Ricky Li

East Asian World Views Today

Michael J. Pettid
March 9th 2012
Buddhism
In the teachings of Buddhism, the Four Noble Truths say that life will always include
suffering. To stop the suffering, the teachings of Buddhism tells its followers to give up their
desires, and their suffering will follow. By following the Middle Path and the Eightfold path,
Buddhist followers can break the patterns of desire and suffering.
The main problem of Buddhism comes from its roots, to relinquish ones desires also
stops mankind from advancing as a whole. If everyone was a monk, that meditated and chanted
for 8 hours a day, society as a whole would not be productive and would eventually crumble.
During the Neolithic age, evidences shows that our ancestors made social packs, they hunted and
lived in packs. Not only would people would not want to succeed in life, they would also seem
antisocial and lazy to a modern day person.
The most primal instinct for animals, humans included, is the desire to survive. We run
away from threats and we work knowing that we have a meal the next day. This system of
rebirths that Buddhism tries to sell, conflicts with itself. If a person leads a sinful life, and
rebirths into a wolf, the wolf will only know the instinct to survive. It will hunt and kill, leading
the spirit to rebirth an even lower organism. This cycle would repeat and repeat until the spirit is
at the lowest level.
Two thousand years ago, people did not understand the unexplainable. Why did my
livestock suddenly die and leave my family starving? Oh, it must be karma. Yet through
scientific knowledge, we can explain what was a mystery thousands of years ago, such as being
sick from pathogens, pain from a stomach ache.
While Buddhism is not practical in modern society, it does have its merits in its moral
system. Buddhism does not want a person to seek a reward after doing something good. if
someone finds a wallet, he or she should not expect something when they return it. This action
has seem to have been forgotten. Society has trained people to expect rewards when they have to
do something out of their way. When people donate money to schools or charities, they get an
award or something named after them.
American's motto is hard work will lead to success. They have sold the image that
anyone can climb America's social ladder and become rich. This outlook on a desire to be well
off in life conflicts with the Buddhist relinquishment of desires. We have been taught to work
hard in middle school, to get into a good high school. To work hard in high school so one can
get into a good college, and from that, we can get a foundation for a good job.
The thirteen years of being in the American education system has lead me to believe that
Buddhism does not work in modern society. Hard work and desires is what drives mankind, we
are quite a materialistic society, constantly wanted and needing things. While it is not perfect, it
works. Morally, Buddhism is sound but it is not practical. The real world is not fair at all, and if
one does follow a strict form of Buddhism, they would fail in life.