A Buddhist Perspective

Reluctantly, I asked my last question, "Finally, how do you, Bhante, see a more peaceful world occurring?"

Bhante Piyadassi gazed thoughtfully at me for a while and then his clear, mellow voice replied, "To bring about peace and harmony in this world, my viewpoint is this: people have peace conferences, discussions, meetings, and all sorts of activities, but the whole thing is really in the hands of a few powerful people in powerful countries. There should be a radical change in the hearts of the people who are at the helm of affairs, otherwise you cannot bring about peace. We may talk about peace and have conferences everywhere, but what good are conferences unless the powerful people give a thought to world peace? Only they can bring about peace and harmony. We can write about peace and have discussions, but the whole thing is with these few powerful people.

"I understand that when people went to Albert Einstein and asked, ‘What do you think about the Third World War?,’ he reportedly answered, ‘I don’t know about the Third World War, but I’ll tell you about the Fourth.’ They asked him, ‘What is it? What is it? What is it?’ Einstein said, ‘When you go to wage the Fourth World War, it will be with sticks and bows and arrows. We’ll be back to primitive man.’ Einstein explained what the Third World War is going to do — complete devastation.

"So, all this peace and harmony can be brought about by only a few powerful statesmen of the powerful countries of the world. Only they can bring about peace and harmony."

Catholic  

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