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| Saturday,
July 7, 2001, Chandigarh, India    |
An impending crisis Sonia's US visit Jai Guru Amitabh! |
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Russia through a keyhole
Outmanoeuvred at
last
Think of the mess we are
in!
Flood of suggestions on Indo-Pak
talks
‘Speed dates’ to find mates
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An impending crisis THE
Indian economy is heading for a rough time. The growth rate is falling and the area of concern is widening. All three tiers of economy — agriculture, industry and services — are either growing sluggishly or not growing at all. The industrial sector recorded a rate of just 2.7 per cent; agriculture showed a fall in production due mostly the confusion over the massive FCI stockpile and drought in at least five states and the service sector growing by less than 7 per cent. This is very significant since this sector contributes more than 50 per cent to the gross national product (GDP). There is evidence that government policies have contributed mightily to this. Take the capital goods sector. It makes machines and equipment which make user-end machines and equipment; it is the mother industry and it accurately reflects the health of the nation’s economy. Today capital goods industry is prostrate thanks to a low import duty and a growing slowdown. There are no buyers for these machines to make machines and a few who need them get them cheaper because of the latest penchant to calibrate Indian import rate with those in other dependent economies. This analysis based on official statistics is bolstered by the angry voices of the Confederation of Indian Industries (CFI), a powerful grouping of industrialists. Its secretary-general Tarun Das, regarded by many as the authentic voice of the private manufacturing sector, has sharply criticised the government on one focused account: lack of implementation. Funds have been allocated for rural roads, highways and other projects but not a rupee has been spent with the result that economic benefits have not percolated to the lowest level. Construction of airports has been thrown open to foreign bidders but there has been no progress on this. So is the case with disinvestment. It remains frozen in an ideological dispute between the Ministry of Disinvestment and the Ministry of Law. The first is taking a doctrinaire position blocking the entry of all with a tainted record and the latter wanting to widen competition. As the CII has said, there is acute opposition from within to smooth disinvestment. This as much as the failure of implementation of declared policies says a lot about the slack momentum of its economic policies. |
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Sonia's US visit RAM
Manohar Lohia thought that Indira Gandhi was a "goongi guriya". Later political developments proved him wrong. Congress President and Leader of the Opposition Sonia Gandhi's current image in India too is no different than that of her mother-in-law. Is the favoured "bahu" of the leading political family of India too capable of proving her detractors wrong? The urban Congressman thinks so. In fact they are jumping with joy over the success of her visit to the USA. Indian reports could be biased. However, when the American media not only takes notice of her visit, but also compliments her for creating a positive impact on the leaders she met, including United Nations Secretary General Kofi Anan, the visit deserves more than routine mention. She was the first Indian leader to meet US Vice President Dick Cheney. That in itself was not a big achievement. Her success lay in the political deftness with which she answered inconvenient questions from the media. Be that as it may, what should be of special interest to political pundits, who had a poor opinion about her political abilities before her visit to the USA, would be her handling of the nitty gritty of the complex affairs of the Congress in India. Media reports say the US exposure has done a world of good to her self-confidence. Whether the media assessment is correct or based on incomplete information would be known in the coming months. Uttar Pradesh has made and destroyed the reputations of countless politicians. Chief Minister Rajnath Singh is currently putting together an innovative package for helping the Bharatiya Janata Party recapture lost political ground during the crucial assembly elections. After his meeting with Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in Agra Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee too may be able to supplement the efforts of the UP Chief Minister by influencing a substantial chunk of the crucial Muslim vote in favour of the BJP. That is not all. The Bahujan Samaj Party and the Samajwadi Party too have struck deep political roots in UP. The challenge before Sonia Gandhi is indeed daunting. It is one thing to make an impact on the leaders of the West. Her upbringing in Italy helped her accomplish it. How the US visit will help Ms Sonia Gandhi relate better to ordinary Indians and build the Congress at the grassroots level are questions which only time can answer. |
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Jai Guru Amitabh! THAT
