Bodh Gaya Enlightenment Land Social Welfare Trust

What's is the benefits listen Dhamma

Many of you have listened to many Dhamma talks, and now you are listening to another. I suppose you see the benefits of doing this, otherwise you wouldn’t be here. It is also mentioned in the Mangala Sutta (Khp 5) that timely listening to the Dhamma is one of the highest blessings. When we find something good, especially something that benefits us spiritually, it is good to share or introduce it to others. Doing so would also be to our own benefit.

Today I would like to highlight the five advantages of listening to the Dhamma based on the Dhammassavana Sutta (AN 5.202).

Learn new things

On each occasion that a person listens to the Dhamma, he is likely to be exposed to new information and knowledge. This is especially so for a new student of Buddhism. But even for those who may have heard the subject before, listening to it again can bring about a new perceptive and perhaps even deeper understanding.

The Buddha’s teachings are unfortunately not taught in schools here in Malaysia, unlike Islamic Studies, which is a compulsory subject for all Muslims attending schools. At most, non-Muslims are only given a general subject called Moral Education, which, from what I’ve not heard, is not of much benefit to anyone. So, it is necessary to deliberately expose young people to the Dhamma in a skilful manner.

For adults, there are various kinds of courses on how to get the most out of life: many of them very much oriented to the material side, while some are genuinely more spiritual in nature. Usually, you have to pay big money to attend those type of courses. We, however, do it for free!

Clarify what we have learnt

The more you know, the more you know how much you don’t know. Listeners who are fairly knowledgeable in the Dhamma often need to clarify their understanding of it. A good example is the first precept: to abstain from killing. Is accidental killing of an insect killing? Is smoking considered as breaking the fifth precept?

Rather than being passive, it is good to ask questions during Dhamma talks and to forward your queries on what is unclear to you. This gives you a great opportunity to increase the depth of your knowledge in the Dhamma and enhance your wisdom.

Abolish doubt

At times, we are doubtful about certain aspects of our understanding or practice. For example, can Buddhists pray to deities or should they do as Christian converts often do: throw out their images? Should Buddhists make food offerings to their departed relatives?

If you listen to enough Dhamma, you are sure to come across topics that address such issues and you can then dispel any doubt or misgiving that you may have on such topics.

Straighten our views

There are a number of false views that occur among people. One such view, for example, is that there is no rebirth, i.e., when this body dies, that is the end. Such a person can be rather confused when he dies. In fact, he can be very afraid as he approaches his death. Another wrong view is that there is no law of karma. This is potentially dangerous as one having such a view would be more likely to act as he likes, believing that the evil that he does will not return to him so long as he can circumvent the worldly law.

For many of you, however, having learnt much, you probably have much less wrong views. Yet we should keep straightening them, discarding our wrong views as we learn. I too am still doing that. For example, you know that giving is good and brings good results, but do you know that it does not bring about rebirth in a happy existence? Only virtue does that. So with that knowledge, people seeking a good birth would be motivated to go beyond mere giving.

Listening to the Dhamma can help you to straighten your views so that you have a better understanding of life. With that, we can then live in better harmony within the laws of life and live a happier life.

Gladden the mind

While living in this world we cannot be free from suffering. Yet, when you keenly listen to the Dhamma, you may experience occasions when what is said strikes you deeply and you go, “Ah…” During such an occasion, happiness and joy arises in the mind and suddenly suffering diminishes, at least momentarily. Wisdom arises and peace prevails. Just imagine what it would be like if such states of mind never leave us.

In a nutshell, listening to the Dhamma is immensely beneficial and will definitely lead a person to happier living and even to the ultimate liberation

he buddhist practice of dana or generosity liberates you from feelings of separateness and alienation.

It was the second day of a vipassana meditation retreat I was co-teaching in Santa Fe, and we had a problem. Or at least, I had a problem. I was not satisfied with the Tibetan bowl we were using as a bell to signal the end of each sitting. The retreat managers had provided us with a small bowl, and I found that the sound was not right for the meditation hall. The managers had been very responsive and located two other bowls, but something seemed wrong with the sound of each of these as well. Ordinarily I’m not that particular; after all it was just a bell. Moreover, the yogis were witnessing the search for the perfect bell. A dharma teacher who’s attached to the sound of a bowl is hardly the ideal role model for students who are being asked to sit in silence hour after hour, day after day. Still, I had this feeling that wouldn’t go away; it wasn’t the right bowl. I’ve learned to trust my intuition, even in matters that seem trivial, but in this instance I didn’t know what to do.

