地球倫理：Global Ethic

 

地球倫理

 

人は立つ人の象形文字で人間はその間（関係・集合）を表す。ホモやヒューマンはヒューム（土）に由来し、天地の地に属し土に戻る「死すべきもの」を意味する。マヌッサ・マヌシヤはマヌ（人の始祖）に属し、語根マン（考える）から「考える者」とも考えられる。Adamも同様。

天は大（大人）の上にある1.天空、2.天体・神、3.天理・普遍則を表す。天道は天の道・日（日月等・季節）の運行から諸現象の法則を意味し天命はその命令で、普遍的法則・道徳・倫理規範を守らないと天罰があるということを意味する。

現代科学は40億年前に地球の生命は誕生し共通最終祖先（LUCA）から枝分かれし現在の３千万種とも言われる生物種に分かれ、現存人類は宇宙カレンダーでは１２月３１日午後１１時５９秒以後である。人類生存・覇権は脳・手の進化による集団協力の賜物であった。

人類は約5千年前都市国家を作り差別・殺戮・破壊等を始め人間同士の覇権争いを始め人種・国家・宗教等の金字塔文明を築いたが、戦争・奴隷・階級等の災厄を平和・平等等の１８０度転換しようとした約２千５百年前の命帝網文化への宗教・精神・文化革命であった。

文明（都市化）は生存競争の業の貪瞋痴三毒による金・物・力の奪い合いの人工一方向金字塔構造は国家・企業・媒体・宗教・教育等諸仮構体に及び下部大衆・他種・環境はその迷妄・束縛・差別・搾取・破壊による集合業四苦（独裁・戦争・核・破局）の破滅危機にある。

文化（耕作・修養）は弱肉強食の三毒を戒定慧の三学により自然・集団社会の根本である生命・平和・真実・平等・覚醒（五戒）を守り、瞑想により自己・社会・環境の統合を図り、普遍法により問題解決をする覚道又は他の世界宗教の戒を守り真善美聖を発展させる。

軸時代には法（Dharma）、天・神（Dei, Deva, Deus, Dyau. √div:光）、神（Daiomon）、道（Dao）、理（Rita, Logos）等の普遍法則による人間集団の生き方（慈悲、愛、仁、友愛：Mitra, Mithra, Mettheya, Maitreya, etc.）が社会生活の道徳・倫理として規定された。

京セラ創業、KDD設立、JAL再建などを果たし、禅を学び経営の神とされ海外までその手法を伝える稲盛和夫は、明治維新に功績のあった西郷隆盛の「敬天愛人」を重んじ、人間として正しく決して損得勘定をしないことを強調し普遍法に従って人を愛すことを説いた。

ブッダは一切現象は無数の因縁（原因・条件）で生起・消滅するという縁起（因縁生起）を普遍法であることを発見し覚醒生活の実践法とした。これは一切が相依・相対しており何も孤立・絶対・主宰・独裁ではなく、共存・共同・共栄による善の相乗効果を目指すべきとする。

仏教の五戒（不殺、不盗、不偽、不淫、不水）はユダヤ教・キリスト教・イスラームの十戒（十語：理）に同様項があり、これに基づいて核終末危機の時代に１９９３年シカゴでん世界宗教会議で「地球倫理宣言」として出され宗教的か否かを問わず誰もが守るべき倫理とされた。

国家・宗教・民族などによる差別・搾取・殺戮・破滅の分派活動は人類のみならず全生物・生態系の破局になるので皆が覚醒・活動して廃止し、人類・生類・生系の平和・平等・自由・自治の幸福生活の真の繁栄を享受し皆が生きるに値する世界を築く努力をしましょう！

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Global Ethic

 

The Chinese character 人 is a pictograph of a standing person, while 人間 (ningen, human being/humanity) signifies the “between/among people”—their relationships and community. Homo and human share their origin with humus, “soil”: humans are earthbound beings who belong to the earth in “heaven and earth” and return to the soil—mortals. Manussa in Pāli and manuṣya in Sanskrit mean those belonging to Manu, the progenitor of humankind; because Manu is related to the root √man, “to think,” they may also suggest “thinking beings.” Adam has a similar association with adamah, the ground.

