A Single Solution to the World's Problems
Our world is ridden with problems; it will be doomed unless its course is changed. We all know that no less than 50,000 nuclear warheads were stockpiled by various countries some time ago. No one knows how many more war-heads have been made since. But even only 50,000 of them can destroy the whole world several times over. This is a result of selfishness of the people who try to conquer the world. Selfishness is rampant everywhere; it is limitless. Let's thoroughly consider the cause of the crisis so that we can find a possible remedy.
Selfishness originates from the instinctive sense of self that is out of control and becomes defilement in all aspects. Every activity of a selfish person, or an egoist, is controlled by his defilements. When he is alone, his selfishness torments him with insomnia and headache; when he associates with others, he compelled by his selfishness, can harm them to a great extent. Under democratic rights, he probably makes use of his selfishness and cunningly evades laws. Let's look at such behaviour, which exists everywhere in social, economic, and political activities and the livelihood of the so-called educated people; it is so ridiculous that pre-historic people, had they knowledge of it, would be greatly amused and would die laughing.
In a democratic system, if people are selfish, they will elect selfish representatives, who will constitute a selfish parliament, which in turn will form a selfish government. Then the whole country is under the power of selfishness. How many of us who are not selfish will then remain in the world?
Democracy of selfish people is worse than the worst dictatorship. This is because such democracy puts no limit on selfish exploitation; the more cunning a selfish person is, the wider and more inconspicuous his exploitation becomes. An unselfish dictator will be better, for his dictatorship will be righteous. Only with Dhamma, however, will all be well, irrespective of whether the system is dictatorial or democratic. Let's consider the benefit of unselfishness to the utmost and give unselfishness a fair chance.
Unselfishness must return in due time, before the world lies in ruin. People in the whole world must know this truth and must hurriedly find the way for the due return of unselfishness. If selfishness is retained, Bangkok, for example, cannot rid itself of mosquitoes. But with the return of unselfishness, mosquitoes can suddenly be eliminated from the city.
Unselfishness is a purpose of every religion, whatever category it is in: theistic or atheistic. Even an occultist religion does not want selfishness. If all the religions co-operated in eliminating selfishness from the entire world, using the methods of their own, the world would be free from selfishness and all the crises would also disappear. As for the United Nations Organisation, whose member countries are still more or less selfish, it alone cannot do anything more than always try in vain to keep the member countries in line. It should instead co-operate with all the religions in eliminating selfishness from the world. The religions are of different types, which can satisfy people at all levels; therefore, they have a good chance to succeed.
Buddhism itself has non-self (anatta) as a major principle. If one practices Buddhistic principles, they will be more or less free from selfishness. Other religions which preach the principle of self would prob- ably find it difficult to teach their followers the principle of egoless self. May the Buddhist people hurriedly try to perceive the essence of their religion. thus making use of it in spite of its inferior popularity.
Selfishness is caused by the instinct of self that goes along a wrong way, namely a way that leads to defilements instead of wisdom. Because of the environment, our children are apt to succumb to defilements all along from the time they are small. We have traditions that nurture babies with selfishness; we give them all the pleasant things: tasty foods, beautiful clothes, and cuddly toys, all of which cause attachment. So the children become possessive and greedy: they call their parents "my father", "my mother" and their residence "my house;"
whatever they want is always granted. There are no such parents that bring their children to a toy- shop with all those wonderful and expensive toys and say to them, "Mv dear children, they have all these toys to make us foolish" Instead most parents tell their children to choose any toy they want from a toy-shop, no matter how expensive it is. Or they tell their children to choose any tasty food they want from a restaurant, no matter how exotic and expensive it is. Sometimes too much food is ordered and too little is consumed, resulting in a lot of left overs. There are many other environments which strengthen selfishness more and more as children grow older, or at least while they are under their parents' overflowing attention. Therefore, we should have a household cultural training that will instill children with unselfishness, starting from their birth and keeping at it until unselfishness becomes their habitual character as they grow up. By then, they would have had very little selfishness: Cultural training in the past did not encourage children's selfishness so much as does its present counterpart. It is easy to have peace among people who detest and fear selfishness.
