Buddhism, its relevance to the 21st century

An interesting article from METTANET - LANKA

Buddhism, as one of the four major religions in the world today, is an empiricistic and antimetaphysical religion .It does not accept anything which cannot be experienced either through the senses or extrasensory perception. People in the world are hurriedly getting ready for the next millenium or the 21st century. Our prime intention here is to identify the relevance of the teachings of the Buddha for this modern so called scientifically and technologically developed world.

The Buddha was born in the 6th century B.C in India. He discovered the reality behind phenomena in our Universe. In the world there is nothing permanent as well as nothing isolatedly existing but everything co-exists. He realized this .Interdependence is the great truth of life. He was not a divine being, nor a man as we know him, but a man par excellence (accariyamanussa). There is no equivalent in a western language for this concept accariyamanussa. This means not thought of, a not comparable kind of being. There is no word in English unless use the term Buddha with this concept in mind. His teaching is mainly focused on man himself. People are born again and again, and die again and again. There is no ending to be cognized. This was the question which arose in him and which he found a positive answer . That is why he is a Buddha.