film stars are treated like gods in India is well known. Now this hero-worship has been taken one step further with a full-fledged temple being dedicated to Amitabh Bachchan in Kolkata. The wax statue of the presiding deity enjoys all traditional privileges such as "guru puja", "guru mangalkamna yajna", "pushpanjali", and chanting of Vedic hymns by priests, one of them from Varanasi. The installation of the statue marked the beginning of a three-month-long "Amitabh Utsav". His worshippers insist that his films are replete with "sublime messages from heaven", whatever that means. One hopes that the reference is not to dialogues like "rishte mein to hum tumhare baap hote hain" and songs like "hum to tamboo mein bamboo lagaye baithe". The Amitabh temple is unlikely to be short of visitors considering that the Amitabh Bachchan Fans’ Association (ABFA) already has 10,000 registered members. Come to think of it, he is not the first film personality to be honoured thus. Even lowly Khushboo and Naghma have temples down South in their honour. What is surprising is that the contagion has spread from there to Kolkata ruled by the Marxists. But then, a Bangali can put anyone on a pedestal provided he has a Bengali connection. If the celebrity is not a son of the soil, they can make do with a son-in-law of the soil: Do not forget the Bengali parentage of Jaya Bachchan. Small wonder that the bhadralok have adopted the icon, albeit a little late. His films may not be creating waves, but he does have a national presence even now through the idiot box. In fact, the wax model portrays him with his white beard as the genial host of Kaun Banega Crorepati. A positive development is that poor people will be fed and camps for blood donation for children suffering from thalassaemia and eye surgery will be organised by his fans. Such adulation may be embarrassing for Amitabh himself, but it is proof enough that he enjoys tremendous fan following. As said earlier, since even starlets have been idolised thus, we should not really mock at this display of affection that has gone too far. The deification is their way of putting the bust of a celebrity in a hall of fame. In fact, Amitabh has had the privilege of being thus honoured repeatedly. Not only has he been selected the most popular actor in an international Internet contest, but also has had his 30,000-pound bust installed in the famed Madame Tussauds' Museum - the first Indian film actor to be thus
immortalised. |
Russia through a keyhole IT happens sometimes to countries, as more often to individuals, that a single event in their lives becomes a keyhole through which you can see a whole panorama of their lives. Just such a thing has happened to Russia. A single election to a single post in a single and not very well known province has revealed many aspects of the politics of the whole of Russia. They extend from Putin’s plans for Russia to China’s plans for Russia’s Far East. Therefore, the Prime Minister of Russia has much on his plate for a personal inspection of the aftermath of the election. The province is Primorye, one of Russia’s smallest. It is better known for the fact that its capital city is Vladivostok, one of Russia’s five or six best known cities. It is also about as far as you can go in the Russian Far East without falling into the Pacific and out of Russia. Like many other provinces, Primorye also elects a governor from time to time, a functionary who is not ceremonial as Indian governors are but really rules his domain as chief ministers rule their states in India. Normally the event passes off unnoticed by the rest of the country. But this time a drama ensued as soon as the process began, and it engaged the country’s attention for days. Russia has the sensible system that though anyone who is qualified to do so may stand for election as a provincial governor, he is declared a winner only when he secures at least half the votes plus one, and if he cannot do so in the first round then there has to be a second round which is open only to the leader and runner up of the first round. Equally sensibly, the Russian system allows voters to cast negative votes as well, opposing the candidates they do not like. If the negative votes against all candidates are more than the positive votes for any, then the whole process has to start again, beginning with new nominations. Many candidates in an Indian election would be eliminated that way if we had that system. The cause of this election in Primorye was interesting enough, but more interesting were the consequences, involving as they did the politics of Russia’s new, energetic, highly popular and (so far) “clean” President, Mr Putin. Particularly the consequences for a rather extra-constitutional device Putin is trying out as his way of managing the vast Russian federation. The incumbent governor, Nazdratenko, was forced to step down, according to press reports “by the ‘Kremlin’”, which is political shorthand for Putin, on the ground that he had mishandled an energy crisis, which had left many cities powerless, including Vladivostok. It should be of interest to the Prime Minister of India and a matter of concern for Chief Ministers that in Russia a provincial governor can be sacked by the country’s political chief for the kind of mismanagement that Nazdratenko is said to have been guilty of, though other factors, to which I will come presently, were also at work in Primorye. There were three candidates this time, each of them of historical interest. One, Darkin, a young entrepreneur, a class usually disinclined to contest elections in Russia. A second, Cherepkov, a strong and habitual contender against Nazdratenko, and a third, Apanasenko, on whom many eyes were focused for a special reason. He is part of a new power structure Putin has created, without any clear sanction by the country’s laws or the Constitution. Putin has divided the Russian federation into seven regions, the Far East being one of them, and has placed each under a hand picked “super governor” whose job it is to see that all provincial