จริงๆ กะว่าจะอุบเอาไว้ แต่ไหนๆ ก็ไหนๆ แล้ว เขาลงไปทั่วประเทศ จะมาลงเพิ่มในเว็บ dmc.tv อีกซักที่ จะเป็นไรไป อิอิ
http://www.bangkokpo...2008_news29.php
DHAMMA ONLINE (20/02/2008)
Wat Dhammakaya's website allows people to listen to sermons at their convenience
Story by ANCHALEE KONGRUT, Photo by JETJARAS NA RANONG
On St Valentine's Day or New Year's Eve, most people have plans to celebrate. But what is your plan for tomorrow, Makha Bucha Day?
According to Buddhist scriptures, nine months after Siddharttha Gautama attained enlightenment, on the full-moon day of the third lunar month, a total of 1,250 disciples of the Buddha from various places spontaneously assembled at Veluvan in Magadha to pay respect to the Buddha. This meeting is considered very significant in Buddhist history because first, it was done without previous appointment and was therefore a miracle, and secondly, all the disciples had been ordained by the Buddha himself and had attained sainthood and become arahants.
Makha Bucha is one of the three most important days for Buddhists in Thailand.
On Makha Bucha Day, Buddhists give alms to monks in the morning, go to temples to listen to monks' sermons, and in the evening hold lit candles while circling three times around temples to show respect to the Three Gems - the Buddha, his teachings and his disciples, or Buddhist monks.
But in the era of electronic media, you no longer have to go to temples to perform Buddhist activities.
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77 ดาวน์โหลดAlice Schuster, webmaster of Wat Dhammakaya's www.dmc.tv, updates the temple's website, which has become a popular online community among followers of the Dhammakaya sect.
All you have to do is go on the internet at your home or office - or even more conveniently, call your mobile phone.
Wat Dhammakaya - a popular and controversial Buddhist sect in Thailand - launched its website, http://www.dmc.tv, about three years ago to meet the increased demands of the temple's followers who wanted to watch or listen to sermons by the abbot, Phra Dhammajayo. The abbot is a controversial figure who was once charged with embezzling donated funds. The public prosecution later dropped the charge against him.
Despite this, the abbot commands wide support from the temple's clerics. His daily sermons and talks on dhamma usually draw about 20,000 followers, with almost 100,000 in attendance for special events. The temple's supporters include billionaires and politicians. Its website is the medium that provides the temple's dhamma teaching to busy clerics.
Sound recordings and visual images are digitised and downloaded to the internet. The website also contains entertaining content to attract youngsters, like music videos and cartoons, which also contain dhamma teachings.
These programmes are produced by the temple's monks and followers, who provide them to its own cable television station, Dhamma Channel Television.
The website also contains podcasts, an online radio station and blogs.
In addition, it provides 'dhamma-on-the-phone', a special service enabling users to download sermons from the abbot or read dhamma text messages.
Revenue from the service is donated to the temple.
The website is considered very experimental. The web team once decided to produce "ploi pla online", or live broadcasts of fish being released into a canal. Releasing fish or animals is considered a merit-making activity for Buddhists. However, the programme was cancelled six months ago because of its low popularity. "The temple's website is a case of religion trying to meet people's demands," said Phra Somsak Piyaseelo, 42, one of the monks taking part in the production of the website.
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80 ดาวน์โหลด"The busy lifestyles of modern people contain a lot of distractions. They can be lured into doing immoral things. They are surrounded with advertisements everywhere they go. On the internet, there are a lot of pornographic sites and even messages from immoral services popping up on computer screens. Everywhere, even in the office, there are chances to create moral dilemmas," said Phra Somsak, a graduate of Assumption Business Administration College.
"There are always the seeds in human hearts to do good and stay moral. All they need is convenient access to dhamma. So we provide them with convenient access to dhamma," he said.
The temple's mass media machine began life seven years ago, when disciples from the provinces and abroad wanted to attend the abbot's sermons.
The temple decided to lease almost a thousand public phone lines so disciples could phone in and listen.
However, the phone lines had limited capacity, so the temple decided to open its own cable TV station, initially to broadcast live activities from the temple.
The website featuring interactive media was created three years ago at Wat Dharmakaya temple in Japan, to allow people there to participate in sermons with other followers in Bangkok.
The website makes it possible for the temple's disciples worldwide to participate in its events and sermons, any time and anywhere. "With a computer you can watch the morning sermons at the temple at the same time as the event actually takes place," said webmaster Alice Schuster, 28.
The website is popular, she said. She once found followers in Alaska, near the North Pole, and the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean attending the morning sermon online.
Ms Schuster said the temple's website draws teenagers, who may otherwise turn to pornographic sites, to religion.
So far, 500 youngsters have volunteered to help build the website.
But not everyone has embraced it.
Mr Mano Mettanando Laohavanich, a former senior monk at Wat Dhammakaya, and now a member of the Chart Thai party, is a critic of the temple.
He has questioned its aggressive fund raising and its encouragement of followers to donate funds as a condition for attaining a better life.
He is concerned that the website will funnel the temple's dogma by one-way communication. With the internet, users are just receivers, he said. Content is manipulated by the content providers.
The way religious leaders teach dhamma is equally important as the message, said Mr Mano, a Buddhist scholar who has written many books addressing the problem of feudalism in Thai Buddhism. "There are two ways to teach dhamma. The first one is top-down or one-way communication. This model often breeds hierarchy and abuse of power, and refuses criticism," said Mr Mano. The other way is vertical teaching, in which monks and clerics usually listen and talk to each other, and monks must be open for criticism.
"The second way is the Lord Buddha's teaching method," said Mr Mano.
ฟ้าร้างคิดว่า เป็นเรื่องที่ดี ที่เขาเริ่มเห็นความสำคัญของเรื่องนี้ ถึงแม้ว่าบทความนี้ จะเน้นเกี่ยวกับเรื่องพัฒนาการของเทคโนโลยี ที่นำมาใช้ในการเผยแผ่พระพุทธศาสนา ไม่ได้เน้นเรื่องศีลธรรมภายในใจสักเท่าไร มันก็ถือว่าเป็นเรื่องที่ดี
เขาลงข่าวไว้ที่ปกหลัง ขนาด 1 หน้ากระดาษเต็มๆ ค่ะ ถ้าเสียค่าโฆษณาคงหลายอยู่
ถึงจะมีบางประโยค ที่อ่านแล้วไม่เข้าตา ฟังไม่เข้าหู ฝรั่งอ่าน ฟ้าร้างว่าเขาก็เฉยๆ ไม่ได้คิดอะไร แต่ถ้าเป็นคนวัดอ่าน ฟ้าร้างก็ขอยกเอาประโยคของหลวงปู่ ท่านมาทิ้งท้ายไว้ให้นะคะ
"ถึงเขาจะด่าเราว่าเรา เขียนข่าวไปในทางเสียหาย แต่นั่นก็ทำให้คนรู้จักเรามากขึ้น มีคนด่าได้ ก็ต้องมีคนชมได้ ดีเสียอีกเราจะได้ดังๆ"
