(9)

If one were to take each of these aspects separately, and try to examine the impact of what he would call Buddhism on modern life. It would certainly be an enormous task.

To me Buddhism is all this. It is the Buddha and his life, the doctrine, the culture that evolves around it, and the ritural that is connected with it.

Once we take this to be one large body of human experiences, distilled in the finest form and presented to us in such a manner that each one of us could select that part which appeals to us, we begin to see the remarkable uniqueness of Buddhism.

(8)

A large number of sects or schools or philosophical systems have evolved and all of them, quite rightly, go under the name of Buddhism.

Then comes another defination of Buddhism and that is the kind of ritual that has grown around the doctrine of the Buddhism as a result of his teachings and the way of life preached by him, becoming a religion. Whether the Buddhism intended it or not, his teaching became a religion, a religion to which people were prepared to hold allegiance and which has its own ritual, organization, and ways or criteria for deciding what is properly done or what is improperly done. now that is another kind of Buddhism.

(7)

To another, Buddhism would mean the massive doctrine as recorded in the Buddhist literature, which indeed is voluminous and contains several thousand pages recording the words of the Buddha. And in it is described a very lofty, abstruse, complex and learned philosophy of life.

Then based on whatever the Buddha taught, whatever the practices current at the time of the Buddha, there has grown a very rich culture, a culture which has extended to all parts of Asia for over 2500 years, and to which people from various walks of life with various backgrounds from all these countries have made a lasting contribution.

(6)

Part three

Buddhism

Then let us look at what Buddhism is. What do we understand by Buddhism? It can mean many things to many people. To someone it can mean the life of the Buddha; the example that the Buddha and his immediate disciples set - that glorious feat of a man, who stood before men as a men and declared a path of deliverance. This is one kind of Buddhism.

(5)

So when one thinks of modern life one can think in terms of a great degree of optimism and, at the same time , an equal degree of pessimism.

One can be so pleased that we live today at a time when there seems to be nothing that Man cannot conquer. May be, there are still some diseases that challenge him. Maybe, there are still certain places in the universe where Man would like to be, and still he has not developed his technology to be there. But it appears as if all these are within reach of Man.

With this optimistic aspect whether we have, in the process, lost something. Let us keep both of these in mind.

(4)

Part two.

Can Modern Civilization Survive?

To this one may add also a moral dimension - an ethical question - and ask: To what extent, in the process of modernization and conquering nature. Have we deviated from the ability to conquer ourselves? has the struggle for survival meant that the modern man has become a slave to selfishness, bound by his own desires and his whims? Have we lost all the things of very special value to human beings such as interpersonal relations, the anxiety to look after the well-being of others, the spirit of being of selfless service to others? Have we lost these?