We Thai people must have a few things that will eliminate or lessen selfishness for our well-being. Such things must be included in the Thai culture and identities, which have Buddhism as the inner core. Instead of the classical Thai music, classical Thai dances and plays, Siamese cats, fighting fish, etc., we should like, as the Thai identity, unselfishness or our ever present, unselfishness-based smile without intention for deception. Or if we take our pagodas and temples as symbols of our country, we should also have unselfishness to substantiate them.
We must have a complete education process that not only gives people intelligence but also keeps their intelligence in line with morality, so that it will not fall under selfishness. Nowadays, we organise an education which is so advanced that it can do many miraculous things, such as going to the Moon as easily as stepping out to our own backyard. But there is no education process whatsoever that keeps people's intelligence under control of morality. I am severely criticised for having called the present education system the "tailless-dog" or "spireless-pagoda" form of education. I can't help calling it so because of the fact; therefore, I say it outright. We should not expand such a form of education but should improve it instead. There has been much talk about expansion of education. We must be careful not to allow it without first having improved education according to its problems.
We must have ordination and education for young men, and we must train them most rigorously in unselfishness until it can be said that ordination means study of not only the religion but also work for others without expecting any benefit, even a word of gratefulness. in return. At Suan Mokkh we have a labour day for the monks and novices to sweat at work, form a work habit. and take sweat as a means to deliverance. Later on. they will not be idle, thus causing no problems for the society or themselves. For what ever work that one will do, one must see clearly that it is for the Buddha and for the religion's existence under any circumstance.
What we will call the Single Solution for all the problems of the individuals and the whole society is unselfishness. At Suan Mokkh we preach self-contentment with the slogan "Eat from a cat's plate, bathe in a ditch, slurp in a pigsty, and listen to singing mosquitoes!'' , which discourages some people from staying with us. We must eat frugally and work for the highest spiritual attainment; if we selfishly aim at good eating, we will make progress in nothing except accumulation of selfishness forever.
A complete "university for monasterial boys, " which I have studied in, should be given a great deal of attention. If I had not graduated from such a "university," the person widely known as Buddhadasa may not have existed in this world. Please think about it carefully, for it has nurtured people like myself. As monasterial boys, we learned a complete lesson for thoroughly scraping off selfishness twenty-four hours a day.
We monasterial boys had a rule to rise for work before all of the chickens got out of their coop. Anyone who was still sleeping at that time could be soaked with water by others. (Sometimes, one or the boys would playfully harass others by getting the chickens out of the coop before the due time and soaking up his sleeping friends, who then woke up without any ill feeling toward their tormentor. This was just a test for sporting spirit among friends - a practice that may not be tolerated nowadays.) After having awakened, the boys would go but to villages to fetch food. Then they would come back to the monastery to prepare a complete dining facility for the monks, wait on them without absence while they were eating, and later on offer a part of the leftovers to cats, which as a responsibility, the boys must take care of. After the monks and cats had been fed, the boys could have their breakfast. Traditional etiquette for eating was enforced; for example, they must not blow their noses while eating. After the meal, the boys must tidy up the place and pair off for study. They had to be wary of the penal rod, which often fell on their backs unjustly. The serving process was repeated at lunch time. After lunch, another study session would follow. Late in the afternoon, they would cultivate a plot of land for growing yams or prepare another near a pond for other vegetables, and gather fruits to be given to villagers as a return for their everyday food offerings. They also raised monasterial animals, namely, chickens and dogs. (My monastery had a pig as an extra. It scared off chicken thieves at night so well that it received a special liking from the abbot. It never dug up our yams to eat by itself, thus surprisingly showing its unselfishness). There were shifts of the boys for fetching water and filling water containers, but small boys like myself were exempted from this duty. Instead, the small had to prepare garlands for monks at the morning and evening prayer ceremonies; and at night they had to give their master monks a massage while listening to strange and interesting tales from the masters. Apart from the routine work, the monasterial boys had to also do the cleaning of the buildings. scrape out grass, and sometimes do the boxing drill to conserve the cultural tradition and prepare themselves for a fight with boys from other monasteries. Another rigorously enforced rule we monasterial boys had to follow was greeting the elderly with a "wai," that is, putting both hands together as a gesture of respect. This must be done to all senior citizens regardless of their mental condition or social status. My monastery was close to a walking path, so it was rather difficult for us to often put down our work tools and greet the elderly. It was so very painful to great marijuana-smoking men, who did not deserve our respect. But it was probably good for us to reduce our ego by this activity anyway.
