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Today, the influence of scientific ideology is apparent in all human activity.
As new fields of scientific discovery are adapted to daily use,
inventions continually appear which outmode earlier achievements.
This concurrent production and obsolescence is labeled "progress".
When will the limits of expanding technology be reached? One cannot
envision a time when all scientific developments will have been
brought to perfection. Invention is unending. We consider past
technological accomplishments as antiquated; after five hundred
years, the manifestations of today’s science will be obsolete. Five
hundred years later the sciences of that future time will, in turn,
be outmoded by the technology of the succeeding age.
The material and
theoretical world of science has no limits. The more it expands; the
further it has to go,restlessly spreading further and further.
Although scientific study flourishes, its beneficial products
certainly do not surpass the harm and destruction it has wrought on
mankind. How can this be? Let’s take a look.
In the past, when a relatively undeveloped technology and less intricate
inventions made for an unencumbered life, fewer people encountered
unexpected deaths. Now, as the result of a greatly expanded
scientific ideology, more sophisticated machinery is invented and
more people are violently killed. In fact, the creations of science
establish the future possibility of the extermination of the human
race. Who will science serve then?
Scientific accomplishments, although numerous, have been unable to diminish,
how much the less end, disasters and suffering in the world. For
example, it is now common knowledge that bizarre diseases have
arisen as by–products of scientific research; and for many of these
there is no known cure.
As science expands further in the direction of military research, wars become
more frequent and more violent. The instruments of death become more
remarkable every day. These inventions are so clever and intricate
that many people consider them wonderful, overlooking their intended
purpose: to kill. Man fights with man; family fights family; nation
battles nation; all mutually struggle and oppose. When will it end?
You oppose me and I oppose you; you wish to annihilate me, and I
wish to eradicate you. And finally, when this mutual destruction
does come about, absolutely everyone is exterminated. It is all
over. The insatiable appetite of war is difficult to pacify.
Can you foresee an end to disaster? If you investigate this question you will find
that scientific advancement not only does not promise an end to
disasters but in fact helps intensify them. Fire, water, and wind
often cause destruction and death. Day by day, year by year, fires,
floods, and tornadoes become more frequent. Listen. From morning
until night there are the high–pitched sirens of fire engines.
Floods and tornadoes, paying no heed to science, leave entire cities in shambles.
To overcome disaster, one must first study the ultimate principles of human
existence. To understand these true principles is to understand the
origin of disaster. The primary effort must be one through which all
men transform their bad ways to good, and move off the path of
error. Why?
Only the Buddhadharma is clear about this.
Disasters come as reactions to the destructive activities of
sentient beings manifesting at one time and in one place.
Earthquakes, for example, are very powerful disasters which everyone
fears, yet science has no way to control them because they are
nothing more than the manifestation of the collective karma of sentient beings.
In this universe, everyone is battling with someone else; the forces of
death flourish and people go mad inventing instruments of killing.
This is very strange. However, there are those who leave home with
the desire to practice "non-killing". This
will cause all in the universe to be startled. It is our hope that
with this startling, they will awaken, turn their light to
contemplate within, and bring forth the heart to practice
non–killing. Why? Because everything comes from the heart of man. If
the heart of man likes to kill, this world becomes a world of
warfare. If the heart of man is reverent towards all life, this
world becomes a world of peace. In the West there are some who have
just now become aware and have brought forth their hearts to
cultivate the dharma–door of "non–killing". We hope that in the East and West, all people will transform
the "heart to kill" to a "heart of compassion" and transform the "heart
of hatred" to a "heart of peace".
In the West, this is the beginning of an Enlightenment. We hope that all our
brothers will give rise to great compassion and wisdom and strive to study the Buddhadharma.
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