Buddhism and Global Issues

  

Bhikkhu sumanapal (Subhasis Barua)

Buddhism is often perceived as too individualistic and passive in its approach to social problems. It was the western scholars of the nineteenth century who were responsible for the generation of such an idea by focusing on such Buddhist texts that inspired a total rejection of the world. More than a century has elapsed since then and a new movement has started within Buddhism itself. In modern Buddhism this movement or socially engaged Buddhism has become so important that some scholars have accorded it the status of a new vehicle which is separate from the three main forms of Buddhism i.e. Hinayana, Mahayana and Vajrayana.  Socially engaged Buddhism not only utilized Buddhist values, they also adopted European and American forms of social protest and involved themselves actively in various social issues like hospice work, ecological programme, voter mobilization, prison reforms, letter writing campaigns etc.. Engaged Buddhism is not defined by any sectarian identity or in other words. They may be the member of any sect. Socially engaged Buddhists can be found everywhere there are Buddhists except those countries where an authoritative Government has stifled it.

Engaged Buddhism owes its existence and vitality to Thich Nhaat Hanh a Vietnamese monk who was nominated by Dr Martin Luther King for the Nobel Peace Prize. In the concept of Socially Engaged Buddhism three ideas are included. They are awareness in daily life, social service and social activism. Engaged Buddhism is concerned with issues of human rights such as anti violence and environmental concerns and at the same time it has a profound influence on the lives of individual Buddhists.   It took shape in a Buddhist country followed by another.  During the twentieth century various disasters took place in Buddhist Asia for which human beings were essentially responsible. They were: nuclear bombs on Japan, genocide in Cambodia, the long and protracted war in South East Asia, the invasion and occupation of Tibet. Socially engaged Buddhism has responded to it by applying loving kindness, compassion and non violence and has sought a solution that would be beneficial for all. Here we shall discuss the experience of Tibet and Vietnam in brief.

Tibet: The Chinese army invaded Tibet in 1949 and as a result Tibet was annexed into the People’s Republic of China by losing its sovereignty. The invasion directly and the famine that followed it caused the death of one sixth of the population of Tibet that amounted to a million.  Many others suffered torture in prison. Apart from that the Chinese Government made a conscious and deliberate attempt to wipe out traditional Tibetan culture, religion and mode of living by transferring a large number of Han Chinese in the Tibetan area. Monk and nuns led the movement against this occupation and as a result a lot of them were sent to prison by the Chinese authorities. At present monks and nuns comprise 79% of the political prisoners in Tibet. Tibetans were allowed by the Indian Government to set up a government in exile in Dharamshala. From Dharamshala the Tibetan leaders are supervising the welfare of Tibetan refugees and are continuing their struggle to acquire autonomy for Tibet. But in their struggle they have always followed means that are non violent and peaceful.

 All over the world the Dalai Lama has established himself as an embodiment of compassion. His followers believe him to be a incarnation of Avolokitesvara or the bodhisattva of compassion. On daily basis the Dalai Lama reportedly cultivates metta or loving kindness for the Chinese leadership.It is expected to help him in practicing it in all his interactions with them. The Tibetans believe that the Chinese are accumulating painful karmic retribution for them in future because of they are oppressing the Tibetans. The Tibetans are of the opinion that the problem should be brought quickly to a satisfactory solution so as to enable the Tibetans to avoid oppression in the hands of the Chinese and the Chinese to avoid further earning of painful karma.  The Tibetans believe that in this way they are protecting themselves for earning negative karma.

However this approach of the Tibetan leadership has not produced any remarkable result and as a result the younger generation of Tibetans are in favour of adopting a new approach in which the possibility of resorting to violence is not entirely ruled out. But the Dalai Lama has clearly stated that he would not be a part of such an approach.

Vietnam:

When the war in Vietnam was going on a group of Buddhist activists belonging to South Vietnam maintained equal distance from both the parties and tried to bring the war to an end by adopting the path of non violence. That is why they came to be known as the Third way which meant that they were neutral, they were infavour of people and life. In order to achieve their aim they adopted various methods including the composition of songs and poems that expressed an anti war attitude to inspire and educate the people, non cooperation with the Government, strikes student boycotts, mass resignation : aiding and protecting military deserters, staging massive anti war or anti Government rallies. Apart from these the monks also adopted the path of self immolation as their last resort. They did it as a method of self sacrifice which they believed would bring the war to an end. According to the Vietnamese they did it in order to protect the people.

One of the main founders of socially engaged Buddhism was Thich Nhat Hanh who was one of its theoretician during the war in Vietnam. His contributions in the movement were primarily based upon his experience during the war. He was an exponent of the idea of being peace. He believed that in order to end the war one has to attain internal peace. He came to this realization by witnessing American ‘peace’ demonstrations which was full of anger as if the protestors themselves were taking part in the war. To him it was not the end of a war but it started a new war. He opined that we should first find our inner peace and only then we would be able to end the war. He advised his disciples to practice mindfulness that would enable them to find their own inner peace and getting rid of the overwhelming sense of fear. He formulated fourteen precepts of Engaged Buddhism. They are as follows:

1.      Do not be idolatrous or bound to any doctrine, theory or ideology, even Buddhist ones. Buddhist systems of thought are guiding means, they are not absolute truths.