governors in his region remain on their toes. Apanasenkno is deputy to the super governor of the Far Eastern region, which includes Primorye province. He thus has a political lineage which extends right up to Putin, and his electoral performance could be of interest to others. Political speculation even has it that the success or failure of this device could have much to do with the way the Russian federation evolves, towards more genuine federalism or towards direct or indirect control by the President. The fate of Apanasenko’s candidature thus became linked with a test for this region’s super governor’s ability to manage the affairs entrusted to him, and thus a preliminary test for the whole scheme. The game was thought to be that Cherepkov, an experienced campaigner, should be somehow eased out, to clear the way for Apanasenko because with the kind of backing he had he would get the better of Darkin, seen as the inexperienced candidate of a class uninterested in electoral politics. But unexpected things happened. First, Darkin got the highest number of positive votes. Second, negative votes, that is against all the candidates, were the second highest. Third, Cherepkov got the third highest. Fourth, Apanasenko came third among the candidates and was thus disqualified for the runoff. Then events moved fast. Three days before the runoff, a complaint was lodged with the Primorye election commission that Cherepkov should be disqualified for the runoff on the ground that he had exceeded the limit on his campaign expenses. Whether the complaint was justified or not is of less interest to India than that (a) such rules exist in such a newcomer to electoral democracy as Russia, and (b) they allow for disqualification before an election and do not leave it to a petition after the election. The commission overlooked the offence as minor. Then a case was filed in a local court, where it went against Cherepkov. But the runoff was won by Darkin by almost a two to one margin against Apanasenko, though it might have been thought that within the short space of three days now left for the runoff Apanasenko, with the backing of Moscow, would be able to mobilise support faster than Darkin, “the inexperienced candidate of an uninterested class.” (The negative vote again was the second highest, a measure of the low credibility of or interest in elections among the “man in the main street” Russians. They disregarded Nazdaratenko’s appeal for a positive vote though he is a popular man in this province.) Cherepkov is still threatening to challenge the result in court. But in the meantime the outcome has raised many questions and suggested some possibilities. To counter any reflection upon Putin, Darkin’s victory is now presented as confirmation that the people favour “the Putin type”, young, new face, enterprising, in tune with Russia’s new economic needs, not another one out of the stable of old horses. The negative vote, it is said, also shows people oppose manipulation of elections by “experienced managers”. Resemblance with what happened to “the old guard” of the Congress in 1969 is not coincidental. What would this precedent do to some impending elections of governors in other parts of Russia, and if they went the Primorye way, what would that do to the scheme of “super governors” ? And, more important, to Russia’s fledgling experiment with federalism ? Would that convince Putin that is better to let genuine devolution lead to genuine federalism instead of saddling it with super governors? As it is the Putin government, and the political class as whole, are on the horns of dilemma on this issue. On the one hand it is realised that a country as vast and varied as Russia is best governed as a federation. On the other hand the shadow of Chechenya is seen to be so dark that it discourages any loosening of the reins of direct control from Moscow. Hence, perhaps, Putin’s experiment with the half-way house of delegation to Moscow’s direct nominees but not yet to governments elected by the people of the provinces. And somewhere at the back of the mind is the problem which, for the first time I am told, is being discussed openly in the media — the creeping Sinisation of the Russian Far East, with hundreds of thousands of Chinese squatters — two million by some estimates — coming over into areas which have only a thin population of Russians. The problem is not confined now to the Sino-Russian border, which is well to the south, but is conspicuous now in the streets of Vladivostok, once a major seat of Russia’s armaments industry and even now a port of some strategic importance in waters which wash the coasts of Russia, China and Japan. Is Darkin’s election a first warning of discontent with Moscow’s handling of this problem ? It certainly affects the business interests of the Russians in Primorye, and could affect Russia’s strategic interests tomorrow. |
Outmanoeuvred at
last “A
