Spirit and intent of Economic Development

Inclusive development supported by integrated public policies for every social stratum is expected to yield well being, economic growth, trade and environmental prosperity at local and national levels. 

Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon which intertwines with social, economic, and governance parameters.  It is in the weak enabling conditions to earn livelihood to live a life with dignity prevails poverty.  Indeed economic growth is a means to poverty alleviation but economic growth considered synonymous with economic development does not necessarily guarantee equitable livelihood condition nor does it by itself eradicate poverty. 

In the first place, alleviating poverty requires exhaustive understanding of the cause and condition that produce and reproduce disadvantaged conditions forcing certain individuals and families to experience impoverished life.  To address this multidimensional phenomenon it is inevitable to have disaggregated policy instruments. 

Public policy arising from socioeconomic engineering has been the universal instrument to stop the creation of poor.  While public policies are designed to create rich it should not leak and also create the poor.  The desire is also that it should not also create a feeling of deprivation that create corrupt attitude.

Equal access to economic and social resources provides enabling condition for poverty alleviation but it alone also is not a panacea.  The clubs of rich, middle class, and poor have differential capacity to exploit the equal access made available to economic and social resources. 

Indeed education is the engine of innovation, employment and economic growth.  It is a paramount factor for ensuring better employment but education independent of economic plan and activities in medium and long term potentially yield causes for problem.  The inability to base education on national, regional and global economic trends anchored on market needs, economy of scales, and value chain is a major challenge and in it there is solution.

The question is how to break the cycle of poverty and unemployment.  In the first place it is an intellectual challenge.  Naturally, providing right education is the first battle front that needs to be won.  To whatever fallout that form residues at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid, they should be equipped with skills through continuous capacity building.  It is crucial to enable access to employment such that everyone is on economic locomotion.  In this context the sufficiency and quality of vocational, technical and community training institutions focused on technical skills and enterprise management becomes crucial.  The targets are those who would not make up to school certificate and those at the bottom rung in high school performance. 

By nature we are good at noticing and responding to rapid change but not so good at responding to things that change slowly.  It is in that slowness we lose opportunity to ensure resilience and remain relevant.  The determinants are our capacity to foresee inevitable change and undergo desired change which determines the degree of our relevance, which in turn determines our own well being. 

As we adapt to change, structural redundancies are created which needs to be cashed into opportunity or else it turn out to be liabilities that eat up all the benefits and cause whole system degenerate.  It is true particularly in aging organizations.  There is a direct correlation between institutional governance and the ability to sustain pressure on competitiveness and competence. 

The DNA to ensure quality life is composed of conditions for functioning of market, growth of private enterprises, strength of civil societies, welfare system and more.  And the limiting factors for these conditions are rule of law, technical and managerial competence, organizational competence and behavior, accountability, transparency and access to information which determines the extent of success of prudent macro-economic policy. 

Happiness

Happiness is an eternal desire.  People have always been in the quest happiness.  But happiness can be found only when happiness of all is placed above that of an individual.  One cannot find happiness out of deprivation, imbalances, and unfairness.

In history many great personalities have spoken on happiness and the views of some of them are:

Confucius (600-400 BC) said, “Morality and righteousness, and traditional values cause happiness.  One should uphold the importance of family values, specially the virtues of goodness and benevolence.”

Laotse (600-400 BC), who lived same time as Confucius, said; “Man cannot escape from reality.  For happiness, man should be part of this world but without considering this world is his.  For happiness one should be simple and become one with others at a deeper level.” 

Pythagoras (562-496 BC) said, “The immortal soul in its infinite reincarnation is only a part.  It is a part of the cosmic divinity.  The highest happiness for man is the realisation of man through philosophical reflection of cosmic divinity.”

Plato (427-347 BC) said, “Justice creates harmony and harmony is the basis of soul’s well-being.  Thinking, desire and will are the activities of the soul and when these three are in harmony within and with others’ and their environment, the happiness will be achieved.

Highest good should be the ultimate aim of man and it can be achieved with four virtues: (1) wisdom, (2) bravery, (3) temperance, and (4) righteousness.”

Aristotle (384-322 B.C) said, “Happiness means life flourishing; a feeling of life flourishing and the state of mind at that instant.  That happy state of being arises from individual experience of rightly putting the inborn talent, the natural acceptance, into practice.  Happiness should be earned with exercising one’s abilities and potential to the fullest extent.

Happiness requires two basic skills: (1) the ability to focus on happiness-producing thoughts that brings about peace and harmony, and (2) the ability to evaluate events and situations as positive, instead of negative and remain undisturbed when confronted with downturn events or disasters.”

