Buddhism: theory of relationship and theory of development

1. Week 6 Buddhism: theory of relationship and theory of development http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpersonal_relationship

2. An interpersonal relationship Is an association between two or more people that may range from fleeting to enduring. This association may be based on limerence, love, solidarity (unity), regular business interactions, or some other type of social commitment. How is it developed? Interpersonal relationships are formed in the context of social, cultural and other influences. The context can vary from family or kinship relations, friendship, marriage, relations with associates, work, clubs, neighborhoods, and place of worship. They may be regulated by law, custom, or mutual agreement, and are the basis of social group and society as a whole.

3. Relationship between two individuals • A connection between two individuals, such as a romantic or intimate relationship, or a parent-child relationship. • Individuals can also have relationships with groups of people, such as the relation between an uncle and a family, or a mayor and a town. • Groups or even nations may have relations with each other, though this is a much broader domain than that covered under the topic of interpersonal relationships. • Associations between groups of different nations = International relations • Most scholarly work on relationships focuses on the small subset of interpersonal relationships involving romantic partners in pairs.

4. How is Dukkhaformed? • Interpersonal relationships usually involve some level of interdependence. (then expectation is created = buddhist concerning = Kilesa, Tannha?) • People in a relationship tend to influence each other, share their thoughts and feelings, and engage in activities together. (just to serve self-fulfillment= Utta). • Because of this interdependence, most things that change or impact one member of the relationship will have some level of impact on the other member. (chains of reactions, chain Kamma?

5. Interpersonal relationship creates branches of studies • The social sciences include disciplines such as sociology, psychology, anthropology and social work. • The scientific study of relationships is referred to as relationship science and distinguishes itself from anecdotal evidence or pseudo-experts by basingconclusions on data and objective analysis. • Interpersonal ties are also a subject in mathematical sociology. More opinion… Then,… those who concentrate on these studies may not realize that the un-trained mind creates all the troublesome. These studies fulfill knowledge and degrees rather than mind practicing.

6. Theory of Development Interpersonal relationships are dynamic systems that change continuously during their existence. Like living organisms, relationships have a beginning, a lifespan, and an end. They tend to grow and improve gradually, as people get to know each other and become closer emotionally, or they gradually deteriorate as people drift apart, move on with their lives and form new relationships with others. One of the most influential models of relationship development was proposed by psychologist George Levinger. This model was formulated to describe heterosexual, adult romantic relationships, but it has been applied to other kinds of interpersonal relations as well. According to the model, the natural development of a relationship follows five stages: 1 Acquaintance(= state of familiarization) – Becoming acquainted depends on previous relationships, physical proximity (=being close to each other), first impressions, and a variety of other factors. If two people begin to like each other, continued interactions may lead to the next stage, but acquaintance can continue indefinitely.

7. Theory of Development 2 Buildup–people begin to trust and care about each other for intimacy, compatibility and common background and goals 3 Continuation–a mutual commitment to a long-term friendship, romantic relationship, or marriage - a long, relative stable period. Continued growth and development occur, mutual trust is important for sustaining the relationship. 4 Deterioration– Not all relationships deteriorate, but those that do tend to show signs of trouble (boredom, resentment, and dissatisfaction), and individuals may communicate less and avoid self-disclosure, loss of trust and betrayals, eventually ending the relationship. 5 Termination–the end of the relationship, either by death in the case of a healthy relationship, or by separation.

8. Theory of Development • Friendships may involve some degree of transitivity. • A person may become a friend of an existing friend's friend. • However, if two people have a sexual relationship with the same person, they may become competitors rather than friends. Accordingly, sexual behavior with the sexual partner of a friend may damage the friendship. • Legal sanction reinforces and regularizes marriages and civil unions as perceived "respectable" building-blocks of society.

9. Courses to learn about human “Ma-Ya?” • Contents • 1 Development • 2 Flourishing relationships • 2.1 Background • 2.1.1 Adult attachment • 2.1.2 Love • 2.2 Theories and empirical research • 2.2.1 Confucianism • 2.2.2 Minding relationships • 2.2.3 Culture of appreciation • 2.2.4 Capitalizing on positive events • 2.3 Other perspectives • 2.3.1 Neurobiology of interpersonal connections • 2.4 Applications • 2.5 Controversies Then “Attachment” is formed. Success ones tighten the tie, the loss ones reacts towards positive or negative Kamma.

10. How are those related to Buddhism points of view?

11. Buddhism and Relationships: Four Noble Truths, Three Yanas http://www.susanpiver.com/wordpress/2008/03/05/buddhism-and-relationships-four-noble-truths-three-yanas/ • Buddhism has much to teach on the topic relationships, even though it may not seem that way at first. I mean what do the four noble truths (life is suffering; suffering is caused by attachment; it’s possible to stop suffering; there is an 8-fold path for doing so) have to do with figuring out how to love someone—or how to survive when someone stops loving you? • Well, as a student of Buddhism and one who writes about relationships, I can tell you that every time I’ve tried to contextualize a Buddhist teaching as a way of understanding love, it works. • So not too long ago, I thought about the four noble truths and the three yanasin connection with that which we long for and fear the most: love.