I was sitting in the meditation hall by myself when a yogi came in and asked if I was in need of a different bell. I answered that indeed I was, and he said that on an impulse he had put one in his car before he left home. He then brought in a large Tibetan bowl that when struck sustained a clear, full bass tone that harmonized with all the higher notes the bell made. It was the most beautiful sound I’d ever heard from a bowl its size. On the day I was leaving, the yogi came up to me, bowed, handed me a note, and said, “Read this when you settle down somewhere.” I assumed he meant when I was on the airplane, so I put the note in my pocket and thought no more about it until I was in the air. The note said, “I now know why I was compelled to bring this bowl-it was meant to be yours. Please take it with you when you leave. Thank you for sharing the dharma with us.” I was glad I had not read the note earlier. This way I was able to avoid taking the yogi’s bowl without refusing his gift. He clearly loved the bell; one day I had found him sitting in the hall during the lunch break, striking the bell and just listening to it. The last thing I wanted was to deprive him of such pleasure. Yet, he was offering the bell as dana, which is the practice of generosity. I felt as though I had received the warmth of his good intention, he had received the merit of the giving, and still he had his bowl. So it seemed like a fortuitous outcome.

I told the story of the bowl to two of my teachers, who were staying at my house, when I returned from Santa Fe. They were somewhat disapproving of my relief at the way things had turned out. It was an act of true dana, they said, and not to receive it with equal generosity would be failing him as a teacher. I could not disagree with their comments, but I was still glad to have avoided the situation.

To my consternation, within a few days of returning from Santa Fe, I received an e-mail from him: “Why did you not take your bell? If you did not read my note before you left, why have I not heard from you since then?” I wrote back explaining what had happened and suggested that the time had passed for giving away the bowl. He replied by asking for shipping instructions.

That is how the bell of the enchanting sounds came to reside with me. I often carry it to retreats around the country where I am teaching, and hundreds of yogis have ended their meditation time on the cushion in response to its deep chime. Thus, one yogi’s dana became a gift to many. This is the power of the practice of dana-it reverberates out into unknown directions, over indefinite periods of time. But to the giver, it is not the fruits of giving that is of concern, only the practice of dana itself-the inner intention to find release from attachment and egoism by giving freely whatever one has that is of value. What you have to give may be material in nature, or it may be your time, energy, or wisdom. Dana in its original context refers to the giving of alms in the form of money or food to the monks. Buddhist monks and nuns in the Southeast Asian forest tradition take vows of poverty; therefore, they are totally dependent on dana. Dana is one of three kinds of meritorious behavior along with sila (ethical behavior) and bhavana (mental development through meditation). The Buddha taught that five blessings accrue to the giver of dana: the affection of many people, noble association, good reputation, self-confidence, and a heavenly rebirth. The Buddha was quite clear that it is harmful for a person to attempt to buy these blessings with money or good conduct. Generosity is regarded as one of the paramitas or perfections that a bodhisattva achieves on the way to enlightenment, along with such virtues as patience, discipline, and wisdom. Dana is also understood as a form of kindness and compassion practice motivated by unconditional caring for another.

Monks, nuns, and lay teachers offer the dharma as their practice of dana. They in turn are supported by dana from students. For laypeople living amidst monks in Southeast Asia, it is common practice to provide food, robes, and other small necessities of life, as well as financial gifts for the monastery and travel stipends for the monastics. Monks and nuns are not allowed to handle money themselves, and there are rules restricting what they can receive.

In the United States this practice of dana is also the basis of support for monastics living in the forest tradition. At the Abhayagiri Monastery in Northern California, monks and nuns go on monthly alms rounds for food in the small town in which it is located. Laypeople will bring food to the monastery and serve lunch to the monks and nuns. Lunch is the last meal of the day for these monastics, and they can only receive what is offered to them. So when you stand in line placing food in the alms bowl of one monk after another, the joy of giving is palpable. The deeper lesson is that each of us is equally dependent on others for the blessing of our food. We are all interconnected with one another and with the Earth in a web that goes beyond the marketplace of commercial exchange. We flourish or perish together through interwoven acts of dana arising from the benevolence and integrity of people we shall never meet. This too is the power of dana-even when practiced without consciousness, it arises and spreads. When you mindfully practice dana, you come into contact with its joyful, healing power.

