Old Ideas

It has been reported that in Egypt, there were mass street demonstrations calling for President Hosni Mubarak to step down and end his three-decade rule. That reminds me of what Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew supposedly said about Singapore in his new book, Hard Truths to Keep Singapore Going - that the rule of the People’s Action Party’s (PAP) will come to an end one day. The founder of modern Singapore said he has no illusions about his legacy and the future of the ruling PAP. No system, he said, lasts forever. The Japanese Liberal Democratic Party,he said , held power from 1955 to 2009 and then fell because it carried on with old ideas. That no system lasts speaks volume. That Anicca or impermanence marks our existence is no illusion but worry not if this annica thing would bring forth dukkha or unsatisfactoriness or whether there is anatta or non-selfhood in all these. Just worry if Buddhism has carried on any old ideas...

Comments

Liudmila said…
Ahhh... It was said: there is nothing new under the sun. Everything was just. In Italy, there is something similar (not so as in Egypt), too.
footiam said…
Even the air we breathe in is old! They are recycled!