Bentuk Bangunan Vihara Sobhita

Lokasi Vihara Sobhita

Dokumentasi Pabbaja Samanera Tahun 2014 di STAB N Negeri Sriwijaya Tangerang Banten

Pabbaja sebagai bagian dari program yang dipilih oleh Sekolah Tinggi Agama Buddha Negeri (STAB N) Sriwijaya untuk membentuk civitas akademik yang berkarakter unggul dan Buddhistik. 

Pada tahun 2014, STAB N Sriwijaya Tangerang Banten bekerja sama dengan Sangha Theravada Indonesia menyelenggarakan program pabbaja samanera sementara. Kegiatan ini mulai berlangsung sejak tanggal 23 November 2014 s.d. 11 Desember 2014. YM Sri Pannavaro Mahathera bertindak sebagai Uppajjhaya pada kegiatan ini. YM Bhikkhu Abhayanando menjabat sebagai ketua panitia. Jumlah peserta yang ikut sebanyak 40 orang yang terdiri dari dosen dan mahasiswa STAB N Sriwijaya Tangerang Banten.

Foto ini diambil sesaat setelah upacara penabhisan pada tanggal 27 November 2014. Peserta pabbaja adalah yang berdiri di deretan tiga dan empat.

Meditasi menjadi kegiatan yang rutin dilakukan oleh peserta. Dengan duduk tegak dan rileks, posisi kaki bersila, peserta pabbaja melaksanakan meditasi. Suasana ruangan terlihat hening.

Pembelajaran di kelas adalah bagian dari proses untuk menambah dan meningkatan pengetahuan Buddha Dhamma. Acariya atau pengajar yang ditunjuk oleh STI adalah para bhikkhu yang ahli pada bidang materi ajar.

Pindapata sebagai tradisi para Buddha menjadi kegiatan rutin para bhante dan peserta pabbaja. Pindapata mulai dilaksanakan sejak tanggal 29 November 2014. Umat yang berpartisipasi berasal dari berbagai vihara di Tangerang. Para dosen, karyawan, dan mahasiswa pun turut serta dalam kebajikan ini. Anumodana kepada para dermawan yang telah berbuat baik. Lokasinya di halaman kampus. Untuk memudahkan umat, panitia menyediakan sejenis pos yang disesuaikan dengan jenis dana, seperti: nasi, sayuran, kue, minuman, roti atau makanan kering. 

Pindapata dilakukan secara rapi. Bhante dan samanera membentuk barisan panjang. Susunan berdasarkan umur peserta pabbaja. Bhante biasanya berada dibarisan paling depan dan paling belakang.

Dua foto di atas adalah momen untuk pertama kalinya peserta pabbaja mengenakan jubah coklat. Ini terjadi saat upacara penabhisan. Peserta memohon tuntutan tisarana dan dasa sila kepada Bhante. Kegiatan ini diakhiri dengan bernamaskara kepada Bhante.

Para peserta pabbaja masih mengenakan jubah naga. Jubah khusus yang dikenakan saat memulai upacara penabhisan. 

Sebelum ditabhis, peserta dilatih oleh para samanera agar pada saat pelaksanaan upacara penabhisan terlaksana dengan baik dan lancar.

Mencukur rambut adalah simbol dari pelepasan duniawi yang dilakukan oleh seluruh peserta pabbaja. 

Fraquently Asked Question on Buddhist Culture

Do Buddhists pray?

Buddhists don’t pray to a Creator God, but they do have devotional meditation practices which could be compared to praying. Radiating loving-kindness to all living beings is a practice which is believed to benefit those beings. The sharing of merit is a practice where one dedicates the goodness of one’s life to the benefit of all living beings as well as praying for a particular person.

In Tibet prayer is going on most of the time. Tibetans pray in a special way. They believe that when certain sounds and words, called mantras, are said many times, they arouse good vibrations within the person. If a mantra is repeated often enough it can open up the mind to a consciousness which is beyond words and thoughts.

In Japan millions of Buddhists pray to Amida Buddha, the Buddha of Infinite Light. They believe that Amida has created a Pure Land in the west and that those who have faith and repeat Amida’s name in prayer will go there. Yet they also believe that Amida is really within them.

Buddha teaching at Sarnath

How do you become a Buddhist?

In one way being a Buddhist means belonging to a particular community of people and following a path of life taught by the Buddhas (enlightened beings). Members of the Buddhist community are formally joined by taking refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma (the teaching) and the Sangha (the community of noble disciples).

When visiting Centres and Temples - what is expected?

Many people are shy of visiting centres or temples because they think that:

a) they will be asked for money

b) they will be harassed about converting and followed up by calls, spam email, and stuff like that.