12. The three yanas (or vehicles) are the Hinayana (foundational vehicle), Mahayana (great vehicle), and Vajrayana (indestructible vehicle.) • Hinayana teachings focus on personal conduct; getting your own life together. • Mahayana teachings are about what naturally happens next: your heart opens to others. You can’t help it. So the Mahayana is about compassion and recognizing the profound interconnectedness of all phenomena. • The Vajrayana is about working with every circumstance as an opportunity for complete enlightenment. Here one finds teachings on ordinary magic, crazy wisdom, and auspicious coincidence—the ways the world conspires to introduce you to your true nature.

13. The four noble truths and the three yanas in light of relationships. • Four Noble Truths of Relationships1. Relationships are deeply uncomfortable.Your first date, there is simply an enormous amount of discomfort involved in relationships. We’re afraid of being hurt, disappointed, overtaxed, ignored. The interesting part is that all these things happen. This is just the way it is, even in happy relationships. • The thing no one tells you is that it’s impossible to stabilize a relationship. • The emotional exchange between two people shifts like grains of sand in the desert: some days you can see forever and some days you just have to take cover because something kicked up out of nowhere and now shit is flying all over the place. Until one day, a familiar path is altogether blocked. • The bad news is you never get to where you thought you were going. You get somewhere else instead. • The good news is that there’s basically no way to have a boring relationship.

14. 2. Discomfort comes from trying to make the relationship comfortable. • At the root of the discomfort is the wish that it wouldn’t be uncomfortable, that we could eventually find the “right” person and relax. • But the truth is that when you do find the (or a) right person, it’s anything but relaxing: your neuroses, their neuroses, and all the hopes and fears you’ve ever had about love flood your situation. • Whether you bargained for it or not, you get introduced to your deepest self while someone else is trying to introduce you to their deepest self. • It is better to dive right in and be really nice to each other as you consider the root of your own and his/her confusion. (Acting nice to each other in the midst of confusion is love.)

15. 3. It’s the inability to create safety that plots the path to love.True love seems to exist on some mysterious edge of its own. It can’t be controlled and when you try, it calcifies. To keep it alive, at some point you just have to let go and see what happens. • Love becomes more than mere romance. It turns into something way better: intimacy. Romance has got to end, but intimacy? It has no end. • It is not like “oh, intimacy, we’ve done that. What comes next?” Nothing comes next. • Discuss:

16. 4. It is possible to work with the uncertainty skillfully. • you can train in working with the heart. As with anything you consider important (or life-threatening, for that matter), you don’t want to just show up and hope for the best. Applying the view of the three yanas could help. What are they?

17. Three Yanas1. Hinayana • As mentioned, Hinayana teachings are about personal conduct: right speech, right action, and so on. You get your own life in order through discipline, honor, and effort. You know how to make your bed, pick up your clothes, and make it to work on time. Basic stuff, but without which everything simply falls apart. Very important. • When applied to relationships, Hinayana view could mean things like calling someone when you say you will. Being on time. Having good manners. Listening when they talk and other such radical propositions.

18. 2. Mahayana • When you are a stand-up human being, you can extend yourself to another in a more profound way. In fact, you want to. It just happens. You could find love and actually enjoy it. • Once you get into a relationship however, you find out something pretty disturbing: you have to love them back. • For whatever reason, all the relationship books and TV shows in the world seem to be about how to get love, not how to give it–which is quite a complicated proposition. • Here’s the problem: most of us aren’t looking for someone to love. We’re looking for someone to cast in the role of boyfriend or girlfriend. Central casting, send me someone who has a job, a car. You can get as specific as you want when you send in your requisition (I need someone with brown hair who likes dogs but not cats, enjoys rowing, and has never eaten at Hooters), but eventually that person is going to break character. • Then what? Alarmingly, you have to dispense with all your requirements and have a look at the actual person in front of you. You see that this person is as important as yourself.

19. 3. Vajrayana If the Vajrayana teachings are about meeting the circumstances of everyday life as a potential moment of transformation, then applied to relationships it could mean something like this: Every single thing that happens between you and your beloved is an opportunity to love more. Just as no one can tell you how to make giving birth or spilling your coffee into an opportunity to attain enlightenment, no one can tell you how to do so when your beloved leaves you for someone else or fails to empty the dishwasher. Big or small, heart crushing or annoying, delightful or irritating, no matter what happens, in the Vajrayana view it is fodder for wakefulness, for love. And just as with Vajrayana meditation practices, you can read books about how to do them and even have a great person teach them to you, but at some point you’re on your own. You have to figure it out for yourself.