wily creature is the bandicoot”, I wrote in a limerick when Jayalalitha (don’t miss the additional “a” at the end of her name) complained of the poor conditions she suffered when she went to jail, with fat rodents running all over the place and making life miserable for the poor woman. Nature teaches all sorts of tricks to its creatures for their survival. I have seen a strapping young servant having a go at a bandicoot with a hockey stick and the loathsome fellow, covered with coarse hair all over giving him one disdainful look with his beady eyes and disappearing leisurely into the nearest drain. But nothing could have prepared me for the nasty experience I had with a lowly gecko the other day. I noticed it near the driver’s windscreen wiper while getting into my car the other day and quickly closed the door. It ran along the side of the car and my half-hearted attempt to chase it, chappal in hand, was of no avail. It found its way into the luggage boot and much though I and two helpers tried to get at it, it disappeared without trace in the innards of the passenger compartment. The old shikari in me notwithstanding, I was scared to death driving the car but as some important work was on hand, I changed into shoes, tucked my trousers into my socks and kept a flyswat handy before driving warily off. While driving cautiously on the Panchkula-Chandigarh highway during the morning rush hour, I tried to keep one eye on the heavy traffic and the other on the flyswat but nothing showed up. On the way back, I thought I caught a fleeting glimpse of the reptile but not long enough to grab the weapon. For no good reason I was reminded of doggerel I had come across years back: “The prince of Cambay’s daily food
Is asp and basilisk and toad”. Obviously the prince had a better constitution than mine! Once home I set upon thinking on how to “sanitise” my little car. Later in the day, Suresh, an ex-army captain, now a skilled snake-catcher and altogether a man of many parts dropped in and being well-versed in the ways of reptiles, gave me a plan of action: park the car out in the open, keeping one door open and let the heat of the June sun do the trick. This is precisely what we did and much good it did my heart, watching from the verandah, to see the enemy slink ignominiously away. Hurray! |
Think of the mess we are
in! WHAT is it about us as a people that makes us apathetic to things that are really important and passionate about those that are not? There is, for instance, nationwide hysteria among Muslims at the moment over the film Gadar. While the lumpen proletariat has resorted to burning down cinema halls and causing general havoc, more genteel people like Shabana Azmi have written articles attacking the film for making all Muslims seem anti-national and reviving memories of Partition at a time when peace talks are in the air. The real question is whether a mere film should arouse so much passion when there are far more important things happening that we need to protest about. We have already forgotten the train accident in Kerala that killed 50 people. On the day after the accident the Indian Express put on its front page a story that pointed out that nearly half the 119,724 railway bridges were built in the 19th century and that ideally a bridge that is more than a hundred years old should be rebuilt. According to the story, the Railway Safety Review Committee had in a 1999 report identified 262 bridges as unsafe. Nervous government officials immediately took to TV networks to emphasise that this particular bridge on the Kadalundi river was not ‘distressed’. And, for the usual reasons of apathy, that could be the end of the matter until some report, in some distant future, establishes that the bridge did break causing the accident. It should make us really angry that the Railways — despite one of the worst safety records in the world — should be doing so little to improve its standards. But, it does not so the government continues to get away with doing nothing other than add to its collection of dusty, unopened files by way of more files in the form of inquiry reports that cease to matter because of how long it takes for them to become public. There are other things we should be really angry about. Our ports are among the most outdated in the world so where it usually takes a few hours for a ship to turn around in a modern port in ours it takes days and sometimes months. Indian exporters face the consequences of this and find it hard to compete with countries like China where shipments move with speed and efficiency. They face the additional problem of Customs laws so convoluted that they seem designed for corruption. An exporter I know in Delhi recently found that his shipment of leather jackets to Canada was stopped because Customs officials decided that they were too expensive. ‘Why are they priced at US $49, they should cost less’, the customs official said. The exporter explained that in the West they would sell for at least US $ 400 each so this was hardly too much too charge but Customs was unsatisfied. The exporter was advised by other Customs victims to pay Rs 15,000 and settle the matter but warned that if he paid once he would have to pay every time. He did not pay but faced the possibility of losing lakhs of rupees if his customer ordered him to air-freight the goods. I rang the Director in charge of this particular Customs office and asked why his officials presumed that they could decide what price a leather jacket should be exported at? He agreed that shipments got delayed because of this kind of thing but explained that this was not high-handedness but merely officials doing their duty under a duty drawback scheme that increased the amount an exporter got according to the price of the goods he exported. His explanation was as convoluted as the scheme and the net result is that Indian exporters get defeated by our own government long before they face foreign competition. In most countries Customs laws have been simplified so that this kind of thing happens less and less. It should make us angry that they have not been simplified here but we remain apathetic. So apathetic that the government itself seems more concerned about its flaws than we are. Last week in Delhi a meeting was held to discuss the Planning Commission’s approach paper to the Tenth Five Year Plan (2002-2007). It is a fascinating document because of