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| Monday, 24 January 2005 |
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Human greed in a Buddhist perspective by Daya Sirisena - President, Board of Trustees, Sirisena Dharmamandiraya and Meditation Center, Moratuwa Buddha taught us that craving and ignorance are the two major factors for continuity of life and the manifestation of everything. It is by knowledge alone that we can conquer this suffering that is inherent in all life. We can never escape from it by any other route. Its cause must be understood that it may be treated at its source. The second of the four Noble Truths points to the cause, and shows it to be craving. Human suffering is exactly proportionate to human craving. For it is by being deprived of what we are attached to that pain and grief arise. Here again the truth is self-evident. The man who is attached to wealth worries while he has it and is plunged into despair if he loses it. The ambitious man works often to the ruin of his health to achieve his ambition of power; if he succeeds he enjoys his position precariously maintaining it against all kinds of external forces that seek to drag him down and if his downfall comes he sinks alone into a dishonoured grave. A perfect society cannot be fashioned by man who is imperfect and if such a society were possible, man as he is, cannot fit into it. The historian and the anthropologist know that this is so but unfortunately demagogues are stronger in a world ruled by vociferous elements - political and commercial. The individual is given little opportunity to seek his own salvation. The only self-development he knows is the process of acquiring information which goes by the name education. For most part man is still a primitive fighting animal; If it were not so, war would automatically have been abolished long ago. Augustine of Hippo said all men desire peace but all desire it in their own way. I say he was partly right; all men want peace but they want it to be a kind of war. That is the unrecognised, unadmitted fact behind all the talk of world peace at international conferences and intellectual humanistic circles. In the realm of his unconscious, man craves for triumphs and pains of conflict. Thousands and thousands of years ago, primitive man fought naked and killed the enemy with bows and arrows, spears, and swords. Today, civilised man fighting with sophisticated weapons, such as guns, rockets, bombs, missiles etc. etc. kill in large numbers. Could anyone say civilised man has advanced with spiritual values or a sense of values? Primitive man and the civilised man are both heirs to the same ignorance and the same craving. This is the universal truth. Buddha found 2,549 years ago and proclaimed to the world as a peerless teacher of gods and men. He went on to say life never stays static, man's nature can never be static. He cannot rest satisfied with what he has. Craving and suffering are the two points around which the whole life process, forever unfulfilled, revolves. Where there is craving there is life, where there is life with its urgencies, its conflicts and its hazards, those is suffering. This aspect of Buddha's teaching man does not have to take on trust - it is before his very eyes. Buddhism teaches essentials. To abandon evil, to do good and to purify the mind. We have just entered 2,549 years of the Buddha Sasana. This is a great opportunity for the whole world to hear the Buddha's compassionate doctrine and to get to know the Doctrine of Deliverance. There has never been a time when it is more needed. To put an end to the doubts and perplexities that beset mankind, it is the privilege of the Buddhist peoples of Asia to show Buddhism's greatness and uniqueness. There is only one way to do this - the way Buddha himself commended. That is, by following His teachings in all the actions of our daily lives - both for our own benefit and that of others. Those who are fond of proverbs will not need to be reminded that example is better than precept. The aim of Buddhists now should be to follow the Precepts, and thus become an example. |
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