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Nonviolence for the 3rd millennium: the challenge to Buddhism
The
speech on Sunday, November 24th was insightful; it made us alert
of the importance of peace.
There are three parts to this talk:
| 1. Where are we right now? |
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People generally think they're in a safe period |
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Money is not spent on peace properly even for peace organizations |
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Soldiers in some places are trained to die and trained to
kill the innocents |
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Violence can be done with cheap technology |
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Some societies are full of depression, anger |
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U.S. is loading weapons in space, orbiting around the earth |
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This moment is dangerous |
2. Origin of Buddhism
In
a Pali scripture, when Sakyamuni was still a prince, he saw
a monk and asked his servants about the monk. The reply was:
He is a monk and he practices |
1. |
Inner Dharma |
2. |
Peace |
3. |
He is wholesome |
4. |
He is meritorious |
5. |
He practices complete non-violence |
6.
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He is compassionate to all living beings. |
In the Buddha's
time, there were a lot of robbers in the country. The Buddha says
there are two ways to solve violence.
1.
Use force
2.
Look into the cause
Obviously,
the Buddha looked into why people rob--poverty. Then he supplied
those people with food and places that they could work at.
Afterwards, the country became
peaceful again; all citizens even kept doors open at night.
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King Asoka in ancient India is a compassionate
ruler who gave up hunting and war. |
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Same concept can apply to the world now. |
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Not a long time ago, Afghanistan destroyed numerous ancient
Buddha statues. Buddhist around the world responds by protesting.
However, there's more we could do. If we look into the cause,
people in Afghanistan are poor, staving; another religion saw
it as an opportunity and offered Afghanistan a large sum of
money if Afghanistan blow down the Buddha statues. Afghanistan
accepted the money because it would surely help the citizens. |
Professor Macqueen
suggested that what we should do was to send many shipments of grains,
food products to Afghanistan (without disclosing our Buddhist identity
unless they ask). I found this idea new and wise to me. As a Buddhist,
we care about other people's well being, not the Buddha statues
solely.
The causes of terrorism are
long history of injustice, humiliation, and poverty.
| 3. How would a good Buddhist respond? |
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Buddhist philosophy offers insight on peace. Therefore,
there should be more schools of Buddhism |
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Take quick action |
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There's no time to let Buddhism spread naturally and gradually
into people's minds |
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Write to the government, voice that war is not our culture;
it does not obey the international law... |
Amitofo,
Florence
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