Buddhism and its sociological prospects

We all have particular aims and goals in our lives. Our childhood begins learning from our surroundings, mostly from our parents or whoever raises us. We grow up in competitive environment, learning to acquire things of our need.  So how we are nurtured determines our behavior and nature. Whatever in us, is nothing but ascribed and prescribed by other than us. There is nothing to which we can refer, ‘Its purely/only mine’, or any thing to what we can say, ‘It’s purely me’. The very beginning phase of our body itself is formed by the combination of seeds of our parents. Buddhist negates existence of self, which can be examined by analyzing the emptiness nature of all phenomena. Even sociologically, as we just discussed before, everything in us is resulted from external factors. We are nothing but a product of our society. Most of us agree that happiness is the prime concern of our life. We tend to seek and understand happiness in the attainment of our goals. 

However, reaching our goals only does not guarantee the happiness that we seek for. Because we tend to engage in any action for the sake of goal attainment, and commit negate actions and sins intentionally and unintentionally. As in Buddhism, it says negative emotions lead to non-virtue, our negative actions become the cause of our suffering. Though not as vast as profound philosophy of Buddhism, religions, ethics, norms and values within the case of society are institutionalized in order to establish harmony, peace and effective functioning of society. Although violence still exists in our society and it is true that some cultures, traditions and their respective rituals seems absurd and irrelevant now, the primary purpose of construction of social agencies were mostly created to maintain order in the absence of technological and information advancement as we have today. Buddhism’s scientific and sociological aspects can prove to be a boon today to maintain peace, harmony and violence free society. Although it may seem paradox to the ideology of renunciation in Buddhism, however there’s possibility of properly executing renunciation ideology in the manner of renouncing eight extremes, that Madhyamika philosophy provides. And, how does profound philosophy of Buddhism can help to create violence-free societies? One needs to know the nature of violence and its causes and condition.

What motivates our emotions? The negative emotions are resulted when we become self-centered and positive emotions are the outcomes of our selfless state of mind. Anger, the most harmful emotion arises from our ignorance. We get angry to person, thing or situation, thinking of particular cause responsible of our anger that comes along with unwanted and unbearable state of mind. Anger attributes to hatred and as a result, one harms to another. However, that is not the case. In this way one harms to another and violence emerges. This is just one of examples of recognizing the cause if violence. Once the causes are identified, the antidotes can be applied, which Buddhism provides. It is important to know how one holds the view of ‘self’ that contributes to either peace or violence. There are so many profound teachings that can help to eliminate the wrong notion of ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. That’s why if Buddhism is properly studied, it can help to create violence free societies through its profound philosophy.

~Pemba from Nepal