Youth in Buddhism

The vital link:

While Buddhism has begun to gain a firm foothold in the West, its fate in its traditional Buddhist homelands has been moving, sadly, in the opposite direction, towards atrophy and decline. Even among many Buddhists countries where majority of population profess Buddhism, Buddhist teachings no longer occupy the same sovereign place in people's hearts that it held in the last millennium.

Among the changes taking place in current patterns of thinking, perhaps the most detrimental to Buddhist teachings has been the rise to prominence of a materialistic world-view and consumerism.

Often a curious ambivalence prevails in our minds, where with one part of the mind we profess our confidence in the lofty principles of the Buddhist teachings, while with the other we think the achievement of worldly success were the true mark of the accomplished individual.

The rapid spread of the materialistic world view has in turn brought about a far-ranging secularization of values that invades every nook and cranny of our lives.

This transformation of values gives precedence to goals and attitudes diametrically opposed to those advocated by the Buddhist teachings, and under its impact the scales have tipped far away even from a reasonable balance between material and spiritual goods.

Now we see acquisitiveness replacing contentment as the reigning ideal, competition taking the place of cooperation, fast efficiency the place of compassionate concern, and selfish indulgence the place of abstinence and self-control.

The attempt to live simultaneously by two conflicting sets of principles- those being ushered in by secular materialism and those grounded in the Buddhist teachings-generates a tension that contains within it a seed of very destructive potential.

Often the tension is only dimly felt by those in the older generation, who accept the new outlook and values without clearly perceiving the challenge they pose to traditional Buddhist ideals.

It is when the contradiction is pushed down to the next generation, to the Buddhist youth of today, that inherent incompatibility of the next generation, to the Buddhist youth of today, that the inherent incompatibility of the two perspectives comes into the open as a clear-cut choice between two alternative philosophies of life - one proposing a hierarchy of values which culminates in the spiritual and sanctions restraint and renunciation, the other holding up the indulgence and gratification of personal desire as the highest conceivable goal.

Since the latter appeals to strong and deep- seated human drives, it is hardly puzzling that so many young people today have turned away from the guidance of the Buddhist teachings to pursue the new paths to instant pleasure opened up by the consumer society or, in their frustration at missed opportunities, to take to the path of violence.

Since it is the youth that forms the vital link in the continuity of Buddhism and society, connecting its past with its future, it is of paramount importance that the Buddhist youth of today should retain their fidelity to the Buddhist teachings.

The Buddhist teachings should be for them not merely a symbol of cultural and ethnic identity, not merely focus point of sentimental piety, but above all a path to be taken to heart, personally applied, and adhered to in those critical choices between present expediency and long-range spiritual gain.

The problem, however, is precisely how to inspire the young to look to the Buddhist teachings as their guide and infallible refuge.

It must be stressed that our present dilemma goes far deeper than a breakdown of moral standards, and thus that it cannot be easily rectified by pious preaching and moral exhortation.