Experience
Buddhism
& Democracy
Buddhism
& Action
Buddhism
& Nonviolence
The Precepts as Political Action Guides
Buddhism & Revolution
Experience
From a very early
age, the interconnection of life seemed unambiguous to me. When
I was ordered, as a youthful adult, by the government of my country
of birth, the United States of America, to undergo obligatory
military service, I refused. "Fighting for peace"
did not make any sense to me, but this decision was taken at no
small personal and social cost. I was portrayed by my government
as unpatriotic, perhaps a traitor. My loyalty was suspect. I would
not "stand
up and make the sacrifice" which I was taught since birth
is the highest calling of true men. Songs, eulogies, obligatory
anthems, monuments, history lessons all suggested my choice of
not serving in the military was most likely governed by cowardice.
It took enormous courage and an unshakable belief in the rightness
of my personal vision, to turn away from this extremely powerful
indoctrination and manipulative social teachings. I experienced
that many ordinary people felt defensive when they discovered
I was a war objector. I have since realized that although I was
not seeking to challenge them to justify their beliefs, they felt
they had to defend themselves against my choice. This was a
illuminating
but distressing discovery for me of the way in which societies
mobilize auto-repression. Mass participation in ostracizing,
marginalizing
and humiliating any member of the group who dares to bring into
question the dominant paradigm helps the ordinary person accept
as "normal"
policies and practices, which if only briefly reflected upon,
would be found to be unacceptable and morally repugnant.
Socialization, the process of educating members of a society in "the norms", provides for social cohesion. This can bring social harmony when all live by the rules, but is usually manipulated by social elites or the ruling class for their own benefit. Where is the space for individual consciousness in social order? Social criticism of an individual's behavior is hard to bear for any member, but especially for the young. Only through the adherence to a clear set of principles can one remain steadfast in the face of deviant mass behavior. I personally found it quite difficult not to reject society as a whole when I felt rejected for not following the social order and saw other young people who became casualties of this social discord by becoming addicted to drugs or becoming criminals as a result of their inability to stand against such rejection.
My decision to refuse military service, even at the cost of my freedom, did not take place in a vacuum. Such a difficult decision was the result of a great deal of introspection and reflection, which led me to take on several vows for my own personal behavior. I became a vegetarian since I believed that there was a connection between involvement in killing to survive (eat) and killing for any other reason. In either case, the threshold of repulsion against the taking of life has already been breached. Another vow was to examine all my own personal connections with "systems of death", the most direct of which was my relationship with my own government. Non-participation in the military would be hypocritical if I still paid taxes to a government that used that money to finance its wars and weapons purchases and a militant foreign policy. Therefore I took the additional vow never to pay my taxes- and to be public about my reasons for refusal to not pay.
Buddhism & Democracy
I believe that
my government should represent me on the world stage, but this
view is not widely shared. I believe that the ideals of liberal
democracy and Buddhism are harmonious. When I have discovered
that the actions of government, any government, cause suffering,
I feel obligated to respond with counter-action. This understanding
has led to my participation in a variety of political projects
to disrupt the most outrageous of government actions- especially
its production of nuclear weapons. I was responsible with others
for the damage, to the extent of several millions of dollars,
of material that had only one purpose- the extermination of large
quantities of life. I considered these objects to be intrinsically
immoral, and therefore had no qualms of working for their absolute
elimination, even by direct action. Property destruction has always
fit within my understanding of nonviolent action. For this type
of morally guided action, I served time in prison as a "criminal".
I finally voted with my feet and now live as an expatriate in
Thailand.
Buddhism
& Action
Buddhism, which
I grew into later in my life, has provided me with a framework
into which my own initial realizations and understandings of
interconnectedness
and complicity are clearly supported. Two key terms of which I
have developed deeper understandings, and which govern my actions,
I define as follows:
* Nonviolence - An active term, which means meeting threats to peace and security at the personal, communal or "national" level with methods which are not violent but directly engage the threat at either the direct, structural or cultural level.
* Buddhism - An active term, which is not just a system of belief but a path in which the goal and the method for reaching that goal are indivisible.
Buddhism, whether Mahayana, Theravada or Vajrayana, share some commonalties namely: the Triple Gem, the Four Fold Truth and the Eight Fold Path. Together, these provide the Buddhist with an essential core or basis for understanding and practice. An active definition of Buddhism means one cannot be "born Buddhist". It is the result of a conscious choice and action, and therefore can only be undertaken in life once a practitioner becomes cognizant enough to reflect on the result of one's actions. This author's operant interpretations of these basic Buddhist truths in relation to the subject of this paper are:
* Triple Gem means accepting that both the Buddha existed and that the path revealed by the Buddha exists. This path is encapsulated in a set of truths called the Dhamma, and people who have accepted to attain these truths as fellow wayfarers on the path revealed by the Buddha are the Sangha (Ordination is not important in this definition of Sangha, but rather the distinct choice to follow the path at more than a blind faith level).
* Four Fold Truth means accepting and integrating into one's life that there is a path out of suffering and that this path encompasses the entirety of the Buddhist life- the Eight Fold Path.
* Eight Fold Path means living one's life within a moral or ethical framework to strengthen one's capacity for developing wisdom and liberation. Morality, wisdom and liberation are both path and goal and are indivisible. They do not come in a sequence, but rather inter-penetrate and manifest together at progressively deeper levels.
Buddhism
& Nonviolence
It is within
the living of life in an ethical framework and the practice of
wisdom that nonviolence is rooted for a Buddhist. If path and
goal are indivisible, how is it possible to attain peace through
violence?
While wise reflection swiftly reveals the folly of the use of
violence, violence is conditioned by three innate forces or
potentialities
within the human being: greed, hatred, and delusion. It is specifically
these latent potentialities which are combatted by the path/goal
of generosity, love and wisdom or the moral framework for living
encompassed by the Eight Fold Path.
Some livelihoods were pointed out by the Buddha as unsuitable for practitioners of the Dhamma nearly 2500 years ago, such as the making or selling of weapons and livelihoods which derive from the killing of animate life (butchery, soldiering, etc). To further discourage others, the Buddha counciled the ordained never to accept an offering of support which specifically required the killing of animate life to make that offering.
However, the Buddha was
an impermanent phenomenon and could only point the way. It is
up to the being living in any age to employ wise reflection and
apply the Buddha's
insights in the modern day. Humanity has advanced technologically,
and this has manifested as new social dilemmas which did not exist
in the Buddha's
time.
The proscription against killing, or involvement in killing, would
clearly require a practicing Buddhist to refrain from any livelihood
based on the taking of animate life. However, a more subtle aspect
of this teaching is the one that required renunciants to refuse
any offering believed to have specifically killed for them. This
teaching educates us about our interconnection to all other living
beings and the necessity to reflect upon our complicity (ordained
or non-ordained) in systems of violence in which we ourselves
may not be the direct actor but are an indirect supporter or
beneficiary
of. Some things in this realm have changed radically since the
time of the Buddha. Most human commerce is no longer carried out
directly, but indirectly, through "the market". The market has become the key
interconnection for human kind, and a Buddhist must use wise reflection
in interactions with this human created institution. Animate life
is no longer taken for the direct benefit of a single specific
person, but for any and all participants in this larger market.
In a modern world, this would suggest that practicing Buddhists
examine deeply their lifestyle connections to greater society
and withdraw as much as possible any support or involvement in
systems which take animate life.
Military service, taxes
paid to a government maintaining a military force, or for the
purchasing of weaponry, investing in companies which make weaponry,
investing in slaughter houses or companies trading in "live
stock"
or depending on the taking of life to produce their products (such
as leather, skins and furs) should clearly all be avoided. Of
perhaps more difficulty is the question of how a Buddhist should
approach modern medicines, when many, but not all, are produced
through the sacrifice of the lives of hundreds of thousands of
mammals. Only a modest amount of research will reveal that many
of these medicines themselves treat diseases that are a result
of greed and hatred, such as cancer, obesity, stress and hyper-tension.
The wisest response could be avoidance by lifestyle change, but
this carries its own costs and requires the reflected upon judgement
of the practitioner.
"Violence
never ceases through violence, only through non-violence. This
is eternal law."(Dhp.5) This truism from the Dhammapada
continues to inspire through the millennia. Putting it into
practice is far more difficult. One of the key practitioners who
revealed the path of active nonviolence as a way of life, as well
as a powerful method of political struggle, was Mahatma Gandhi.
His key teachings were influenced by Hindu, Buddhist and Muslim
understandings of the interconnection of life. He advised his
followers never to cooperate with systems of violence and pointed
out that without our support, these systems will collapse. Unreflected
upon support by the vast majority of people is what allows most
systems of violence to continue.
Wise reflection will
usually undercut the urge to perform individual acts of direct
violence. However, wise reflection is difficult when our security
is threatened. The moment our personal security feels threatened,
ordinary people pull back, and become tense and tight. In these
situations, we are more likely to have our actions governed by
re-action, rather than wisdom. If our life has been conditioned
by reflection and an ethical framework, we are far more likely
to be able to cut through the urge to re-act, and instead act
in a manner consistent with our moral beliefs - not only at those
times when we are confronted with violence but also when we are
assaulted by far more common roots of violence: greed, hatred
or delusion. A life lived within an ethical framework is much
better prepared to respond skillfully in a way which will meet
greed with generosity, hatred with nonviolence and delusion with
wisdom.
It is precisely for this type
of preparation that the Buddha gave practitioners the 5 fold training
in ethical conduct. The key areas
of the framework are
the same for ordained and non-ordained, but the 5 fold framework was
expanded
into a set of more than one hundred specific rules which were
appropriate to
situations commonly met by ordained practitioners during the time of
the
Buddha.
The 5 being:
*
Avoiding
lies and
speaking the truth. Truth is
the
first casualty in war, and violence is fostered by non-truth, secrecy,
mistrust
and deception. Truth is liberating by its very nature. Truth can also
be used
unskillfully which is why we are instructed to speak the truth when it
is
useful and when it is necessary. Sometimes speaking the truth when it
is
necessary will require personal sacrifice. In the political realm this
requires
non-cooperation with corruption and the abuse of power as well as the
defense
of human rights.
*
Non-stealing. How can we foster peace if we are taking
something
belonging to another? With a somewhat deeper reflection, we may
question
whether owning, or having what someone else is prohibited from
obtaining due to
the current social/political order, is a form of theft and a form of
violence.
Non-stealing can help us realize that there are institutional and
structural
forms of violence and theft in which we must not participate. This can
lead to
a satisfying and voluntary reduction in material acquisitions and a
deep desire
to be generous.
*
Sexual
forbearance. This precept
becomes complete abstinence for a
renunciant, but requires the taming of sexual greed and reflection on
the
nature of sexual energy by non-ordained Buddhists. While rape is an
obvious
form of violence driven in part by unskillful understandings of
gendered
beings, the use of sexual energy to influence others is a far more
subtle and
common form of coercion. Reflect for only a moment on how frequently
this is
used to influence commerce, trade, and commercialization between human
beings.
The sexual objectification of human beings is wide spread, but it takes
only a
little reflection to see the connection between the commercial
objectification
and commodification of humans, and the increasing global traffic in
human
beings, sometimes into sexual slavery.
*
Avoidance
of mind
clouding substances. It
should be
obvious that any substance which clouds the mind is not conducive to
wise
reflection, or action. The pressure of society to use these substances
is
enormous, and it is the most common way for the human species to deal
with
stress. Many forms of violence require alcohol or drugs to manifest,
such as
torture, due to the ability of these substances to cut human empathy.
Both
drugs and alcohol, with the exception of medicinal necessities, are
areas of
economic and social activity which should be avoided by wisdom
advocates.
Weapons and alcohol are a particularly lethal combination, and an
enormous
amount of domestic violence takes place when the two come together with
a small
quantity of ordinarily dismissable anger or annoyance.
*
Avoidance
of killing. This is the heart
of nonviolence. Do not kill
yourself, do not allow others to kill, and if possible prohibit their
actions
out of compassion for the target and for the karma of the perpetrator.
We are
all connected.
All
five of
these actions undercut the power which violence has over an individual
enormously and are the basis for a nonviolent and wise life. These will
also
condition a wise and nonviolent result, at least by our own actions.
Wise
and deep reflection takes
time, which is increasingly difficult to obtain in the fast pace of
modern
technologically infused life. Decisions are being made in ever shorter
periods
of time. At the same time each decision has a greater impact than ever
before
because of the gforce multiplierh effect of new communications
technology and
globalization. While wise reflection does not mean simply rebelling
against
modern life, it does require the practitioner to reclaim their power
and refuse
simply to be swept along by the pace of those around them.
Buddhism
calls for a revolution in living, and our relationship with the world
around
us, especially in the realm of political power and political economy.
Non-reflection on the nature of political power and political decisions
that
everyone is involved in leaves the ordinary person as a passive
supporter of
the status quo. Political elites depend on the lack of opposition to
their
exercise of power to commit immoral acts. An understanding of the
inherent
indivisibility of all things and the moral Eight Fold Path requires the
Buddhist practitioner to also be a political revolutionary.
Upaseka Yaso is the Buddhist name of
Yeshua Moser-Puangsuwan. Yeshua is the Regional Repre-sentative of
Nonviolence International in Southeast Asia and teaches Peace and
Conflict at Mahidol University in Bangkok.