Former member of National Minorities Commission,Govt. of
India
President, Himalayan Buddhist Cultural Association, Ladakh
Message from Ven. Lama Chosphel Zotpa
I am happy
to know
that The Buddhist Forum in Yamuna Nagar, has taken a great step to
preserve and
promote the ancient Buddhist Stupas and Monuments in Haryana which are
deteriorating day by day.
The most
succinct
formulation of the Buddha's doctrine was provided in the very first
sermon that
he delivered. That "First Sermon" set forth the Four Noble Truths of
Buddhism,
namely:
1. There is suffering (duhkha).
2. There is a cause of suffering (duhkha-samudaya).
3. There is the cessation of suffering (duhkha-nirodha); and
4. There is a path leading to the cessation of suffering
(duhkha-nirodha-marga).
According to the first Noble Truth, suffering is defined as follows:
"Birth is
suffering; aging is suffering; sickness is suffering; death is
suffering; sorrow
and lamentation, pain grief and despair are suffering; association with
the
unpleasant is suffering; dissociation from the pleasant is suffering;
not to get
what one wants is suffering." However, there is the further injunction
to
understand what is meant by the term duhkha in all its connotations.
With regard
to this, Buddhist texts further delineate "three types/levels of
duhkha,"
namely: suffering 'plain and simple,' that encompasses every kind of
physical
and mental pain, distress or uneasiness; the 'suffering produced by
change,'
especially that suffering brought on by the sudden shift of a happy
state
changing into an unhappy one; and the suffering which is 'inherent in
samsara,'
that is that type which occurs because of the very nature of all
existents
within samsara, namely their being ultimately impermanent, painful, and
empty of
independent existence.
The Second Noble Truth declares that the most palpable cause of our
suffering is
desire and thirst of various sorts, all of which are doomed to be
unsatisfactory
since they falsely ascribe permanence to what is, in reality,
impermanent.
However, the root cause of both desire and hatred is the ignorance which
posits
a false idea about the self's permanence. Thinking, mistakenly, that the
self,
soul, or ego exists permanently causes us to desire certain things while
it
generates aversion towards others. Only by extinguishing this false and
illusory
idea about the nature of our selves, as well as about the nature of
things, can
a lasting liberation from suffering be achieved. A state of such
liberation is
called, in the Third Noble Truth, Nirvana. The notion of Nirvana has
been
grossly misunderstood over the centuries as being a state akin to
complete
extinction or annihilation. According to Buddhism, however, Nirvana is
not
viewed as an extinction of the self; rather, it is only the extinction
of the
false idea about the self. A more contemporary expression for this might
be,
"Nothing is lost except what's false." Buddhism never denies the
existence of a
"relative, impermanent and dependent self." It denies only the erroneous
view
that the self exists as an inherently and independently existent entity.
The Fourth Noble Truth tells us that there is a Path that leads to the
cessation
of suffering. Once we have determined that samsara is unsatisfactory, we
should
enter upon the path and, traversing it, through undertaking various
methods of
meditation and practice, attain the enlightenment of the Buddha. The
multifacetness of Buddhist traditions throughout Asia and over its 2600
year
history derives from the great variety of meditative techniques and
methods
offered under the rubric of the "Path."
As early as the days of the great Indian King Asoka (269-232 BCE),
Buddhist
traditions began to migrate out of India and to spread into the regions
of South
and Southeast Asia. Hinayana, or less derogatorily, Theravadin Buddhism
spread
south to Sri Lanka, and north and east to Burma, Thailand, Laos and
Cambodia. By
the fourth to the eighth centuries CE, Mahayana Buddhism had reached as
far as
Tibet, China, Korea and Japan.
I appreciate the work of
members
of The Buddhist Forum for promoting the ancient Buddhist monuments
because these
monuments in past were the symbols of peace and our culture. I pray to
every
citizen of India and World to support and participate in this
International Sign
Campaign as it would benefit whole Humanity and will spread harmony in
the
World.
