What is Buddhist About Engaged Buddhism?

[Dharmavidya]

Sometimes one has the impression that so-called engaged Buddhism is just social activism carried out by people who happen to be Buddhist or even that it is a hi-jacking of Buddhist terminology or Buddhist sympathies in the service of agendas that have little if anything to do with Buddhist principles. Is Buddhism really about democracy? rights? equality? justice? Certainly slogans containing these words generally come into existence in relation to troubled situations where there is oppression or suffering that Buddhists would generally be concerned about, but are these the concepts that make sense in Buddhist terms for addressing those troubles? Buddhism generally advances the idea that wise people are rare which does not tally very well with democracy. Buddhism advocates compassion for all which does not tally with bringing people to justice. Buddhism is concerned with overcoming ideas of self-entitlement which does not fit with a rights based social system. Could it be that Buddhism suggests a paradigm for solving some of the world's difficulties that is quite different from the nominally progressive ideal espoused by many nominally Buddhist activists? I think that these questions are worthy of more serious study than they are generally receiving. I have seen Buddhist communities that are harmonious and a delight to inhabit that are not particularly democratic, but are respectful of individuals, that are not based on rights, yet care for their members, that are more concerned with tolerance and compassion than with justice, where there is not a demand for equality, but rather a sense of 'from each according to their ability, to each according to their need'. Perhaps this kind of ideal communitarianism is only possible in small scale communities - hence 'small is beautiful' - but, perhaps, the really crucial variable is faith. The more faith people have the more the ideal become workable. Trust is the lubricant that makes society run smoothly. Actions that undermine trust bring trouble of many kinds while actions that build trust have incidental benefits that spread far and wide. A major recent example of a phenomenon open to this kind of analysis is the credit crisis which, arguably, can be seen not just an a cyclical downturn, but as a result of sharp practice destroying faith. Once the trust started to evaporate, large scale socio-economic structures started to break down. Can we develop useful concepts that really are Buddhist that really do help to explain social and economic phenomena? I would welcome contributions to this thread that help us to refine our thinking about "what is Buddhist about engaged Buddhism".

Also, on 25th October 2009 we shall hold a day seminar on this theme at Sukhavati, the London centre of Amida Trust, 21 Sussex Way, Finsbury Park. Do make a note.

[Ben Ross]

Something that occurs to me on this topic is thinking that Pureland Buddhism challenges the competitive ethos that is one of the foundations of capitalism. I'm thinking of a section in "The Meaning of Anxiety" by Rollo May where he writes about how in modern capitalist society an individual's worth comes to be defined by their value in the marketplace, as well as by their success in comparison to and competition with their peers, leading to mental breakdowns when people (men especially) lose their jobs and in consequence the identities they have developed around them. I think Pureland Buddhism is one of the more democratic faiths on the planet in the sense of valuing human beings without requiring that they demonstrate their value in some way (it's not a requirement to accumulate merit, or become great meditators, or have purified all our thoughts, or be involved in selfless acts, for example). Love is given for no reason at all, as far as I can determine, which I find beautiful and which somehow meets my glimpses of experience and intuitive sense of things.

So what I'm putting forward here is the hypothesis that capitalism and Pureland are incompatible, on the basis of valuing human beings in fundamentally different ways. I don't have a solid idea of what would replace it, although the idea of small communities based on "from each according to their ability, to each according to their need" makes a lot of sense to me. This idea maintains some sense of competition in that work and resources aren't distributed equally, but I don't think absolute equality is the question as much as each person being valued regardless of having higher or lower ability than another. I wonder if the element of faith in these communities could maybe be defined more broadly, however. Perhaps a deeply-rooted Humanist value system could function as well as one based on spiritual ideas and experiences? This returns to the question around human rights, I suppose, which would probably form the basis of a community based on Humanist values. These are just some reflections, really - I feel this topic is far more complex than I've begun to wrap my mind around.

