India Should Share Its Ancient Knowledge With The World

The Buddha’s teaching is essentially practical. It is not just for one group of people or one country, but for all human beings.

- His Holiness The Dalai Lama

People can follow this path according to their ability and inclination. I, for instance, started my Buddhist education as a child, and although I am now 86, I am still learning. Therefore, whenever I can, I encourage Buddhists I meet to be 21st century Buddhists, to discover what the teaching really means, and to put it into effect. This involves listening and reading, thinking about what you have learned, and making yourself deeply familiar with it.

Although our world has changed a great deal since the time of the Buddha, the essence of his teaching remains as relevant today as it was 2,500 years ago. Both the Pali and Sanskrit traditions possess methods for attaining liberation from ignorance and suffering. The Buddha’s advice, stated simply, is to avoid harming others and to help them whenever you can, in whatever way possible.

We can begin to do this by recognising that everyone is just like us in that they want happiness and wish to avoid suffering. Seeking joy and freedom from suffering is the birthright of all beings. Our personal happiness very much depends on how we treat others. By developing a sense of respect for one another and a concern for each other’s welfare, we can reduce our own self-centredness, which is the source of many of our problems, and enhance our feelings of kindness, which are a natural source of joy.

The Buddha declared: “The Enlightened Ones do not wash unwholesome deeds away with water, neither do they remove the sufferings of beings with their hands, nor do they transplant their own realisation into others. It is by what they teach, revealing the truth of suchness, that they liberate beings.”