Out of the Box Conference University of Maribor

Maribor, Slovenia

15-17 May 2012

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Buddhist Philosophy and

Modern Society

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The modern civilization proclaims that the modern society is highly advanced with its achievements in finding new social systems, economic systems, scientific inventions and discoveries and technological innovations. Yes, there have undeniably been remarkable strides taken in the material world with the

objective of making our life happier and easier.

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Still our world is ravaged by inequality, injustice, oppression, war, violence and consumerism. The rate of suicide in both the developed and developing countries itself is a clear indication of the fact that we have badly failed in making this world a better place to live in with peace and happiness.

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The technological innovations have been wonderful but the dark side of the story is a mater of great concern. Human beings have made extremely powerful atomic and nuclear bombs that can destroy the this planet ten times.

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Due to our hatred and animosity we have made this world insecure where we live with constant fear. This fact is reflected by the magnitude of scale of the military expenditures made at the global level.

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Global military expenditure, in the recent years, stands at over 1.6 billion dollars in a year. There has been a steep escalation in the military expenditure since 2001.

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If the total amount of money spent on defense is utilized for health, education or for any other peaceful purpose in the world, it can cover every single person on this earth with 236 dollars each.

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The United Nation Organization was established to be committed to preserving peace through international cooperation and collective security. Yet, the UNO’s entire budget is just a tiny fraction of the world’s military expenditure, approximately 1.8%

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While we have defence ministry as one of the most prominent organs of the government in every country, strangely, we have no ministry for peace, perhaps, in any country around the world. This itself reflects a significant fact that the world culture is dominated by violence with a deep sense of fear and insecurity.

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The two economic systems viz. the communism and the capitalism became the foundations of different political and social systems of modern world. Communism, although driven by a good motivation to bring equality in society, not only failed to yield expected result, but brought hatred and injustice instead in the society.

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The main reason behind the failure is that the propounders of the view and its leaders failed to trace and address the very source of equality. Equality can not be brought in the society by making rules and laws but it has to be brought by transforming the people through developing values and perceptions in them.

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Capitalism, on the other hand, is applauded for its free market and efficient production etc. however, we have seen the multi-facet down falls of capitalism which has resulted the global economic crises. Consumerism is a direct result of capitalism which is rooted to desire and craving. Global ecological problem is a result of consumerism rooted to insatiable desire and craving.

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We can sum up that the advancement of modern society is basically materialistic in nature and the very approach behind the advancement is extroverted.

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Here, I would like to emphatically state that modern civilization has neglected the importance of inner world, the mind, which is the ultimate source responsible for every positive and negative action that are in turn responsible for happiness and suffering respectively.

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The great Buddhist master Shantideva has said:

Even those who wish to find happiness and overcome suffering Wonder with no aim nor meaning As they do not comprehend the secret of the mind – The paramount significance of Dharma.

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He has further said:

Although wishing to be free from suffering, They run towards suffering itself. Although wishing to have happiness. Like an enemy they ignorantly destroy it.

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In the perspective of modern civilization, craving, hatred, desire, ignorance etc. are inherently associated with our lives and their existence is never questioned. Thus every system of modern society is built on either one of them or on many of them.

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However, according to Buddhism, these mental entities are identified as the afflictive mental phenomena which are responsible for every negative action that in turn invariably bring suffering.

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We have to come out of the box of the thinking culture that: *Problems can be genuinely solved with materialistic and external approach *Genuine peace, happiness and prosperity can be brought only with materialistic and external approach *Mind and mental phenomena do not need to be taken into account in bringing peace and prosperity in the society *Ignoring the fact that mind and mental phenomena are responsible for every negative and positive actions

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Here on we need to develop new perspectives That: *The failures and problems of modern civilization is due to ignoring the inner world, the mind and mental phenomena *The fact that mind and metal phenomena are responsible for every negative and positive action which are in turn responsible for suffering and happiness respectively *Balance must be maintained between the material world and the inner world

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Buddha has identified the negative mental elements as the origin of suffering in his first discourse at Sarnath while demonstrating the cause and effect of samsara, the cyclic existence.

