Buddhist culture can bring people together, bring nations together....

[Guest guest]

Om Sai Ram

Swami's Teaching's main line is the unity of all religions. By the example

of Buddism this truth is a core of the essential address made by Indian

President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama published

in 'newindpress.com' on 18 Feb 2004.

 

" President Kalam, Dalai Lama promote spiritual tourism in India."

(Wednesday February 18 2004 00:00 IST IANS).

 

NEW DELHI: Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam and Tibetan spiritual leader

Dalai Lama on Monday sought to project this country as a destination for

"spiritual tourism", saying a visit to its Buddhist holy sites would help

people enrich their lives.

 

Kalam, inaugurating a three-day International Conclave on Buddhism and

Spiritual Tourism, said spiritual tourism is quite different from visiting the

places and seeing various physical dimensions.

 

"Spiritual tourism means visiting the hearts and minds of the intellectuals

in different places and places of enrich civilizational environment," he said.

He noted that after his enlightenment, the Buddha visited 45 places in and

around Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in east-central India. "Every place is a place

of enlightenment and provides the beautiful message. The message flows from

'The University of Universal Unity and Understanding."

 

Amid applause from the gathering, he urged the conclave to urge the

government to re-establish such a university in Nalanda, the ancient site of

learning, dedicated to the philosophy of the Buddha to cherish and find new

meaning.

 

The Dalai Lama said India's Buddhist holy places, the temples, monuments

and magnificent work of art that many of them contain, are symbols of Buddhist

values of peace, compassion and understanding.

 

"Even to feel admiration for them is among the causes for developing such

qualities within ourselves," he said.

 

India's tourism industry could not have hoped for better spokesmen than

Kalam and the Dalai Lama as they addressed the conclave, attended by some 500

Buddhist priests and scholars from some 25 countries across the world.

 

The conference hall of Vigyan Bhavan, where the conclave is taking place,

had a large number of monks and nuns in robes, their colours ranging from the

reddish maroon of the Tibetan monks to the sombre white of the nuns from

Thailand, the deep yellow of the Mongolians to ochre of the Singaporeans. The

conclave, organized by the tourism and culture and civil aviation ministries,

will meet in Delhi on the first two days before moving on the third day to Bodh

Gaya in Bihar, Buddhism's holiest site where the Buddha attained enlightenment

under a peepul tree. "This is my home. Thank you for the holy land that gave

birth to the Buddha," said Sansanee Sthirasuta, a nun from Thailand who is

leading a "chanting group' of eight nuns of her Sathira Dhammasthan monastery,

to the conclave.

 

Although Gautama Buddha was born in Lumbini in southern Nepal in 623 B.C.

he is mostly associated with India, where he attained enlightenment and

propounded the new religion.

 

The Buddhist population in India is about seven million of the country's

one billion plus total population.

 

Kalam presented saplings of the Maha Bodhi, or the peepul tree under which

the Buddha became the enlightened one, to the delegations that came from China,

Japan, Britain, Vietnam, Korea and Laos and other countries, an indication of

the spread of the religion that originated in this country. "The message to the

world through this conclave has to be to create enlightened citizens through the

University of Universal Unity and Understanding. India with one billion people

representing one-sixth of the world population has the responsibility to

initiate this movement of creating enlightened citizens of the world for

ensuring world peace," Kalam said.

 

Kalam referred to the impact of Buddhism on the world when he quoted

Chinese philosopher Hu Shih, (1891-1962) who said: "India conquered and

dominated China culturally for two thousand years without ever having to send a

single soldier across her border."

 

Kalam said: "This is what Buddhist culture can do - bring people together,

bring nations together, and bring peace at no cost. This is religion that had

grown in stature to be the messiah of god and the advocate of the spiritual

role of the religion.

When the spiritual role of the religion is compromised, the religion

becomes a weapon of destruction and a divider of people."

The source:

 

http://www.newindpress.com/NewsItems.asp?ID=IEH20040217111349&Page=H&Title=Top+Stories&Topic=0&

Namaste - Reet