Translated by Yan Liu and Dongmei  

In the speech of preparing sutra offering ceremony, I have mentioned this issue- harmony of the world. The harmony is the foundation of the peace of the world. As long as the weapon race lasts, this world will never be peaceful. During the past hundreds years, the Buddhism has been absent, which caused a server deviation of the civilization in human society. Last year we made an announcement to the world that we have come and we will never leave. Not only will we involve, but also we will lead the development of human society and civilization. In this world technology and physical knowledge have grow too fast so that relatively the ratio of our attention on life education over technology and knowledge goes to the negative.  the less the awareness of the psychological development. That’s why the quicker of scientific technology develops, the more people suffers without solution.  

From the statistics of United Nations, we found most higher developed nations, people suffers more. It turns out some developing countries like Nepal and Bhutan with less fortune, people feel happier.  We must rethink from here. When we start to rethink this abnormal phenomenon, we found a couple of things we have to pay attention. The first is the unbalance in the nature environment. We would put our efforts to improve it. The second is the unbalance in humanities. This includes not only human nature but also history. Regarding human rights, we have further opinion.

Originally, the human rights concept from Europe civilization and USA spirit is to against religious authority. However, the concept has been changed. The people want to use it wherever in the world. Actually, it encourages the political conflict and even weapon race. The level of civilization is various in all countries. To realize the complete human rights freedom, it must be followed not to affect other countries political policy.  The development and education level are different between countries. To force people in a less developed country to follow the life standard of a developed country is obviously unfair. It is as same impossible as to force uneducated people to follow the rules of high educated people. So the human rights must based on the people it applies on. It should meet the standard of its own country but try to be unified under some one country’s standard.  

The idea of human rights was proposed to resist spiritual authority in population governed by god, but obviously this idea does not apply to peoples who live happily without god. Therefore, human rights are not unanimous around the world. Imposing standards of one country to others will bring chaos and our world would never reach peace. Global peace consists of local peaces, and if we coerce weak regions to be the same as stronger regions, regression would inevitably occur in those areas. Philippine is a typical example.

Therefore, there is no necessity of promoting human rights, and our priority should be placed on the ecological balance of the earth. From the view point of global balance of nature, we should specifically pay attention to the change of our natural environment. One of main reasons causing environmental changes is the overuse of automobiles. Automobile seems to be an achievement of human beings since it is cheap and also a source of fashions, but it is also the primary criminal for the global greenhouse effect. Some chemicals originated from developed countries also brought harmful effects to the earth. Therefore, it is ridiculous that the trouble-makers impose their own standards on those victims. To overcome the problem of global greenhouse effect, the developed countries should take the primary responsibilities.  

Unfortunately those developed countries did not take their responsibilities. If we look at USA, how wasteful is the usages of paper and water! With 1/20 of world population but using half of the earth’s resources, does USA need to restrict itself? However, there is a dilemma that US people do not want to lose their happy life. For this reason, USA should stand out to take its responsibilities; otherwise it will become the world’s public enemy. Therefore, our discussion must touch this most realistic topic, even though it is sensitive and no one wants to offend USA. It is important that developed countries, such as USA, reflect on why don’t I do what I require others to do?

Before taking actions, we need to plan thoroughly the details and procedures of our implementation. What’s the plan? Elites in administrating our world should come together to do necessary evaluations for restricting the wasteful behaviors of developed countries. There exists ideological conflict: on one side we hope to save resources by promoting closing lamp and faucet at convenience; On the other hand, those wealthy people are unwilling to lose their affordable, convenient, and luxury life. As long as people do not get rid of wasteful consumption, the ecological environment of the earth will continue to deteriorate.

There are so many problems for instance, greenhouse, hole in ozone layer, rapid vanish of forest and aging of the shell. The climate changes a lot, one of most obvious one is the places that should have more rain don't and the place shouldn't have that much rain have too much. The places should be warm is cold now, should be cold now is warm. At this point, scientists who stand at earth science point of view may consider the change of latitude, if the 23.5 degreed changed, is it inclined more or less? If it is changed many problems may come out, which are difficult ones naturally.

The second issue is how to develop some reasonable self-motivated constrain on daily consumed resources and how to constrain ourselves. We are not ignoring the problem of consuming too many resources. Our concern is more on the entire eco-environment than a single case. Therefore, we are watching these changes in our world. Right now the majority of the people don't normally notice our concern, mainly due to the immaturity of our organization, and the wrong attitude in the mundane life. If we couldn't do well in daily life, it is not possible for us to take any more responsibilities. I have mentioned our concern about the eco-environment again and again in my lectures. However, without being responsible to your daily life, you would do well in everyday life. You wouldn’t be able to pick it up even if you hear it.  

When I talked about Vajra Sutra, I mentioned eco-balance, aging of the earth. Even though, there is only ten hours, I still mention it and express our attention. However, most people don't care this topic. All those practitioners only know suffering, gathering, disappearing and 'accomplishing' but not ecology. When we talked about Eco-issues, they will skip it. Yet, we still talked about this openly again and again. First of all, we care about depression, suicide. Second, we care about the peace of the world. There is a "insider talk" and "outsider talk", means different religion need communicate. One thing I have to say is that today, many talks are only showcasing. If you don't attend, they will blame you.  If you attend, there must be some confliction on views. Everyone need time to adjust to face the problems.

Nowadays, people usually say Christianity is good, and Buddhism is mercy. However, when talk about real problems, nobody continues. These sort of talks are meaningless. Talks need bring the realistic topic and discuss on it. We may have different opinion on if there is a certain form of God, but we can discuss on the problems we as human being on the earth have to face. Before we have an agreement on these, we don't have to publish it to avoid confusions and conflictions. If we can really discuss on problems, the leaders may come up with solutions regarding education problems, confliction of views. This is the nut in shell. If religious leaders are only “performing” a meeting, a talk and have a meal together, there is no meaning. The important thing is raise up main problems and openly discuss on it.  It doesn't matter if we can have a solution at this point. We can continue next time.

Ven. Hai-Yun's Lecture in Vancouver Regarding This Issue
Ven. Hai-Yun's Lecture in Detroit Regarding This Issue
(both lectures are in Chinese only, sorry for the inconvenience)

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