[Joaquim Monteiro]

Dear Dharmavidya:


I am essentially in agreement with your questioning. Sometimes I have acted together with people related with engaged buddhist movements but I have always felt that their Buddhist views on society were quite vague. So, I would like to make a few propositions. About Buddhism in general I would propose the following:

- There are a few Sutras in primitive Buddhism like the Aganna Sutta and the Mahanasi Shihanada Sutta ( I study them from their chinese not pali translations, but to ease general understanding i am refering to them in their pali titles ) that express a Buddhist view of society and social justice. I think that the critical study of those Sutras would provide us with a starting point to think a Buddhist view of society. Obviously, there is something pre-modern in the view of society in those Sutras. The matter is how to clarify their meaning in the contemporary context.

- I dont think that we should just adjust Buddhist views to modern thought, but it seems clear to me that there is the need for a mediation with contemporaty social philosophy. I think that a confrontation with the social ethics in Rawls, Habermas and Macntyre would be helpful.

About Pure Land Buddhism I would like to state the following:

- It looks to me that the central matter lies in how we understand the Pure Land. Discussions on the Pure Land in later critical Buddhism could be helpful.

- Them the final matter becomes: how to think of Buddhist social ethics from the Pure Land point of view.


Those are my preliminary remarks on the matter. I hope that those can show somewhat helpful for this discussion.


Gasshô.
Joaquim Monteiro ( Shaku Shoshin )

[Joaquim Monteiro]

Dear Ben Ross:


I think that your point on the relation between Pura Land Buddhism and capitalism is very meaningful. Master Rijin Yasuda from Japan always said:

"Capital is the structure of sentient beings transmigration" ( Shihon to wa shujo rutten no kouzou da! )

Gashô.

Joaquim Monteiro. ( Shaku Shoshin )

[Jason Ranek]

One thing that I find antithetical to Buddhist thought is the notion of hard and fast political allegiances. It seems to me that when a Buddhist becomes a party member (no matter how "enlightened" the politics are), right view has just gone out the window.

As social engagement is difficult, if not impossible, to disentangle from politics in a democracy, the question of how we as Buddhists socially engage while navigating the political circus is a vital issue from my point of view.

Speaking personally, I think that an independent political stance is the only tenable option open to a Buddhist. I think the best we can do is to cooperate with politicians when it will advance a genuinely Buddhist social agenda (whatever that might be), trust our guts at the polls, and, at the end of the day, let it go.

[Dharmavidya]

Dear Ben - thank you for this very nice answer.I'll make a few points just to try to drive the argument forward.

1. Capitalism
Whether Pureland is compatible with capitalism is an interesting question. I suppose we would need to define our terms. If capitalism means a system in which accumulations of capital are deployed for useful purposes, then we might have no problem with it. The problem seems to arise when such accumulations are under the control of people who use them in ways that profit the already privileged at the expense of the already deprived. Some of the problem here may lie in the notion of 'free' enterprise rather than in capitalism as such. Enterprise depends upon markets but markets depend upon some degree of regulation - if they are left totally 'free' they degenerate into piracy and banditry. There do seem to be problems in both unregulated and in over-regulated systems. So we would need some clarity, perhaps, about the concepts that might guide us in arriving at a middle way that enabled capital to be deployed well for the collective good without running into the kind of over-control that abolishes the motivation to participate. Somebody has to make decisions and there is no way to ensure that that person is not bombu! We cannot guarantee philosopher kings (or queens) but we can, perhaps, improve our analytic tools.

2. Humanist Values
There is much to be said for humanist values, though the term can mean several very different things. It can mean a concern for culture. It can mean an anti-religious stance. It can mean the right of humans to treat other sentient beings as commodities. Clearly some of these I would not go for. I tend to think that we do not need to water down our Buddhism, but we do need to strive toward greater clarity about it. I am currently living at our centre at Amida France with several other members of the sangha and it all works extremely well. That does not mean that it could not do otherwise, but at present it goes well. Different people make different contributions and encounters different degrees of frustration, but, because they are living within a Buddhist value system they are inclined to frame those frustrations as opportunities. They are also, I think, more likely to trust that others are well meaning and that the bits of the community that they do not themselves control can be trusted to get on in a good spirited manner. I am not confident that a purely humanistic value system would do that for us. It might have good ideals but those very ideals might breed resentments and conflicts. Buddhism has a remarkable capacity to 'turn adverse circumstances into the path' that humanism maybe lacks.

