Love, yes. Hate no.

Love, yes. Hate no.

Posted by Global New Light of Myanmar 
Date: June 24, 2017
Khin Maung Myint


Our Lord Buddha had taught us to be compassionate towards all beings in the whole universe. The word compassionate embodies a wide range of meanings. To mention a few, it is a feeling of pity, sympathy, empathy and love. Likewise, other religions taught their disciples to have love towards others. For instance the Christians are taught to love others as they would love themselves. Also the teachings of other religions like Hindu and Islam also prioritized love. No religion in the world taught hatred.
However, hate is abound everywhere in the world. Hate stems from various reasons and are based on different sources. Of all the various reasons and sources, I would like to discuss only two of them: hate based on religion and hate based on race or colour of the skins.
Throughout the history, we had witnessed what hate had done to the mankind. Hatred between religions had led to many wars and conflicts. The most significant being those fought between the Christians and the Muslims during the days of the Wars of Crusades. Then the wars between the Romans, Egyptians, Turks, Greeks, Persians and Mongols of the olden days can be seen as racial wars on the surface, but in my opinion they could have been religiously motivated.
The two world wars in the modern age were racially motivated. The ultra nationalism or racism of the Nazis had drawn the world into those two world wars. Here, it can also be analysed that the colour of the skin also played an important role as the Nazism was based on the White Supremacist ideologies.
Other examples of racism and colour discriminations can be seen everywhere in the modern world. The most significant ones being those of the colonial Africa and the United States of America, where colour discriminations had led to many blood sheds. Though it could be presumed that today, as the African countries are independent such conflicts had diminished, but in a few isolated cases they had taken the forms of religious ones—the bombing of the Coptic Christian Church in Egypt. and kidnapping of some Christian school girls in Nigeria by the Boko Haram insurgents who are Muslims,
However, in the US, the hatred and discriminations towards the black people still persist. At one time those attitudes seemed to have diminished, but they are on the rise again lately. This time around, the hatreds are not only directed at the blacks but also at the Muslims, Jews, Hispanics and even Asians.
If we observe the above incidents, whether they be instigated by religion or race or skin colour, it is quite clear that hatred is the main driving force or the culprit behind them. I had often used a quotation in some of my previous articles wherever relevant. I am not sure who made that quotation, but it is very meaningful and logical. It says: “Love breeds love and hatred breeds hatred”. I have modified that as “Hatred breeds terror and terror breeds hatred”, to make my point that we should rid ourselves of hatreds.
After briefly discussing the situations in the world, let us observe the situations in our country. I am now in my eighties, and never in my lifetime have I ever witnessed hatred growing so strong amongst our people, like now.Today, people are quarrelling and beating up or killing one another for no apparent reason. I blame such actions on the feelings of grudges, animosities and grievances that gave way to hatreds and are being harboured in their minds. So, at the slightest incidence of arguments or confrontations they vent their hatreds with execessive force. The upsurge in murder rates are testimonies of the growth of hatreds. If hatreds could be replaced with loves the country would be a better place to live in.
Thus we should get rid off such undesirable mindsets. It is the avowed duty of the leaders of every religion to teach and guide the followers of their faiths to nurture love instead of hate towards others. I had mentioned above that every religion taught love and none taught hatred, but regrettably some religious leaders of today are preaching hatred towards other religions. They are contradicting the teachings of their religions and are instigating unrest in the country by making hate speeches in the guise of sermons to their followers.
Worst still is the fact that the advance of the information technologies had made access to the social media very easy. This provided the platforms for the hate campaigns by the unscrupulous persons, including some religious leaders from some religions, including ours’. We are observing the lack of compassion or love among our younger generations. Everytime I was on Facebook, hate remarks and comments were always popping up, which are very distressful indeed.
In my opinion the religious leaders shouldn’t be involved in such hate campaigns. It is their avowed duty to propergate the good teachings of their respective religions. They should know best that the essence of every religion is compassion. For us, Buddhists, we revered our lord Buddha as the Compassionate Buddha, because He was full of compassion toward all beings—celestial beings, humans, animals and spirits. As good Buddhists, let us nurture love instead of hate as our Lord Buddha had taught us. I would like to conclude my article with this slogan “ Love, yes. Hate, no!”