I did the greeting like this for two years and "graduated" with the self-conferred "diploma of the perfect, world-serving monasterial boys." Then I continued with an education in a school.
My school then had no janitors. We schoolchildren had to come to school very early in the morning and joyfully contested one another in sweeping the floor, for we had to tidy up everything. Sometimes we were asked to help carry things to a monastery from boats in a canal, climbing up the canal bank to the monastery; we always did this when we had an opportunity. Some other times we would help in pulling up wood planks from a canal to its bank and enjoyed it very much. All of these were excellent spiritual lessons for eliminating selfishness. There are no such lessons in present-day schools, where they always have janitors. So the children nowadays are more selfish and malicious than those in the past.
The "diploma of world-serving monasterial boys" is the Single Solution that can solve social or world problems. This Single Solution is similar to "nam phrik, " or shrimp-paste sauce, which is a small dish indispensable in traditional Thai meals. Our ancestors, who never tasted exotic Chinese or Western foods, always had this dish during their lifetimes; they were also trained to be unselfish and to love others. But their children and grandchildren, who eat exotic and expensive foods, become selfish more and more. They are most cunning in their selfishness and never think of serving anybody except themselves; some even think of conquering the whole world. This is because they have never been to the "University of the Single Solution." that is, never been trained in lessening their selfishness.
We must have an education that does not support selfish democracy or freedom of cunning persons who are unrestrained. They are good at thinking, speaking. and doing but are full of the most inconspicuous selfishness. The more educated they are, the more selfish they become, eventually transforming themselves into crooks and hooligans without anybody's noticing. This happens even in schools and universities, whose majority of graduates do not or cannot accept the Single Solution. We only have such kind of education that serves economic and political reason but does not serve morality. So morality is disappearing and there is violent rivalry and quarrels among students of schools. or even Universities. We have an education that teaches women not to function as women or mothers, and men not as men or fathers, resulting in competition for work among both sexes under the so-called human rights, which seeming]y encourages unisexism. Among married couples, there is a foolish argument about who should lead and who should follow. This problem did not exist among our ancestors, who had the Single Solution; in each family, they properly agreed upon this matter of who should do what.
We must have the kind of education that does not lead men and women to compete for work but teaches men to become fathers and teaches women to become mothers; the father is the provider to the family so that the mother does not have to work outside the family and can fully take care of the children, bringing them up to be good human beings and good citizens. who will not cause their parents suffering due to their misbehaviour. Then the world will have peace because it has proper citizenry. The children will be righteously brought up, boys and girls being unselfish. There will be no sexism or sexually oriented beauty contests that encourage both the contestants and the spectators parting with guilt and fear for immorality. This activity indicates the worst kind of selfishness, for it erodes morality and induces young people to become slaves of defilement, thus destroying themselves and menacing the society.
If we base our education on Buddhism, we will easily have Dhammic Socialism as our political system. lt is righteously in accordance with natural requirements. Socialism of the egoist cannot create world peace; but dhammic or unselfishness-based socialism can. The latter creates love among fellow mortal men, in accordance with the ideal of the utopian world of the future Buddha, namely, Sri Ariyamettriya, whose arrival is looked forward to by those who know. The essence of this is again the Single Solution of unselfishness.

In conclusion, our ancestors Single Solution, or unselfishness, must accompany every activity to promote peace and national culture. It is the essence of every religion which aims at eliminating our world's evils, being suitable for the central theme of morality. In other words, it is sufficient for present-day peoplc to have only one precept: unselfishness. Think about it, and you will see that, once you have no selfishness, you automatically have all the precepts and are free from all moral problems. In effect, there will be no more economic. political, and governmental problems. This is how the Single Solution can eliminate , all of the worlds problems.

Mokkhabalarama April 6, 1988

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