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3 KPI Congress 15 th

responsibility for this must lie with past and present administrations and their leaders,
which includes President Obama. Apart from excessive government borrowing, greed
on the part of the banks and reckless borrowing by consumers must also have fuelled
the financial collapse. This extravagance and lack of responsibility is mentioned in
Buddhist texts like the Sigalovada Sutta, which talks of six ways of squandering
wealth. It also offers an antidote in the form of moderation, the company of good
friends, and the avoidance of gambling, which today would include speculation by
banks on derivatives and other financial instruments. Ashoka also writes in his third
rock edict ‘moderation in spending and moderation in saving is good.’ I do not think
the ancient texts offer a fully-formulated economic model that can be transplanted to
today’s infinitely more complex world. However, they can provide a moral lesson
about where a ruler’s (or President’s or Prime Minister’s) priorities should lie, as well
as encouraging the rest of us to avoid the kind of financial mismanagement that leads
to debt and bankruptcy. Modern leaders have certainly not displayed the wisdom of
the Dhammaraja in the management of their economies, and despite the tentative
signs of recovery I think we must judge President Obama and others to have failed
on this point.

Security

We turn now to the third and final criterion, security. Here, many writers have
seen a conflict between the duty of a Dhammaraja to practice non-harming, and his
responsibility to protect his kingdom. The eighth of the ten duties of a king - avihimsa
– or non-violence, means not only that he should harm nobody, but that he should try
to promote peace by avoiding and preventing war, and everything which involves
violence and destruction of life. But what should the kind do when his kingdom is
attacked, as in the case of ‘9/11’, and despite his best efforts, war is inevitable? On
this point the canonical texts are unanimous in teaching that violence is never
justified, even in self-defence, and that it is better to let oneself be killed than kill
another. At the same time, there seems to be an anomaly insofar as the Dhammaraja
retains his fourfold army, and, as cakkavatti, is accompanied by it as he visits his
neighbours in the four directions who unanimously welcome him as sovereign. This
International panel discussion has rarely been followed, and there are numerous examples both past and present of
sounds utopian to some ears, and one wonders why a peaceful embassy needs to be
accompanied by an army. In fact history tells us that this noble but idealistic example

Buddhist kings and nations using force for both offensive and defensive purposes.
Ashoka used force to conquer the eastern region of Kalinga, and even after
expressing remorse showed no signs of disbanding his army. In Rock Edict 13 he
warns the forest people that he retains the power to punish them if necessary. In the
same place he advises his descendants against making new conquests, but adds that
if they are to be done, it should be with forbearance and light punishment.

The President of the USA is also the Commander in Chief of a fourfold army
consisting of the army, navy, airforce and Department of Homeland Security. As is