First: the teaching of Buddhism is always free. Going along to a temple is free and meditation teaching is usually free. The Buddhist belief is that religion should be free, open and truthful. It is a custom, if you go to a temple, to take a small offering such as flowers or food. If you talk to a master for long periods, you may wish to leave a small donation.

For some activities - public talks, meditation courses, retreats - a charge is made, because the expenses involved in organising them can be substantial. If you have a strong interest and are sincere but have a financial problem, this can be discussed with the organisers. The teaching is not supposed to be denied to people who lack financial accumulation.

It is very, very rare for anyone to have people try to convert them and almost unknown to have any sort of mail or email solicitation (and I would stay away from any such temple). New students who have only just discovered Buddhism tend to want to tell all their friends how wonderful it is. Older students know everyone has their own path and their own pace.

Buddhists are human. There are a few bad organisations. It is obligatory to answer truthfully questions concerning one's teachers and lineage. The teachers one finds in Buddhist temples, especially if they have been trained traditionally, overseas, are incredibly qualified, with decades of experience. If a temple is open and honest, if it is connected to the mainstream of Buddhist tradition, then it is almost certainly okay. Cults are closed and secretive. Trust your own judgment.

Why do Buddhists chant?

It reminds one of the Dharma so that it is not forgotten; when meditation is not possible and when bare mindfulness does not give much consolation, it can be used to great advantage as an extension of meditation into words to produce calm, some peace within; and certainly, it expresses one’s strong confidence in the Dharma. Reciting the same chants day after day also has an advantage - the making of wholesome repetitive karma which of course will bear very good fruit.

Anuradhapura Aukana Buddha Statue

What about Buddhist shrines and images?

The shrine found in Buddhist homes or temples is a focal point of Buddhist observances. At the centre of the shrine, there is usually an image of the Buddha. This image may be made of a variety of materials such as marble, gold, wood or even clay. The image is a symbol that helps people to recall the qualities of the Buddha.

The shrine may also have such objects as a volume of Buddhist scriptures to represent the Dharma. Some shrines may include other items such as images, pictures or photographs of Buddhist monks and masters to represent the Sangha. When a Buddhist stands before a shrine, the objects he sees on it help him to recall the qualities that are found in the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha. This inspires him to work towards cultivating these qualities in himself.

Why do Buddhists bow?

In Buddhism, the traditional gesture of reverence to the Triple Gem is to place the palms of both hands together and raise them high in front, usually up to the level of the forehead. In order to express deep veneration, a Buddhist may bow or prostrate before the image of the Buddha, members of the Sangha and the masters of the Teaching. When a Buddhist prostrates before an image, he acknowledges the fact that the Buddha has attained the perfect and supreme Enlightenment. Such an act helps the Buddhist to overcome egoistic feelings and he becomes more ready to listen to the Teaching of the Buddha.

Are there Buddhist holy places?

The four holy sites as places of pilgrimage for Buddhists are Lumbini, where the Buddha was born, Bodh Gaya, where the Buddha was enlightened under the Bodhi tree; Sarnath, where the Buddha gave his first teaching of the Dharma; and Kusinagara, where the Buddha passed away.

What about Buddhist festivals?

Buddhist festivals are always joyful occasions. Every May, on the night of the full moon, Buddhists all over the world celebrate Vesak for the birth, enlightenment and death of the Buddha such a long time ago.

In the Theravada tradition, practices observed by laypeople at Vesak include the observance of eight precepts (the regular five plus not taking food after midday and celibacy and not over indulging in sleep). Also the laypeople may participate in chanting and meditation and listening to sermons.

In Thai villages people get ready during the day. They clean their houses and hang up garlands of flowers. The men take clean sand from the river bank and spread it over the temple courtyard, where everyone walks with bare feet. Statues of the Buddha are brought out of the temple to be washed and polished and all the books come out to be dusted. When it is dark, the villagers gather with candles or small oil lamps. The biggest Buddha statue is put on a platform outside the temple and lights shine all round it. Scented water is thrown onto it. Holding their lights, everyone starts to move round the Buddha statue so that in the end it is encircled with light.

Can a non-Buddhist attend a Buddhist service?

Many, perhaps even most, Buddhist temples welcome non-Buddhists. Larger, more well-established temples often post announcements in local newspapers as to their schedules of services. It is appropriate to call ahead to ask whether visitors are welcome at a given religious observance. Visitors are free to participate in communal ritual as the wish. Major ritual activities include offering incense, chanting texts from the Sutras or singing hymns, and quiet meditation. Guests who choose not to participate should observe in silence from the back or side of the temple.

What about Buddhist marriage ceremonies?

