Dr.BCR.Titu Barua
Mangala priya
Watsuthivararam
Yannawa,sathorn
Bangkok,10120.
Thailand.
Introduction
This is a short essay I’m going to write in the newspaper with the topic name ‘Buddhism is the opium of the people’ Buddhism is the opium of the people for many reasons. The word “Buddhism” came from the word called “Buddha” which means “The wakened one”. Anyone can follow this religion without the consideration of low as well as high caste people. It is unique then any other religions in the world. It neither talks about pessimist nor optimist what it mainly talks about is really. It neither deals with self mortification nor with self indulgence but deals with only middle path known as “PŒ iccasamuppŒda”.
Points
According to European Buddhism is translated as the religion of causality found in south Asian countries. Which means everything in the world happens because of oneself. Suppose like when B is there A should be there automatically so like wise, our life is also interconnected to each other. This is a religion of human rights. Everything depends on oneself. As the pŒli stanza says “AttŒhi attŒno nŒto” ‘One is the master of one’s self’
Buddha emphasizes on self help. He said: "Self is the refuge of self." The Buddha said, "Buddha’s merely point out the way. Making the abort is something that each individual must do for himself." The Buddha taught that everything is caused and conditioned. Everything happens in consequence of causes and conditions, and in accordance with law. Each thing arises from a cause. We must know the cause of that thing and the ceasing of the cause of that thing." This principle of Dhamma is scientific in nature, and we can say that the principles of Buddhism agree with the principles of science. The Buddha did not use individuals or subjective things as criteria; that is to say, Buddhism is a religion of reason.
Let us directly go to the point of the topic.. Theistic religions strongly encourage to accept whatever the god says. But Buddhism being non-theistic allows people to choose, through their understanding. This is one of the things that Europeans like about Buddhism.
There is another good teaching in Buddhism is that it talks about the action in pŒli “kamma” in Sanskrit “Karma” which means one gets the result of one’s own action. As we sow so we reap, Buddhism always tells us to avoid evil and to do good. If we plant a mango seed, we get mango from the tree nothing else. Like wise, if we do good, we will surely get good result, but if we do bad, we will surely get bad result as well. This theory is quite peculiar then other religions. Upanisad believes that everything that we do has a result after it does not matter weather it is done intentionally or not. It still give a valid result to the action but Buddhism does not say like that, Buddha says “CetanŒha× bhikkhave kamma× vadŒmi” ‘oh monks! I call the volitional acts as kamma or Karma whatever.’
Its wonderful teaching is the middle path which means that we should not carry out our life with extremes. We have to keep balance on our life carrier Buddha taught to tread the Middle Way, to be neither too strict nor too slack, to go to neither the one extreme nor the other. The Middle Way consists, on one hand, in not creating hardships for yourself and, on the other hand, not indulging to everyone’s heart's content in sensual pleasures. Walking the Middle Way brings about conditions which are in every way conducive to study and practice, and to success in putting an end to Dukkha (suffering).
Day by day people are civilizing more and more so as the way thinking. So this religion mainly talks about freeing oneself from suffering (Dukkha). Some people gets confuse with the simple translation of the word Dukkha as suffering actually it is much better to keep the word as it is, because of this translation people get wrong idea of Buddhism as a pessimistic religion which mean it talks about only suffering of the world nothing else. So therefore it is simply translated as ‘Unsatisfactory’ for philosophical expression by scholars. But Buddhism has happiness as well, known as ‘Sukha’ in pŒli, found in S´galovada sutta. So therefore we can not say that Buddhism is a pessimistic religion.
Buddhism mainly talks about being freed from mental unsatisfactoriness, which very few people have through their concentration known as ‘BhŒvana’ in pŒli. Even the rich people can not have mental satisfactory though they do have lots of money in their hand until they settle their mind to one point which means to concentrate on one object. So Buddhist BhŒvana or mental culture gives quite a satisfactory answer to such mentally sick people for their difficulties. Non of us in the world like the bad part of the things, instead everyone of us like the good side of the things. Therefore as this is a thing that cures the diseases of the people. They always come running to help themselves. And strictly Buddhism is especially for the intelligent people but not for ignorant people. http://feeds.feedburner.com/TituBarua
