The Universal Appeal of the Buddha Dhamma: A Personal Experience
- by S. N. Goenka
(The following is adapted from the lecture given by Goenkaji at the Fourth World Buddhist Summit, Yangon, Myanmar on 10 December 2004.)
Most Venerable Sangha and Dhamma friends:
Let me first thank the organizers of this conference for kindly inviting me. I would also like to congratulate the organizers for choosing Myanmar as the host for the Fourth World Buddhist Summit that aims at uniting the followers of the Buddha in order to spread the peaceful message of the Buddha all over the world. We unite and make a collective effort not to dominate the world, not to exploit the world, not to boost the supremacy of one religion over another but to help in a great conversion of humanity—conversion from bondage to liberation, from cruelty to compassion, from discord to concord, from misery to happiness. This is the Buddha”s way. The Buddha spread the message of peace and harmony. Emperor Asoka helped to disseminate it further in many countries. And today, I am happy to see the World Buddhist Summit is working in the same direction for the benefit of many.
It may seem that there are many pisions of the followers of the Buddha but the differences are superficial. All these branches follow the same basic principles of the Four Noble Truths including the Noble Eightfold Path and the Paṭiccasamuppāda, the Chain of Conditioned Arising. I am very happy that this effort is getting a new impetus in this Summit in Myanmar.
Myanmar is my motherland. I was born here. In some families, as in my family, it was a tradition to bury the umbilical cord in the ground of the building where one is born. My umbilical cord is buried here in the soil of Myanmar. A part of me will always remain in the soil of Myanmar. It is not my motherland just because a part of my physical being has become one with the soil of Myanmar—it is also my spiritual motherland. Myanmar gave me two births. The second birth is more important for me because I got Dhamma here. As the bird has got two births: one birth coming out of the mother”s womb and the second birth coming out of the shell of the egg. So my mother gave me the first birth and Sayagyi U Ba Khin gave me the second birth—I received Dhamma, broke the shell of ignorance and a new Goenka came out of it.
This is such a powerful Dhamma land that it attracted me to the Saddhamma in spite of my upbringing, which was totally opposed to the Buddha”s teaching. Throughout my childhood and early adulthood, it was drilled into me that one may worship the Buddha but one must stay away from his teaching. I was told that the Buddha”s teaching was deceptive and leads to hell!
How could I come to Saddhamma in spite of such deep prejudices
What attracted me to the Buddha Dhamma
I remember the first time I met my teacher Sayagyi U Ba Khin. I had great attachment to my beliefs. I had many misgivings about the teaching of the Buddha. Sayagyi knew that I was a leader of the local Indian Hindu community. He asked me, “Do you Hindus have any objection to sīla — a life of morality, to samādhi — mastery over the mind and to paññā—wisdom to purify the mind
” How could I object! How could anybody object! He continued, “Well, this is what the Buddha taught. This is all I am interested in and this is all that I am going to teach you.” How can anyone have objection to sīla, samādhi and paññā
Years later, when I started teaching Dhamma to those who came from perse religious backgrounds, I used the same way as Sayagyi to explain Dhamma to them.
Sayagyi”s interpretation of Dhamma was universal and non-sectarian. He was not interested in converting me to “Buddhism”. He used to say, “For me, if someone follows sīla, samād…
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