Monks are prohibited from being marriage celebrants but they can "bless" the couple by reciting the Dharma (chanting) after the secular ceremony.

What is a Buddhist funeral like?

A simple ceremony where the good deeds of the departed are remembered, a Loving-kindness meditation can be done and a sharing of merits.

What is a Stupa?

When the person who has died is a Buddha (enlightened one) or an Arhant (saint) or an especially great teacher, relics are collected after the cremation. These may be placed in a stupa or pagoda (burial mound) or in a Buddha-rupa (image of the Buddha). Whenever the Buddhist sees a stupa in the countryside or a Buddha-rupa in a shrine room it is a reminder of the Dharma (teaching) and it is honoured because of that.

source: http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/b_faqs.htm

Buddhist Culture

By: Robert Bogoda

http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bogoda/bl139.html 

For over twenty-five centuries, Buddhist ideas and ideals have guided and influenced the lives and thoughts of countless human beings in many parts of the world. As lay Buddhists, our own experiences and discoveries in life are not enough to give a true perspective on life. To bring ourselves closer to the ideal of a well-balanced man or woman, we need to acquire, at least in outline, what is called a cultural grounding in the Buddha-Dhamma.

Culture reveals to ourselves and others what we are. It gives expression to our nature in our manner of living and of thinking, in art, religion, ethical aspirations, and knowledge. Broadly speaking, it represents our ends in contrast to means.

A cultured man has grown, for culture comes from a word meaning "to grow." In Buddhism the arahant is the perfect embodiment of culture. He has grown to the apex, to the highest possible limit, of human evolution. He has emptied himself of all selfishness — all greed, hatred, and delusion — and embodies flawless purity and selfless compassionate service. Things of the world do not tempt him, for he is free from the bondage of selfishness and passions. He makes no compromises for the sake of power, individual or collective.

In this world some are born great while others have greatness thrust on them. But in the Buddha-Dhamma one becomes great only to the extent that one has progressed in ethical discipline and mental culture, and thereby freed the mind of self and all that it implies. True greatness, then, is proportional to one's success in unfolding the perfection dormant in human nature.

We should therefore think of culture in this way: Beginning with the regular observance of the Five Precepts, positively and negatively, we gradually reduce our greed and hatred. Simultaneously, we develop good habits of kindness and compassion, honesty and truthfulness, chastity and heedfulness. Steady, wholesome habits are the basis of good character, without which no culture is possible. Then, little by little, we become great and cultured Buddhists. Such a person is rightly trained in body, speech, and mind — a disciplined, well-bred, refined, humane human being, able to live in peace and harmony with himself and others. And this indeed is Dhamma.

In order to grow we also have to be active and energetic, diligent in wholesome conduct. There is no place for laziness and lethargy in Buddhism. We must be diligent in cultivating all aspects of the Dhamma in ourselves at all times. If we develop as good individuals, we automatically become cultured members of our society, mindful both of rights and duties. Buddhism addresses itself only to the individual thinking person. It has nothing to do with mass movements, for "masses" are just collections of individual men and women. Any true social development must therefore begin with the transformation of each individual person.

In this way the ethical dilemmas of an economically developing country like Sri Lanka, with a background of Buddhist culture, are resolved, for a true lay Buddhist will aim at personal progress in worldly matters only on the foundation of the Noble Eightfold Path. Progress by way of adhamma — unrighteousness — well inevitably bring in its trail disaster, pain, and suffering to individual, community, and nation.

Such a misguided policy implies disbelief in kamma and its effects. Reject kamma and one is rootless. Rejection is the result of blinding greed for quick material gain and sensual pleasures, conjoined with delusion about the true nature and destiny of man and life. It also signifies acceptance of the philosophy of expediency — that one should "get the most that one can" out of this single fleeting life on earth guided largely by one's instincts, subject to the laws of society, which the affluent and powerful often circumvent with impunity. Such a short-sighted and mistaken view ultimately leads to individual and social tensions, to restlessness and conflict, and to the spread of indiscipline, lawlessness, and crime.

Buddhism distinguishes between emotions that are constructive, such as metta and karuna, and those that are destructive: anger and jealousy, for instance. It encourages the cultivation of the former to eliminate the latter. Human beings can both think and feel. When the Buddha taught the Dhamma, sometimes he appealed to reason, sometimes to the emotions, and sometimes to the imagination, using such means of instruction as fables, stories, and poetry. Buddhist culture, too, manifests in other forms than that of a fine character, such as in the field of literature — the Jatakas, the Theragatha and Therigatha, for examples — philosophy, art, architecture, and sculpture.