2.      Do not think the knowledge you presently possess is changeless absolute truth. Avoid being narrow minded and bound to present truths. 

3.       Do not force others including children by any means whatsoever to adopt your views, whether by authority, threat, money propaganda, or even education.

4.      Do not   avoid contact with suffering or close youreyes to suffering.

5.      Do not accumulate wealth when millions are hungry.

6.      Do not maintain anger or hatred.

7.      Do not lose yourself in dispersion and in your surroundings.

8.       Do not utter words which can create discord and cause the community to break.

9.      Do not say untruthful thinks for the sake of personal interest or to impress people.

10.  Do not use the Buddhist community for personal gain or profit.

11.  Do not live with a vocation that is harmful to humans and nature.

12.  Do not kill. Do not let others to kill.

13.  Possess nothing that should belong to others.

14.  Do not mistreat your body. Learn to treat it with respect. 

Both the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh were the exponents of socially engaged Buddhism. But in doing so they did not abjure the essential qualities of traditional Buddhism but have applied them in a new area.

Poverty:

Sarvodaya Shramadana: The Sarvodaya Shramadana movement of Sri Lanka is one of the most successful movements under socially Engaged Buddhism. Sarvodaya is active in more than 15000 villages of Sri Lanka and is the largest non Government N.G.O ofthe country. Sarvodaya takes part in developmental work. It also actively participated in the relief work after Tsunami, in the peace keeping effort after the protracted civil wart in the country, and in the relief work in the Tamil Camps.

These works are an obvious manifestation of compassion. The Buddha was against poverty. It is said that he refused to talk before a hungry and poor man until he had been fed. Ariyaratne’s movement is a movement that provides a third option apart from capitalism and communism. Armed with the motto small is beautiful he was against endless economic growth which is a product of greed and lust. He opined that need should be met and not greed. The best way is the Middle Path advocated by the Buddha which is a way that lies between wealth and poverty. No one should be cold and hungry but at the same time unnecessary waste should also be avoided.

Roshi Bernie Glassman: The mission of American Zen master was the alleviation of poverty to which he devoted a major part of his life. Glassman was concerned with the poverty of the homeless and chronically unemployed in Yonkers, New York. He was inspired by the works of Ariyaratne and like him believed that the poor needed not handouts but self help. For generating jobs for the unemployed he started a bakery. Soon it was perceived that the solution of one problem led to another, the unemployed people needed training in job skill, communication skill and life skill and also counseling for alcoholism and drug abuse. The interrelationship of these issues was felt by Glassman and he established a network of profit and non profit organizations and named it Greystone Mandala. It contains the Greystone Bakery, a family inn, housing projects, and a health center. The organization makes arrangements for training, counseling, and childcare and after school programmes.

Human Rights and Well Being: Human rights figure at the top of the agenda of Engaged Buddhism. In the Western world rights is a very important concept. Here the idea of rights generated as a mixture of political intellectual and social developments that took place only in the west. The concept of rights occupied a very prominent place in Europe and America since the eighteenth century. Rights can be defined as some power vested on the individual that he can exercise. The Dalai Lama is often seen as endorsing the principles of the contemporary human rights charters. Buddhism does not oppose any single article of the thirty nine articles included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights proclaimed by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948. It is curious to note that many of the rights embodied in the said Charter have a remarkable similarity with Buddhist teachings.

Burma: In Burma the struggle for human rights was spearheaded by San SuKyi and the National League or Democracy. Numerous monks nuns and students and other lay people took part in it against the autocratic rule of the military. This Government adopted brutal means against his own citizens such as random executions, rape, forcibly recruiting children in the army and ethnic cleansing etc. In 1988 and and again in 2007 Buddhist monks and nuns took to the streets in Rangoon and other cities of Burma and demanded human rights and democracy. This is called saffron revolution after the colour of the robes of monks and nuns. There were many reasons for which monks and nuns defended human rights. The most important desire was to protect the common people out of compassion for their suffering. Secondly, to persuade the common people to believe that the Government is corrupt and immoral. The monks condemned the Government by turning their begging bowl   upside down which signaled their refusal to take donations from the military. Thirdly many Burmese considered the monks as sacrosanct whose presence in the street afforded a sense of security to the lay people on the road and inspired them to attain greater heights in rebellion. After an initial hesitation the Government decided to crack down on the monks and nuns and their protests came to a premature end at least for the time being.

