Representatives, monks, and scientists from 30 countries will be attending the two-day Global Buddhist Summit in New Delhi. The aim of the summit is “Responses to Contemporary Challenges – Philosophy to Praxis”. Praxis is a term to denote a practice that includes action, not just theory. Speaking at the summit today, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi emphasized that India gave the world Buddha, not Yuddha (war).
The Dalai Lama will also participate in tomorrow’s summit. This Global Buddhist Summit is organized by the Indian Ministry of Culture, with the collaboration of the International Buddhist Confederation. Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi opened the meeting. According to the Ministry of India, the summit aims to engage the world’s Buddhist Dhamma leaders and scholars on Buddhism and universal issues.
The discussion will focus on four main themes: Dhamma and the Buddha’s peace; the ecological crisis; the Nalanda Buddhist tradition; Living heritage and artifacts. Discussions at the summit will explore how the core values of the Buddha’s Dhamma can provide inspiration and guidance today, officials said.
“Actual Happiness in Peace”
“नमो बुद्धाय” PM Narendra Modi started the speech with a praise to the Buddha. “The world is suffering from war and conflicts regularly, and economic unrest, terrorism, etc is destroying mankind. Problems like climate change are a threat to human existence itself, glaciers are melting, ecology is decaying and various floras and faunas are getting extinct. But still, there are people like us who believe in the way of Buddha and are trying to cope with these worldly problems in a peaceful way.” Said PM Modi in his inauguration speech in New Delhi. India has not given ‘Yuddha’ to the world but ‘Buddha’ he added.
He talked about how India has a strong connection with Buddhism. Today’s summit basically focuses on how India is the country of origin of Buddhism, but also how India played an important role in spreading Buddhism. Earlier it has been seen how the Indian Prime Minister has been taking proactive steps including going to Sri Lanka and to Nepal. This is symbolic enough, and all these developments happening at a time when China is trying to take over Buddhist leadership essentially using Tibetan Buddhism.
China has been keen to appoint the next Dalai Lama, but it is something that has been dismissed by the office of the Dalai Lama. Who will be the next in line will be decided by their own traditional process and not by the appointment by the Chinese side.
A journalist from WION in a conversation with monks from around the world, even countries like Mexico and Australia found one thing in common, which was they all saw India taking this leadership. They even suggested that there should be a Buddhist University and that should be supported by the Indian government to propagate the message of Buddhism. Whatever Prime Minister is saying is a message that will be closely watched by Beijing as well, because of the big riff between Tibetan Buddhism and China.
The invasion of Tibet is still afresh and also China cannot claim its rights to Buddhism primarily because it’s an atheist government (Chinese Communist Party). The Indian government has an advantage here to take the lead.
