The Living Computer
Photo: Buddhadāsa Indapañño Archives C03350
“What should one do in a country that is not Buddhist anymore, where the power structures – whether the military or whoever – will not talk with us or is unwilling to discuss or negotiate?”
~ Response by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu ~
This is nothing new. The law of idappaccayatā (the law of causes and conditions), as it applies to the evil side of things, has concocted up or brewed up new troubles, and this has happened many times in human history. Don’t respond to evil with evil, don’t respond to baseness with more baseness or lowness, but respond with goodness, with correctness. So those who are interested in Dhamma, those who are practicing Dhamma, should gather together, should work together, in order to prevent and protect against these problems. In human history there have been many occasions where there has been destruction and crises in society, but there have also been times when there has been success in preventing and solving those crises.
Don’t just look at things in an external outward way, because even in one single person there is an ongoing struggle between wrong and right, between evil and goodness, between what is low and what is high. The struggle goes on within each of us. It’s not just going on outside of us in society. If one can correct wrongness with rightness or correctness, that is what Dhamma is about, that’s what Dhamma is for. If within oneself one corrects the wrongness, the lowness, with Dhamma, then there’s no need to worry or doubt. One will be able to take care of the external battles and struggles as well.
The study of history is mainly concerned with finding out how to beat the other side in war, how to be better at fighting, how to gain political, economic, and military advantages. This is what the historians are most concerned with. You can’t find many who are studying how to make peace. There are very few historians who are trying to learn from history how to create peace. And so there will continue to be wars in human society. That’s just the way things go.
(From the retreat “The Living Computer,” as translated from the Thai by Santikaro)
Dhamma Questions & Responses sessions were offered by Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu in 1990-1991 to foreign meditators attending Suan Mokkh International Dharma Hermitage courses.
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