Preservation of Inner Environment

The Buddha said, “Mind is the forerunner of all the things, mind is supreme and the things are of the nature of mind.” (Dhammpada, V.1). Upon examination by a rational or scientific inquiry the Buddha’s words are found to be literally true for all time and under any condition.
The mind of human beings has throughout the ages been conditioned by the external environment, made up of tradition, superstition, education, cultural discipline, theories and dogmas, religion and such other things which do not allow it to flourish in its own nature in total freedom. The result is that the human mind is enchained by divisions and conflicts, so much so that it has almost lost its wholesome vision of totality and indivisible truth.
This leads to a concept of “I” which manifests an image of the “Other” as different and unequal to the “I,” thereby causing hatred, inequality, conflict and contradiction.
Selfishness and lack of compassion are the root causes of every form of violence, and such irrational mind is responsible for the degeneration of the inner ecosystem, which smothers the outer environment and ecological balance. The ignorance (avidya) generates the misconception of the division between the self and the others. This dichotomy creates a conflict between self-imposed contradictions, and thus strives for security, preservation, and well-being of the self without thought of the others.By this orientation in the interplay of moods and situations, selfishness appears in many forms and dimensions, putting the self in the centre surrounded by community members, racial groups, social milieus, and national religious and continental spasms.
Apparently, the most justifiable sense of loyalty to one’s own community, nation or religion is engrossed by the delusion in which one does not perceive the basic interest of all other beings.
This fragmented conception of self and its attachment to its community, nation, religion, or political group blurs the vision to the interdependent nature of sentient organisms and makes one oblivious to the fact that all action taken for self-interest leads to self-destructive processes. Such conception of the self does make all knowledge unwholesome, fragmented, and imperfect. The highest accomplishment of science and technical know-how of today lacks the comprehension of its good and bad consequences. It is a fact that the most perfect knowledge of a thing cannot see the total effects of an action which could be disastrous to many other beings either directly or indirectly. It is also a fact that understanding the harmful effects of an action is often not enough to discourage people from overdoing, it under the false notion of its benefits to themselves, although it must in the long run prove disastrous to themselves, even cause their effacement.
During the Stone Age, humans killed animals by stone weapons at the great risk of their own lives. They did so for their survival. Today, at the far end of the Twentieth Century, many can kill any living creature including fellow human beings with sophisticated remote-controlled weapons without risk to oneself, just for pleasure, pride or any other trivial gain. Without doubt humanity has made great strides to achieve extraordinary developments and advancement in the art of killing; but in the instinct of violence and destruction we have undergone change. Instead, the aggressive mind has become more volatile and ruthless than that of the primitive age. This is really deplorable in human history. We must feel ashamed of our avidya mind which could not develop in spite of our accumulation of the most advanced scientific knowledge and technical skill. The basic cause of our problems including the fear of annihilation of the planet is created by our own ignorance, greed, and selfishness and lack of compassion. In this context, my view is that there is no way out to save ourselves from disaster of the future holocaust which seems inevitable, unless we could realize and change our attitudes and abandon the nature of selfishness, and greed, and develop loving-kindness.
Agenda 21 gives the right to live and survive equally for all sentient beings without distinction. Thus Mother Nature has the potential to provide all genuine needs for all living beings. But it is the weak human beings who want to reserve the right of life for ourselves and make a demand to nature to satisfy greed, which is impossible. We should realize before it is too late that the right to life is not only for human beings alone. For the sake our own interests, we must respect the right to life of all beings and at the same time we should learn to live with satisfaction of our genuine needs and to renounce all artificial needs which are intentionally created for self interest by industrial society.
In the process of human development, we have divided ourselves into nations, regions, continents, and multiplicity of races and groups. Such divisions are intensified by languages, cultures, religions and political ideologoies. This encourages us to act in a most irresponsible manner in the name of community, religion, and national solidarity.
Today wealth and comfort have become the yardstick for measuring development and thereby the globe has, indeed, been divided into (1) the developed sector and (2) the developing sector. Also, a competition for supremacy has grown up among the two sectors.
With the present unholistic view of science and technology, the developed sector has already damaged, almost beyond repair, a great deal of the global ecosystem. Now, realizing this disaster, the responsibility for repair of such damage is being offered to the developing sector. Even in future, remedial courses of action, more burden is laid upon the developing sector, which is obviously unfair.
The developing sector has begun to insist that it would not undertake any corrective operations unless and until the developed sector takes a lead in the matter or at least shares equal burden. If no corrective processes are taken immediately, the developing sector will ultimately be the sufferer, more than the developed sector.
Such argumentation, charges, and counter-charges will not achieve the desirable result. It is not the time to blame each other but to jointly or individually endeavour to seek remedy. We are already in a gas chamber. It is not the appropriate time to probe who has let out the poison gas or to argue as to who should take lead to come out of the gas chamber. Instead must jump out of it, the sooner the better. That would be in the interest of the self and also in the interest of both sectors. Competition for going into the jaws of death does not make sense.
The essence of Buddhist teachings is non-violence. Non-violence has two faces: (1)to restrain from violence and (2) benefit all. Both of these can be manifested in action if you have the compassion towards beings. It is a very simple principle that whatever comes out of compassion will be constructive and beneficial; whatever comes out of selfishness and hatred would be destructive. The destruction caused until now to nature and the environment is the result the selfishness and apathy of the human mind. Unless this attitude is rectified, no remedial action could be effectively taken for the outward environment. Hatred cannot be rooted out by hatred; it can only be remedied through compassion and kindness. Compassion and kindness not only eradicates hatred and selfness, they also generate a sense of universal responsibility. Generation of such responsibility in the minds of the greatest number of individuals throughout the world will only create a situation for a better future world. Agenda 21 can thus be translated into reality.
Keeping in view the above-mentioned facts, the following ethic will be need for successful implementation of Agenda 21.
(1) The interest of all sentient beings must be considered more important than that of a particular entity, race or group of sentient beings; likewise, the interest of the global, regional and national communities should be kept in such order of significance as in the sequence given above. The lesser interest must be sacrificed for the larger interests.
(2) Every individual must know its own genuine needs for living a rational and reasonable life through the practice of “right livelihood” and all must sacrifice the artificial needs which are superimposed by commercial enterprises.
(3) These actions must be genuinely taken out of love and compassion to all sentient beings with the “right view” and must not be taken from any form of selfishness with “false views.”
(4) The various religious lineages should strive hard for the unification of humanity in a common bond of love and compassion and must not divide humanity in the name of religion.
All sentient beings may be happy.
This Prof. Samdhong Rinpoche’s article was published in book Ethics and Agenda 21: Moral Implications of a Global Consensus by United Nations Environment Programme in 1994.