“Moral Principle Leads to Knowledge”

Knowledge and ability might be perfection
Something that could fade is “human spirit”.

The very painful historical experience of mankind affects the environment and the social crisis of capitalism in the economy today. People look at the benefits and grab them. They seek success. This way causes others suffering. Can you remember an event with the crowds running to escape a bomb attack and gunshots, see their frightened faces, hear them screaming out in terror, running to survive? It happened because of someone who was intelligent but not kind. Although he graduated with a doctoral degree and was a smart person, his achievements and talents couldn’t make him a good person who invented a useful innovation for humanity.

The United State of America is the most powerful country in the world. Many Americans graduated from a university. They have better knowledge than populations in other countries, so they can invent many technologies. However, in the 2nd World War, the leaders of America made a wrong decision because of the requirement to be the winner. The inventors of the nation used nuclear power to produce an atomic bomb, so that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, were destroyed immediately. It caused a great loss with more than one hundred thousand people dead. Over ten thousand children became orphans. They didn’t have enough food, no money, no home and no hope. From this we can see knowledge as a sword. If it’s held in a robber’s hand, it can kill everybody.

On the other hand, if the sword is in a good person’s hand, it will be used to kill the robber who makes trouble for others, for example, after the end of the 2nd World War, the leader of Japan started to develop the country with a new policy of education, which highlighted moral knowledge and to develop a refined soul. Everybody had to follow the rules. The Japanese had to work hard. The children had to learn over 10 hours per day because they were a new generation who were the most important for the country’s development. They used good knowledge for their homeland civilization. At that time, the Japanese weren’t comfortable, but they were excellent models who sacrificed their lives for another person. Indeed after past disasters, there were many innovations and electronic industries. Electronic technology was the main export. The Japanese could smile and laugh with happiness again. Now, Japan is a great country in the world because of extremely good education, economic growth and society development. A good education makes everybody a part of the nation.

Moral education must be coupled with moral knowledge as in the Ministry of Education’s strategy. There are 8 basic morals in which Thai students should be trained. They are as follows: diligence, honesty, thriftiness, tidiness, kindness, harmoniousness, discipline, and politeness. If all of the Thai people keep their morals, Thailand will be a peaceful country or in the words – The Land of Smiles. Moreover, if all of the people in the world have these morals, all of us will be happy.

As a Buddhist religious proverb teaches us: giving kindness brings peace.

Dharmma for Daily Life

In our daily lives there is only eating, working, looking for fun and sleeping, then wake up to do it all over again —day in day out, month in month out, year in year out. So what are we living for? Why were we born? Where is the value and meaning in life? Although there are many problems in our lives, we can solve them by moral principle; commandment, meditation, and wisdom. In our daily lives there are many crises which we have to face, such as social crisis, environmental crisis, political crisis, so that we have to protect ourselves from these crises which may lead us to do something wrong.The best way to protect us from making others suffered is using the Ethical conduct. There are five basic rules that we should follow; first of all, don’t kill or torture any things, don’t steal, don’t be unfaithfulness to your loved one, don’t tell a lie, and finally don’t have alcohol drinks and drugs. If you can follow all of the rules, your life will be peaceful. Moreover, the others who come in contact with you will be happy too. Today there are many violent crimes and pollution because people don’t have enough morals to control their behaviors. They usually do what they want so it is a cause of some of the problems that we face today.

Whenever receiving information you have to pay attention and consider if it is fact or opinion, useful or wasteful, should believe able or unbelievable. While you are thinking you should try to understand what it is about to know, if it is good or bad. After that you have to choose the best thing that is useful for you and others. While you are doing and speaking, you have to know it is what you are doing, what the goal is, and who it affects. In your daily life you should always meditate, do everything carefully; thinking, speaking, and doing, as the Bhuddha teaches us ‘we mustn’t be careless’ because carelessness is the way to death. For example, you may see in the news on television, on radio, and in newspaper. Many situations happened by carelessness. According to the car accident reports for New Year’s Day, there were 3,824 accidents, 367 people dead, 4,107 people got serious injuries in the crashes. The big problems were carelessness and drinking alcohol. If they meditated before driving and follow the rules, the sad situation wouldn’t happen.

Moreover, meditation can improve your wisdom so your decision is correct more often because of being able to see everything in a true sense and your behavior will be better as in the words ‘consciousness leads to wisdom’. Can you remember an event with the crowds running to escape a bomb attack and gunshots, see their frightened faces, hear them screaming out in terror, running to survive? It happened because of a wrong decision. In the 2nd World War, the leaders of America made a wrong decision because they wanted to be the winner. The inventors of the nation used nuclear power to produce an atomic bomb, so that Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were destroyed immediately. It caused a great loss with more than one hundred thousand people dead. Over ten thousand children became orphans. They didn’t have enough food, no money, no home and no hope.

Absolutely, moral principles are necessary for daily life. According to the Noble Eightfold Path which there is three concepts; the first is wisdom which refers to right understanding and right intention. Ethical conducts which refer to right speech, right action, right livelihood, and right effort. Finally Concentration is referred to right attention and right meditation. If all of the Thai people keep their morals, Thailand will be a peaceful country or in the words – The Land of Smiles. Moreover, if all of the people in the world have these morals, all of us will be happy.
As a Buddhist religious proverb teaches us: *moral principles keeps peace in the world.