Business to the Buddha

Tag: Richard Dawkins

  • Family Occasion







    I some times contribute to LBC (Loose Bloggers Consortium) where a couple of people write every weekend (Friday to be precise). This week the topic was “Family Occasion”.

    Sounds weird as a topic, isnt it? This topic has two words Family and occasion. Family we generally define as a smallest social unit of society. This small social unit has parents and kids, dictionary.com has one alternate explanation to the definition – all those persons considered as descendants of a common progenitor.

    I have been taking interest in theory of evolution for some time of late. According to that we are all evolving and have evolved over the years. If we take the definition of family too much back in time, we all are a family. This point brings me back to a concept of Buddhism – interdependent co-arising and another of Hinduism – Vasudhev Kutumbakam (one world family). Effectively according to both the concepts we are all related (in terms of a family) and connected (in terms of something affecting you has an impact on me too). These two concepts are too subtle for understanding on gross level. But since we are struggling at global level from climate change it becomes easy to understand. A car driven in Mumbai is affecting the whole world, because it creates pollution. Hope the point is clear.

    The other word of the topic is Occasion which according to dictionary.com means – a particular time, especially as marked by certain circumstances or occurrences. Well, climate change is an occasion in this definition. Climate change is a definition for family occasion for all of us. Recently we saw Chennai Floods – what is that? That is a family disaster, and largely all of us are responsible for such events – because all of us are responsible of climate change. The mobile I am using for twitting #ChennaiFloods, the laptop I am using for writing this blog all impact climate. Think it over!

    4On a lighter note – I had two family occasions last week – my 1st marriage anniversary (6th Dec) and my fathers 75th Birthday (7th Dec).

    The topic of LBC Family suggested by Maria the gaelikaa for the weekly Friday Loose Bloggers Consortium where currently eight of us are supposed to write on the same topic every Friday. The seven other bloggers who are expected to write regularly are, in alphabetical order, Ashok, gaelikaa, Lin, Maxi, Padmum, Rummuser and Shackman. Do drop in on their blogs and see what their take is on this week’s topic. Since some of them may post late, or not at all this week, do give some allowance for that too!

  • Terrorism – Silent Majority doesn’t count – Solution please!







    If you are unwell, you cannot think of anything better, do anything better. So it become very important to get well first. If we as a humanity needs to grow, we cannot talk about spirituality in isolation. We have to find a solution to the problem of terrorism. A hungry man should not be taught religion – he needs food, a sick person needs a doctor / medicine.

    I think, In my previous blog the premise was completely incorrect. Fanatic followers of anything do not listen to the argument of others. I was trying to find a solution of Islamic world through the Buddhist teaching. However naive that attempt was, it was a genuine and earnest attempt. Somewhere fundamentalist and even other moderates need to learn from the Buddha.

    I have been thinking about solutions with reference to terrorism. A small guy, sitting in one corner of world wonder how many and who would listen though – yet thinking about a solution! We cannot talk about business, economics, human development or spirituality if we are facing a threat to life on a daily basis. So a solution to terrorism is of paramount importance. For argument sake – lets assume whole world becomes Muslim. The next question will be – which Muslim? Shia or Sunni or Ahmedi? There are 70+ different division of followers of Islam. So don’t you think the next fight would be who is a “True Follower”? Well, the stream of questions would be endless.

    Recently someone sent me a video on whatsapp, it was worth a thought. I can’t corroborate the statistics so I am not commenting on the same. Question is excellent and so is the answer worth introspection.

    The point in this video is – Silent majority does not count. So whoever it is (currently the whole Muslim community) needs to think. The Buddha taught to “question and experiment with everything, once you are convinced accept it otherwise do not”. When I read about the Buddha’s life story I read – he told his followers to even refute and go away if they are not convinced.

    Here Richard Dawkins says the same (the following video was a suggested video when I searched for above video). I am impressed with the point of view of Mr Dawkins (55 sec onwards).

    I know people – specially Muslims friends – will question about what is happening in Myanmar. Muslims are being killed there so is it what the Buddha taught? Well the Buddha did not teach that and Buddhism has no history of violence, lets ask about other religions, does any other religion – except Jainism – has similar roots of non-violence? Certainly Islam spread through violence – Indian history is full of that.

    If you’re a silent majority – in this particular case of Terrorism and Islam – you do not count! Raise your voice and teach your fellow followers what is wrong with them. The whole humanity is at risk who knows these random acts of terrorism will convert into full blown world war and every person will have to take side? Last word – Raise your voice.