The character 天 (tian, heaven) depicts what is above 大, a great or fully grown person. It signifies: 1. the sky or heavens; 2. celestial bodies and divinities; and 3. heavenly reason—the Universal Law. The Way of Heaven (Tiandao) originally referred to the course of the heavens—the movements of the sun, moon, other celestial bodies, and the seasons—and came to signify the laws governing all phenomena. The Mandate of Heaven (Tianming) is its command: failure to observe the Universal Law and its moral and ethical norms brings the consequences traditionally called heavenly retribution.

Modern science teaches that life arose on Earth about four billion years ago, branched from the Last Universal Common Ancestor (LUCA), and diversified into the living species of today, sometimes estimated at thirty million. On the cosmic calendar, extant humanity appears only after 11:59 p.m. on December 31. Human survival and ascendancy were made possible by the evolution of the brain and hands and by cooperative life in groups.

About five thousand years ago, humans created city-states and intensified discrimination, killing, and destruction. Competing for supremacy, they constructed pyramidal civilizations based on race, nation, religion, and other divisions. About twenty-five hundred years ago, however, an Axial Age religious, spiritual, and cultural revolution sought to turn the disasters of war, slavery, and class hierarchy completely around toward peace, equality, and an Indra-net culture.

Civilization—urbanization—has created artificial, one-way pyramidal structures driven by the triple poisons of greed, hatred, and delusion: karmic competition for money, matter, and might. These structures extend through states, corporations, media, religions, educational institutions, and other fabricated/fictitious systems. The masses at the bottom, other species, and the environment suffer from their delusion, bondage, discrimination, exploitation, and destruction. We now face the catastrophic danger of the four collective sufferings: dictatorship, war, nuclear annihilation, and global collapse.

Culture—cultivation and conscious development—transforms the predatory triple poisons through the Triple Learning of ethics, synthesis, and wisdom. It protects the foundations of nature and communal life: life, peace, truth, equality, and awakening, as expressed in the Five Precepts. Through meditation/synthesis, it integrates self, society, and environment; through wisdom/prognosis of the Universal Dharma, it solves problems. The Awakened Way and other world religions cultivate truth, goodness, beauty, and holiness by observing their ethical precepts.

During the Axial Age, the ways by which human communities should live were articulated as morality and ethics grounded in Universal Law—called Dharma; Heaven or Divinity (Dei, Deva, Deus, Dyauḥ; √div, “to shine”); Daimon; Dao; or Reason and Order (ṛta, Logos). These ways of life were expressed as compassion, love, benevolence, and friendship—Mitra, Mithra, Metteyya, Maitreya, and related ideals.

The Buddha discovered dependent co-origination—the arising and ceasing of all phenomena through innumerable causes and conditions—as the Universal Dharma and made it the practical basis of awakened life. Everything is interrelated and relative; nothing exists in isolation or as an absolute, self-governing, sovereign, or dictatorial entity. We should therefore seek the synergistic multiplication of goodness through coexistence, cooperation, and co-prosperity.

Kazuo Inamori—who founded Kyocera, established DDI (later KDDI), rebuilt Japan Airlines, studied Zen, became revered as a legendary master of management, and introduced his methods throughout the world—placed great importance on “Revere Heaven and Love Humanity,” the guiding principle of Saigō Takamori, a leading figure of the Meiji Restoration. Inamori emphasized doing what is right as a human being and never making decisions based merely on personal gain or loss. He taught that we should follow the Universal Law and love and care for all people.

The Buddhist Five Precepts—non-killing, non-stealing, non-falsification, non-misconduct in sexuality, and non-intoxication—have counterparts in the Ten Commandments of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, the Decalogue or “Ten Words” of truth and reason. On this shared foundation, amid the danger of nuclear annihilation, representatives of the world’s religions gathered in Chicago in 1993 and issued the Declaration Toward a Global Ethic, affirming ethical principles to be observed by everyone, whether religious or not.

Sectarian activities based on divisions of nation, religion, ethnicity, and other identities—activities that produce discrimination, exploitation, killing, and destruction—will bring catastrophe not only to humanity but to all living beings and the entire ecosystem. Let us all awaken and act to abolish them. Let us strive to build a world worth living in, where humanity, all living beings, and the whole living ecosystem can enjoy true prosperity: happy lives of peace, equality, freedom, and autonomy.

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