Dana in Daily Life

Understanding dana is key to living the dharma in daily life, yet it is seldom taught on retreats as a practice. You practice dana to eradicate the attachment that comes from feelings of scarcity and separateness. However, there is a paradox contained in dana: You practice it as an act of liberation for yourself, yet it is not self-centered. True dana arises from the intention underlying your act. It is not that you are supposed to have only pure motives but rather that your intention is to cultivate purity of generosity without self-consideration.

There is an old Sufi story about the importance of cultivating generosity which asks the question, why does the beggar man beg? A seemingly crippled beggar sits in the central square all day crying, “Baksheesh! Baksheesh! Who will give me baksheesh?” Some pass by ignoring him, some give little, others give generously. He praises them all and asks that Allah bless them. At the end of the day, the beggar rises from his seat, walks normally over to the prayer fountain, tosses in the coins he has received, then goes home to his comfortable middle class house. So why does the beggar beg? The last line of the story answers, “He begs for me and thee.” This teaching asks you to reflect on how practicing generosity fits into your spiritual life. What form your generosity takes is up to you, as it can only come from your values and what you have to offer. Remember it is your authentic intention that matters, even if that is simply a sincere wish that in time you will become more spontaneously generous.

It is important to understand that mixed motives are to be expected when you practice dana and that you are supposed to act from these mixed motives rather than wait for perfection of goodness. You practice in order to recognize and move toward the purity that already exists within you. If you only had pure motives, there would be no need to practice. This may seem obvious, but many yogis become confused and start to judge themselves by how much purity they have acquired. All that is called for is to practice daily in small but persistent ways-the practice will deepen by itself.

Dana means practicing generous behavior in all aspects of your life, not just giving money or sharing material possessions. Certainly the emotional impulse to practice dana most easily arises when you participate in providing sustainability for others, whether it is shelter, food, clothes, or medicine. But with less immediate life needs, such as education, safety, or earning a living, the appropriate dana may be the gift of your time. When it comes to intangibles such as justice and dignity, what may be most appropriate is to voice your support. Dana, along with compassion, is a cornerstone of mindful social activism.

In daily life dana also means receiving each arising moment with a generous attitude and meeting it with patience that is based in spiritual practice. When interacting with friends or strangers, you give them your full attention as you listen to their words, and you interpret their actions with sympathy, even when they are clumsy. This is not to be misunderstood as being naïve or allowing wrong action to go uncorrected. Rather, it means holding for each person life’s greatest possibility in the moment, even if in that moment the possibilities are severely limited. Can you see that meeting another person in this manner is the same as putting food in a monk’s alms bowl? Likewise, you too are standing there with your alms bowl, arms extended. Dana in any form is dana; it nourishes the very essence of the other’s being. In cultivating our sense of self-worth and well-being, we are just as dependent on the kindness of others as we are in our material needs. Thich Naht Hanh often teaches that we “inter-are,” and from this knowing dana flows like water going downhill.

You know when you encounter someone with the bliss-bestowing power of a generous spirit. You part feeling more alive and better about yourself. What is usually hard to imagine is that you can be this way yourself. Yet with the conscious practice of dana, you are slowly transformed. There comes a time when for a few moments in your day the person in front of you is like the monk in the food line holding out an alms bowl. This is the blossoming of the felt experience of interconnectedness. When this starts to happen, the practice of dana becomes more spontaneous, less deliberate, and your difficulties with others become less personal. Mind you, your fears and wants do not go away, you just cease to be so identified with them.

You may well see yourself as too impoverished to approach life as a practice of dana, but this is a misperception. Practicing dana skillfully, be it material, energetic, emotional, or wisdom sharing, will only make your life richer. You start practicing in small ways with people for whom you feel appreciation, then gradually you spread your generosity to neutral people and situations, and you save the difficult opportunities for when you have some momentum in the practice. It is not unlike doing metta (loving-kindness) practice. At first your dana comes from your desire to be such a person, then it evolves into a more heartfelt experience.

Better to Receive?

There is a reverse side to dana that is often neglected-the practice of receiving generosity. Many people are better at giving dana than receiving it. It is a difficult practice that calls upon you to be both vulnerable and humble. Once the yogi offered the Tibetan bowl as dana, it was my practice to receive it without being controlled by my own preferences.