the amount of criticism of the government that it contains. In the introduction itself it paints a bleak picture of the conditions in which the average Indian is forced to live. ‘More than half of the children 1-5 years old in rural areas are under-nourished, with girl children suffering even more severe malnutrition. The infant mortality rate has stagnated at 72 per 1000 for the last several years. As many as 60 per cent of rural households and about 20 per cent of urban households do not have a power connection. Only 60 per cent of urban households have taps within their homes and far fewer have latrines inside the house. Deterioration in urban environment, increase in slum population, and in air, river and water pollution has vastly affected the quality of life of the urban poor. Land and forest degradation in the rural areas, and over-exploitation of groundwater is seriously threatening sustainability of food production’. Despite the dreary, official language it is easy to see that the approach paper is attacking the government for this state of affairs. There can be no‘radical transformation’ of anything though until the average Indian realises the importance of making a noise about things that are really important instead of those that are not. For some mysterious reason films and books get more people into the streets than anything else. So we succeeded in banning Salman Rushdie’s ‘Satanic Verses’ because Muslims were offended by it and we prevented Deepa Mehta from making ‘Water’ because Hindus were affected and now it is the turn of Muslims again with Gadar. Meanwhile, neither Hindus nor Muslims seem in the least bit bothered about living in conditions that are considered unfit for human beings almost anywhere else in the world. It’s nice to blame the government for the mess but occasionally it is time to also blame ourselves. |
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Flood of suggestions on Indo-Pak
talks FOR
over a month what has dominated the Pakistani press, both English and Urdu, is the coming Vajpayee - Musharraf talks. There is no commentator who has not offered his or her kind of solution. The peace constituency is indeed very large in Pakistan as in India. But the person who has reaped an immediate gain is the military ruler, Gen Pervez Musharraf. In a move that some discerning politicians and journalists have been predicting otherwise, he anointed himself as President of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. General Musharraf could not have managed it so smoothly if the Indian invitation had not been there. This provided him much-needed oxygen of legitimacy. In an editorial, Friday Times Editor Najam Sethi claimed that his weekly had in its issue of March 2-8, 2001, stated “Readying to Don the Mantle of the The President of Pakistan” and wondered whether “the simplest way would be for him in the footsteps of Caesar, Napoleon or Ataturk — having seized the crown, he could put it on his head, change his tunic and announce: I am the state.” But how could the Chief Executive gather courage to pick up the crown? By repeatedly saying that he was ready to meet Indian leaders wherever they wished and begin the peace process in South Asia. And, then, he got the much-awaited but expected invitation from Prime Minister Vajpayee. In between he had buckled enough before the IMF and assuaged the feelings of the domestic trading community by nudging the NAB (question of accountability) to focus on the public sector. He had also begun the process of local elections where money and liquor played their kind of role and kept busy the rural rich. This helped him isolate the traditional political parties for a run-up for the general election next year. What is being suggested day in day out in the media is indeed colossal? Reams and reams have been printed to carry these suggestions to the public and the rulers. Here is Masood Haider, who contributes to Dawn regularly from New York. A suggestion which he received on his e-mail address runs like this: “It does not impinge on the national sensitivities of either country and yet produce some result. A lead can be taken from the Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946, the last sane chance of a United India. The plan stipulated a confederal set-up with the Centre holding on defence, foreign affairs and currency. It was scuttled by Nehru and Patel, though Gandhi and Jinnah approved of it”, the writer suggested. Now in the case of Kashmir both parts should be united and one united Kashmir formed and governed by six Kashmiri representatives, three each from India and Pakistan. This higher body should look after the affairs under the command of the Indo-Pakistan committees in Delhi and Islamabad. Other suggestions go like this: the currency of both countries could be acceptable. Each country could have its governor for two years. Both countries contribute in equal measure to develop the state and make it a window on the world. If Hong Kong could co-exist with China and in a different political environment, why could not Kashmir? India could be happy having a say in PoK and Pakistan in Indian Kashmir? Later elections could be held and an autonomous democratic political map could be put in position. The pressure on the two leaders to produce some real results that bring peace to the divided subcontinent is great, as the constituency for peace has widened. It is their chance to show statesmanship and write a new chapter of peace. Peace could mean both countries saving around Rs 50,000 crore annually on defence and ending the loss of young lives. This is the constant refrain in the media and public discussions.
