forget

Should we remember or forget
those happenings in life?
Even a hundred-year life span
is but a fleeting dream.
Day after day time passes by
Spring comes and Spring goes
Only the Spring inside remains. 


Nhớ và  quên

Nhớ quên chi việc ở đời

Trăm năm giấc mộng một thời mà thôi

Xuân đi, Xuân lại, ngày trôi 

Lòng Xuân miên viễn mấy khi xa rời

Spring Dreams and Aspirations

O Beloved Country
far away in the mist
of old memories
with laughters and tears
along a history of ups and downs.
The future so foggy and dim
Any helping hands?
How helpless and frustrated I am
like a lone lost swallow
singing a mystic song
among grey clouds
above green mountains
searching for its flock

to return to its nest for Spring.
Tired, bewildered wings
A lone lost swallow's intermittent chirps 

Awakened from a long dream
From afar in the mist
O Beloved Homeland

My heart heavy
longing for you 
My dreams and aspirations
Unfulfilled. 

Nỗi Niềm Xuân

Thương về đất nước mù khơi 
Khóc cười nhung nhớ nào vơi trong lòng

Cõi phù thế những long đong

Tương lai vận nước biết trông ai giờ
Giận mình kém cỏi ngu ngơ

Cô thân viễn xứ dệt thơ mơ màng

Như chim én lạc giữa ngàn

Xa bầy xa tổ xa vàn mùa Xuân

Lạc loài cánh mỏi bâng khuâng

Hư không vọng tiếng lẻ loi phương nào

Giật mình tỉnh giấc chiêm bao

Cố hương còn nặng biết bao nỗi niềm.

February 10, 2013
Lunar New Year

Engaged Buddhism in Australia--Part II

In Brisbane these Buddhist organizations serve people who are not necessarily from any specific ethnic group.  These activities focus on education and social welfare programs.  Every week there are Chinese lessons and culture-oriented classes for the general public.  About 10,000 children participate in such classes every year.  Some temples devote most of their time to these programs.  Temples that belong to the Phat Quang Son School in Brisbane, Perth, Melbourne hold big ceremonies on Vesak Day, so that everybody, including the natives, can join.  This enhances  understanding among various ethnic groups. An organization named Hospice of Mother Tara in western Austtralia holds public discussions about current ethical issues from Buddhist perspectives in hope that local community members may benefit and develop sound understandings.  There are also meditation retreats for those who are interested.  Since the past decade Buddhist Peace Fellowship and its branches in Melbourne and Sydney have had community educational programs about key issues for public welfare, including issues related to the rights of the Aboriginal Australians and the East Timorese, and  the impact of globalization.  These discussions also aim at solving problems through non-violent means and measures, promoting peace, nuclear disarmament, and protecting human rights for the Aboriginals.  Some of these organizations mention Buddhist teachings such as the Four Noble Truths as the driving force of their activities.  Tibetan groups , on the other hand, said that they simply carried out their Boddhisattva vows, while Chinese Buddhists mentioned that they followed their Avalokitasvara's and other compassionate Bodhisattvas' examples.  Theravada Buddhists emphasized the Eight Noble Paths (right view, right thought, right words, right action, right profession, right effort, right attention, and right meditation).  Following the Middle Way each person may enhance the quality of his/her life.  The Buddha once taught: "With such a vast understanding and wisdom, the practitioner never harms him-/herself nor others, never harms both.  S/he only thinks about what is beneficial to him-/herself, what is beneficial to others, what is beneficial to both, and to the whole world.  That way the practitioner's immense knowledge and wisdom is revealed." Other important community education activities include interfaith dialogues and conflict reconciliation.  Bhikhuni Sumedha from the International Buddhist Center in  Darwin actively participated in these multicultural and interfaith activities.  This Center promotes the idea of a harmonious society with multicultural communities.  Hence its members are engaged in national reconciliation programs with the Aboriginals. These programs are based on the fundamental philosophy of interconnectedness in Buddhism, and on the belief that if we practice this philosophy with wisdom, we can create a harmonious society.  The Tara Project in Sydney has actively been engaged in such interfaith dialogues and reconciliation.  However, not all Buddhist groups in Australia are participating in Engaged Buddhism.

Source:

http://giacngo.vn/nguyetsan/phatgiaovaxahoi/2012/01/02/7F720A/

Engaged Buddhism in Australia

Engaged Buddhism in Australia is a form of Buddhist practice which aims at relieving sufferings for all sentient beings, including the practitioners themselves.  Their Engaged Buddhist activities mainly focus on education and healthcare, but they may also extend to providing financial and emotional support to all being living in distress, oppression, and endangered situations.  There are nine categories of these activities:
1 Educating adults in the community
2 Educating children in the community
3 Supporting the sick and the dying in hospitals and hospices
4 Supporting the sick and the dying in the community, and taking care of those who have incurable diseases
5 Visiting prisoners in prisons
6 Providing emotional support and guides to the addicts
7 Raising funds to help the poor and the needy
8 Organizing lectures about human rights and against oppression
9 Humanitarian activities for plants, trees and animals
Over 96% of Buddhist organizations in Australia are engaged in community education programs.  An example is The Friends of the Western Buddhist Order with its various centers in Melbourne, Sydney, and Toowoomba in Queensland.  It organizes dharma talks for local communities to teach the causes of sufferings and how to relieve sufferings, mental health programs to teach meditation and stress management.  The Toowoomba Center offers martial arts lessons to promote physical health.  The International  Phat Quang Son/Phat Quang Mountain Organization with its branches in Wollongong, Perth, Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne also has similar community programs.  For example, they give dharma talks, teach meditation practice, provide developmental and cultural activities and lessons about flower arrangement, calligraphy, and cooking vegetarian meals.  A temple in Perth regularly has dharma talks and discussions about Buddhist ethics and contemporary issues such as abortion, divorce, homosexuality, suicide, depression, and addiction.  The purpose is to apply what the Buddha taught to daily life to relieve sufferings according to the Four Noble Truths.

