On this day, millions of Buddhists will observe abstinence and participate in religious ceremonies in temples where the monks in their sermons will emphasise the need to bring in the teachings of the Buddha into our day-to-day life. They will talk of suffering, which this country as a whole has been undergoing for the past three decades or so — with violence being one of the manifestations of it. They will also talk of the main cause of suffering — greed and craving — while stressing the need to overcome greed with generosity towards all beings and replace hatred with kindness, tolerance and forgiveness.

True to these words of wisdom, Buddhists in Sri Lanka become charitable on Vesak Day. A visitor to Sri Lanka on this day will be astonished by the number of ‘dansalas’ or charity stalls on Sri Lankan roads with people being offered food and drinks.

The night time in Sri Lanka is turned into carnival atmosphere during the Vesak week — with colourfully illuminated huge pandals (a structure consisting of panels of paintings) and lanterns depicting the Buddha’s message in story form and attracting thousands of people from all walks of life and religions.

But at a time when Sri Lanka is celebrating Vesak, the question that begs answer is: how sincere are Sri Lankans in practising the teachings of the Buddha? I strongly feel that there is a solution to Sri Lanka’s ethnic conflict in the teachings of the Buddha, who forgave Angulimala, the mass murderer who wore a chain of fingers of his victims and tried to kill him.

The results of the November 17 presidential election show that many Sinhala Buddhists are opposed to a federal solution to the ethnic question.

There appears to be little realisation that the greed to dominate others and the refusal to share power with others go against the teachings of the Buddha who stressed the need to detach ourselves from all forms of attachments to gain freedom from suffering. We are finding it difficult to detach ourselves from ideologies and archaic concepts of nation and sovereignty identified with a centralised power.

It is disheartening to note when people sing hosannas to religious leaders but do not practise their teachings fully. Most of us only adopt parts of their teachings to suit our lifestyles, our thoughts and in a manner that brings benefits to us at the suffering of other people. I am not pontificating, but I know I am also guilty of the very charge I am hurling at others.

As we reflect on the life of the Buddha, we are disturbed by the news that headless bodies have been found on abandoned estates. For days, the identity of these bodies remained a mystery. It is now being established that the victims are Tamils. But the mystery remains, as no body knows who carried out these extra-judicial killings. They kill, so we kill. To stop their murder, we commit murder. The killing-the-killer ideology has stained the teachings of noble religions not only in Sri Lanka but also in Iraq and elsewhere.

Religion can and should play a positive role in conflict resolution, because justice forms the foundation of faith. Unfortunately, religion has been hijacked by militants and politicians to achieve narrow political goals by whipping up people’s emotions. 

If one is religious, he cannot be a criminal or killer. The religious pervert guided by half-baked mullahs or foreign intelligence groups kills and terrorises not only the adherents of other religions but also his co-religionists. It is happening in Pakistan and Iraq. Hundreds of people die in sectarian violence in Karachi and other parts of Pakistan every year. In Iraq, hundreds die every month, if not every week. The Shias and the Sunnis of Iraq worship the same God and revere the same Prophet but are killing each other.

Coming back to Sri Lanka, we see there is still hope. There was a story of a man who did a menial job at a Buddhist meditation centre. He was sweeping the place one day. Upon observing some ants on the ground, he left his broom, brought a piece of paper, made the little creatures to climb it and placed the paper with the ants at a safe place. This story reached me through a Christian peace activist who was meditating at the centre when this incident happened and we hope that the spirit of this act shapes the collective will of this nation to eschew violence and solve the ethnic problem in a peaceful manner.

 Ameen Izzadeen is a Sri Lankan journalist based in Colombo