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Political sufferers THE Executive Committee of the Political Sufferers Conference has held several sittings at Lahore during the last two or three days under the presidency of Swami Govindanand. The draft of the constitution and rules and regulations, prepared by the special sub-committee appointed for the purpose, were considered; and after some discussion several items were approved. The aim of the conference is to organise all the political sufferers. |
‘Speed dates’ to find mates FORGET the blind date, Singapore singles now go on “speed dates” that allow them to size up potential mates in seven minutes. Speed dating proved a big hit when it was introduced this year to a Government-run dating agency in Singapore, said Sam Soon Mee, the manager of the club which organises the dates. “It’s like musical chairs,” Sam said on Wednesday. Each speed date begins with the event organiser ringing a bell and declaring “ready, set, date,” said Sam. The Singapore Government encourages single university graduates to marry by sponsoring social activities for the 28,000 members who belong to its dating agency. During a speed dating session a man talks to a woman for seven minutes. At the end of that time a bell tolls and the man moves to chat with another woman, said Sam. After all the men have met all the women, they write down the names of the people they want to know better and when the names match, phone numbers are handed out to prospective partners. Stockbroker C.W. Sim, 27, who went to a speed dating session, told the Straits Times newspaper that it was a fun way of meeting people. “It’s different from the usual gathering and more structured,” Sim said. About 300 people signed up for speed dates when it was first advertised in April, prompting organisers to expand the number of sessions from 4 to 10. Another 16 sessions are in the pipeline. AP
Cancer that she never had A jury awarded $16.2 million to a woman who underwent chemotherapy, a hysterectomy and partial lung removal after having been diagnosed with cancer that she never had, her lawyer said on Friday. The jury called for $ 8.1 million payments from two defendants, drug and healthcare products maker Abbott Laboratories Inc and the University of Washington Medical Centre, each of which blamed the other for the mistake. Abbott said it would appeal the verdict, saying the doctors misused its test kits, which falsely showed high hormone levels indicating a rare and lethal form of cancer. “The doctors did not follow proper medical practice. A simple urine test would have prevented this tragedy,” said Abbott spokeswoman Christy Beckmann. In a statement, the University of Washington said it had acted properly to treat what it thought was a life-threatening illness. It blamed Abbott for failing to warn that its test kit could produce false positive readings. The victim, Jennifer Rufer’s attorney, Paul Luvera, said he hoped the verdict would reduce the chances that other women, would suffer the same tragedy. Stating he was not surprised that Abbott planned to appeal, he said: “Abbott has consistently denied any responsibility for what happened here. They don’t accept the verdict of the jury, who sat there for nine and a half weeks and deliberated for seven days,” Luvera said. Court documents show that the jury found Abbott not guilty of negligence in designing the test kit but in failing to warn of the possibility of false readings. The jury found the university guilty of negligence. “The jury confirmed the test is safe and accurate test when used appropriately,” said attorney Brad Keller, who represented Abbott. “Abbott has great empathy for the Rufers. However, the amount of the verdict reflects that it was the result of undue sympathy, passion and prejudice and that portion of the verdict that was against Abbott will be appealed,” Keller said, adding that the appeal could take another two years.
Reuters |
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Share your being if you have nothing, that is the greatest wealth — everybody is born with it. Share your being, stretch your hand, move towards the other with love in the heart. Do not think any body is a stranger, no body is or everybody is. If you share, no body is; if you do not share, everybody is. **** You may be a very rich man, but a miser... Then your own children are strangers, then your own wife is a stranger.... A miserly man is always alert, on guard, not to allow any body too close.... A smile is dangerous because it breaks distances. — Osho, Journey to the Heart, (originally a Hindi discourse) **** A good friend who points out mistakes and imperfections and rebukes evil is to be respected as if he reveals the secret of some hidden treasure.
**** A carpenter seeks to make his beam straight an arrow-maker seeks to make his arrows well balanced; the digger of an irrigation ditch seeks to make the water run smoothly; so a wise man seeks to control his mind so that it will function smoothly and truly. **** A great rock is not disturbed by the wind; the mind of a wise man is not disturbed by either honour or abuse. **** To conquer oneself is a greater victory than to conquer thousands in a battle. **** To live a single day and hear a good teaching is better than to live a hundred years without knowing such teaching. **** The world is always burning, burning with the fires of greed, anger, and foolishness; one should flee from such dangers as soon as possible. — Bukkyo Dendo Kyokai, The Teaching of Buddha |
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