The Buddha flower pot brings a sense of peace and tranquility. Crafted out of cement, this is a handsomely sculpted cement Buddha flower pot which helps to bring zen/harmony anywhere.

As a container for cultivating plants, the Buddha flower pot itself carries a Buddhist mystery, like calling for eternal peace from thousands of years to the 21st century. At the turn of the 21st century, Buddhism began to take root and sprout in many European countries. “The presence of Buddhism in Europe is characterized by a diversity and plurality of traditions, schools, orders and lineages” (Baumann, 2017, p.295). The Buddha flower pot’s religious and cultural color as well as the far-reaching influence brought by this religion are more meaningful than the flower pot’s utility.

buddhism is a religion against violence and war

For a long time, Buddhism has been praised as a religion of peace and non-violence. Jaspers (1962) argues that Buddhism is the only world religion without violence, heresy, persecution and inquisition. Faure (2009) adds that nonviolence and compassion are often cited as two main characteristics of Buddhism, and in Sanskrit, “the term “non-violence” is a common translation of the Sanskrit term ahimsā, and is usually defined as abstinence from injuring or killing others.” Meena (2019) points out that with wars among many countries and terrorist activities entering different regions of the world, Buddhism is growing in vitality all over the world, because for people, today’s peace seems to be more urgent than ever before, with wars among many countries and terrorist activities entering different regions of the world. 

This infographic explains the concept of Buddhism

Countless wars and conflicts have taken place among different countries and groups of countries for international power. In particular, after we human beings entered the 21st century, wars and terrorist activities are still going on in some corners of this planet. For example, the September 11 attacks in New York City, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Syria Civil War, The Israeli Palestinian Conflict, and so on, caused a lot of chaos and human tragedies. It is found that, compared with the developed countries in the world, cities in poorer countries experienced terrorist acts and wars more frequently, and often had more destructive effects (Beall, 2007). There is only one earth and one world for human beings, and the international community is increasingly becoming a community of the same destiny in which you and I share with each other. In the face of the complicated situation of the world economy and global problems, no country can be immune to it. Therefore, everyone living on this planet should seek new connotations of common interests and common values of mankind from a new perspective of a community of the same destiny to avoid the occurrence of wars.

non-discrimination and the desire to create peace

Permanent peace is everyone’s wish for many years. Everyone who lives on the earth has a desire for peace, and everyone has the right to live a life of stability and happiness.

Buddhism, which originated in ancient India, has spread widely in Asia and around the world since then, and has had a great influence on the social, political and cultural life of many countries, and this influence continues today in the 21st century. Especially in Asia, the differences between people are not regarded as estrangement, but as richness. This is similar to the principle of complementary yin and yang in Chinese Taiji diagram: the coexistence of multiple cultures is a kind of enrichment and promotion for every culture, so as to create peace (Yu, 2006).

The general history of Buddha as well as the impact on Chinese culture

In terms of the word “peace”, Boulding (1978) has a comprehensive definition of “peace”. In his view, peace has two concepts, including positive aspects and negative aspects. “On the positive side, peace signifies a condition of good management, orderly resolution of conflict, harmony associated with mature relationships, gentleness, and love. On the negative side, it is conceived as the absence of something – the absence of turmoil, tension, conflict and war” (p.5). Interestingly, the explanation of “peace” in the traditional Buddhist teachings, the most famous one is to emphasize the so-called middle path or moderate path between extremes. In fact, balance, harmony, equality, and so on, are often regarded as the basic foundation of living in accordance with Buddhism (Shields, 2014).

On the other hand, one of the core concepts of the Buddhism is that non-discrimination is vital for the continuation of human life on this planet. It is vital that we need to respect and accept the difference. As this Buddha flower pot implies, the flower pot can coexist with plants and nature, and embrace different objects or things with tolerance to achieve harmony.