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According to Buddhism, afflictive mental elements are destructive in nature. When anger, for example, arises the first victim is not the target of the anger but the person in whom the anger has arisen. It destroys the tranquility of mind, disturbs the rationality of mind, and distorts the perception of object. Eventually, its impact is seen on other persons.

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Since the mental factors are extremely important, Buddha and the following Buddhist masters have extensively elaborated the system of mind which include categories of negative, positive and neutral mental entities. Each of these has long list of mental entities.

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Each of these mental elements are explained in great detail with: -individual characteristics, -the mode of origination, -environmental factors and causal factors under which circumstance they come into existence and -their impacts on the mental and behavioral attitude.

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Various methods of confronting the negative mental elements are extensively demonstrated with different levels: -evading them, -subduing them, -reducing them and -finally eliminating them.

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There is extensive account of the positive mental phenomena like love, compassion, generosity, patience, altruism and so forth providing detailed instructions to cultivate them through meditation. Cultivation of these inner values makes life very different. Positive thinking and positive attitude makes positive impact on ones own life and life of others. Buddhist spiritual practice is primarily to work on the elimination of the negative mental elements and development of the positive mental elements.

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Since more than two decades His Holiness the Dalai Lama has been having dialogs with many leading scientists: physicists, biologists, astronomer, neurologists and psychologists which have been remarkably productive. This interaction has brought paradigm shifts and new avenues in scientific researches. Since about a decade from now, neurologist and psychologist have been doing intensive researches on the mental systems presented in the Buddhist psychology with the help of many experienced meditators.

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The results have bee ground breaking in various areas. They found that intensive meditation, for example, on compassion brings many changes in neurological system of the brain which is not possible under normal situation. Through the power of meditation dead neurons are rejuvenated which was not believed so earlier. With the help of meditation it is found that the expression of neurons are changes, which again was not believed so earlier.

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It is found that due to the cultivation of positives mental attitudes, with the help of meditation, the person concerned is seen with much more peaceful mind. Consequently, his behavioral attitude is seen constructive. Of course, this brings positive social engagement. Maintaining positive mental state is also found to have a strong positive impact on physical health of the person. A major shift is seen in the research of mind, as a result of interaction with Buddhism that the scientists have begun to do first hand experiment instead of second person experiment.

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Many clinical researches are being undertaken in conjunction with Buddhist meditation to work on various problems associated with mind, like mental stress and deficiency of attention etc. which are called as Mindfulness Based Clinical Research (MBCR), Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) etc. These are experimented on both children and adults and have proven to be immensely effective and life changing.

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According to Buddhist Philosophy, all the afflictive mental states arise due to wrongly perceiving the objects in a distorted manner. Common beings do not perceive things as they are. Therefore there is a big gap between the reality and the appearance of objects. In Buddhist philosophical view, every phenomenon is dependently arisen and is empty of essence. They do not have substantial status of being inherently existent. However, they appear to common beings as independently arisen and truly existent.

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Because things appear as truly existent, which is a fabrication, inappropriate attitude develops and thereafter hatred and aversion are developed towards the objects which appear to be unattractive and desire and attachment are developed towards attractive objects. Thus on the basis of these mental states all the rest of the afflictive mental states like anger, egoism, jealousy etc. arise. Following the negative mental states actions are performed which invariably brings suffering.

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Thus according to Buddhism, suffering and happiness in an individuals life or in a society are driven by the action of the people and their good and bad actions are driven by their positive and negative mental states. Hence, mental state is the ultimate origin of our actions which decide the constructive and destructive elements in the life and society.

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Therefore, we must pay attention to the significant role of the mind in our life. Modern education system must include the materials related to mind and values and moral education. There is a need of fundamental change in our education system.

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Thank you

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