We need to practise what we read

With reference to a letter appearing in The Sunday Times of Jan. 14, 2007 "Thank you for easy guide”, no doubt it is a big Thank you for the free copy of the Dhammapada with the issue of the Times 31.12.2006.

Quoting from the English translation of the Dhammapada the first page which mentions “The Pairs” the last paragraph No. 20 states:

“Little though he recites the sacred texts but puts the Teaching into practice, forsaking lust, hatred and delusion, with true wisdom and emancipated mind, clinging to nothing of this or any other world - he indeed partakes of the blessing of a holy life.” An issue of The Sunday Times about a month ago in the International page mentioned about a Buddhist monk from another country cutting off a part of his anatomy because it disturbed him while meditating.

In the same chapter of the Dhammapada "The Pairs” the first paragraph states, “Mind precedes all mental states. Mind is their chief, they are all mind-wrought”. A monk from the time of being ordained associates himself with Buddhist scriptures etc. If the gist of the Buddha's teaching is that mind controls the body and that the mind should be developed, I wonder what he was meditating about.

In this little island of ours proportionately we Sinhala Buddhists are in a majority, and most of the illegal acts are committed by us. How many of us carry the garbage bag early morning to dispose of it near someone else’s compound to keep our premises clean. How many of us admit our children to popular schools fraudulently giving false addresses, electricity bills etc. teaching the young children from their young age to live fraudulently?

Reading maketh a man but reading alone won’t do. Good parents, good teachers are essential. In the present society we lack these essentials.

By K. Tillekeratne, Dehiwala.