WORDS ARE CHEAP, LIVE THE DHAMMA
President Mahinda Rajapaksa, in his Vesak message underscored the Buddha’s teachings on living a moral life. “Let an angry man be conquered by love; an evil man by goodness. Let a miser be won over by liberality; and a liar by truthfulness,” he said quoting the Dhammapada. The teachings of the Buddha provides the means of resolving disputes that arise from unbridled desire, the President said.
It is easy to preach and write about these teachings and principles but much more difficult to allow them to come alive in our lives so that they could lead us and guide us in all that we do and say. The Vesak messages give us the tools and truths necessary especially for our political leaders to resolve the many and varied internal or external disputes that confront this country.
It takes the sacrifice of humble, principle-centred servant leadership to serve all Sri Lankans whatever their caste, creed, race, language or status may be. Without sacrifice there is no genuine walking with the people or going that extra mile in resolving the complex issues that beset this country and its people. For instance the department of census and statistics announced on Wednesday that people in more than 20 districts were living below the poverty line. In such a crisis it is vulgar for political leaders to bust up millions or plunder the resources of the country through sophisticated ways of bribery and corruption.
During Vesak we saw our political leaders falling over each other to organise religious ceremonies and to be photographed at religious observances or at the opening of huge buildings. But in nearly all the photographs, that were published in the print media or telecast over the electronic media, the body language of those photographed showed the subtle presence of an untrammelled ego. If our political leaders allow the ego to dominate their lives and actions, then nothing that is achieved would be sincere or genuine. But by truly and faithfully living the teachings and principles of the Buddha Dhamma and by giving it space to imbibe our whole being, we can free ourselves from the shackles of our ego and no longer be its slave.
Vesak provides our political leaders with a timely opportunity to say enough to rhetoric and nice sounding words and phrases and put to the test how sincerely and truly they are living the ever-true and insightful exhortations of the Buddha by making a genuine effort to resolve the ethnic question that has bugged this country for more than half a century; the private sector pension scheme which the stakeholders say needs modifications and the university lecturers’ salary issue. Problems can only be resolved if our leaders approach them with an attitude of love, forgiveness, compassion, empathy, a sense of accommodation and a willingness to listen to the other person’s point of view, realising they too may be right and that holding a dissenting view is a vital part of genuine democracy and not an act of treachery as government leaders project it to be.
Let this wonderful meditation, which finds an echo in the core teachings of all great world religions, be our constant companion on our journey towards freedom from all wants and desires:
Make me an instrument of peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. May I not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand and to be loved as to love, for it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying to self that we are born to eternal light.
Until and unless we overcome our ego, our craving for revenge, our anger, jealousy, avarice and secret agendas in our relationships or interactions with others, then the freedom from self-centredness and selfishness will continue to elude us. Let us show the world that not only is Sri Lanka honoured to preserve the Buddha Dhamma in its pristine purity but is also honoured to practise and live the Dhamma in daily life.
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