(To be continued)

Source:

http://giacngo.vn/nguyetsan/phatgiaovaxahoi/2012/01/02/7F720A/

Some Notes About Original Buddhist Texts

Early Period of Buddhism (From the Buddha's Enlightenment to His Demise)
The Buddha was born in 566 BC, and demised in 486 BC at the age of 80.  He got enlightened at the age of 30 (in 536 BC).  During this period original suttras and vinayas were circulated orally.  Those circulated towards northern India were called Agamas; those circulated towards the south were Nikayas.  Western scholars such as Hermann Oldenberg and Rhys Davids,  have studied the Pali texts in an attempt to find out the Buddha's authentic teachings.  Their Japanese counterparts, on the other hand, compared these two groups of texts in order to find out what was the Buddha's authentic teachings.  This was the method used by such scholars as Anesaki Masaharu.  Later, Ui Kakuju not only used comparative methods, but also resorted to logical analysis of the development and the structure of Buddhist texts both in the north and in the south to trace back to what the Buddha original taught, and distinguish it from what was added later on.
It is a daunting task to try to revive the Buddha's original and authentic teachings.  The reason was that Buddhism has gone through so many ups and downs, and has become so sectarian that it became too difficult to trace back to what was originally taught by the Buddha.  Based solely on the existing present texts would not be able to provide enough persuasive evidence.

Sources:
http://www.daophatngaynay.com/vn/kinh-dien/pali/12329-Khai-quat-lich-su-truyen-ba-kinh-dien-va-nhung-dac-diem-cua-kinh-tang-Nikaya.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinayana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikaya

Free Access to Online Academic Materials and Social Justice

Aaron Swartz is too idealistic to survive in the current structures.  Some may label his downloading activities as stealing, but if one examines his motivation, integrity, and behaviors, one will find him a young talented dreamer who has seen the power of knowledge and the Internet, and whose thoughts and dreams are far beyond his times.  Aaron is among those who would like to challenge the limits imposed by the systems.  He chose death probably because he has found this world was not for him.


Quotes:


Sir Tim Berners-Lee - the British inventor of the world wide web
"Aaron dead. World wanderers, we have lost a wise elder. Hackers for right, we are one down. Parents all, we have lost a child. Let us weep."
Peter Eckersley, Electronic Frontier Foundation, non-profit digital rights group

"Aaron did more than almost anyone to make the Internet a thriving ecosystem for open knowledge, and to keep it that way.  While his methods were provocative, the goal that Aaron died fighting for - freeing the publicly-funded scientific literature from a publishing system that makes it inaccessible to most of those who paid for it - is one that we should all support.

Moreover, the situation Aaron found himself in highlights the injustice of US computer crime laws, and particularly their punishment regimes."

Larence Lessig, Harvard Law professor and ex-mentor
"Here is where we need a better sense of justice, and shame. For the outrageousness in this story is not just Aaron. It is also the absurdity of the prosecutor's behaviour.

From the beginning, the government worked as hard as it could to characterise what Aaron did in the most extreme and absurd way. The "property" Aaron had "stolen," we were told, was worth "millions of dollars"- with the hint, and then the suggestion, that his aim must have been to profit from his crime.

But anyone who says that there is money to be made in a stash of ACADEMIC ARTICLES is either an idiot or a liar. It was clear what this was not, yet our government continued to push as if it had caught the 9/11 terrorists red-handed.

Sources:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21011663

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21001452

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12613617

http://tech.mit.edu/V132/N61/swartz.html

http://tech.mit.edu/V131/N30/swartz.html




  

Early Buddhist Suttras - Part II

Some Characteristics of the Early Buddhist Suttras:

1. Both the Nikayas and the Agamas come from original Buddhist texts, but they have been disseminated in two geographically different regions.  They contain simple but very rich authentic Buddhist teachings.
2. Both were circulated orally for 400 years after the Buddha's demise.

3. There are a lot of narrations and repetitions in these texts.  They reflect many customs, social and religious issues, life and thoughts at the Buddha's time. 

4. They contain what the Buddha taught to the four groups of His Sangha (monks, nuns, Buddhist followers) about how to develop spiritually and how to live, behave and treat one another.  All these teachings are simple and easy to remember.

5. They contain the fundamentals in Buddhism, the core from which all other Buddhist sects developed: the Four Noble Truths, the Dependent Origination, the Eightfold Path, Impermanence, Suffering, and No Self, and the spiritual development path of Disciplines, Meditation, and Wisdom. 
6. For the first 400 years after the Buddha's demise there was no mention of Mahayana nor Theravada/Hinayana. 


Sources:
http://www.daophatngaynay.com/vn/kinh-dien/pali/12329-Khai-quat-lich-su-truyen-ba-kinh-dien-va-nhung-dac-diem-cua-kinh-tang-Nikaya.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinayana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikaya