The Enlightened One, who is also known as The Buddha, felt and taught that desire is the source of unhappiness and trouble in this world. It can be argued that any action that promotes advantage to an individual, class, or group would be anathema to an Enlightened Buddhist.

Five Buddha statues Set

The Buddha did not eat flesh and did not kill “any living thing” knowingly; but he ate food. Did he consider plants not “living things” or merely not worthy of his attention? The Buddha was a peaceful person, and influenced others by gently showing them the “error of their ways,” often by parable. Would The Buddha organize marches against the government of Myanmar? Would the Buddha encourage his disciples to pour gasoline over themselves and light it in acts of “self-immolation” as the Buddhist monks did in [South-] Vietnam?

The Buddha often sat without food in quiet remote locations waiting for others to come to offer him food, [according to the stories about his life]. Surely, this man would not have become the bold activist that we see some of his disciples becoming today.

A better question than, “What would Buddha do ….[today]?” might be, “”Could Siddhartha Gautama become The Buddha today?” Siddhartha Gautama was the son of a King and he renounced that role to become a mendicant who could convert others to his beliefs with a simple story.

What would The Buddha do …..?

Buy Buddha Statues

This is an interesting question which is often posed about the historic Religious and political leaders of the world. What would Jesus do? is a common example. We ought to question in both of these questions a simple status issue, “is my answer to assume that he has never been before, or do you want everything else to be the same?”

There are many adherents of what The Buddha taught, [and what Jesus taught], who claim that they are living the lives that Buddha [Jesus] would have lived in this current world situation. I am not sure of that. From all that I have read about The Buddha, it appears that he was extremely apolitical. All that The Buddha taught was about personal “salvation.” The concept of Nirvana as understood by The Buddha was reaching Enlightenment of a personal nature and being able to elevate oneself above the “petty” sorrows of this world. The Buddha taught that “all things die;” there is no sorrow about that factual statement other than the sorrow that we attach to “our loss” at the death; that loss being directly related to our desires.

Related Articles