We Make The World With Our Thoughts, Said The Buddha
Making the world what it is surely is up to the politicians and leaders of the world.
Well, according to the Buddha - and a few other more recent notable thinkers - maybe not entirely.
"Thoughts are things" wrote Napoleon Hill in 'Think & Grow Rich'.
If this is true then what kind of a world have we all been thinking of?
Something to think about, indeed.
These are said to have been the inspirational thoughts of the Buddha (c563--c483 BC).
He lived quite a while before our present age.
But then, this surely begs the question, if he was right, then has the world of the past 2,500 years been the product of our random thoughts since then (and before?)?
Here is what he said exactly:
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with an impure mind
And trouble will follow you
As the wheel follows the ox that draws the cart.
We are what we think.
All that we are arises with our thoughts.
With our thoughts we make the world.
Speak or act with a pure mind
And happiness will follow you
As your shadow, unbreakable.
Dhammapada The Buddha
Source: Kornfield- The Teachings of the Buddha, v. 42
Back to the present.
Most people have heard of, if not read, Napoleon Hill's multi-million world bestseller 'Think & Grow Rich', a very practical early self-improvement success-oriented blueprint for living a "rich life" (he included all of life's riches in his definition of growing rich).
'Thoughts Are Things' was the confronting title of Chapter One.
Food for thought, indeed.
Let us assume that both the Buddha and Hill were right, then could it be that our thoughts, that we think every day, minute, every second, get us (and the world) into strife.
We absorb what is fed to us as news (usually bad), TV dramas (usually based on conflict), video games (like war games), even negative idle gossip.
How can we get our thoughts to make our lives better and, even maybe, make this a better world?
Can we really change the world just by changing our thoughts?
The Buddha seemed to think so.
Be careful what you think, seems to be the message, which is more than just positive thinking.
It's that, whatever is our collective thought, we can expect more of the same, in our own lives as well as on a global scale.
Something worth thinking about, is it not?
Neil
www.neilwjsmithauthor.com
www.ancientlifecoaching.com
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