..续本文上一页need for anyone to fight over it, and maybe there would be more harmony among the countries and citizens of the world.

　　Perhaps it is also time for western higher education, and particularly the business world, to address the old system of using all our resources just to satisfy our needs and make profit. Because these resources will run out, and bring unprecedented unhappiness.

　　It is higher education that can play a role in helping the corporations and business people of the world to become more environmentally friendly. Of course, as a businessman, you have to make a profit, but every effort should be made to do so without generating so much waste, and when you have made a profit, you should be able to give some back to your country, and to the poor.

　　Also, if governments around the world tax rich and poor equally in the name of democracy, it is simply not right. Making someone who earns 50,000 dollars a year pay the same percentage of tax as someone who is making 50 million dollars a year is not fair.

　　If those who make a lot of money by being good at business paid a little more tax, and that tax was used not for government infrastructure but to meet the needs of the poor, for health care, and so on, it could then perhaps slowly begin to close the gap.

　　Of course this would be the law, but at the same time some genuine kindness, compassion and generosity would be extended to the needy.

　　If the mindset of people in the world became one that was kinder, friendlier and more compassionate towards one another, peace and harmony would definitely result, and there would also be greater harmony and peace between humanity and the environment. This has to be our aspiration.

　　When we aspire and pray for this, we have to make our prayers as strong as we possibly can, because scientists are saying that there is not much time left. If there are perhaps only ten years” maximum left for something to change, we need to pray much more strongly for real, renewable, sustainable energy to come onto the market much sooner than we had imagined.

　　We need to pray that psychological and emotional changes will take place much sooner, and that more governments will take charge of the welfare of the people, rather than just the welfare of the rich.

　　Again, I am not intending to point the finger at anyone; we are just talking about what the substance of our prayers could be. If we can actually pray like this, as a community and also inpidually, I have great faith that something is going to change, and something positive is going to come.

　　In the past anything that was positive came from people”s aspirations and people”s prayers. In order to shape a prayer or create an aspiration, first the vision has to be there, and if the vision is clear, the sincerity and power of the prayer can work wonders in the world.

　　So I encourage you to do two things. In these modern, decadent times, we must first practise ”very little needs and much contentment”, and secondly we must pray fervently for world peace.

　　I feel responsible for conveying this, as a Buddhist, as a teacher, and as a follower of a great sage, the Buddha himself. As he himself said, if you are going to speak about one thing to bring some benefit, speak about dö chung chok shé, very little needs and much contentment, and how that can be such a positive factor in anyone”s life.

　　Please do contemplate on this. As the Buddha has said, we have to examine his teachings like a goldsmith examines gold, and we should not accept his teachings just because we have faith in him.

　　Here too, the same principle holds true, and you have to examine the points that I am trying to make. You may well see in them some relevance to this time, or some relevance to your own life—and definitely to your own pocket, your credit card debts and debts of all kinds, and to the anxieties of every description that are constantly looming over your head. And if you do so, I will be very much obliged to you for having taken the time to hear me out, and for taking these points into your lives.

　　This article is based on a teaching given at Rigpa”s summer retreat in 2008, at Lerab Ling in France. First published in View, the Rigpa Journal, July 2010.

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