Commemorating peace

• Proposing 22 May, Sri Lanka’s Republic Day, to be celebrated also as National Peace Day 

By Surya Vishwa

The headline of this article is ‘commemorating peace.’ Peace is a word which could be interpreted in many ways but essentially it is a word that is enshrined in the way of life preached by the wisest one; the Buddha. Hence peace could be described as essentially a state of mind. One may think it is easy to achieve this state. But when we look around us and within us we know that it is one of the most difficult tasks, if not, the most difficult tasks for anyone who has received a manusha bawaya (a human life). If we delve deeper through the Buddhistic lens we may also realise something we often forget – that achieving karmically a human status is very arduous. 

In the modern education system we do not pay heed to the knowledge priorities of our ancestors which included dharmic studies on the concept of rebirth. While Nirvana (complete liberation from all ties and attachments) is the end point for human life if ideally led as preached by the Enlightened One; the Buddha, an average human, even if working consistently on removing his or her kleshas, impurities in thought or action, fall short of this great destination because the diverse cravings and attachments we latch onto in this human life could be even more vast than the ocean.

In Buddhism, Kleshas are mental states that defile the mind and result in unwise or unwholesome actions. Kleshas can include mental defilements such as superiority, envy, fear, anger, craving and sorrow that is connected to the above,

The opposite of these statuses are those associated with serenity, calm, non-attachment, selfless love, unlimited compassion and unlimited empathy. In Buddhism these states are described as Metta, loving-kindness; Karuna, compassion; Mudita, sympathetic joy; and Upekkha, equanimity.

Many of us may achieve above states for short timeframes, such as when we go for meditation retreats but to achieve such states in all circumstances is difficult but achievable, provided we are committed to the cause.

One human being who achieves a particular state of mind influences others towards the same path. We see this in everyday life. This is also the story of the Buddha. A single human being with all the luxuries this world had to offer who left it in search of the path of peace, without the adornment or divinity and without the clutch of dogma. A human being whose only asset was his sansaric attempts previously and which helped him reach the influential state of total liberation who influenced not one or two but millions of people, not just in his own land but throughout the world. 

Today in Sri Lanka we use the term ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ to speak of the Buddhist identity of the nation. This is a fitting term provided we understand its core significance and its link to a peaceful state of mind. 

The Sinhalese as a race were known to have a penchant to peaceful living which is why even when it had mastered seafaring at one point of history it never developed a fetish for occupying other nations or territories. In the one and only war often given an ethnic interpretation; the Elara-Dutugemunu war, (although Elara was not a Lankan Tamil citizen but a Chola invader, albeit a righteous leader) which even his vanquisher the young Dutugemunu acknowledged (and had everyone honour his tomb), we can see that a Sinhala monarch led the way showing how to be respectful even in war and supposed war victory. This is long before the Western nations who had no such inclinations in their many examples of conquest and occupation of other nations came up with concepts for rules of war.

Hence to use the term ‘Sinhala Buddhist’ as a national identity should never mean a state of offence or aggression to others. Some scholars state that the term Sinhala-Buddhist was a post-colonial adage but be as it may it should mean a state of peace and reflecting a nation of people who are as they historically were; tolerant and with goodwill to all; a nation seeking their Dharma in their everyday action.

If our recent post-colonial history has not reflected this in the past 74 years where we seem to have inherited the ‘divide and rule’ policy of the colonisers, it is time we reflect these realities very deeply from an authentic Buddhistic and thus impartial viewpoint. 

Rationality tells us that War is the opposite of Peace. Whether it is the multifarious wars within one’s mind that are waged each minute of the day in this journey called life or whether it is war with ammunition within or between nations. 

In combat, in any war, that involves the killing of human beings, the result is only death, misery and mentally as well as physically maimed persons. In today’s wars we see in this world we don’t have as in ancient times where the main combatants confront each other directly. Our military wars in the modern world today offer up as sacrifice thousands of young people. A sociological analysis the world over would show that the elite or the highly educated or wealthy persons rarely send their children to the battlefield. Even in the battlefield there are divides; often those who have high positions within the military context do not often step into the front lines and be directly vulnerable to being killed or maimed. Of course there could be exceptions.

Let us now shift to Sri Lanka, our country, an island nation described as paradise for centuries. Our paradise was for 30 years an island known for mainly one thing; ethnic conflict. We were wrongly understood by the international community as a nation preoccupied with killing and bloodshed. 

On 18 May 2009, in the holy month of Vesak, Sri Lanka ended its most difficult epoch in recent history. It is now 13 years since. A swaggering teenager from North or South would not know how all communities of Sri Lanka suffered in this timeframe. 

Reflecting year after year this writer has wondered why we cannot commemorate in the month of May Sri Lanka’s national day of Peace. An 86-year-old poet and scholar from Jaffna who had achieved the difficult state of being humanistically neutral in the recent decades who I was conversing with recently came up with a wondrous suggestion. Why cannot Sri Lanka commemorate its now forgotten Republic Day of 22 May by combining it as a national Peace Day?

Although Sri Lanka obtained its overdue and rightful independence from the British on 4 February 1948, it is 22 May that could be referred to as our actual ‘independence’ day when we fully cut ourselves out of the apron strings of the coloniser by adopting a homegrown constitution. Till then we were under the influence of the Soulbury Constitution of the British that tied us to the British crown. On 22 May these ties were fully severed and we became a completely independent nation by accepting a truly Lankan constitution which was drafted with the guidance of Dr. Colvin R. De Silva and assisted by constitutional expert, Dr. N.M. Perera.

Sri Lanka is a nation still finding its way through many challenges and we could find our path smooth if we iron out our mind to accept a National Peace Day in May and ideally commemorate it alongside the Republican Day of Lanka, thus paving the way for a new way of looking at our past and our future. We all want a future without terror and without fear. We want a future where loving compassion does not merely have to be preached but is seen by the everyday actions of the people. We need once and for all to free ourselves from the ‘divide and rule’ mentality imposed on us which we consciously or subconsciously imbibed. 

By commemorating our very own National Peace Day we could therefore commemorate our true independence and vow that we will never allow the seeds of unrest or terror or fear to arise in any human being occupying this land that we refer to as the thrice blessed. Hence peace is the future of this nation and whether it is economic prosperity or any other aim, the route is only through a peaceful status of mind which will be better achieved if we devote a full day for its celebration and glorification because to celebrate peace hurts no one and thus it is a sensitive way of heralding the new Sri Lanka that we are all craving for. 

(The Harmony page is part of an endeavour to establish a national peacebuilding model that includes all disciplines of traditional knowledge and heritage of this nation, including traditional medicine, nature conservation, traditional farming and education as well as using heritage based concepts for national entrepreneurship, invention and exports. We have been publishing articles promoting the month of May as a month of peace last year and this year.

We thus propose 22 May to be declared as Sri Lanka’s official National Peace Day and opening up this idea for public comments which could be sent to: [email protected].

These comments will help us to reach our current leaders to propose this idea formally and to work with the younger generation throughout the country to work for a stable future of Sri Lanka (Siw Hela) and all her children.)