Events in Mumbai: reflections by Vishvapani

Events in Mumbai have dominated international headlines this week. In India, Buddhists are in a tiny minority compared to the Hindus and Muslims. But what might their position be following such an outrage?

Readers of FWBO/TBMSG News may be interested in Order Member Vishvapani’s calm reflections, broadcast on the UK’s Radio Four ‘Thought for the Day’, to an audience of many millions. You can listen to, or read his words on the BBC website.

He concludes -

“Compassion requires the courage to face suffering steadily with an open, kindly heart. That brings understanding, and that rouses us to action. The intended product of terrorism, by contrast, is 'terror'. Declaring a 'war' on that terror won't show the way out of cycles of violence and reprisal. We can only find a path beyond terror by facing it directly.”

To all afflicted by suffering we would add, in the words of Shantideva –

“May all sentient beings possess happiness

And the causes of happiness;
May they be separated from suffering,
And the causes of suffering;

May they never be separated
From the happiness that knows no suffering;
May they abide in equanimity,
Free from attachment and aversion”.