Art is basically a medium of human communication. It can help in the education of the emotions and is one of the civilizing agencies of humankind. The work of the artist, whether painter, dramatist, sculptor, or writer, is worthy of study because it has a certain expressiveness that both reveals and stimulates fresh insights. The artist sees new meanings in objects and experience that ordinarily escape the rest of us, and thus he creates new values and insights in life.

Rightly viewed as the expression of the good life, and as an aid to living it — and not for mere enjoyment and appreciation — art can therefore ennoble us. For example, the tranquillity and peace that one sees in the Samadhi statue of the Buddha elevates the mind, stimulates confidence, and induces reverence for the Dhamma. In all Buddhist lands, the images of the Buddha and the Bodhisatta have become the typical form of artistic expression.

Buddhist culture is perennial and so is as fresh today as it was in the Buddha's time 2500 years ago. It is also self-sufficient, self-consistent, and self-sustaining. Based as it is on eternal verities, verifiable by individual experience, it is never obsolete, and animates the progress that seems to kill it. Nor does its content change with context.

The impact of Buddhism on world culture was truly significant. In it, there is no intellectual error, based as it is on reason and on the bedrock of personal experience. It is free from moral blindness, for its ethics is truly lofty, guided by a rational basis for such an ethic, namely, personal evolution in terms of one's own kamma. It engendered no social perversity — hate and intolerance were for none, limitless loving-kindness and compassion were for all. The doors to deliverance were open to anyone who wished to enter them. Its thrilling message of reason, universal benevolence, flaming righteousness, social justice, hope, and deliverance in this very existence by one's own exertion — all had a fertilizing and liberating influence on thought and action wherever Buddhism spread.

To the thinking person, Buddhism offered a rational, practical, and balanced way of deliverance from all life's sorrows, and the certainty of the perfectibility of man, here and now solely by one's own effort. To the humanist it gave an all-embracing compassionate vision, inspiring ameliorative action as a pre-condition for the realization of the highest spiritual attainments.

Even to have a general idea of its achievements, in the manifold ways it has expressed itself in society, is an education in the art of living. Buddhism gives perspective to the whole of life. Nothing in life is seen as more important than it really is. A cultured Buddhist can tell the good from the bad, the right from the wrong, the true from the false. He can weigh the evidence skillfully, and his Buddhist cultural background makes his judgment a wise one.

Unsur Unsur Kebudayaan Pada Masyarakat Buddhis di Jaman Buddha Gotama

Mari pelajari Kebudayaan Buddhis dengan mengidentifikasikan unsur-unsur kebudayaan pada masyarakat Buddhis di jaman Buddha Gotama dengan mengacu pada isi Sutta atau Sutra.

  sumber: http://sundaytimes.lk/080518/FunDay/heritage.html

Menurut Koentjaraningrat dalam Saebani (2012: 161), Unsur-unsur Kebudayaan terdiri atas:

a. Peralatan dan perlengkapan hidup

b. Sistem mata pencaharian dan sistem ekonomi

c. Sistem kemasyarakatan

d. Bahasa sebagai media komunikasi

e. Ilmu pengetahuan

f. Kesenian

Ketentuan:

1. Tugas diselesaikan dalam bentuk makalah kelompok yang dikumpulkan pada tanggal 30 September 2014. 
2. Sistematika penulisan terdiri dari A. Pendahuluan; B. Pembahasan, C. Penutup. Jumlah halaman minimal 10 lembar dengan jarak baris 1,5; margin 4333, font Times New Roman ukuran 2. Cover sesuai standar. Makalah dijilid.
3. Kelompok 1 (Angga, Ayu, Maya, Budi, Fitri dan Yuli); 
4. Kelompok 2 (Ariya, Anik, Yanti, Putri, Bowo)
5. Kehadiran mahasiswa ditunjukan dengan komentar individu yang dapat disampaikan melalui blog ini, facebook, atau email: sugiantovijjayasena@gmail.com terkait dengan hasil identifikasi unsur-unsur kebudyaaan masyarakat Buddhis. Minimal satu unsur kebudayaan mengacu pada dua sutta atau sutra.
6. Komentar berisi salah satu unsur kebudayaan yang diidentifikasi dengan mencantumkan sumber sutta atau sutra. Komentar mulai dikirim pada tanggal 23 September Pukul 12.00 WIB. Batas akhir komentar adalah pukul 17.00 WIB. Oleh karena itu, ketua kelompok harus membagi tugas identifikasi kepada anggota  yang disampaikan saat mengirimkan komentar.
7. Bagi mahasiswa yang tidak memberikan komentar dianggap tidak masuk kuliah.

Selamat mengerjakan.

Semoga kita maju dalam Buddha Dhamma.

Referensi :

Saeban, Beni Ahmad. 2012. Pengantar Antropologi. Bandung: CV Pustaka Setia