Dalit Buddhists: Dalit Buddhists are the class that was converted from the untouchables of India. Though untouchability has been abolished by the constitution of India, it has made an indelible mark in the minds of many people belonging to the so called higher class in India. The word ‘Dalit’ means oppressed and all the former untouchables use this term to describe themselves. The Dalit Buddhists feel that they are oppressed by the Indian society and to them Buddhism is an escape from that oppression.

The famous untouchable leader B.R. Ambedkar decided to abandon Hinduism and adopt Buddhism because in his opinion Hindus would never give up the oppressive caste system. In the year 1956 he adopted Buddhism partly because the Buddha did not adopt the caste system. The dalit people are accepting Buddhism because they believe that Buddhism would give them honour and respect and the prospect of a better life.

As a result of the various programmes initiated by the Indian Government regarding education and unemployment some Dalits enjoy a higher standard of living but there are also some whose life has remained unaffected by all those schemes.  The group that is helping the Dalit Buddhists in various areas is the ‘Friends of Indian Buddhist Order’. Their principal aim is to fulfill the social and economic needs of the dalits. Teaching Buddhism to the newly converted Buddhists is also one of their aims. 

Tzu Chi: Tzu Chi (also known as Buddhist Compassionate Relief Organization was founded in Taiwan by Ven. Master Cheng Yen. This organization is active in the field health care. The starting point of this institution is a personal experience of Cheng Yen. One day she visited a hospital in Taiwan and saw a pool of blood on the floor. She came to know that it came from an aboriginal woman who suffered a miscarriage. That woman was denied admission in the hospital as she did not have the money to pay the cost involved.  This incident inspired Cheng Yen  to establish with the help of donations a large hospital fully equipped with modern facilities and providing free treatment. Tzu Chi was successful because she got financial help from many people particularly form housewives who in spite of living a comfortable life were unhappy. They found their life empty and meaningful. So whenever they found an opportunity they promptly came forward to help Cheng Yen to make their life meaningful.

Environment: Ecology occupies a very important position in Buddhism and it regards animals as sentient beings. Many Buddhist monasteries of past and present function as wildlife sanctuaries. For instance, Zen Mountain Monastery in New York offers regular retreats in the forest and gives people a chance of gaining spiritual experience within natural settings. In Thailand the monks are actively opposing the country’s rapid deforestation. Sometimes they advise lay people to donate tree seedlings and not money or robes to the monastery in order to earn merit. Again they turn the trees into a sacred object by ordaining one of the older trees as a monk. The leading monks taking part in this movement often receive threats of harm from people with vested interest especially from those belonging to the logging industry. Some of them were even expelled from the sangha as a result of their activities. One monk who protested against logging even got killed. 

Berkeley California based organization Buddhist Peace Fellowship offers a very comprehensive programme on various aspects of socially engaged Buddhism. Robert and Anne Aitken, Nelson Foster, and a few of their Zen friends started this movement together in 1978 9n Hawaii. They had to wait for almost a year before the membership of the organization reached 50. A number of eminent personalities like Allan Hunt Badiner, Catherine Ingram, Claude Whitmyer, Joanna Macy Stephen Bachelor, Susan Murcott, Sulak Sivaraska and the Dalai Lama figured in their list of authors. The organization has actively participated in movements for human rights in Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh, and has also endeavoured to obtain the release of some jailed monks belonging to Vietnam’s Unified Buddhist Church.

Engaged Buddhism is common throughout the countries where Buddhists live but there are some controversial issues surrounding it.

Westernization: Sometimes Engage Buddhism is said to be Westernized Buddhism. It has to be admitted that engaged Buddhism was very much impacted by western influence and its leaders had connections with the West. But at the same time Engaged Buddhism has questioned western values and belief systems and instead of passively receiving western influence has chosen what to accept and what not to. For instance it has accepted the idea of human rights but has rejected the exhibition of anger found in Western peace demonstration

Some people claim that Engaged Buddhism is a new and novel form of Buddhism but there is a lot of debate regarding this issue. According to Thich Nhat Hanh there is nothing new in Socially Engaged Buddhism. Supporters of this view claim that it is wrong to brand Buddhism as world renouncing because Buddhism promotes the concept of Bodhisattva whose ideal is to render selfless service to the suffering humanity. They also think that the Buddha is a social activist whose aim was to reform the society by establishing the sangha. Their opponents are of the opinion that though Buddhism may contain concern for the society at large it did not receive due recognition until the twentieth century. According to some scholars engaged Buddhism was influenced by Christianity particularly by theliberal notions of social service and active Protestantism. We do not come across in the Buddhist scriptures the issues that occupy the attention of the followers of Engaged Buddhism. However, Walpola Rahula claimed as early as 1946 that there were explicit ethos present in the earliest Buddhist teachings. The Buddha himself advised the monks to travel far and wide for the benefits of the common people. His discourses to the lay people were not entirely concerned with philosophy or spiritualism they contained advice on social domestic and economic matters as well. 

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