I hope these observations help. I am very open to debate on these issues. Thank you so much for taking the trouble to enter the fray. Warm wishes - D.

[Dharmavidya]

Dear Jason, Thank you. Or...
could it not be that a Buddhist might be able to join most political parties and make something of the experience? I think that one of the lessons of Pureland is that we are not 'pure' and that we cannot expect to keep ourselves pure. We are not above politics and all of its messiness. That is what is so liberating, isn't it? One is, of course, an individual, but that is true whether one is 'in the party' or not. There is here the basic existential issue highlighted by Sartre that I think of in the following way, namely, that 'freedom is like money - it means nothing until you spend it' i.e. only when you give it away does it do something useful. At some point one has to make a commitment. I do not, by that, of course, mean that one then closes one's eyes and never thinks an independent thought, simply that social change generally requires organisation and collective action. Does this make sense?

[Dharmavidya]

Joaquim Monteiro said:

Obviously, there is something pre-modern in the view of society in those Sutras. The matter is how to clarify their meaning in the contemporary context. I dont think that we should just adjust Buddhist views to modern thought, but it seems clear to me that there is the need for a mediation with contemporaty social philosophy.

I agree with this completely. Thank you.

[Ben Ross]

I'm really learning from this discussion - I often learn the most when I enter something much larger than my knowledge, put ideas out there, and then see so many more aspects based on others' perspectives and responses.

Dharmavidya - I so much appreciate what you write about needing to define clearly one's terms, and how many things humanism and capitalism can refer to. I think in a general way my thought about how capitalism relates to Buddhism would hold even in highly regulated or partly-socialist capitalist societies, in the sense that people would still be valued on the basis of the capital they can create, and also on the basis of the division of labor leading to dehumanizing work that doesn't utilize peoples' full capacities. But I don't write this to say that I'm in favor of revolution - at this point in my relationship to all this I really just don't know what I think is best. I've been attracted in the past to some of the small anarchist societies formed in Spain prior to and during the Spanish Civil War, but I only know of them from the little I've read, and in my limited experience with people organizing anarchist groups, the ideals often get obscured by messy power dynamics and personal conflicts. I'm very drawn to the ideal of small communities based on faith, for the reason that they do seek to create values in each member that encourages compassion, cooperation, going beyond self, responsibility.

In writing of humanism I was really meaning to refer to human rights, freedom of expression, equality, and the rest of the values that form the basis for much of modern democratic societies. I wonder if these values are necessarily inconsistent with values based on responsibility and interconnectedness. I've read some about this debate in Chinese society, where there was a sense that Confucian values could create a social system in which such responsibility and sense of self-within-relationship would make human rights unnecessary (and part of the argument was that human rights could create an individualistic culture where these other values would be damaged). I'm not sure, but I wonder if there is a middle path between human rights and the primacy of the whole.

Joaquim - I love your quote but I'm not sure I understand it. In what sense is capital the structure of transmigration? The capital of accumulated merit transferred between lives?

Massimo - I share your concern about how things can be so beautiful and harmonious in societies based on faith and also how things can go wrong. I've seen a little of this in my experience, and it made me wonder if there was a way to balance some of the ways that people seem to want to give their own power of observation and thought away to a master. Perhaps it's just about finding the right group of people and the leader who encourages discussions (like these!). I'm inclined towards thinking this these days, myself, but I also want to grasp the principles that make communities healthy. Honest dialogue and expression of conflict is right up there in my view.

I appreciate this discussion and the chance to encounter the limits of my knowledge! Thank you for starting it, Dharmavidya.

Namo Amida Bu

[Jason Ranek]

Dharmavidya:

Yes, thank you, that does make sense. I suppose my "stay independent" stance comes from the dreary Coke vs. Pepsi nature of American politics.

It's true that we have to make commitments and work collectively with others for change. Naturally, since moving to Europe, I'm learning quite a bit about coalition politics as I follow things on this side of the pond. I think there are advantages and disadvantages both ways.

