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The Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis was founded in June of 1999 with a collaborative effort among various Buddhist groups in the Greater St. Louis area. The aim is to promote cooperation among Buddhist Groups in the Greater St. Louis region, and to share the awakened way of life with all beings. In the past, various Buddhist groups of the Greater St. Louis area did work together on the International Vesak Day celebration, commemorating the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death (pari-nirvana: death of an enlightened being). The first and second of such events were conducted at Wat Phrasriratanaram, the Thai Buddhist Temple, 890 Lindsay Lane, Florissant, MO 63031 on May 8, 1993 and May 18, 1997 respectively. The third and subsequent International Vesak Day celebrations have been conducted on May 2, 1999 and on a Sunday of each following May at the Mid-America Buddhist Association (MABA) in Augusta, Missouri. After the third of such celebration, there was a spontaneous and unanimous feeling among various Buddhist groups participated in the events that there should be ongoing and continuous meetings among all the Buddhist groups on a regular basis to work closely together. This resulted in the formation of the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis,* with its monthly meetings ever since. With such collaborative effort, Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis successfully conducted the first Mindfulness Day seminar on October 3, 1999 at the Thai Buddhist Temple, with an overview and introduction of various Buddhist traditions to the public, along with hand-on experience on the practical aspect of each Buddhist tradition. The “Mindfulness Day” seminar has since become an annual event, being conducted during each Fall season. The most recent one was held on November 5, 2005 at the Brown Hall, Washington University, with over 350 people attended the “Mindfulness Day Colloquium: The Science of Meditation”. For the past 4 years, Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis has also sponsored the annual “Change Your Mind Day”, being celebrated at the “Old Chain of Rocks Bridge” on the first Saturday of June of each year, coincided with the nationwide celebrations across United States, among over 50 cities, including Alaska, and Australia, led by the Tricycle Foundation. All of the above events have electrified and generated a lot of enthusiasm among the public, being exposed to the Buddha’s teaching and various Buddhist traditions, with the opportunity to learn and practice this awakened way of life. Members of the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis also offer summer camps for children, special activities, and numerous daily and weekly group-meditation sessions, as well as several annual meditation classes and courses. With various Buddhist traditions rooted in different parts of the world, according to dissimilar cultures, climates and terrains where Buddhism propagated to, this has resulted in difference in their outfits and appearance. Yet the core of each Buddhist tradition is surprisingly the very same teaching, as originally being taught by the Buddha over 2500 years ago. In fact, such similarity identifies them as the true Buddhist traditions. Such identifying hallmarks or Dharma are basically reflecting the norm of the universe or secret of nature, discovered by the Buddha, including the Four Noble or Ultimate Truths (Suffering, Cause of Suffering, End of suffering, and Middle Path to end suffering), Dependent Arising or Dependent Origination, the Three Universal Characteristics or Marks of Existence (Impermanence, Imperfection, and Not-self), the selfless nature of body and mind, the Five Aggregates of Clinging, the Six-Sense spheres, Insight or Vipassana Meditation, Mindfulness and Self-awareness, etc. The Middle Path serves as the unbiased path, for mankind to tread and practice towards the awakened life, similar to a guided roadmap leading to the precious treasure of the purified mind. Yet, the Buddha emphasized that, “One has to make one’s own effort, as the Buddha only pointed out the way.” The Western World provides a unique environment for gaining a limitless benefit from Buddhism, as people love to be creative and investigative into new ideas and hypothesis. Basically, it is the society of thinking and inventive minds, while the East, traditionally has been molded by the Buddhist teaching and practice for over 2500 years, resulted in the society of enlightenment, contentment, inner peace and intuitive wisdom. The more the Western society has advanced, the more dependent on materialism people are craving and clinging to, yet the greater sense of being lost and lonely people are experiencing at an alarming pace. More people are getting sick and suffer from mental ailment, caused by clinging to one’s own biased thoughts, suppositional concepts, and materialism. Emergent need to fill such mental gap has been quite imminent, and Buddhism perfectly fits and serves the purpose of replenishing the vitality, and balancing the minds of the Westerners. Buddhism teaches one to be intellectually and spiritually independent, outgrowing one’s blind beliefs, yet realizing the interdependent nature of all phenomena, and being responsible for one’s own action and its impact upon oneself as well as the whole, e.g., the ecosystem, the society, the world, etc. The Buddha taught one to have loving-kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy and equinity towards other living beings, who are but companions of birth, aging, sickness and death. At the highest level, Buddhism provides the Path of Purification to perfect one’s mind and liberate oneself from suffering. It is through mindfulness, self-awareness, and wisdom from practicing insight meditation that would allow one to realize the Truth and liberate oneself from one’s own biased thought that makes people suffer. Realizing the potential wisdom, the Buddha nature or Buddha seed, already existed in each individual, the Buddha, with his boundless compassion, taught mankind to tread the Middle Path to awaken oneself and purify one’s own mind. Any human being, just like him, could successfully become totally free mentally or intellectually, beyond the physical and social freedom, which many Westerners have already enjoyed. Since the day of Buddhism started to appear in the West over 100 years ago, the last 2 decades serve as the pivotal period of explosive interest in Buddhism by the Westerners. Shelves after shelves of books on Buddhism are now popping up in every major bookstore across this country, while they used to be quite scarce only 20 years ago, and could only be acquired through certain special or university campus bookstores. With the advent of many advanced technology nowadays, such knowledge and wisdom being taught in Buddhism can easily be accessed seamlessly, instantaneously and boundlessly through many channels, media and various means, e.g., internet, books, TV, radio broadcasting, audiotapes, mp3, CD, DVD, etc. All of these methods would have been a perfect dream for the Buddha and Emperor Asoka, should they were available then, as tools for spreading the Ultimate Truths to mankind and the World. The Buddha sent out his first missionaries 2594 years ago, so did Emperor Asoka 250 years later in a massive scale. Yet, their main goals were not to convert people or hunt for human’s souls, but to simply inform them of the existence of this awakened way of life, available for their own great potential to liberate themselves from dis-ease and suffering. Treading through the Middle Path, one can achieve such intellectual and mental freedom, and live the awakened and purified life with wisdom. Members of the Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis, with similar principle and common objective goal, have been actively working together, orienting ourselves as Dharma friends (Kalayanamitr), towards helping and assisting other fellow human beings to develop their minds and liberate themselves from dis-ease and suffering, and truly enjoy the experience of mental and intellectual freedom and the awakened way of life. *Through the years, Buddhist Council of Greater St. Louis has become a coalition of 18 local Buddhist groups, with monthly meetings and planning on its annual activities by its members, which include Blue Beryl Dharma Center, Buddhanara Temple, Buddha in the City, Chanmyay Satipatthana Vihara, Dragon Flower Ch’an Temple, Fo Guang Shan St. Louis Buddhist Center, Hikoshin Ryu Buddhist Group, Humble Minds Meditation Group, Mid-America Buddhist Association, Missouri Zen Center, St. Louis Insight Meditation Group, Sri Lankan Buddhist Group, Wat Phrasrirataaram Thai Buddhist Temple, Do Ngak Choling Tibetan Buddhist group, Kagyu Droden Kunchab Tibetan Buddhist group, Vietnamese Buddhist Association of St. Louis, St. Louis |