BUDDHA : INDIA’S MESSAGE FOR GLOBAL BUDDHA-CONSCIOUSNESS AND HUMAN WELL-BEING

Abstract

In order to understand Buddha and his teaching, we need to understand what thought and culture existed before and during his time. To make the point clear, I begin my talk with some important and relevant lines from Prof. T.R.V. Murti’s Central Philosophy of Buddhism: “Buddha tells us that there are two principal viewpoints -- the existence and the non-existence views (bhavaditthi and vibhavaditthi). No one holding to either of these can hope to be free of this world. Only those who analyse and understand the origin, nature and contradictions of these two views can be freed from the grip of birth and death -- samsara. Kaccayana desires to know the nature of the Right View (sammaditthi) and the Lord tells him that the world is accustomed to rely on a duality, on the ‘It is’ (atthitam) and on the ‘It is not’ (natthitam); but for one who perceives, in accordance with truth and wisdom, how things of the world arise and perish, for him there is no ‘is not’ or ‘is’. ‘That everything exists’ is, Kaccayana, one extreme’; ‘that it doesn’t exist’ is another. Not accepting the two extremes, the Tathagata1 proclaims the truth (dhammam) from the middle position.”

Buddha discussed these two views in the 6th century BCE, that is, more than 2500 years ago from today. The question is: has there been any change in these views today? Fundamentally, it may be said, not very much, although the horizon of modern scientific knowledge and enlightenment has widened incredibly and broken almost all barriers of ignorance, dogma, and superstition. So, even today we come across ‘professors of science’ who deliver their lectures in university class-rooms after their routine holy morning prayers to God-s and Goddesses at their homes, or ‘scientists’ who work hard day and night in laboratories and invent wonderful inventions for the well-being of humanity or otherwise and give due credit to God for their works, or people who feel proud of being declared themselves as ‘atheists’ having no belief and fear in God and in His Rewards and Punishments! Actually, there is no problem in these views in themselves. However, their implications are far-reaching so far as their impacts on one’s individual and social life are concerned. The problem begins to surface when people mould their belief and culture and mind and body and lose their free-thinking, right knowledge (prajna), and universal compassion (karuna) under their influence.

In this backdrop, it is, need, hard to speak of Buddha and of his teaching in the world. And because of this fact, sometimes Buddha may even sound offensive and blasphemous to those who are not familiar with him and his teaching. It may become very sensitive and risky too.