 |
 |
 |
|||
|
What does Buddhism offer to world peace? Ven.Rathmale Punnaratana Thero ABSTRACT Vietnam is a land that knows what suffering is, a land that for so long has suffered from war and conflicts. But in this suffering its not alone, in the whole world, both in the eastern and in the western hemisphere, wars have been plaguing the story of human kind. Seen from this prospective seems that war is something we human share regarding of race, culture or religious believes. The conditions for a war could be searched on many levels: a social level, a interpersonal one and one that regards the individuals in their desire and action to fulfill them. Along this line we can then reconduct the cause of any conflict to the inner conflicts any human beings continuously experience. Now something else every human share is the desire to be happy and free from suffering, but why wanting something like this we end up with the very opposite result, with interpersonal frictions and conflicts? Why are we so unskillful and use our energy in unwholesome directions? The Buddha said:
It seems a noble attitude and at the same time very few are able to put it in practice, the hindrance is to be found in our little clarity about what we really need, in our ignorance about the way reality is. We experience a sense of insatisfaction and to free ourselves from it pursue something pleasurable which may often collide with other people sphere of action and needs. All our actions are driven from fear and the need to protect our ego, but being unaware of what is really behind our behavior we act in a way that doesn't bring to the desired result. How often we find ourselves having some kind of interaction and not getting what we expected, or an unpleasant reaction of some kind. We have a need that wants to be met, but we are not honest about it with others and with ourselves in the first place and we end up asking for somethings which is not what we really want, this creates confusion in the other person and unsatisfaction in us. This whole situation can be described as dukka, we have been thought to contemplate such a truth to learn to see reality for what it really is. At the base of Buddhism is sila, but to rightly practice with body, speech and mind needs a good dose of awareness and concentration. To really realize how much whatever we daily do harms us and people around us we need a steady effort of patience and a lot of courage. But when we have such a determination we can move on in seeing where this unsatisfaction is rooted and become familiar with our greed and fears that drive us in our daily routine. Once we are good friends of our dark sides we can be also good friends with people around us, compassion and generosity will not be noble ideals but we'll put them into practice in our family, at work and in society in general. We can the say that the teaching of the Buddha is an antidote for greed and selfishness and therefore for conflicts that from them arise.
BIOGRAPHY Ven.Rathmale Punnaratana Thero ADDRESS/RESIDENCE ADDRESS/OFFICE DATE OF BIRTH DATE OF ORDINATION DATE OF HIGHER ORDINATION ACADEMIC QUALIFICATION: CURRENT SITUATION: 1. Lecturer at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, www.indologie.uni-mainz.de 2. Founder of Hamburg Buddhist Vihara 3. Director of the European Buddhist and Pali University 4. Director of Karuna-Samadhi Organization, www.karuna-samadhi.de 5. Spiritual Advisor of
|
 |
||||
 |
|||||