Following the teaching of Master Chin Kung, the Pureland Learning College held "Dinner at 5 with Friends" every Saturday, inviting our nearby neighbours to join us for dinner. After many activities together, quite a few Australian Friends has expressed interest in learning more about Buddhism. After careful discussion, the English team, who normally process all English material for the college, decided to hold a discussion group regarding Buddhism every Friday night. We followed the direction of Master and named this meeting as "Multicultural Forum".

Master Chin Kung has often said that Buddhism is about, in present day term, a multicultural social education. When Buddha Shakyamuni promoted this social education, there were very wide level of audiences. There were no biases against race, nationality or religion. Does not matter whether you are young or old, man or woman, poor or rich, everyone is welcome to learn from him. His education is all about helping us getting to know ourselves better and understand the living environment better. The word "ourselves" includes past, present and future; our living
environment includes everything we see and all things that exist in this universe and beyond. All of these are within the boundary of Buddha's education. From this brief description, we know that the teaching of Buddha is something that greatly concern our daily lives.

In this modern realistic society, materialistic needs and selfishness are everywhere. The spreading of Buddhist education is not an easy task. To introduce Buddhism to people, we have to have wisdom to modernize and localize Buddhism. Just like two thousand years ago, when high monks from India first came to China to spread the teaching by translation of sutra, it was done according to the tradition and culture in China. Fully respecting Chinese thinking, Buddhism combined the popular Chinese beliefs at that time and truly helped people to avoid wickedness, alleviate pain and suffering, and eventually make everyone a better person and even change an
ordinary person into saints and sages which in turn will elevate people to the plane of perfection. Thus historically we can see that Buddhist education, especially those of Mahayana Buddhism, has not only became an essential part of Chinese culture for thousand of years through it influence in thinking, culture and arts, we could even argue that if one does not know Buddhism, one could not hope to truly understand the core of Chinese culture.

Fellow students in our college often felt that teaching Buddhism to the west with their newly learned English language is a daunting task. Students think that they needed to learn more. We realize that close to half of the population on earth speaks English as their first language, with Master's encouragement, we understand that the task to help others understand Buddhism is very important. Presently in Toowoomba, few Asian residents could be found. However, we are all pleasantly surprised that we meet up with Australian friends who often sincerely wanted to know more about Buddhism through our "Dinner at 5 with Friends" or other daily activities. The surprising part is that Toowoomba is traditionally a conservative Christian city; over 80 % of the residences are Christian. Generally, Buddhism or other religions are not as popular here. After getting to know the locals for the past half year, many Australian friends said that they welcome Master and the students to live here and many wish to learn more about Buddhism. With words of encouragement like that, students felt that they must help to the best of their abilities to spread the teaching of Buddha in English. Thus, in 19th July 2002, starting from 7:30 pm to 8:30 pm each Friday, "Multicultural Forum" is set up in Pureland Learning College.

In order to answer the need from the participants and keeping it interesting at the same time, Master told us that:

1) We should help the local people get to know the true fate of a society. Help people understand better regarding personal gain and lost and introduce ways for everyone to obtain "good fortune" and avoid the bad ones. We should always ask all the guests what they wanted to know and what they wish to gain;

2) Communicate with friends from other religion. We should introduce the idea of Mahayana Buddhism and acknowledge that there is only a true God in the universe while in Buddhism, we called it "true self nature". All the creator of all religion is the manifestation of true God. All religion is based on the idea of multicultural social education. The goal of all the teachings is love and peace.

Until today, more than a dozen meetings had been held. There are about 15 Australian friends who attend this forum at any given time. The forum starts with a student from the college introducing Buddhism for 30 minutes. Mostly explaining the art of teaching of Buddha in areas of incense, flower, lantern, fruit and what they symbolize. The statue and name of the Buddha are there to remind us that we should use " sincerity, purity, equality, compassion and proper understanding" to treat one and others in our daily life. There are students from the US collecting books and reports of modern medical and scientific findings of facts regarding reincarnation. There are students who give talks on the subject of body and mental health. These topics have sparkled interests from the audience. After the 30 minutes introduction, a discussion is followed.

The discussion is usually about the topic of the day. Guests will raise a question and everyone will participate in the group dialog. From these meetings, we found out that most people's problem comes from their work, families, child education and generally their daily lives. There are a few people who wanted to know more about the meaning of universe and live. Most of us are able to gradually understand that all the problem or conflict we are facing today, be it personal, social, international or even throughout the universe, all comes from the affliction within us. If we hope to resolve the problems and the conflicts in our world, we must first learn to solve the
problems and conflicts in our own mind. The Law of Cause and Effect must be truly understood. If we always treat others with generosity and unselfishness, we can lessen our afflictions and resolve problems in this day and age.

Some Australian friends have said that after applying what have been discussed to their daily lives, they did make a change. To further their learning, everyday at 5:30 in the morning, they would come to the college, wearing our provided cultivation robe chanting Buddha's name. Some friends enjoyed Master's lectures on "Flower Adornment Sutra" and they will come to the college after work to hear translation by interpreter in real time. There are classes conducted in English, which due to popular demand have changed to start from 7:00 to 8:00 pm in order to fit our local friends' schedule.

In this small city of Toowoomba, under the guidance of Master Chin Kung, presently there are many kind and peace loving people who are learning the utmost perfect teaching of Buddha with us who come from a different cultural background. This is the beginning of a long and prosperous friendship.