My first great lesson in receiving dana came long before I ever heard the word. As a teenager living in the Appalachian Mountains, I worked as a bag boy in a local supermarket. To my consternation, it was the working poor who were most likely to give tips, and they often seemed more needy than I. I would either refuse the tip or sometimes slip the money back into one of the bags as I put them in the car. I felt quite proud about this until one cold, rainy Christmas Eve when a man wearing cheap, worn-out clothes and driving a beat-up old car filled with many wide-eyed, unkempt children insisted on giving me a large tip. I was embarrassed at the idea of taking his money and flatly refused. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “This is something I can do for you. It is my Christmas.” Suddenly I “got it”-the tips were not about me, they were about the giver, his values, and his life. Unconsciously I’d believed I had the right to decide the appropriateness of another’s generosity when directed toward me. Such arrogance, such ignorance! I accepted the money, deeply thanked him, and kept walking through the parking lot pushing the empty shopping cart in the freezing air rather than returning to the warm store. My ears burned from shame, but my heart was warm, for I had been touched by a generous spirit. I knew then that I had received a true teaching, but it was years before I could make it my own.

Generosity Gene

There is one last point to consider about dana that has to do with the “selfish gene” theory currently in vogue with social biologists. They assert that any seemingly altruistic behavior is actually self-serving, because even if you sacrifice yourself to save others or to serve your community, you are really perpetuating your gene pool.

From this perspective, there isn’t any such thing as dana, or loving-kindness, or compassion-it all falls under the category of self-interested behavior. While there are several reasons to disagree with this, what most needs to be questioned is its underlying assumption of separateness. When Mother Teresa was asked if it was difficult for her to touch lepers on the streets of Calcutta, she replied that each time, she was touching God; for her it was not a burden, but a privilege.

This is the radical understanding of non-separateness and interdependency. If you believe it, the selfish gene theory is simply irrelevant. With this insight you realize practicing dana is an act of generosity from yourself to yourself. So of course you want to give away your beautiful bowl, and you are happy to receive it in order to share it with others. You know that you are both the giver and receiver in a never-ending dance of life in exchange with itself. You know why the beggar man begs, and you practice dana in order to be fully alive.

The Buddhist tradition makes the claim that among persons that appear in this world for the welfare of man-kind, a fully enlightened Buddha is the greatest.’ The Buddhist terms used in the sense of ‘welfare’ are terms such as ‘attha’, Ma’and sukha’. The claim made by Buddhism is that the Buddha engaged in a serious search of what in reality conduces to welfare. According to the Ariyapariyesana Sutta he left the mundane comforts of the royal palace disenchanted with the so-called pleasures of the mundane life in search of what constitutes the greatest good of mankind (Kimkusalagavesi ji).”

After achieving the goal of his noble search He spent forty years of his life teaching, preaching and providing guidance to people of all walks of life intending nothing other than the welfare of mankind. After He was able to share the liberation of mind and the liberation through insight that he attained with sixty others who followed his instructions, he called upon them to devote their life as well., for the happiness, well-being and welfare of the multitude.”‘ However, the Buddhist teachings contend that its concept of social welfare does not appeal to those who are blinded by passions and mundane concerns, and conceive welfare only in terms of the gratification of the desires of the senses.

From the Buddhist point of view those who are obsessed with sense pleasures interpret Buddhism as a social, life-denying, otherworldly doctrine that is concerned solely with the self-interested pursuit of individual salvation. In their view, Buddhism does not promote an attitude to life, which enables human beings to face life’s challenges, but encourages the solitary pursuit of inward peace and calm, forgetting about the rest of the society that toils and suffers in the face of social injustices, economic depravities, and a variety of other social problems. This is a criticism that Buddhism has to meet in defence of its notion of social welfare.

Obviously, there is serious disagreement regarding what constitutes ‘welfare’ between those who advocate the Buddhist worldview and others who advocate worldviews that radically differ from it. This is a matter that the Buddha himself is represented in the early scriptures as having reflected upon before he embarked on his long career of active involvement in the welfare of mankind. His problem was that of convincing others who were engrossed in the mad pursuit of sense gratification, impelled by craving, about what constituted their real happiness and welfare iv It is pointed out by the Buddha that what is seen as happiness by the noble ones is seen as unhappiness by others, and what is seen as happiness by others is seen as unhappiness by the noble ones. The implication of the above is that one cannot talk about social welfare meaningfully without dealing with the philosophical and conceptual issue of how welfare is to be conceived. The term ‘welfare’ is like some other terms that we use in our language, a value loaded term. It is not one that has an entirely descriptive meaning. It belongs to the family of terms such as ‘good’, ‘happiness’, and ‘wellbeing’. It is to be noted that similar conceptual incompatibility is likely to occur between the Buddhist and the common notion of ‘development’. Buddhism poses a challenge, to the way certain human values are commonly conceived and it aims at an insightful revision of such value concepts.

