Now the world has become smaller with the rapid development of Science and technology. At present people of one part of the world can reach the other part within the shortest possible time. It has become possible due to the significant improvement in the sector of communication. Now a days, people of one country can settle in another country for trade, business, job and education. Due to this, most of the cities of the developed and developing countries have become Cosmopolitan cities. Moreover, the countries need to hire technicians labors and other ministerial staff to run their mills, factories and Agricultural departments. On the other hand, the developing and the under-developing countries require to hire experts and skilled workers of various fields from the developed countries to manage their industrial installations. Further it is found that the rich countries render help to the people of the developing and under developed countries through Non government organization (NGO). In this way also, many great cities of the world have become a multicultural society. Further it is observed that people of different religions are trying to live together peacefully in almost all the countries of the world. Now we talk much about peace. Sometime we talk about world peace. The people of the world are now vocal to see that peace and harmony is maintained everywhere. We know that for this purpose United Nations Organization (UNO) was established in 1946. And, by this time they have opened their offices in all the member countries of the UNO. Not only that now a days we can see many Non-government organizations (NGO) have been working on this issue in many countries of the world. A question may arise what are their responsibilities? Their responsibilities are two. First of all their task is to ensure that the rights of the people are not violated. And secondly they are to ensure that if the rights are violated, the violators should be brought to book and tried as per law of the nation concerned. Not only that if we go through the constitution of different countries, we can see that everywhere it is described that there should not be any violation of human right, fundamental right and other genuine rights of the people. It is further described that all should be treated equally. There should not be any discrimination between people of different sects. But even then it is seen that people are suffering, peace cannot be maintained. Again question may arise, what are the causes of these suffering. The Scholars, the Humanitarian activists declined the causes as poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, injustice and il-equal distribution of wealth, And according to them these are the main reasons for the suffering of the masses in general.
From the Buddhistic perspectives and views, we have seen that Lord Buddha after attaining enlightenment he narrated to his disciples during his first sermon that in ibis world there are suffering, there are causes of sufferings, sufferings can be eliminated and there are ways and means for salvation of human sufferings. He preached his religion for forth live years and advised the people to try to follow the ways and principles of ways and means for elimination of their sufferings. Since then till today his disciples, the Buddhist monks have been carrying his peace message to the people of the world and flying the flag of Buddhism for maintaining peace and harmony among the people. As far as Buddhists contributions to resolving social problems are concerned it can be said that Buddhists are peace loving. Then They try to follow five noble precepts of Lord Buddha. These are not to kill, not to steal, not to commit unlawful sexual activities, not to tell lie and not to take intoxicating substance. Then they try to follow the noble eightfold paths defined by Lord Buddha. These are right view, right thinking, right speech, right action, right endeavor, right livelihood, right mindfulness and right meditation, They know and try to understand the four noble truths of Buddhism, which Buddha stated during his first sermon to his live disciples in Kushinagar of present Saranath, India, And by following all these noble virtues, the Buddhists are helping a lot to redress the social problems in the society.
Buddhism teaches the highest possible doctrines of purity, kindness and justice. It makes the lives of the people an example of noble virtues. It is a religion, a system of thought, a spiritual science and a way of life, which is practicable and reasonable. For the last two thousand and five hundred years it has satisfied the spiritual needs of mankind. Buddhism does not consider material welfare as an end itself; it is only a means to an end higher and noble end. If is a means which is indispensable in achieving a higher purpose of happiness of mankind. So, Buddhism recognizes the need of certain minimum material conditions favorable to spiritual success. It is a plan for living in such a way as to derive highest benefit from life. It is a religion of wisdom where knowledge and intelligence predominate Lord Buddha did not preach to win converts but to enlighten listeners. Buddhism taught a life not by rule hut by principle, and as a consequence, it is a religion of tolerance When we speak about tolerance, we speak about equality, justice and rationalism. Lord Buddha gave much emphasis and importance on it. He said that there should not be any difference between man to man, man and woman, ricli and poor and according to him all are equal. He pointed out that by dint of perseverance Brahman and Chandal (Schedule caste) that is any two human beings can be seated in the same position. Hence, in Buddhism there is no division among human beings. All are same and so all need be treated equally.
As a Buddhist when we talk about ethnic violence we feel sorry that people of different sects and different religions sometime engage themselves in violating the rights of the weaker group of people. So, the people of minority group feel insecure about their life, property and religious sanctity. This is most unfortunate. On this issue we need to give much emphasis, we are to keep in mind that we all are human beings. We have come here for a short span of life. Man is mortal. No body can stay here for indefinite period. Further everything is changeable, when we are young we are strong, we are energetic, we are active, But, we are to keep in mind that we will grow old. At that time we will be weak, we will loose energy, strength and we will be attacked with disease. And, afterwards we will have to leave this world, So, we need to think that we should made good use of this life. It we do good work we will be remembered, we will be appreciated, we will be praised. And if we do bad work we will be criticised, we will be hatred and we will be defamed. So, we need to understand what is good and what is bad. We need to make our life successful. We are to man ourselves as a worthy citizen of this world. According to Lord Buddha mind in the main organ of a human being. So, he gave much emphasis control one’s mind. If one can keeps his mind free from greed, keeps behaviour right, keeps his word faithful, he cannot do any thing wrong On the other hand if one finds his mind tempted and so entangled him in greed, he must suppress and control the temptation so that he came the master of his mind. A man’s mind can make him a wiseman or it may make him a beast. So, to make success in life, the character and behaviour of the person cornered play a vital role which we can see in our day to day life.
We know that all beings and nature co-exits as one entity. Therefore, for our life to be secure and tranquil, our actions must be pure and this of course includes purification of the heart. This is because our heart and mind dictate our actions . A land free from defilement is a reflection of the parity of the masses, Therefore for the world to be harmonious, the masses need to benefit from preaching, for them to attain purity. To reach such a state of harmony, specially the ethnic harmony, one has to endure and take patience that resorts more to calm and serenity. To achieve this, we will have to show that Buddhism is a religion which shows all, to put all the sayings of Buddha into practice. It will be necessary for us to show our good deeds which leads to compassion and by doing this we can bring peace and maintain harmony in the society, in the country and in the world. Today human rights consideration are very relevant to almost every sphere of mankind. The concept of improving human relations is now-a-days considered to be an important factor. For promotion and protection of human relations, the relations between the communities is to be maintained in a congenial atmosphere. For this purpose National institutions are being established in may countries. Their function is to maintain cordial relationship between the people of various groups, casts, races and religions. As a Buddhist we can follow the teachings of Lord Buddha and maintain ethnic harmony in our society.