Buddhism As Education

The Buddha strongly encouraged care and respect for the ecological environment as he clearly saw the close interdependence between man and nature. The Buddha also disapproved of animal sacrifice as he saw it cruel and unfair for anyone to destroy any living being for one’s selfish benefit. To the Buddha, miracles are but manifestation of phenomena not understood by common people. They are not seen as demonstrations of Enlightenment or Wisdom, as supernatural powers can be mastered by anybody. The supernatural is seen as phenomena not understood by the unenlightened. The ability to perform miracle is seen as a by-product of spiritual development of minor importance and relevance to the real goal of spiritual development itself. Though the Buddha had full mastery of psychic powers, he used them only out of compassion and skillful means to reach others. He never used his powers to win followers through blind faith and dependency on miracles. He taught that the highest miracle is the conve...

The Buddha was among the first to speak against the caste system, on the importance of individual rights and the equality of all human beings despite differences in social standing, race and religions. He also encouraged the spirit of social cooperation and active participation in society at all levels. According to the Buddha, the only classification of human beings is based on equality of their moral conduct. The Buddha, seeing the two sexes as ultimately equal in rights was the first religious teacher who gave women full freedom to participate in religious rights. His move to allow women to enter the Sangha (order of monks and nuns) was extremely radical in his times. The Buddha was also the first religious teacher to advocate the spirit of consultation and democratic process in the Sangha community, each member has individual rights to decide on matters of general concern. When a serious question arose, the issues are put forth before and discussed in a manner similar to today’s de...

The Buddha is a major historical figure who promoted the rise of national faith against the superstitious of religions. He emancipated man from the corrupted authority of priest and was the first to show the way to freedom from religious hypocrisy and dictatorship. Buddhism is a religion that uses reason and no element of fear to coerce anyone in any way to believe it. As the Buddha’s compassion is universal, he sees all creatures great and small from insects to beast as equal ultimately, each with the same rights for happiness like us. There’s no such thing as a just war in Buddhism. The Buddha taught that “the victor breads hatred and the defeated lives in misery”. He who announces both victory and defeat is happy and peaceful. Not only did the Buddha teaches non-violence and peace, he was probably the first and only religious teacher who went to the battlefield to prevent the outbreak of a war between two warring states.

About 2500 Buddhist devotees from various Buddhist organizations thronged the funeral service of Venerable Bo Yuan to bid final farewell to one of the most respected and eminent Buddhist monk in recent year. The funeral service was attended by numerous foreign and local monastic and lay luminaries at the Lake Garden Buddhist center. The service began at 10.30 on the morning of 16th April , presided by Ven. Jing Liang, the president of China (Taiwan) Buddhist association and Ven. Ri Heng , the president of of Malaysian Buddhist Association, amid chanting by devotees .The funeral procession made its way to the thousand Buddha temple for the cremation ceremony. The ashes of Ven. Bo Yuan will be kept at Penang’s Ke Lok Shi temple according to Ven. Ming Chit, the KL &Selangor branch chairman of MBA - Than Hsiang .