Kapilavastu Day as Part of the World Peace Movement

• Ram Kumar Shrestha

We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels; we shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds.”

(Anton Chekhov) Undoubtedly a peaceful world is everybody’s yearning

and dream and many philosophers and humanitarian activists are optimistic that we will get
there, however; every day results make it seem that we are not making much progress. The
world peace mission has been complicated because of the divergence of people involved and
their ways of thinking. This suggests to us that we need to work in different ways to coordinate
and cooperate with each other to achieve this goal. Although this mission is very difficult, it is
not impossible if we are serious about bringing change. As part of the World Peace Movement,
Nepali intellectuals living in different countries decided to commemorate Kapilavastu, the
birthplace of Gautam Buddha, Day as a global holiday in order to spread the peace message all
over the world. Gautam Buddha, has been revered as a Peace Ambassador who is more and
more able to persuade his followers to work more seriously in the World Peace Movement. This
day could be very important for researchers interested in collecting information about Buddha
and Buddhism as there could be flood of information especially on Facebook, Twitter and other
online medias.
Kapilavastu, located close to Lumbini, is considered a holy pilgrimage place for Buddhists since
it is known to be the birthplace of the Lord Buddha. The result of years of excavation and
research by numerous international teams has concluded that Kapilavastu is in Nepal. UNESCO
affirms the findings and has named Kapilavastu, and Lumbini as World Heritage sites.
Originally, on December 1, 1896, Dr Anton Führer, a German archaeologist, had claimed to have
discovered the Buddha’s birthplace when he found the Asoka Pillar at Lumbini. Even though
this site was originally discovered by Khadga Shamsher before Führer, Führer was credited with
the find as he brought it to light and made it known to the international community. The Asoka
Pillar is the most important evidence that proves that Buddha was born in Lumbini. Therefore,
we decided to celebrate December 1st as Kapilavastu Day.
Buddha taught that the world must be thought of in procedural terms and not in terms of things
or substances. The Buddha advised viewing reality as comprised of dependently originated
phenomena and Buddhists deem this approach to experience as avoiding the two extremes of
Reification and Nihilism. This is the understanding that any phenomenon exists only because of
the existence of other phenomena in an incredibly complex web of cause and effect covering
past, present and future. Stated in another way, everything depends on everything else and this
seems to be the basic of Newton’s law of Motion, ”To every action there is always an equal and
opposite reaction”. A human being’s existence in any given moment is dependent on the
condition of everything else in the world at that moment, and in an equally significant way, the
condition of everything in the world in that moment depends conversely on the character and
condition of that human being. Everything in the universe is interconnected through the web of
cause and effect; such that the whole and the parts are mutually interdependent. The character
and condition of entities at any given time are intimately connected with the character and
condition of all other entities that superficially may appear to be unconnected or unrelated. All
things, therefore, are conditioned and transient; they have no real independent identity and thus
do not truly exist, although to ordinary minds this appears to be the case. All phenomena are
therefore fundamentally flimsy and empty. People with a broad mind are those who “see things
as they are”, renouncing attachment and clinging, transforming energy of desire into awareness
and understanding, and eventually transcending the conditioned realm of form becoming
Buddhas.
Buddha Dhamma (Sanskrit: Dharma) is not a religion, it does not give credence to a god or
philosophy, but is the Law of Nature about how we should handle spirit, soul and body to bring
them together in harmony and to begin to annul the ego and to stop any sorrow or affliction in
our life! This way we can learn to cultivate true happiness and not create a dependent happiness
that is just for a fleeting moment eventually taking us back to the root of our problems. It takes a
lot of insight and deep reflection about us to see this reality.
Buddha counselled, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, no matter if I
have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” The main
problem for many is that even when one agrees with the reason, in practise we disagree with the
way to be followed. Because of this we complicate the problem, making it worse every day thus
making ourselves and others unhappy. Problems do not arise from those who do not know, but
from those who know but pretend not to know. Due to this attitude, the world is devastated a lot.
Until we purge ourselves of this habit nothing will happen on the journey to create a wonderful
and safe world for future generations.
As Malcom X exclaimed, “You can’t separate peace from freedom because no one can be at
peace unless he has his freedom. And, as Albert Einstein said, “Laws alone cannot secure
freedom of expression; for every man to present his views without penalty there must be a spirit
of tolerance in the entire population.” Most people think seriously about their responsibilities
and rights but not about their duty to others. So many use their freedom to rape others and deny
them of their freedom. This attitude could be the result of not having this broad thinking spoken
of earlier and not respecting others. Ultimately this results in missing our goal of attaining
world peace.
“The well-being of mankind, its peace and security, are unattainable unless and until its unity is
firmly established,” said Bahá’u'lláh. Arms could not be the source for a secure feeling. This
always creates knowing or unknowing pressure both to the owner and the other party. The
United Nations Security Council Summit’s resolution calling for the elimination of all nuclear
weapons was its first resolution dedicated to nuclear proliferation and disarmament and the first
chaired by a U.S. President. In addressing the Security Council’s members, President Obama
declared: “The historic resolution we just adopted enshrines our shared commitment to the goal
of a world without nuclear weapons.” Building on the extraordinary leadership of Presidents
Obama and Medvedev, (who in April committed to working together to eliminate all nuclear
weapons), this resolution is a significant step toward an international consensus on this goal and
a stirring moment for so many who have worked on this issue for so long. World leaders are
recognizing that whatever stability nuclear arsenals may have provided during the Cold War is
now outweighed by the growing risks of proliferation and nuclear terrorism; and the only way to
eliminate the nuclear threat is to eliminate all nuclear weapons. They have resolved to work
together in the common interest of security to achieve this goal. The US has spent more than 5.5
trillion dollars in developing their nuclear arsenal and France has spent about 1.5 trillion dollars;
these figures do not include the costs of testing, fissile material production, storage and disposal.
As these figures are larger than many developing countries’ annual budget, we can imagine how
much the situation of the world would improve if these funds were used for the benefit of the
people worldwide who are currently struggling to have education, minimum health care, food
and housing. Eliminating all nuclear weapons will require people from around the world to get
involved. Let’s join our hands with the citizens from every country around the world who are
already part of this movement and join “Global Zero” at www.globalzero.org.
A peace movement could be defined as a collection of activities aimed at ending, or at least
minimizing, violence and wars in a variety of different situations through an assortment of
methods. Due to the complex nature of this goal, it is deemed necessary to properly coordinate
cooperation among different peace movement forerunners and organisations for peace to become
a worldwide reality. Even though the path to world peace has been rough and the goal, as of yet,
unattained, this has not deterred those who are committed to achieving peace in their lifetime.
Even though people claim to love their children dearly, many are irresponsible when it comes to
making the world a better place for them. Instead of taking action, they blame others and defend
or hide their irresponsible behaviour due to egoism. This is very interesting and sad. As human
beings are responsible for the deteriorating situation, they are also responsible for improving the
situation and saving their own children. So which way will we go? Will we be blamed as
slaughterers or kind and wise by our own children and grandchildren? This decision is in our
hands. Currently, it is not too late, however, tomorrow it could be.
Published links:
http://www.articles.bagaicha.com/?p=13
http://www.nepalarab.com/articles_view.php?id=509
http://www.dc-nepal.com/press_release_english.php?nid=557
http://www.mulbato.com/?p=8137
http://youngentrepreneursociety.ning.com/profiles/blogs/kapilavastu-day-as-part-of-the
http://aawartan.org/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=143