Business to the Buddha

Tag: Syria

  • Paris attacks – Solution please!







    PeaceHow would the Buddha look at the scenario of Paris attack? Or any other terrorist attack? I was wondering with the same sadness and anger as any other person. I twitted also regarding the Paris attack. However, there came an afterthought, what would the Buddha do? How would the Buddha react to such incidents? Well, I cannot think as the Buddha may think. So I started thinking on the basic lessons of the Buddha. There are four noble truths –

    1. There is suffering,
    2. There is a cause of suffering,
    3. There is an end to suffering, and
    4. Sufferings can end if one follows eight fold path

    Everyone agrees, there is a problem of terrorism (suffering). What I think is – The Buddha will approach the problem of terrorism by analyzing it – what is the cause of this suffering. No doubt if there is suffering we can safely assuming there could be an end to it. In this case I believe the Buddha would try to analyze the problem and suggest a solution (as he suggested eight fold path).

    So, I tried searching for possible reasons for Syria issue (I am not touching the terrorist activities of Taliban and Pakistan sponsored terrorist activities for this blog). There were various impacts I tried analyzing such as – why ISIS came into existence? A first level answer to it was Iraq war. Is it really an issue of 2003 Iraq war? Then I read this – You Can’t Understand ISIS If You Don’t Know the History of Wahhabism in Saudi Arabia so I started questioning on the very purpose of existence of ISIS? I started creating analogy of creation of Taliban (by USA) to fight former USSR and ISIS as one sub-section of Saudi Arabia. I may be completely wrong in the analogy however who gains if the ideology of ISIS gains more ground worldwide? Is it a problem of religious supremacy or political and power struggle? Perhaps it is both – I could not conclude on that with fair bit of confidence. I left the question aside for some time.

    The other side I heard of Syria crisis is power struggle of Shia and Sunni faith of Islam which is contesting of supremacy. Sunni Muslims of Saudi Vs Shia Muslims of Iran are fueling the fight in a third country Syria. So, it is getting more garbled within the religion itself.

    I moved to analyze the other thing – what is the impact of refugees fleeing to Europe? Does Europe need to show that much mercy to the fighting clans? Is Europe responsible for the mess and therefore it is moral responsibility of Europe to provide shelter to the refugees? Or it is economical requirement of Europe to have working hands for its economy? If these 500,000+ refugees are coming to Europe would it impact the religious balance of Europe? I think the growth rate of European Muslim population is already alarming. So, what is the impact? If the impact of this is intolerance and terrorist attack by fanatics, Europe may close the doors to refugees who knows?

    Many refugees are coming to save their lives and other for improved standard of living. The – currently unknown – leaders sitting in their offices / mansions are letting people die (whether a Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh or a Muslim) to have a last laugh. All these are “craving” in the opinion of the Buddha. Method for working on these craving can be same (eight fold path) however for each type of craving the approach may differ.

    The question is – would the leaders, refugees and the terrorists follow the path of the Buddha?

    1. Perfect Vision,
    2. Perfected Emotion,
    3. Right speech,
    4. Right action,
    5. Right livelihood,
    6. Right effort,
    7. Right mindfulness, and
    8. Right meditation

    If the answer is even a 1% “NO”, this is what an after thought could be –

    Related Terrorist meets The Buddha.

  • Mayhem, is that?







    Last month when I heard the word “mayhem” with respect to the share market, instead of checking the SENSEX I checked dictionary. Though I knew the meaning of Mayhem (thanks to my preparation for GRE, when I learnt a lot of English words). I am sure many would know the meaning of the word.

    I had always related the word Mayhem to violence. Is the share market drift up or down a mayhem? Is it not extending our imagination and making share market swings more important than the actual violence around us? For me Mayhem is what is happening in Syria. What has been happening in the name of religion, what is happening around man-made borders of the nations, man-made mental borders (barriers) around ‘my religion’ is better than yours and ‘my belief system’ is better than yours. Have you seen the photographs of Aylan Kurdi? A 3 year old kid who drowned. Those situations are mayhem and not the perceived value around stocks rising and dropping. These perceived values or more valuable to us than the actual values of human life!

    NYSE 10 yearsThose who can pour in their comments about ‘collateral damages’ or ‘life ends one day’ – The teachings of the Buddha about impermanence. Please understand two things – 1. This value of stocks you value and are defending right now, is also impermanent and 2. yes our life is limited (in human form), but it does not give anyone the freedom to kill someone else, which ISIS is doing selectively. All these are man made problems (stock value or terrorism), solution too has to be from us.

    “This too will pass” – No judgement its all about perception. Please apply this not just on the false causes you are fighting (for example ISIS or the terrorists) for or valuing (share market) too much. Some day or the other we will see correction in the values of stock (check image above, 2008-2010, it will keep on repeating at different levels). Are we sure we are going to see appreciation (correction) in the values of our Morales? Our defining one event as “Mayhem” and the other as a twitter trend and moving on? Are we really working towards solving such issues as Terrorism?

    would we please call a right thing “Mayhem” than a share market correction, which is driven by greed and blind following (technical analysis / algorithmic decisions) rather than fundamental position of economy.