Ken Jones (1995, accesstoinsight.org) edited by Wisdom Quarterly from Paul Ingram (ed.), The Middle Way, Vol. 54, No. 2 Summer 1979, 85-88) encouraged by Ven. Nyanaponika, BPS.lk
The Buddha, ancient Sukhothai Historical Park, Thailand (Holger*/flickr.com) |
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PART ONE: THE FUNDAMENTALS
1.1 Buddhism and the new global society
Gilded hand, Sukhothai (Holger*/flickr) |
For
Buddhists this situation raises fundamental and controversial questions.
And here Buddhism has implications of significance for
Christians, humanists, and other non-Buddhists.
By "social action" is meant the many different kinds of action
intended to benefit humankind. These range from simple individual acts of
charity, teaching and training, organized kinds of service, "Right
Livelihood" in and outside the helping professions, and through various
kinds of community development as well as to political activity in
working for a better society.
Buddhism is a pragmatic teaching that starts from certain
fundamental propositions about how we experience the world and how we
act in it. It teaches that it is possible to transcend the sorrow-laden
world of our experience and is concerned first and last with ways of
achieving that transcendence.
What finally leads to such transcendence
is what we call WISDOM. The enormous literature of Buddhism is not a
literature of revelation and authority. Instead, it uses ethics and
meditation, philosophy and science, art and poetry to point a Way to
this Wisdom.
Similarly, Buddhist writing on social action, unlike
secular writings, makes finite proposals which must ultimately refer to
this wisdom, but which also are arguable in terms of our common
experience.
In the East, Buddhism developed different schools or "traditions,"
serving the experiences of different cultures, ranging from Sri Lanka
through Tibet and Mongolia to Japan. Buddhism may therefore appear variously
as sublime humanism, magical mysticism, poetic paradox, and much else.
These modes of expression, however, all converge upon the fundamental
teaching, the "perennial Buddhism." This is based on the
latter, drawing on the different Eastern traditions to present the
teachings or Dharma in an attempt to relate them to our modern industrial society.
From the evidence of the Buddha's lengthy discourses (sutras) in the Digha
Nikaya, it is clear that early Buddhists were very much concerned with
the creation of social conditions favorable to the individual
cultivation of Buddhist values.
An outstanding example of this, in later
times, is the remarkable "welfare state" created by the Buddhist Emperor Asoka (274-236 BCE). Ven. Walpola Rahula stated the situation --
perhaps at its strongest -- when he wrote that:
"Buddhism arose in India as a spiritual force against social injustices, against degrading superstitious rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices; it denounced the tyranny of the caste system and advocated the equality of all [people]; it emancipated woman and gave her complete spiritual freedom" (Rahula, 1978).
"Buddhism arose in India as a spiritual force against social injustices, against degrading superstitious rites, ceremonies, and sacrifices; it denounced the tyranny of the caste system and advocated the equality of all [people]; it emancipated woman and gave her complete spiritual freedom" (Rahula, 1978).
The Buddhist texts indicate the general direction of
Buddhist social thinking, and to that extent they are suggestive
for our own times. Nevertheless it would be pedantic, and in some cases
absurd, to apply directly to modern industrial society social
prescriptions detailed to meet the needs of social order that flourished [26] centuries ago.
The Buddhist householder in the
Sigalovada Sutra (DN 31, translated in Everyman's Ethics, Buddhist Publication Society's The Wheel No. 14)
experienced a different way of life from that of a computer consultant
in Tokyo or an unemployed black youth in Liverpool. And the conditions that might favor their cultivation of the Middle Way must be secured by
correspondingly different -- and more complex -- social, economic, and
political strategies.
It is therefore essential to attempt to distinguish between perennial
Buddhism on the one hand and, on the other, the specific social
prescriptions attributed to the historical Buddha which relate the
basic, perennial teaching to the specific conditions of his day.
It is unscholarly to transfer the scriptural social
teaching uncritically and with careful qualification to modern
societies, or to proclaim that the Buddha was a democrat and an
internationalist. The modern terms "democracy" and "internationalism"
did not exist in the sense in which we understand them in the emergent
feudal society in which the Buddha lived. Buddhism is ill-served in the
long run by such special pleading. On the other hand, it is arguable
that there are democratic and internationalist implications in the basic Buddhist teachings.
In the past 200 years society in the West has undergone a
more fundamental transformation than at any period since Neolithic
times, both in terms of technology and ideas. And now in
the East while this complex revolution is undercutting traditional
Buddhism, it is also stimulating Eastern Buddhism. And in the West it
is creating problems and perceptions to which Buddhism seems
particularly relevant.
Throughout its history Buddhism has been successfully reinterpreted in accordance with different cultures, while at the same time preserving its inner truths. Thus has Buddhism spread and survived.
The historic task of Buddhists both East and West in the 21st century is to interpret perennial Buddhism in terms of the needs of industrial humans in the social conditions of their time and to demonstrate its acute and urgent relevance to the ills of society. To this enterprise Buddhists bring boldness and humility, as this is no time to cling to dogma or defensiveness.
Throughout its history Buddhism has been successfully reinterpreted in accordance with different cultures, while at the same time preserving its inner truths. Thus has Buddhism spread and survived.
The historic task of Buddhists both East and West in the 21st century is to interpret perennial Buddhism in terms of the needs of industrial humans in the social conditions of their time and to demonstrate its acute and urgent relevance to the ills of society. To this enterprise Buddhists bring boldness and humility, as this is no time to cling to dogma or defensiveness.
1.2 Social action and the problem of suffering
Martin Luther King Jr: "Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice. Justice at its best is love correcting everything that stands against love." Justice = peace. |
In modern Western society humanistic social action, in its
bewildering variety, is seen both as the characteristic way of
relieving suffering and enhancing human well-being and, at the same
time, as a noble ideal of service, of self-sacrifice, by humanists of
all paths.
Buddhism, however, is a humanism in that it rejoices in the
possibility of a true freedom as something inherent in human nature. For
Buddhism, the ultimate freedom is to achieve full release from the root
causes of all suffering: greed, hatred/fear, and delusion, which clearly are
also the root causes of all social ills.
Their grossest forms are those
which are harmful to others. To weaken and finally eliminate them in
oneself and, as far as possible, in society, is the basis of Buddhist
ethics. And here Buddhist social action has its place.
The experience of suffering -- and to overcome it completely -- is the starting point of Buddhist teachings and of any attempt to define a distinctively Buddhist social action.
However, misunderstandings can arise at the start because the Pali word dukkha,
which commonly translated simply as "suffering," has a much wider
and more subtle meaning:
There is gross, objective
suffering in the world arising
from poverty, war, oppression, [racism, sexism, patriarchy, slavery, greed, hatred, fear, delusion], and other social conditions. We cling to good fortune and struggle at all costs to escape from bad
fortune. More
Violence and Disruption in Society: A Study of the Early Buddhist Texts
Elizabeth J. Harris (Buddhist Publication Society via accesstoinsight.org)
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