Peace, Culture, and Education Activities: A Buddhist Response to the Global Ethic

Abstract

In his preface to the Global Ethic, the initial declaration adopted at the 1993 Parliament of the World's Religions, Hans Kung wrote, Perhaps one day there may even be a United Nations Declaration on a Global Ethic to provide moral support for the Declaration on Human Rights, which is so often ignored and cruelly violated.' Inspired by that thought, we at the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century initiated a conference in October 1994 at Columbia University called The United Nations and the World's Religions: Prospects for a Global Ethic. Cosponsored by the School of International and Public Affairs and the Department of Religion at Columbia University, the conference brought together international relations specialists interested in human rights issues and religionists seeking to evolve a global ethic for a day of stimulating discussion. After talks that included perspectives informed by Islamic, Baha'i, Christian, Buddhist, and secular humanist traditions, small group discussions ensued during which one participant stressed the importance of giving ethical principles real life by combining documents with tangible programs of action. This sentiment was expressed also by Princeton University professor of international law Richard Falk, who said, Documents by themselves are useless without initiatives in civil society and grassroots empowerment that make the norms set out in the texts actual in the lives of people. Tangible programs of action to help make the norms set out in the Global Ethic-such as nonviolence, human solidarity, tolerance, and equal rights-actual in the lives of people happens to be an apt description of the peace, culture, and education movement of the Soka Gakkai International (SGI), in which the Boston Research Center for the 21st Century, a