Buddhism As Education

We made a brief visit to the Fo Guang Shan in Taiwan on November 2011 last year via a tour group. A very big monastery and it is like a city by itself with everything whatever a city needs are available. During our visit, we managed to catch a glimpse on some major locations which we came across. Time is rushing and it is also raining heavily there, therefore our movement were limited to only certain areas of interests.

Another incident of the Lord Buddha's early youth clearly indicates that He had sincerely wished and desired that as humanity progresses on its upward part, it should relieve the domestic animals, from the present grinding burden of the hard physical toil that has been imposed on them by mankind for its own benefit. It is narrated that when the Blessed One was growing into a youth, He was taken by the king to witness the royal ploughing festival in which the king and his ministers and nobles participated with the common man in ploughing the green fields amidst great rejoicing. The Buddha was still too young to actively participate in this colourful event and was therefore left in the care of some attendants under the shade of a rose apple tree. This was perhaps the Buddha's first opportunity at that time to witness a vast congregation of His people who were busy in their toil and grim struggle for existence. The opportunity also came at a time when He was fast growing into wisd...

Ahimsa means non-harmfulness, which represents the first precept. The following sutra gives a clear exposition of the Buddha's views:- "Creatures without feet have my love and likewise those that have two feet and those that have four feet I love, and those too have many feet" . A true and sincere Buddhist therefore cannot but cultivate boundless love and compassion for all creatures. Any other attitude is incompatible with the meditation of Maitri which all Buddhist need to cultivate. A Buddhist therefore cannot offer an animal for sacrifice, he cannot kill one for sport or for meat. Nor can he take meat diet, even though it has been offered to him as a gift as this would indirectly encourage the act of killing. He also cannot participate in war, for that is even a greater sin or crime. The Buddha's teaching on this point, a few of which are reproduced here, admit of no doubt or compromise on this most important issue: "Thou shall not kill, nor shall ye injure...

It is not that the Buddha dislikes the idea of us living a happy life by telling us not to enjoy ourselves in sensual pleasures. On contrary, he himself led the happiest of live in nekkhamma sukha (happiness in renunciation). He only advises us to abandon kama sukha , to abandon the desire for and attachment to desirable objects, not the things themselves. Remember that for 29 years as a layman, he had lived very luxuriously. But had he remained a prince, he would never have realized the Dhamma. Being completely free from all attachment, the Buddha himself was always in a state of freedom. Seeing a desirable or undesirable object, he had neither attachment nor aversion. Yet, he could appreciate beauty as beauty. A deity Pancasikha once sang and played the harp beautifully for the Buddha. He praised the deity but he did not ask to listen more of it. All indulgence in one's sensual desires can only end in bad result and is thus not beneficial. At the same time the Buddha realized th...