The Buddha's Dialogue as the Origin (Causes) and Destiny (Conditions) of the Buddhist Culture: A Hermeneutical Approach

Abstract

Abstract Different religious leaders are trying to establish a sort of belief in their different minds that their own religion and culture are the best among all. Other existing religious communities and culture are a danger for their own existence. To deal with the afore-mentioned issue, the Buddhist hermeneutic text known as ‘The Guide’ (Nettipakarana), consisting of different types of the Buddha’s teachings, shows that the Buddha’s discourses recorded in the Tipitaka, which were formulated in the light of ‘dialogue’ between the Buddha and his disciples and the Buddha and other religious followers, were comprised of some instances to proceed towards making of the harmonious world and that could be taken as the root of Buddhist culture. Buddhist culture is understood under the doctrine of “Middle Way” or “Eightfold Noble Path”, which is summarized into three main principles of Buddhist learning, namely “moral conduct” (sila), “concentration” (Samadhi) and “wisdom” (panna). Moral conduct is known as ‘ecoculture’, consisting of right speech, right action and right livelihood; (2) Concentration or meditation is ‘autoculture’, consisting of right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration; and (3) Wisdom is known as ‘metaculture’, consisting of right understanding and right thought. Contemporary society is the one that is full of problems; it is multi-problems, especially the problem of religious conflicts, which need to be solved by dialogue of the Buddha’s discourse, with special emphasis on the metacultural aspect.