Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Buddha Questions

After we disccused about the eight fols paths:
1. Right view
2. Right intention
3. Right speak
4. Right action
5. Right livelyhood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration

According to the eight folds path,
1. Does the Buddha's theories help Cambodia society to reduce violence?
2. Buddhist is a state religion in Cambodia, so does the buddhist help the state to protect the human rights?


Thanks in advance for giving me comments!

3 comments:

Stan Starygin said...

This is a good question. It is hard to say whether the influence of Buddhism reduces the level of violence of Cambodia. In theory and if people abide by the Buddhist precepts, it should, but I am not familiar with any studies done to answer this question.

Stan

moen savoeun said...

1. Sure, all men are created equal. Because they are equal, they have the rights and duties to file any complain before the law. In the last class we had discussed about the function of the government about the positive action to create law. The law that created by the government, it must be strong and all people must be bound by the law. If anyone commit the case against the law (criminal or civil case), he or she will be punished by the authority of the state, then people have to respect the law. Thus, the law obligates to ensure the freedom and rights of individual(s) and to apply that all people are equal.

2. I’m not quite sure about the natural law, but it perhaps focusing on what is related to the nature of man that bring people to the sufferings, physical body and mental; for instance, diseases, cheating, stealing, and so forth. Moreover, the root cause of these sufferings is from man’s desire. Therefore, the natural law and man’s desire are the foundation to the enlightenment. Then the Buddha found the way to eliminate these sufferings by creating the Four Noble Truths and Eight Fold Paths to teach people. If anyone follows his teaching, he or she will get rid off pains that these pains make life difficult to develop.

sithanay said...

High,All I would like to share some ideas in your question.
1-The Buddha'theories can help Cambodian society to reduce violence. In the past our society had small amount of violences because they mostly practice buddhism and every quarrel happened people alweays use inviolenc to solve problems but after Khmer Rouge destroyed the Buhhist infrastaructures for example Pagodas and sometime they killed Monks who is the followers of Buddha's theories.