Epicure (341-270 BC) said, “Whom enough is too little, nothing is enough.  It is the positive thinking and reflection on positive goal of life supports living a balanced life.” 

On happiness Epicure said, “The lower soul is blown up by good fortunes and thrown down by misfortunes.  The sole aim for a person’s life is to achieve happiness, by destroying listlessness.” 

Plotin (204-270 BC) advocated, “The highest aim of a person is to reunite his soul with the divine soul from whence it came.  Happiness arises by liberating the soul imprisoned by suffering and enabling it to return to its home in the light world.  The individual soul is the arena where the eternal rivalry between good and evil takes place in search of happiness.”

Augustine (354-430 AD) wrote, “Happy is the active, gifted, zealous, the person who likes doing what he does and is capable of doing.”

Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) wrote, “As we all want to be happy so we will behave morally well and impeccably, as morality is constituent of happiness.”

To be happy we have to have inner positive energies to transform and transcend unsatisfactory emotional state of being.  That positive energy lies in right understanding of self and environment we live in. 

In the pursuit of happiness, the danger lies in romanticising happiness and narrowing its domain to faith, belief and traditions.  Happiness is not gotten as gift; we have to work for it. 

By inherent nature we are motivated in life when we are connected to the sense of purpose and we find happiness in engaging to that sense of purpose.  But we continue to miss out the right sense of purpose due to lack of right perspective for our life.  It is the right perspective of life that actually determines happiness.

Lord Buddha says, “Happiness is experienced in living a life with positive thought and emotion renouncing the feeling of deprivation.  Happiness is experienced with a trained mind, a mind that can be controlled at will, a mind that does not go on to subjects that are conducive to tension.  Happiness can be experience with a mind that remains aware and mindful, keeps on developing itself, discovering itself and within itself the secret of life, the problem of life and the reality of life.  Happiness can be experienced with a pure mind as the root of all virtues is the pure nature of mind.” 

Lord Buddha: Reverence to his teachings.

Prince Siddhartha Gautama was educated by great scholars.  The Vedas and Upanishads were taught to him.  But he was not satisfied with what he was taught.  He was not satisfied with the suffering being experienced by the people.  And he decided to know the truth and find ways to end suffering, for which he renounced his royal life, and became an ascetic. 

Seated under the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha, as he was enlightened and became Lord Buddha, discovered three eminent universal truths that every being possesses three characteristics: (1) Anicca or Annitya -the impermanence, (2) Anatta -not-self, not having independently existing self nature, and (3) Dukkha -the suffering arising from un-satisfactoriness on the state of being. And Lord Buddha said:

“Sabbe Samkhara Anicca

Sabbe Samkhara Dukkha

Sabbe Dhamma Anatta.

All conditioned things are impermanent.

All conditioned things undergo suffering.

All phenomena are not self.”

These three truths are the primordial nature of phenomenal existence and being part of the phenomenal existence we inherently live with them. 

The Buddha Dharma founded by Lord Buddha, thought distinct and unique, has umbilical relation with Hindu Dharma at philosophical level.  There are seamless connections between the philosophical thoughts of Vedas and Upanishads and the rationales on which Buddha Dharma is grounded. 

Lord Buddha built his own independent ideals and principles for which he went to the depth of all the contemporary philosophies, and indeed took Upanishads to their culmination state with his sublime discoveries and teachings. 

The teachings of Vedas and Upanishads, Lord Buddha either rejected or did not take them any further, or modified.  Some he accepted and expounded. 

At the time when Lord Buddha began teaching his Dharma, the following beliefs had firm grip on the people’s mind:

1...Vedas and Upanishads are the divine scriptures,

2...Moktsa –the liberation of Atma –self, is the ultimate goals of life.

3...Rites, ceremonies and sacrifices, are the means of attaining Moktsa.

4...Chatur-Varna –the caste system, was justified that for social existence.

5...God is the Supreme Being endowed with unlimited opulence, who dwells beyond material world.

6...Atma is the individual self, and Param Atma -the God, both dwells in the heart of every being.

7...Brahmn is the all pervading aspect of God.  Its effulgence spreads through, both material and spiritual worlds, in living beings and non-living things.

8...Atma transmigrates in Samsara through rebirth. 

9...Karma is the Natural Law of phenomenal existence.  Our action in past lives determines our status in this present life, and the cycle continues. 

The belief systems which Lord Buddha rejected were:

1...God created all that pervades, both living beings and non-living things,

2...God presides as what should happened to men and the world,

3...Lord Buddha either denied the existence of Atma –self, or ignored for any further investigation, but succinctly said what Atma is not. Lord Buddha refrained from identifying Atma –self, with the body, sensations, volition or consciousness.