20. Buddhism for Development (BFD) The Community Based Human Rights Program of BFD What are these ? and Why?

21. http://www.bfdkhmer.org/index.php

22. The Community Based Human Rights Program of BFD • Began in 1999 in BanteayMeanchey Province and has evolved and extended to OddorMeanchey in 2000, Battambang in 2003, Kampong Thom in 2004, and PreahVihear, Kampong Thom, Pailin, and Siemreap in 2006. • This program guides and supports the development within communities capacity to prevent Human Rights violations and to promote local justice. • Today, the Human Rights program covers 1376 villages or 175 communes, in 30 districts of 7 provinces. A total of  2,619 community activists (1274 working at the village level, and 1140 working at the commune level, and 205 at district level), and voluntarily work to promote the respect of Human Rights, to prevent the Human Rights violation, and to improve local justice and socio-economic development in their own communities.

25. HENG MONYCHENDA Founder and Director of Buddhism For Development (BFD) HengMonychendais the founding director and visionary of Buddhism For Development, a Cambodian NGO dedicated to improving the rights and welfare of   citizens especially those in rural and remote areas of Cambodia’s north-west and central provinces. After living under the Khmer Rouge regime for nearly 4 years, HengMonychendamoved to the Cambodian-Thai border living with the many Cambodians in the camps. At this time Monychenda became a Buddhist monk a calling which followed for 17 years, from 1980 - 1997.  From 1985-1992 he held the position as Director of Khmer Buddhist Research Center in Site 2 refugee camp, aiming to discover the relationship between Buddhism and Khmer society, and determining the Buddhist way that would prevent tragedy from happening ever again in Cambodia. While living at Site 2 camp, HengMonychenda began a life-time mission to bring peace, dignity and prosperity to Khmer community through innovative and effective social program. In 1990 Monychenda founded Buddhism for Development, aiming to promote socially-engaged Buddhism in Cambodia. 

26. Returning to Cambodia in 1993 under the repatriation program of the UN, he located Buddhism for Development at WatAnlongvil in Battambang province where it still exists today.  • From its simple beginnings under difficult conditions,  BFD now has over 130 staff and seven branches located in Battambang, Pailin, BanteayMeanchey, OddorMeanchey, Siemreap, Kampong Thom, and PreahVihear. • In the mid-90’s, amid a complex political climate he was the principal architect and leader for a series of annual national workshops on peace and development. These meetings had many hundreds of participants from political and military groups existing at the time, and were instrumental in promoting a Buddhist ‘middle path’ in national dialogues. • He received training in management skills at the Klausenhoff Academy, Germany in 1989, and received his Master Degree in Public Administration from John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University in 1998. With little formal education, Monychenda is fluent in several languages. • He is a prominent figure in Cambodia and widely recognized by groups such as World Bank and International Labour Organization for his innovative and effective contribution to development. • He is a passionate Buddhist scholar writing many books and papers relating to Buddhist values in governing a country for peace and development, in family values, in reconciliation, and in development. 

27. Working for a better society…. Buddhism For Development is a national Cambodian NGO with approximately 150 Khmer staff operating in 7 provinces in the northwest of Cambodia and around the Tonle Sap lake districts. BFD promotes human rights, educates for democratic and well governed communities, and ensures better health and education of rural Cambodians. BFD Vision BFD envisions an educated democratic society free from poverty and preventable illnesses, law abiding and respectful of human rights and the environment and a moral society with respect for Buddhism and Cambodian culture and traditions whilst being aware of the threats and opportunities presented by globalization. BFD Mission BFD encourages, advises and provides services and support to Cambodians to participate in the sustainable socio-economic development of their own communities.

28. BFD Philosophy • BFD projects are fully participatory and are designed to meet the needs of target groups. • With the Dharma as a guide, the aim is to achieve harmony between the individual, society, and the environment. • The projects focus on the economic, social, spiritual, physical and intellectual well-being of target groups and aid to guide them step by step towards self-reliance and empower men.

29. 1 Occurrence and development of Buddhism • How did it occur? • Origin: After passing the Lord Buddha. One group only • 2 Sects: Hinnyana & Mahayana vehicles. • Hinnyana = main teaching of the Buddha, follow the Lord Buddha very strictly. • Theravada Same as Hinnyana • Mahayana = Discard small& unimportant practice. [Japan, China, Thibet etc. ]

30. 2 Foundation and viewpoint of Buddhism • Eight fold paths • Dependent origination • Four noble truth • Three trainings (Sila, Samadhi, Panna) • Law of Kamma • Three universal characteristics (Tilakkana)

31. Buddha time: No scholar to spreading the teaching-only one. • After death: three sects ? 1 Theravada – Sri lnka, Thai , Combodia, Burmese and laos. 2 Mahayana – developed more than Theravada, because lay man can reach and understand, closer to their real being. (Europe, USA, North & South African, Indonesia etc.) - 250 rules for Bhikkhu and 348 for Bhikkuni) Morning God eats Afternoon Buddha eats and Evening hungry ghost eats. But sick monk can eat in the evening. - Bodhisattva (58 rules) - Theravada (227 rules) 3 Vajrayana – Spread from Mahayana (chanting = mantra) - Vajra = diamond , difficult to break = diamond vehicle leading by Dalia Lama (now 14th) continue next life to be Dalai Lama again. - Under Mahayana, but practice differently. Om… follow Hinduism.

32. Home work: • Discuss on the similarity and the difference between two sects; • Theravada • Mahayana