Jun. 29, 2011
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth
PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
Said Buddha, “There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.” And, “Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most.“
Two thousand, five hundred years ago, Lord Gautama Buddha taught: “Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills.“
He said, “There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt.”
Indeed, it remains so, and it will continue to be a destructive emotion.
Doubt raises the question of trust, the fundamental foundation of human relationships. Raise the level of doubt, increase the level of mistrust. Respect is diminished. As the great Chinese teacher Confucius asserted, “Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?“
This brings to mind English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ “poor, nasty, and brutish” kind of world: A state of nature. French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that in such a state of nature, humans are mere wild beasts driven by unbridled instinct.
Fourth-century B.C. Indian brahman Chanakya Kautilya advised his emperor that in order to protect his and India’s interests, he must amass power, the beginning of realpolitik. Later, Italian Renaissance thinker Niccolo Machiavelli, known as the father of the science of politics, presented the concept of power as a natural survival behavior.
But Confucius, who said, “It’s easy to hate and difficult to love,” preached: “The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large.” He warned, “To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness.“
The younger Buddha, who said, “Nothing is permanent,” called on mankind to “Fill your mind with compassion,” and to accept and live up to what “agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all.”
Buddha taught: “There has to be evil, so that good can prove its purity above it.”
Raising doubt. Today, some individuals make it a business to detract, defame, disinform and misinform, dig dirt, engage in character assassination — with the purpose of diminishing human trust and undermining a person’s credibility. But Buddha assured: “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.”
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