4...The caste system.

The two major antithesis of Lord Buddha are that there is no God and there is no Atma –self. 

With respect to God, Lord Buddha rejected the idea of the personal aspect of God, and not the Param Atma aspect.  Lord Buddha did not refute the idea of Param Atma, the supreme consciousness that resides in the heart of every being. 

Lord Buddha rejected the idea of Atma -self, considering it as Ego, the personal aspect of being, which is impermanent. 

The belief systems which Lord Buddha modified are:

1...Doctrine of Moktsa -the liberation of Atma –self, was replaced by the doctrine of Nirvana –liberation of mind or peace of mind.

2...Doctrine of Karma.  Lord Buddha denied the fatalistic view of Karma that action of distant past life has the potency to making present life impotent.  Instead Lord Buddha said noble action of present life can annul bad Karma of past lives and shape present as well as future. 

The belief systems which Lord Buddha accepted and expounded are:

1...Mind is the centre of everything.

Mind precedes things.  If mind is comprehended all things are comprehended.

Mind is the leader and chief of all its faculties.  The very mind is made of those faculties. 

We should culture our mind and that is the first thing we should be doing. 

2...Mind is the fount of all good and evil that arises within and befalls us from without.

Whatsoever there is of evil, connected with evil, belonging to evil, all comes out from the mind. 

Whatsoever there is of good, connected with good, belonging to good, all arise from mind.

If one speaks or acts with an evil mind, affliction follows as the wheel of cart following the bullocks that pulls the cart. 

Purifying the mind is the essence of life.

3...Avoiding all sinful acts. 

4...Real religion is in the observance of tenets that are there in the books of religion.

Of all the sages, Lord Buddha was impressed with sage Kapila, and from his teachings Lord Buddha accepted the following three truths:

1...Truth must rest on proof and thinking must be based on rationales,

2...There is no logical or factual basis for the presumption that God exists or that God created the universe, and

3...There exists Dukkha -the suffering, the un-satisfactoriness.

Lord Buddha founded his Dharma on human anguish, which seeks nothing less than total human emancipation.  It serves as total education of human mind and heart.  It unleashes the full human potential for the universal well being of all, not through doing more of the same, the same old habit that entrench us in more suffering, but by taking dip into the deepest seat of our consciousness. 

The Four Noble Truths discovered by Lord Buddha unfolded the insight on suffering.  His doctrine of Middle Way ended all forms of extremism. And his Eightfold Noble Path provided the way out of suffering. 

The Eightfold Noble Truth provided the basis for moral and ethical disciplines to reach the state of enlightenment where a profound serenity and un-surpassing peace called Nirvana, is attained. 

Great scholars such as Nagarjuna in 3^rd century, Buddhaghosa in 5^th century, and others including Kamalashila, Shantideva, Atisha, Sakya Pandita, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Asvaghosha, and several others have expounded the scope of the teachings of Lord Buddha. 

A wide range of cosmological views have been expressed in diverse Buddhist texts which are not always mutually exclusive but all share the common ground that everyone phenomenal existence possesses three universal characteristics of existence. 

The Dharma founded by Lord Buddha is a pragmatic and ethical way of living a harmonious life.  It has no element of dogmatism.  As a philosophy it has two dimensions: (i) metaphysical and (ii) mystical dimensions. 

On the metaphysical aspect, Lord Buddha refuted the existence of God as an independent eternal primordial entity, sufficient in itself, without any cause preceding it. 

On the mystical dimension, Lord Buddha advocates the existence of the continuum of consciousness associated with the cycle of birth and death.  It has no beginning and no end.  It is eternal.  It can be understood only by contemplative experience and not by analytical thought. 

Buddha Dharma is a path; a way to salvation.  It offers mankind a contemplative science that deals with the basics of overcoming suffering.  Based on metaphysics, Lord Buddha taught how to discover ultimate wisdom within oneself.  And based on mysticism, Lord Buddha says that the goal of life is to be free from the succession of birth in Samsara but without being dissolved into a state of extinction. 

In essence, Buddha Dharma is an endeavour for happiness.  The Dharma shows the way to actualize a just society, based on spiritual values.  It says the source of happiness is wisdom and the principal cause of unhappiness is ignorance.  Our own happiness is intimately linked to the happiness of others. 

Happiness depends on the degree of altruism and it prevails when our relationship with others is harmonious.  The right relationship of ours with others provides right assumption and the basis for right human conduct. 

The right relationship is possible with right understanding and with it comes the respect for others.  With respect there comes the responsibility to ensure on others that they also have right understanding. 