There is an attempt in Buddhism to bring in a value dimension to even such concepts as wealth (dhana) and poverty (daliddiya) that are usually interpreted purely in material terms. According to Buddhism, one may be very rich in material wealth, but poor in the moral riches. One can be said to be poor in an ethical sense not because one lacks material wealth but lacks the eight kinds of noble wealth (ariyadhana)/’Therefore, when we discuss the theme ‘Buddhism and social welfare’ we should not try merely to see how Buddhism fits into the common notion of social welfare, but penetrate deeper into the issue of how Buddhism reinterprets this notion in terms of its own philosophical and conceptual orientation. What I expect to do in this paper is to draw the implications of such an investigation.

As seen by some observers of the relationship between Buddhism and society, Buddhism advocates a worldview that promotes the lone pursuit of escape from suffering by means of developing an attitude of indifference towards everything outside oneself. The Buddhist ideal is seen as non-engagement in the conflicts and turmoil characteristic of social living so that individual seekers °f inward peace could strive to achieve their goal in the cloistered environment of the forest hermitage. It is seen as promoting a |jfe of total withdrawal from social concerns for the pursuit of self-interest This way of looking at the Buddhist ideal is based on the assumption that there is a fundamental incompatibility between one’s own well-being and the well-being of others.

The Buddha classified persons into four kinds on the basis of one’s attitude towards one’s own interest and one’s attitude towards the interest of others. The first type of person is referred to as one who adopts a way of life that conduces, neither to the welfare of oneself nor to the welfare of others (neva attahittaya Patipanno no parahitaya). The second type of person is one who adopts a way of life that does not conduce to one’s own welfare but conduces to the welfare of others (parahitiya patipanno no attahittaya). The third adopts a way of life that conduces to one’s own welfare but not to the welfare of others (attahitaya patipanno no parahitaya).

The fourth is one who adopts a way of life that conduces, to one’s own welfare and the welfare of others, (attahitaya ca patipanno parahitaya ca). According to the Buddha, it is the fourth type of person who is most praiseworthy. The first kind of person is the most blameworthy. In the comparative evaluation of the second and the third type of person, the Buddha takes the position that the third one is better than the second. The question is whether in view of such an assessment of the worth of persons in terms of their way of life, Buddhism expresses a preference to the pursuit of self interest over the pursuit of the welfare of others.

What is Meant by “Welfare?”
In order to understand the significance of the above classification it is important to consider what Buddhism means by ‘welfare’ in this context. In the Kalama Sutta it is noted that there are three mental qualities that arise in people, which are detrimental to their welfare. They are greed, hatred and delusion. Overwhelmed by these three mental qualities people destroy life, they steal the belongings of others, and they indulge in the wrongful enjoyment of sense pleasures and speak what is false. They commit acts that produce suffering to themselves and suffering -to others. According to Buddhism, the self-interest of a
oerson consists in the- cultivation of a personality that is perfect in moral goodness and insightful understanding of reality. The influence of such persons on society is twofold. On the one hand the behaviour of such persons does not have the consequence of producing suffering to the rest of the society because they are never motivated in their behaviour by what Buddhism describes as the roots of unwholesome action. On the other hand by virtue of the fact that they have perfected the qualities of mind that are considered as wholesome _(Kusala) such as mindfulness, equanimity, kindness and compassion whatever they do is beneficial to the rest of the society.

Such persons are considered in Buddhism as the ethical models that the rest of the society should emulate. According to the Sigalovada Sutta, a community of such persons is an essential component of a harmonious and prosperous society.”” Wherever such persons live that location is said to be delightful. They are not to be conceived as persons who have escaped from the dutiful engagements of the social life to live an indolent, self centred and care free life which is supported by others who have to toil in order to procure the material needs of their life. They are looked upon as the rich fields for others who live the lower life of sense-pleasures to sow their seeds of meritorious deeds.ix Social well-being requires the maintenance of such a community paying high respect and veneration to, members of that community.x The implication of these ideas is that Buddhism does not conceive of the possibility of promoting the welfare of a community in the absence of a social structure and a network of social relationships in which there is adequate provision made for the giving and receiving of moral guidance in the conduct of its affairs.

