CULTIVATING PEACE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 5

CULTIVATING PEACE

Distinguishing between negative and positive peace in a recent broadcast talk, the Earl of Lytton said:—“When I was at Geneva in 1928 a young Siamese delegate said to me one day: ‘ I often wonder. Lord Lytton, if you Christians can really understand peace as we Buddhists do. Your conception of morality always seems to me so militant You are taught from childhood to fight for what you believe to be right and against what you believe to be wrong. We Buddhists are taught to regard peace as a state of mind which must be acquired by contemplation and practised daily in all our dealings with our fellow-men. whether in society, in business or in politics.’ Those words made a great impression upon me at the time, and they have come to mv mind many times in the last few weeks. How many of us, 1 wonder, who have lately been praying for peace, really had in our hearts the conception of peace which was taught either by Christ or Buddha? Lord Chatfield, a former First Sea Lord, said in the House of Lords during a recent debate: ‘lf you ask men to sacrifice their lives you must give them an inspiration.' The same is true. I think, if you want men to cultivate peace. That is why earnest people today are appealing for moral rearmament. The words are not very happily chosen. They savour too much of that militant spirit which my Siamese friend condemned. But they mean. I take it, that spiritual energy without which no great cause can succeed. So if we want to secure a peace that shall be honourable, worth preserving and likelv to endure, we must call in aid for that spiritual energy, discipline ourselves in the spirit of charity and tolerance, and study the technique by which peace, like war can alone be made to succeed."