Essay on "Buddhism and Human Rights"

Essay 10 pages (3319 words) Sources: 8 Style: Harvard

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Buddhism and Human Rights

One of the most discussed subjects since the beginning of time is "world peace." Ideas that could eventually lead to it have been suggested by almost everyone. Mankind has been dedicated to fight for its rights and even more than that since the early ages. However, as people started to see the damages provoked by conflicts, they've also started to look into the concept of peace as a necessity. Religion has always claimed to have promoted peace and has always fought to maintain the concept in the world, although it has also caused many wars in the history of mankind.

Buddhism particularly is dedicated to discouraging conflicts and to helping people in finding the right way towards a peaceful living. Human rights today are frequently disregarded in many parts of the world, and, because of this, innocent people suffer.

The human rights have been issued in order to insure that all men are treated equally, so that individuals would not be deprived of their basic rights. The early documents referring to a law that would defend human rights date from before our era. One of the first major documents that would involve the giving of equal rights to all of the citizens is the Magna Carta issued in 1215.

Approximately everyone promotes world peace today, and it would practically be enough for one to claim that he or she stands for "world peace" in order for them to look good in the eyes of others. Even if you are a model that wants to win a beauty contest by asserting that you "fight" for world peace, you would normally agree that the concept of peace is indeed good for the world. Hence, the humans are most probably committed to attaining peace, regardless of the fact that it might seem like an untouchable dream.

With globalization and evolution, the world has experienced an almost irreversible change and has left behind most of the violence that once used to be. As people and civilizations began to evolve, wars had become more frequent and the fighting for land had become the principal motive for the conflicts between nations. However, with the ending of the two world wars and the cold war, people had become more sensitive at the atrocities that their fellow humans could commit in the name of any cause, no matter how just their declared intentions. The occurrences, along with anti-war propaganda, have helped in putting a stop to most of the conflicts between nations.

In spite of the fact that the probability of another major war breaking out is very little, conflicts are still taking place, and the world has a long way to go in order to reach a state of complete peace. The reason for that is that wars are still happening throughout the world, even if on a smaller scale. A war does not necessarily have to be a conventional one, fought between two countries, nowadays. It can be started by the slightest demonstration of a violent fight between two individuals. for, as long as people will stick to their beliefs at all costs and refrain from attempting to change them or just understand the opposite party's point-of-view, world peace will not be achieved.

There have been several attempts of people and governments trying to change the world and make it a better place. However, most of the attempts have failed, as the masses generally tend to pay more attention to their financial problems than to the war that are being fought throughout the world.

As peace has its supporters, war has its supporters, too and they are as keen of promoting war and its advantages as any good supporter would be. Most of those that support war are doing so mainly because of the fact that they consider war to be beneficial for the thriving of economy. According to various sources, if all wars would be ended forever, some vital parts of the world's economic system would certainly be destroyed (About.com). A comprehensible explanation for the benefit of wars is that some people working in the military business depend directly on precisely the conflicts they are involved in. In conditions of economic recession, reports indicate that the U.S. Army plans of enrollment have over passed their target for the year 2008. Economic reasons are the best incentives ever and they seem to prevail over any other considerations. Clearly, nobody wishes for people to die in wars, and most people tend to abstain from encouraging others to go to war, but on the other side, many are not prepared to give up their financial gains from their involvement in some kind of military combat.

In its essence, war can be understood as a necessary evil in order for some exceptional goals to be reached. On the other hand, if all of the resources used by the military would be used for other beneficial and peaceful projects, people would most certainly benefit from the action.

Great philosophers have argued that war has no real advantage ever since the early ages. With the forming of the U.N. In 1945, nations had been theoretically forbidden of using the state of war as an economic advantage. The Cold War is believed to have been fought as a mean to create a balance of power and to put an end to any other world war.

Globalization is one of the main factors leading to world peace mostly because, through it, people peacefully communicate with each other regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or skin color. Because of globalization, people have become more acquainted with the concept of peace, and a state of unity has been created in the world.

Even with the great leap in evolution that humankind has made and with international relationships becoming better, there are examples that mankind still cannot live without making war. Most of the wars have moved into third-world countries, as their residents are inclined to be dissatisfied with their social and economic position.

The UN has been devoted to provide assistance to developing countries and to countries that have experienced a state of warfare. The United Nations Development Program has been created to help countries which are in an unbalanced economic or political situation. Several countries have benefited from UNDP's assistance and have experienced visible progress since then.

Religion holds great importance when referring to supporters of the human rights for it has protected people and condemned those that have made abuse of their authority. Lots of people have gone and tried to make peace in the world through various methods. Apart from the holly wars, religion has mainly been dedicated to combating warfare as it does not agree with the concept of war as being a necessity. Most religious people consider that any war could have been avoided if people were to consider all of their options before having gone to war. Religion has is flaws also, for it can be understood or translated to the rest of the people in a wrong way by some of its supporters and it can be used exactly for the opposite of any peacemaking intentions. One of the oldest and on top ten of the major religions of the world is Buddhism. Like all other religions, Buddhism is unique in its essence and its history goes back to the early teachers promoting it. The religion is based on intense meditation from its followers in order for them to reach to highest states of purification.

Buddhism's early stages go back between 563 BC and 483 BC when a man named Siddhartha Gautama had lived. In spite of the fact that he had been born within an Indian clan as its prince, he had chosen to separate from his family's traditions and create a whole new ideology. The newly formed doctrine had been assigned the name of Buddhism and it had begun to gather more and more followers. Buddhism had been attractive to the masses due to the fact that it promoted much higher states of mind than other Indian ideologies from the time.

Near the end of his life, Siddhartha (or Buddha, as his followers had called him) had claimed that during his life, he had wanted his followers to learn about pain and how to end it. Because of his teaching being closely related to suffering, there were some critics stating that Siddhartha had created an ideology which had a pessimistic touch.

In truth, as one can see from Buddha's early teachings, his intention had been for people to understand the effect in order to stop the cause. The real ideology that Buddhism had been promoting was that people should reach a state of mind where suffering would no longer be present. For that, they would need to better understand all of the stages in life that are related to suffering and no longer accept them as being unavoidable.

According to Jan Willis, Buddhism has Four Noble Truths:

1. There is suffering (duhkha).

2.… READ MORE

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