Traditional Buddhist societies have shown the highest veneration to members of this community and some aspects of the current social crises experienced by such-societies under the rapid social changes that have recently taken place may be attributed to the break down of the structure and relationships that existed in the past. Coming back to the issue of giving priority to one’s own welfare over the welfare of others, Buddhism is evidently drawing attention to the necessity of dealing with a person’s inner nature as a prerequisite for 9enuine social commitment. This is in recognition of the fact that Persons whose inner nature is defiled produce more harm to society *nan good when they interact with society. Social action, if it is to be Productive of social welfare has to be motivated by what Buddhism describes as the roots of wholesome action (Kusalamula). The cultivation of kusala is what ultimately benefits the individual as well as the society. Hence Buddhism defines kusala as that which does not result in harm to oneself, harm to others and harm to both (attabyabadhaya na samvattati, parabyabadhaya na samvattati ubhayabyabadhaya samvattati), and is conducive to the production of happiness (sukhudrayam sukhavipakam). In the Sallekha Sutta the Buddha points out that it is not possible for someone who is stuck in the mud to pull out another who is stuck in the mud.

It is possible for one who is himself not stuck in the mud to pull out another who is stuck in the mud. From the Buddhist point of view there is no ultimate conflict between what conduces to the welfare of oneself and what conduces to the welfare of others. As the Buddha has put it, “one who takes care of oneself takes care of others. One who takes care of others takes care of oneself. One takes care of oneself by moral training, moral culture and moral development. One takes care of others by harmlessness, by goodwill and by compassion” “Whether one wants to see that one’s own good should be brought about or one wants to see that the good of others should be brought about or one wants to see that the good of both should be brought about it is necessary to cultivate one’s character diligently”. When one is overwhelmed by greed or hatred one cannot sees one’s own welfare or the another associated with intense physical, suffering.

Much more intense is the mental suffering that human beings experience due -to the presence in the human mind of unwholesome emotions referred to in Buddhism by a number of terms such as akusala dhamma asava, anusaya, kilesa. Having ethico- psychological meanings. From the Buddhist point of view putting an end to all human suffering and distress involves the destruction of these unwholesome states of mind. As long as such states of mind are present, living beings are considered in Buddhism to be in bondage going through the repeated process of becoming which makes them exposed to all the physical and mental sufferings. The greatest welfare of human beings is the escape from this unsatisfactory condition. Every individual who strives to escape from that condition seeks one’s own welfare.

Those who engage in providing guidance to others to escape from that condition are engaged in social welfare in the highest sense. They are capable of serving society with a totally detached attitude, and with no ulterior motives, but purely through compassion for the suffering masses. The Buddha and his reputed disciples did commit themselves to the service of society throughout their lives in this sense. It remains valid to this day that the greatest service that Buddhists could do to mankind is to lead them on the way to the attainment of this liberation. That is the greatest social welfare that Buddhism can promote.

One of the most potent sources of suffering in society is the cruelty and insensitivity of man that is-reflected in the pursuit of self-interest. Human conduct becomes a hindrance to social welfare when it proceeds from the roots of unwholesome motivation that Buddhism describes as greed, hatred and delusion. Numerous social crises that produce immense suffering in society are frequently a product of human cruelty. If the recent history of human civilization is considered more human suffering has resulted from cruelty of man towards man than from any other causes such as natural disasters that are unrelated to human conduct and intentions.

For the ongoing conflicts and wars, acts of terrorism, exploitation of various social groups, social injustices etc. that hinder social welfare, human beings themselves are responsible. According to Buddhism all such social crises are ultimately traceable to the moral depravity of man. Social Welfare could be promoted not merely by dealing with the symptoms °f deep-rooted psychological insanity that find expression in the social behaviour of mankind, but by treating the internal sources of such insanity. Buddhism offers the most experimentally testable and systematic path for the gradual elimination of the roots of evil conduct in human beings. Its impact on social welfare could be tremendous. It has much greater value than all the effort that people make to deal with the material conditions of human beings.

