Twenty-five hundred years ago, when the Buddha was teaching what he had awoken to, his world was similar in many ways to our world today. There were great centers of culture, and there were lands of stagnation. There were rulers with great power who thirsted for even more, and there were oppressed people who only wanted to live in peace. There were men who said that they alone held the key to spiritual secrets, and there were those who searched for different answers. There were people who had great wealth, and there were those who had nothing. There were people who said we must change, and there were those who denied there was anything wrong.

Perhaps that distant land and time is not that distant after all. Greed, anger, ignorance, and delusion are still very much with us. But they do not have to remain with us for each of we has the ability to transform them into selflessness, compassion, and understanding.