Dharamshala: Following is the statement delivered by Ven. Karma Gelek Yuthok, Kalon for Religion and Culture, CTA and a Vice-President of the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) for the virtual Dharma Chakra Day Celebration organised by IBC, 4 July 2020. His Holiness the Dalai Lama and other spiritual lamas of Tibetan Buddhism will also address at the virtual ceremony.
༄༅།། ཐབས་མཁས་ཐུགས་རྗེ་ཤཀྱཱའི་
གཞན་གྱིས་མི་ཐུབ་བདུད་ཀྱི་དཔུང་
གསེར་གྱི་ལྷུན་པོ་ལྟ་བུར་བརྗིད་
ཤཀྱཱའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་དེ་ལ་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ལོ
I prostrate to the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.
Dear brothers and sisters,
I am invited to say a few words on this sacred occasion dedicated to celebrate and commemorate the Turning the Wheel of Dharma by the Buddha of our time at Sarnath in India 2,609 years ago.
So, first of all, I would like to wish you all a very Happy and Meaningful Dharma Chakra Day on behalf of the Department of Religion and Culture of the Central Tibetan Administration, Dharamsala, India and also on behalf of all Tibetan Buddhists all over the world.
I would also like to thank and congratulate the Secretary General and office of the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC), New Delhi on organizing this important event at a very challenging time for the entire humanity. I am confident that this event will be of great benefit to a vast multitude of people all over the World.
Shakyamuni Buddha is known to have given a variety of teachings to different groups and individuals of disciples according to their different levels of merit and understanding. However, his basic and fundamental teaching for all disciples was his Teaching of the Four Noble Truths, which he gave at Sarnath after seven weeks of his attainment of the Full Enlightenment or Buddhahood at Bodhgaya. In this teaching the Buddha pronounced four universal truths of the suffering, the cause of suffering, the cessation of suffering, and the path to cessation of suffering.
All worldly beings do not want suffering of any kind but they are continuously engaged in thoughts or acts that would only produce suffering. This is the basic unfortunate situation that called for Buddha’s teaching of the first two noble truths. The great Indian Buddhist saint and scholar Acharya Shantideva wrote:
“There is the wish to discard suffering, but runs after all that causes suffering. There is the wish for happiness, but with ignorance destroys one’s happiness like the enemy.”
In a deep false belief of progress and development, our world is at the verge of destroying its Mother Earth and the entire humanity. It’s time for us to do something to treat our world’s pandemic of greed, ignorance and arrogance. The present pandemic is simply an Alarm Bell of many more global disasters to come. Let’s all do something in addition to our prayers. Thank you all very much.