Phrarajabhavanavisudh, The Most Venerable Dhammajayo Bhikkhu,
Delivered by Taworn Chaijak, Chief Adviser, Religion, Culture and Education Committee of the Thai Senate. Thailand.
Violence in the Name of God, Buddhism and Violence "World Peace through Inner Peace"
Venerable Sirs, Mr. Chairperson, Conference Organizing Committee, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of Phrarajabhavanavisudh, the Most Venerable Dhammajayo Bhikkhu, the founder of the 60th Dham-machai Education Foundation of Australia, may I take this opportunity to deliver his message and to share with you a simple resolution of today’s major world problem, which I will refer to as World Peace through Inner Peace?
Ladies and Gentlemen, basically, World Peace depends on peacefulness of mind in each person. Over the past hundred years, our world has continuously put great effort into solving the problem of a lack of peaceful means in relation to world economic structure, governmental structure, international relations, development and so on. However, no matter how an executive system might be adjusted, the smoke of war has not yet disappeared from the earth. Many innocent people still perish as the victims of wars. In the southern of Thailand, obviously, many innocent Buddhists, in particular Buddhist monks and novices have been killed. The world still witnesses repeated calamities on this planet. We ourselves must somehow realize that humans compete with one another over trivial matters despite the fact that death will one day arrive for each of us, and that everyone will have to leave behind beloved treasures.
The cause of this is that we attempt to resolve the problem of a lack of peace by looking in all the wrong places. It is as if the world were a pot sitting above a large cooking stove and that six thousand million people could be compared to six thousand million burning logs in the stove. It is as if the heat from each individual contributes to a general heating up of the world. Nevertheless, if each person takes away his or her burning log from the stove, the world’s heat will be reduced. Although the heat in this world would not disappear overnight, that person would no longer be responsible for the heat
- that is, the anger - of the world.
Please do not allow any political, economic or other conflict to disturb, or kill the innocent. Such conflicts should be resolved by more appropriate means, through a realization that world peace can come about through the individual’s inner peace. When everyone is at peace, the world will be also at peace. When the mind is at peace, the person’s speech will be peaceful; the body will also be peaceful. To bring the mind to a state of peace is one of the principles being practiced in all religions and spiritual movements. To bring about this peaceful state is to practice meditation regularly. The mind will thus gain peacefulness. To make meditation practice possible, beginners firstly need to control speech and body and to be calm, in order not to cause trouble to our self and other. Some sort of spiritual self-discipline is common to every religion and is practiced in order to control one’s body and speech. Likewise, Buddhism provides the Five Precepts. If these five precepts are followed, the mind will gradually reach a peaceful state.
Secondly, one needs to live in a temptation-free environment. In the present global society, tremendous temptation has been created that destroys the peaceful environment of each individual. As temptation disrupts the mindful consciousness that controls body, speech, mind, it is hard to be calm. In order to create such a temptation-free environment, society has to keep the means of temptation under control. With the cooperation of all sectors of society, peaceful environments could be creatively constructed so that a high degree of peacefulness might emerge.
Thirdly, we should be truly aware of ourselves by not doing anything which involves having a biased mind. Being non-biased is to avoid making decisions based on love, anger, ignorance and passion. We need to consider carefully the matter at hand, as, if consciousness is tranquil and mindful, bias will not arise, and social peacefulness will come about. Consequentially, all conflicts caused by economic failures, crime, corruption, prostitution and other illegal occupations will be reduced as a matter of course. Lastly, the world needs virtuous role models. When one trains oneself to possess peacefulness
- physically, orally and mentally - to a high degree, one can conduct one’s affairs without bias. Society will not be in trouble because of such a person. He or she would also be kind enough to share with other people in developing goodness. He would not sit by, watching other members of society struggle with temptation, without doing anything. The world role model would share with others what he has practiced himself and demonstrate the ideal morality of a virtuous person. When a person gets used to controlling the mind, the qualifications of the necessary world role model are absolutely cultivated in himself, naturally and automatically.
Ladies and gentlemen, one should begin to resolve any problem by contemplating one’s own weaknesses. By making the improvement of oneself the first priority, one can then encourage others to follow one’s example by presenting whatsoever one has been capable of, by being a great role model. However, many people would like to impose regulations for the control and improvement of other persons before taking care of improving themselves. All pressing issues in this world, no matter where they exist, all aim at the correction of others. Therefore, the more correction that is made, more pressing the issue becomes. The more accusations that are thrown, the more unpredictable problems that are created. By solving problems in the wrong places, the world does not become a more peaceful place.
How to see the self’s weaknesses? Closing the eyes to make the mind neutral can do it. When the mind is in moderation, we will see ourselves in the light of our true behaviors. We can see when we act correctly and when we act incorrectly, and then, start to correct ourselves in all the right places. If already correct, we could still improve ourselves and be even better. If we see clearly that we are wrong, we can begin to transform ourselves. Ladies and gentlemen, looking for similarity between people and uniting the differences, is a means of living together peacefully. Although we are different in customs, cultures, sects, beliefs and religions, we have universal goodness as a common practice. This universal goodness acts as a socially cohesive force within multicultural and diverse societies. The common cohesive practices of all societies include generosity, kind speech, rendering service and behaving oneself properly. With this in mind, looking for similarities and uniting differences will be the strategy that government and religious leaders need to employ, in order to promote cohesive behavior and tolerance of multicultural and multireligious societies into one single mind. Suggest that this conference adopt the proposal that the world’s problems should be resolved in ways that will not harm the innocent. Let’s keep in mind that sooner or later, we all will die. Death is unavoidable. Before we die, we should decide to leave some virtue on earth. When we can imagine some good deed, we should do it immediately but if we can’t recall anything, we could practice at least four universal ethical acts: generosity, kind speech, rendering service to others and behaving oneself properly. Even though, they might not calm the world instantly, this world would definitely not be more troubled because of our actions. Indeed, if we can persuade others to share in fostering this universal goodness, peacefulness will be gradually increased.
I would like to conclude by extending my deep appreciation for your kind attention. Hopefully, the introduction of World Peace through Inner Peace today would be beneficial for everyone in creating peace for all. May I congratulate the Organizing Committee on this successful conference. May Buddha bless you all. Nibbana Patjayo Hotu.
Thank you.
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