28/12/2025
Buddha's Path to Peace (9)
The whole spirit of the Buddha's teachings is one of purification, patience and tolerance and in the calm and placid atmosphere of this teaching there is every chance of the destruction of violence within man.
It is when the violence within man is destroyed that peace on earth can be securely established and so for that purpose of inner pacification the Buddha teaches us the Noble Path which is the most powerful instrument within humanity's reach for establishing concord.
The Noble Path is followed by one whose activities of body, mind, and speech are directed to freedom from the evils of greed, hate and delusion. The Buddha says: "The grasping man, with mind overcome, over whelmed, by greed takes life, steals, commits adultery, and tells lies he prompts others too to do likewise.
The malevolent man with mind overcome, overwhelmed by hate takes life, steals, commits adultery and tells lies, he prompts others too to do likewise. The muddled man, with mind overcome, overwhelmed by delusion commits adultery and tells lies, and prompt others too to do likewise. But the man who goes along the Noble Path abandons the taking of life, he becomes one who refrains from taking life.
He remains according to the Buddha, modest, kindly, sympathetic and well-disposed towards all loving beings -and by refraining from taking life, from stealing, from committing adultery, from telling lies and from drinks he bestows fearlessness, peace and kindness on countless beings.
Again such a pursue of the Noble Path, lives having contemplated with thoughts of amity, with thoughts of compassion, with thoughts of gladness, and with thoughts of equanimity, one directs; likewise the second, likewise the third, likewise the fourth thus above, below, and thus he lives having contemplated the entire world, everywhere whole-heartedly with thought of amity, compassion, gladness and equanimity ample, grown great, peaceful and kindly.
The Dhammapada :The Buddha’s Path of Wisdom