Buddha’s Message

By ANSHUMAN BHARGAVA :

“The great English poet and novelist of the late 1800s Thomas Hardy spoke in the same refrain and his writings often reflect the downfall and doom of man when he tries to outsmart his environment and breach his brief in this world.”

“Man’s desire often exceeds his capability and need and adversity strikes when the man crosses his threshold. Man’s insatiable desire for more, incites him to take on challenges, push his limits and invent new tools and ways to surmount them and placate his desire, but he forgets, he does all this at what cost?”

PRESIDENT Ram Nath Kovind said that as the pandemic ravages human lives and economies across the globe, the Buddha’s message serves as a beacon. Lord Buddha advised people to shun greed, hatred, violence, jealousy, and many other vices to find happiness. Contrast this message with the hankering of unrepentant mankind indulging in the same old violence and degradation of nature. We all know that the moment the virulence of Coronavirus slows down, we have a far more serious challenge of climate change before us.

The President was speaking at a virtual event organised by the International Buddhist Confederation on the occasion of the Dharma Chakra Diwas at Rashtrapati Bhavan recently. The President said, “The world seems full of suffering, in the short term as well as in long term … The life of Buddha challenges earlier convictions as he believed in finding deliverance from suffering in the midst of this imperfect world.” The Buddha in fact believed that all suffering is our own doing and the root cause for all the misery in human life is desire. It could not be any truer than today. Man’s desire often exceeds his capability and need and adversity strikes when man crosses his threshold.

Man’s insatiable desire for more, incites him to take on challenges, push his limits and invent new tools and ways to surmount them and placate his desire, but he forgets, he does all this at what cost? Where is the end of desire? The great English poet and novelist of the late 1800s Thomas Hardy spoke in the same refrain and his writings often reflect the downfall and doom of man when he tries to outsmart his environment and breach his brief in this world. Man must understand that he is a very small and insignificant part of mother nature and not her master, who is supposed to control and exploit her. The industrial revolution that opened the floodgates of ‘development’ in new maniacal forms across the world infused the notion that man is supreme and can trounce anything he wishes as long as it serves his interests of unbridled luxury and convenience.

This wrong notion grew stronger with time as man developed newer machines of destruction in the garb of technological advancement. We have today more exacting machines which work with unprecedented clinical precision and speed so that the harness is complete and neat. The more man ‘progressed,’ the poorer his environment became. What do we mean by development if it is not holistic and equitable? Is it just the organised handing over of all the luxuries of the world to a handful of the rich? Man is so foolish and blind in his mad race for excellence in technology that he is oblivious of the fact that he is digging his own grave and blackening his own future.

The planet will not last another three centuries if we continue our dance of destruction with such brainless intensity and rapidity. In today’s world business are the cornerstone of all ventures and anything that makes business sense is a success model. There is no concern if nature is affected by that success. This is more or less the general trend across the globe. If nature is really started to be respected and our actions aligned towards causing minimal damage to nature, mankind will have to sacrifice many of his facilities and privileges, and thousands of industries which thrive on exploiting nature willy-nilly will have to shut shop.

That’s why no one wants to speak for nature or act for it as everyone will have to lose his pie of the advantages that come at the cost of exploiting nature. Economies will lose money and the moneyed will lose their privilege. So ultimately, mother nature has to bleed as long as man doesn’t turn mature enough to tame his desires and aspirations and be content with what bounty she offers. As long as we continue to fleece nature and its fragile resources, we are far from being called civilised. All of us who are not aware or conscious of our actions and contribute in any way in harming nature are partakers of the same sin in small and big measures and nature is not going to spare anyone of us. The ravages of nature are cruel and their manifestations have become frequent as a warning sign against what is to come ahead. Landslides, floods, droughts, earthquakes, storms, wildfires, heat waves, cold waves, and other forms of extreme weather conditions are directly related to man’s detrimental activities against nature and these occurrences are taking away lakhs of lives every year, leaving nations poorer. The numbers are only set to rise as there is no serious and sustained effort at course correction.

The play of money and opportunities has blinded nations and leaders and no one has the gumption to draw the line and say ‘Stop it. Enough is enough!’ No one says we have to start thinking and behaving differently now. The coronavirus notwithstanding, all the tragedy it unleashed across the world, is a great teacher too, that has taught us the fragility of life and the futility of amassing all the wealth and luxuries. It has taught us that loving nature and living in harmony with it is more important for a good life and all the world’s humanity is one when it comes to the weals and woes it suffers.

So, our fight too has to be one. Our actions too need to be one — one that is directed towards one common goal that serves all of us equitably. We cannot stand and act divided — everyone for himself, because the planet belongs to all of us, and nature doesn’t differentiate. We have to take up causes and save our home – planet earth. Causes must unite us—not our colours or creeds or nationalities. There is no yours or mine here. It is a collective responsibility to act wisely and keep each other’s interests in view. That’s the only recipe for successful survival and the security of our progenies. This one life skill, no college in the world can teach us.

We have to learn it the hard way. And it is high time we mastered it. Already surviving precariously on the brink, we cannot afford to lose any more time. By the way, if in the next 20 years or so, if we don’t engender seminal changes in our culture and outlook and don’t give ample space to nature through concerted action at Government and personal levels, nature will simply eat us away through its catastrophic imprecations.