I see your point, though, Dharmavidya. Nobody's "pure," so we must follow our lights as best we can while trying to constructively contribute, not trying to stay above the fray. Some food for thought.

Jason

[Dharmavidya]

Just replying to a couple of points of Ben's -

Free Speech
I think that it is tremendously important for dialogue to stay open and it seems to me that the leader of a Dharma community has a very important responsibility in that respect as well as some inherent obstacles to overcome. In fact the leader needs to be two sided. On the one hand he or she needs to give leadership and to clarify and on the other hand to open up possibilities for varied contribution. Amida-shu is dynamic inasmuch as many people contribute and all do so in different ways, yet it is cohesive inasmuch as we have at least a general common frame within which to have our process. Vasubandhu would have said that finding the middle and avoiding the extremes is what Buddhism is all about. It is not always easy, however.

What People are Valued For - or, How Valuing of People Occurs
Thank you for introducing this notion which must be very important. Is one valued for one's product or just for being? This is not quite as simple as it at first seems. In Buddhism we say that a person is what they do. They are their karma. In Buddhism, for instance, we cannot love the sinner while hating the sin - they are not separable. We say that Amida Buddha loves us just as we are, even though we do not love ourselves. The important point from a Pureland point of view is not what we love so much as that we have faith in Amida's love. What we love will bring both satisfaction and frustration, but as Purelanders we have a larger scale grasp of things by taking refuge in that greater love (that we ourselves are incapable of replicating). Actually, I think it is this sense of faith that all are loved (even though I do not love all) that enables an Amidist community to have many of the qualities that people are seeking through democracy without there being a need for the demos to grasp at power for itself. Does this make sense?

[Modgala Duguid]

Dear Dharmavidya and all,
I most appreciate this thought provokoking discussion. i was in particular want ng to reply to Jason that i feel that we need to join "the fray" but have to be wary that we are not sucked in and co-erced by others ideas. There is a need for different voices to be heard everywhere. I am also aware of a recent discussion with Dharmavidya and his blog piece that makes clear how we need to become true individuals and also know the dependency we have on each other. this also plays into what I see as "Engaged Buddhism".
In particular I am drawn to the Pure land stance that we are acceptable "just as we are" and that the Pureland is for all even those who have committed the most heinous crimes. It is the people who are most corrupted that some of us need to work with because conversely they could be the very people that effectively demonstrate a different way of living once they see that there is a different way to exist. Just think of Angulimala! and the nun Baddha who murdered her husband...

[Richard Modiano]

I appreciate the quality of this discussion and the nuances drawn from Dharmavidya's initial post.

Concerning capitalism, one's attitude toward it will come from one's analysis of it (or the economic theory one bases one's analysis on.) These range from absolute free market theories to communist theories. As for my myself, I hold to Marx's theory, namely that one class lives by owning; the other class lives by working. The capitalist class gets its income by employing other people to work for it; the working class gets its income in the form of wages for the work it does. In this model, capital is accumulated by the surplus value produced by the working class.

Since labor is essential to the production of goods we need in order to live, one would suppose that those who do the labor, the working class, would be handsomely rewarded. But they aren't. In capitalist society, it isn't those who work the most who get the largest incomes, it is those who own the most.

Profit makes the wheels go round in capitalist society. Both sides in the class struggle act the way they do because they must. The capitalist must try to make profits to remain a capitalist. The worker must try to get decent wages to remain alive. Each can succeed only at the expense of the other, so in this view conflict is built into the capitalist mode of production. One may want to consider the "Dhammic Socialism" of Ajarn Buddhadasa.

Dharmavidya wonders if "engaged Buddhism is just social activism carried out by people who happen to be Buddhist or even that it is a hi-jacking of Buddhist terminology or Buddhist sympathies in the service of agendas that have little if anything to do with Buddhist principles..." I too find that observation to be true, and I'm reminded of the Abolition Movement in the US where New England Congregationalists found Biblical arguments against slavery while their Southern Baptist coreligionists produced Biblical arguments in favor of slavery. So there is a definite need to discover the Buddhist roots of engaged Buddhism, and it's good to see that this discussion as a step in that direction.