Contrary to non-discrimination, discrimination is an act that directly targets members of a special group and is caused by prejudice awareness and attitude. It is the expression of those negative behaviors that directly point to prejudice targets or victims. Discrimination stems from prejudice and the degree of discrimination varies greatly, from emotional verbal communication or deliberate avoidance in social communication to violence, even genocide or religious massacre (Yu, 2006). In view of a series of social problems caused by discrimination, many laws have been promulgated one after another. In the study of the Fundamental Rights promulgated by the European Union, Bell (2003) explains that the starting point of equality is often expressed through the legal establishment of the right of non-discrimination and it is necessary that, for example, “gender and race should be removed from the decision-making process” (p.92). Scholars in Buddhism pay great attention to the logical and abstract meaning of the principle of non-discrimination. The principle of non-discrimination in Buddhism includes discrimination in the traditional sense, involving women and people of different races and nationalities (Yeng, 2020), which echoes Kwee (2012)’s conclusion that “The spirit of the Buddha concurs with a non-discriminatory outlook on race, gender, social class, and faith.” In order to combat discrimination and ensure inclusion, it is also necessary to design and implement more inclusive social protection systems which can guide practitioners and policy-makers (Sepúlveda Carmona, 2017).

The European Buddhist Union’s (EBU) conference “Buddhism in Action” in Berlin

Global non-traditional security issues such as food security, resource shortage, climate change, regional wars, population explosion, environmental pollution, epidemic diseases, transnational crimes and so on emerge one after another, posing severe challenges to the peace of international order and human survival. Thus, in order to achieve world peace, we must first call on everyone in the world to look at the world and others with an equal heart. Not only big countries and small countries should treat each other equally, but also all ethnic groups should get along equally. In particular, we should be able to respect small things with great respect, and respect weak things with strong respect. No matter what country people live in or what their beliefs are, only under the concept of equality, everyone is equal and everyone is respected, so that we can move towards world peace.

conclusion

In this blogpost, I introduce the Buddha Flower Pot as the object selected for the Visual Time Capsule 3D collection project, and explain the religious color and deep meaning it carries. Buddhism never set a goal for our future or put forward a conclusion, but opened a new direction. The greatest value of Buddhism is that it can inspire us to look at our future with a brand-new vision, which is cheerful for mankind to embrace the difference.

Metadata

Name: Buddha Flower Pot

3D Model

Creator: Xing Yin

Date: 25-01-2022

Place: Maastricht, The Netherlands

Themes: Inclusivity

Captured with iPhone 12 camera , four lights, lightbox, grey card

Processed with Agisoft Metashape Professional Software run on MacOS Catalina

Sketchfab: https://skfb.ly/otFFM

Physical Object

Size: 2.5 x 3 x 5 cm

Weight: 350 g

Material: Cement

references

Baumann, M. (2017). Buddhism in Europe: past, present, prospects. In Religion Today: Tradition, Modernity and Change. Routledge.

Beall, J. (2007). Cities, terrorism and urban wars of the 21st century.

Bell, M. (2003). The right to equality and non-discrimination. Economic and Social Rights under the EU Chatter of Fundamental Rights: A Legal Perspective, 91-110.

Boulding, K. E. (1978). Stable peace. University of Texas Press.

Faure, B. (2009). Unmasking Buddhism. Wiley–Blackwell.

Jaspers, K. (1962). The Great Philosophers. Harcourt Brace.

Kwee, M. G. (2012). Relational Buddhism: Wedding KJ Gergen’s relational being and Buddhism to create harmony in-between-selves. Psychological Studies57(2), 203-210.

Meena, A. (2019). Buddhist Approach to Inclusiveness and Sustainable Development for Social Harmony. Family and Society: A Buddhist Perspective, 99.

Sepúlveda Carmona, M. (2017). Ensuring inclusion and combatting discrimination in social protection programmes: The role of human rights standards. International Social Security Review70(4), 13-43.

Shields, J. (2014). Introduction to Against Harmony: Radical Buddhism in Thought and Practice. Politics, Religion & Ideology15(2), 187.

Yeng, S. (2020). Buddhism, Non-discrimination, and Inclusivity. In Buddhist Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.

Yu, G. L. (2006). Social Psychology. Beijing Normal University Press.