Witnesses of Mercy for Peace and Reconciliation

36 hank you very much Patrice, Your Emi- nences, Your Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen and dear friends. Firstly, I would like to express my deep appreciation for giving me this opportunity. I would like to share with you both from a Buddhist perspective and from my per- sonal experience. The most collectivist teachings of Buddha are the intransience of all things and interrelatedness of all things. It means that every existence and phenomenon is never permanent because it is under a never-ending change. The Buddhist teaching of co-dependent origi- nation is essentially a teaching of relativity. Nothing in the world is absolute, everything is conditioned, relative and interdependent. This perspective coincides with the recent encyclical letter of HH Pope Francis saying that all of us are linked by unseen bonds and, together, form a kind of universal family, a communion, which fills us with a secret, affectionate and humble respect. For example, a banana I ate at breakfast might have been harvested by poor children in a plantation in the Philip- pines. If that is the case, my existence is being sustained by those children. Furthermore, from the perspective of co-dependent origination, we can say that these children live within myself. The notion of co-dependent origi- nation makes it clear that we could exist only with the existence of others, with the self and the Other being mutually inseparable. The Lotus Sutra is an early scripture of the Mahayana tradition, and one in which I have faith and which I prac- tice. It was developed and composed on the basis of these fundamental Buddhist teachings. The three essences of the Lotus Sutra are Buddha Nature ( Dharma ) Eternal Buddha and the Bodhisattva practice. The first, Buddha Nature is an ultimate perspective on human dignity, which means that all beings possess potential to become Buddha. The second, Eternal Buddha, shows that the Buddha became awakened aeons ago and that His lifetime is forever existing and immortal. It presents the Buddha as the ultimately real, eternal and changing pure self who knows of no beginning or end. This is the sym- bolised existence of universal Dharma, an eternal good that can be set to be a humanisation of itself, a universal life force and source of existence of all beings. The third, Bodhisattva practice, is to save people from sufferings in real life. To follow the Bodhisattva way is a core pursuit for lay Buddhists. The Bodhisattva is an ideal stage of fulfilling the true self. At its core, the notion of fulfilling the true self through benefiting others or self-emptying could be compared to Kenosis in Christianity. Self-emp- tying encourages self-donation and expresses the very true meaning of love or compassion. The Lotus Sutra affirms the supreme completeness of six perfections ( paramitas ) which lead us to become Bodhisattva and finally Buddha. These six paramitas are: giving or donation; observing the precepts; exercis- ing patience; religions; mindful concentration; wisdom. Of the six paramitas , giving, donation is most related to the theme of this meeting, so I would like to share with “Mercy can make a contribution to the solution of global issues” Rev. Kosho Niwano T THE FOUNDAT IONS OF MERCY