The right understanding provides self confidence.  And when there is right relation with others with right understanding, there will be no feeling of oneness, loving kindness and compassion.  There will be no feeling of deprivation leading to corruption. 

By nature, we possess desire.  We possess desire to own and accumulate, to experience, to avoid and we also possess the desire to transcend all the desires.  Broadly we possess two kinds of desires: material desire and spiritual desire.  It is with the spiritual desire we tend to have right understanding of ourselves and others, and thereby seek mutual prosperity and happiness.  With material desire there will be feeling to deprivation and the tendency for corruption.

The problem with us is in seeking happiness through our material desire which only create a feeling of deprivation and insecurity.  We feel deprived when we do not have right understanding on our material needs.  We feel deprived and start exploitation.  To free us from the feeling of deprivation and insecurity Lord Buddha gave his vast teaching on Karma. 

In Samsara we wander endlessly, propelled by our actions, called Karma, the natural law of phenomenal existence to which we are subjected.  It is an active principle that what we beget is the result of our Karma. 

Nothing forces us to born in Samsara, the world of suffering, except the accumulated merits of our Karma.  In Samsara, our existence is sustained by our ignorance –the mistaken perception, seeking happiness where it is not there, and permanence in impermanence. 

In Samsara the suffering is caused by being subservience to negative states of mind with wrong motivation.  With right motivation the ignorance of searching happiness where it is not there is overcome.

The Samsara in itself is not bad but the way we perceive Samsara is wrong.  We should strive for Nirvana -not to be born in Samsara, but not to get out of Samsara.  We should not strive for disappearing from Samsara, for one cannot disappear from Samsara.  But we should no longer be enslaved to Samsara. 

Lord Buddha says;

“We are what we think.

All that we are arises with our thoughts.

With our thoughts we make the world.

Speak or act with impure mind,

And trouble will follow you.

Speak or act with pure mind,

And happiness will follow you.

It is man’s own mind,

not his enemy or foe

that lures him to evil ways.”

True happiness is experienced with harmonious relation within and among families, societies and nature.  Happiness is in being in a state of harmony realizing mutual happiness and prosperity.  But we continue to seek happiness with physical facilities and wealth accumulation.  This is ignorance.

For happiness we should have faith in ourselves, create positive thoughts and visualize success.  The intention and expectation of our action must be firm and clear before we begin our journey of happiness.

The ultimate human aspiration is to feel happy.  To attain this supreme goal, we should engage our mind, which precedes everything, and creates our goal and the way for it. 

Buddha Dharma is a profound science of mind that explains the nature of mind, and provides a solution to cease human sufferings.  In the first two verses of Dhamma-pada, Lord Buddha declares; “Mind is the forerunner of all states both wholesome and unwholesome.  Mind is the chief, and all our experiences are mind made.” 

In ordinary life, our mind is dictated by Ego, which forever swings from pleasure to pain and back again.  For this reason we remain in Samsara.  So long our mind dictated by Ego is our master and we are ruled by our thoughts emanating from our Ego ridden mind, we continue to remain in Samsara. 

The eternal journey of ours therefore begins with purifying our mind by getting rid of Ego and making progress in having our mind just aware and mindful but not touched by pleasure or pain. 

Lord Buddha’s teaching on Buddha Nature makes us aware of the existence of enlightened potential within us.  It provides a platform for creative visualization and affirmation of the way to success. 

The existence of Buddha Nature in us is an attribute of our mind.  We should visualise our goal so intensely that our subconscious mind believes it is possible.  Affirmation at that state of mind gives emotional strength.  This law of attraction has infinite potential.

To realize Buddha Nature we need Bodhi Citta –the emotional feeling of goodwill for others, the positive attitude and behavior that shun negative thoughts that harm self and other beings alike.  We should detach our mind from sense objects with spiritual practice and reach out to our goal with our mind.  

Buddha Dharma is a method to work with mind and spirit for not to dissolve into some state of extinction, but to discover ultimate wisdom within oneself for living a noble life.

Positive thought creates positive attitude.  The negative thought creates the world of conflict, disharmony and suffering.  Those who have conquered their mind; mind is their best friend and teacher.  But those who have failed to do so continue to suffer in Samsara. 

Buddha Dharma is a way of living a righteous way of life with right thought and doing noble deed.  It is a path and the ultimate goal of that path is to alleviate suffering of all beings equally.

Lord Buddha gave his sublime teaching wishing us to be in right path living a moral and ethical life sharing human values with all alike.

The problem with us is that we believe in every small and big thought that comes out, hopping, wishing, worrying, arguing, justifying, imploring, and celebrating.  Life passes on and we are not making real progress in our life.