The Buddha’s Message in a Globalized World - Bhikkhu Bodhi

Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi is an American Buddhist monk long resident in Sri Lanka. He entered the Buddhist order in 1972 as a pupil of the late Ven Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Mahathera. He has been the editor of the Buddhist Publication Society in Kandy since 1984 and its president since 1988. His publications include The All-Embracing Net of Views, The Noble Eightfold Path and A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma.

Over the present century, the world has been dramatically transformed in ways that none but a handful of prophets and visionaries could have foreseen a hundred years ago. From a multitude of loosely connected nation-states it has evolved by leaps and bounds into a tightly knit global community, linked together by rapid means of transportation and instantaneous media of communication. Old barriers of space and time have dropped away, and in any major city people from the far corners of the earth may be found sitting at the same table to discuss business, diplomacy, healthcare, or culture. The merging of markets, the mingling of populations, the dissolving of boundaries has confronted us with new vistas of self-understanding, forcing us to recognize the hard truth that we all face a common human destiny. The claims to special privilege of a particular people, nation, race, or religion now sound hollow. As occupants of the same planet––a bright blue jewel suspended in the frigid blackness of infinite space––we either flourish together or perish together. In the long run, between these two alternatives no middle ground is feasible.

But while our proud technology has enabled us to cross continents in hours and to survey the most distant events in the comfort of our living-rooms, the daily newspapers land on our desk each day with grim reminders that all is not in order. Repeatedly we are brought to see that although we can split the atom and unscramble genetic codes, our mastery over the external world has not ushered in the Utopia that we had so confidently anticipated. To the contrary, the shrinking of global boundaries has been shadowed by problems of enormous scope, human problems so grave that they throw into question the continued survival of our planet and our race. To the discerning observer these dilemmas might be read as celestial warnings telling us that our struggle for supremacy over the earth has been terribly narrow and shortsighted.

© "Prabuddha Bharata" (January 2000) published by Advaita Ashrama, 5 Dehi Entally Road, Kolkata 700 014. Website: www.advaitaonline.com. Reprinted with permission.

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