Follow Buddhist way of living

Celebrating 2600th Sambuddhathva Jayanthi:

The world public is planning to celebrate the 2600th anniversary of the Buddha’s Enlightenment on a mammoth scale by organising special religious ceremonies and Dhamma sermons. Not only the Sri Lankans but also Buddhists in other countries have got together to celebrate this anniversary. The theme of these celebrations is ‘Let us be participated in celebrating 2600th Sambuddhathva Jayanthi.’

There is a valuable Buddhist saying in Sutra Dhammas.

Ethical living

The Buddha points out how to achieve ethnics, place and progress through action. This has even been explained in Digha Nikaya and Majjhima Nikaya. The first thing to be ensured by a king is ethics. In another words the person who has good ethics is respecting the five precepts when somebody prevents himself from killing, theft and telling lies there will be relief for him and his family. The reason is that nothing wrong happens from such an individual.

Agga Maha Panditha Most Ven Kotugoda Dhammawasa Anunayake Thera, President Sri Lanka Amarapura Maha Sangha Sabha

When an individual refrains himself from the five wrong deeds, he automatically gets the kindness for animals. As such he refrains from thefts and becomes a person protecting others’ belongings. And also it should be understood that when an individual prevents himself from alcohol he would never commit offences.

When an individual ensures ethical living, his family and his village would surely have peace. Due to the peaceful living his family or his village will get to ethical living in peace. This is indispensable for social well-being.

When one person through his labour earns something, there are certain others who try to rob him.

This makes the person to spend about half of his earnings to protect his wealth. If this robbing is not there, he can live in consolation and peace living as a man who never disturbs others.

The Buddha’s teaching

All these show that social well-being could never be ensured without adhering, to ethical living:

At a time we get ready to celebrate the 2600th Sambuddhathva Jayanthi we must remember what the Buddha said to Wakkali Thera.

“Yo Dhammang Passathi, so mang passathi” means if somebody sees Dhamma, he sees me.

So what we must do in honour and devotion to the Buddha is living according to the ways he has told us. We must also inculcate even in children the Buddha’s teaching of how we should live.

When we see a Buddha statue we always get a sense of devotion. We understand from that statue how the Buddha preached us to live in righteous ways.

It is necessary for everybody to respect the others and protect his and other’s wealth. If we have something it is our duty to share it with others. The Jathaka stories say how the Bodisatwa lived without being an obstacle to others.

Good lessons

We must learn the good qualities of the Buddha as taught by him and try to live in our society without being a nuisance to others.

We must, by living according to the Buddhist way of living, get ready to face the future as a nation who have peace and harmony. This should be the main principle to follow for us at the time we get ready to celebrate the 2600th Sambuddhathva Jayanthi.

We must remember the sufferings we had to endure in the history of our country and learning good lessons we must get determined to maintain our ethical way of living without being a hindrance to others.

All of us should understand the fact that we can achieve peace, harmony and development if we live as a nation having ethical values and people with good qualities as taught by the Buddha.