The Buddhist approach to social welfare is sometimes viewed as ineffective because Buddhism does not seek to redress the suffering of people through violent demonstrations, vociferous protest movements, and incitement of people to violence and armed conflict. Instead Buddhism advocates pursuing the gentle way of appealing to the moral sentiments of people and educating people in what is right and wrong, just and unjust, fair and unfair. The Buddha set the first example of promoting social welfare by such means. Other ways of attempting to promote social welfare sometimes produce more suffering than they eliminate. Buddhism does not take the position that the end justifies the means and adopt any means to achieve a desirable end. It adopts only non-violent and peaceful means. Hence Buddhism considers as its most usable tool of social change the effort to educate and enlighten people on the realities of life. It does not appeal to people’s basec emotions and incite them to violent responses, but encourages people to deal with the most perplexing crises and challenges of life with mindfulness, equanimity and insight. It is this approach to social welfare that is needed today, in which there’s a tendency to proliferate collective enmity and anger in the-name of achieving social justice.

It was noted that those who have removed the defilements in their minds and attained perfect freedom of mind through insight need no further incentive to devote themselves to social welfare in the Buddhist sense. By virtue of the fact that they have already transformed themselves into persons who are free from greed, hatred and delusion and possessed of the wholesome qualities of mind such as kindness, sympathetic concern for the suffering of other beings, compassion, uanimity, mental composure and insight their commitment to social welfare becomes effortless and spontaneous. Their conduct conforms to the two most basic principles of morality, namely the principle of doing no harm and the principle of promoting beneficence.

However those persons who are not so fully liberated need an incentive to motivate themselves to perform acts of social welfare. It is this aspect that is covered by the Buddhist concept of the performance of meritorious deeds (punna). Acts of punna are acts of social welfare productive of happy consequences to the agent. On the part of the doer they involve the sacrifice of one’s possessions and energies for the welfare of others. Since these acts involve the negation of the ego with the intention of promoting the welfare of another they are effective in cleansing a person’s mind by reducing greed, hatred, enmity miserliness etc.

By the performance of acts of punna and the avoidance of acts of papa one contributes to social welfare while gradually transforming oneself in such a way that noble qualities of mind conducive to produce the maturity and insight that bring full liberation of the mind could sooner or later be attained. Until such time as one attains the final liberation, acts of punna protect a person from falling into unhappy rebirths and furnishes one with all the desirable material conditions of living. Buddhism provides a great incentive to believers by emphasizing the effects of punna_deeds to engage in acts of social welfare. The concept of punna is connected with the doctrines of kamma and rebirth. These doctrines appeal to the concern of everyone with one’s own interest and have the effect of preventing people who have faith in them to avoid engaging in any conduct that is productive of suffering to others and encouraging them to do positive good to others which is productive of beneficial effects to themselves.

It is to be noted that the Buddhist notion of social welfare is wider than a purely mundane notion in such a way that it includes an awareness of the material needs that are necessary for the promotion of social welfare. The welfare of people can be promoted only when all their needs are adequately fulfilled. Humanist psychologists have pointed out that human beings have a hierarchy of needs.xv They do not attain their real humanity unless certain higher and uniquely human needs are also satisfied. Buddhism can fully agree with that view, for Buddhism recognizes the necessity to attend to the basic material needs of man not as an end in itself, but as a means to an end which is much higher than that. The greatest happiness that a human being can attain by becoming entirely free from the corruptions of mind is considered in Buddhism as the highest in the hierarchy of human needs.

There is nothing beyond that in terms of excellence that a-human being may desire to attain. When the lower and basic needs are not satisfied human beings will move away from the search for the higher good that could be attained by means of the culture of mind. Buddhism makes the observation that the moral consciousness of human beings disappear when they have to live under conditions of absolute destitution in respect of their basic material requirements. Therefore Buddhism focuses attention on the need to promote the welfare of people in respect of the conditions of their material living. However, from the Buddhist point of view such a pursuit is not an end in itself. It is perhaps on that ground that Buddhism has introduced the concepts of two persons of great benefit to mankind. One is the concept of a universal monarch (cakkavattiraja), the foremost among men who are engaged in the promotion of the material welfare of the people. The other is the concept of a fully enlightened Buddha, the foremost among men who are engaged in the promotion of the spiritual welfare of the people. However, in the Buddhist scheme of values the latter is given a higher status than the former.

What may be concluded from the above discussion is that Buddhism can be credited with a much more comprehensive notion of social welfare than a narrow notion of social welfare that takes into account only the material aspects of human needs. It is this more comprehensive approach of Buddhism that attributes a greater value to spiritual welfare that is misconstrued as a life denying, asocial and salvation doctrine.