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Buddhist Teachings on Social Justice. Deep Democracy.
Deep Ecology and Environmental Justice
Thich Nhat Hanh, coined the phrase 'Engaged Buddhism' in Vietnam during the 1960s to refer to the work of the Buddhists who were looking to non-violent solutions to the war in southeast Asia. He has also remarked that there was really be no such thing as ' Engaged Buddhism'. Buddhism is by its nature 'engaged.' When we use the term we are just reminding ourselves of an important aspect of Buddhist teachings. Of course, there is no such thing as disengaged Buddhism-a Buddhism divorced from life, and from ethical responsibility, divorced from awareness of the world. It would not be Buddhism at all. Buddhism affirms that life, and all life's conditions are interconnected.
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Engaged Buddhism has been associated with the work of specific organizations such as the Sarvodia Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists; as well as with the work of His Holiness the Dalai Lama within the Tibetan community in exile, Thich Nhat Hanh in the Vietnamese community, and Venerable Mahaghosananda in Cambodia.Yet all teachings of the Dharma, no matter what their specific emphasis might be, teach us how to live in the world and to learn and grow from within the circumstances of our lives. The transcendentalism implicit in the doctrine of theistic religions has no place in Buddhist teaching. By transcendentalism we mean the assumption that present reality is not enough, and that there is an elsewhere, some other reality, outside of this present reality. Perhaps we construe it as some sort of reward for our practice. We may even think of it as something to which we are entitled because we think of ourselves as a member of the chosen few. It is like thinking that you will acquire a hard-to-get visa because you have connections in the embassy. Except in this case there is no embassy, there is no other country, no other place to go. This is it. Right here. Aspects of transcendentalism may have entered inadvertently as Buddhism migrated to the west. Much earlier in its history aspects of Indian transcendentalism also influenced Buddhism. Yet the implication of the original teachings is clear. "Liberation is possible here and now; and your liberation and my own liberation are intimately interconnected."
Deep Democracy
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Democracy in capitalist societies often means little more than the acquisition of certain legalized rights and entitlements (including, of course, the right to vote). But democracy is more than just the right to vote (especially when all political parties are controlled by the same corporate interests). To a Buddhist, democracy means freedom, both for oneself and for others. Freedom means the freedom to give others the room to be fully themselves, to fully realize their own full potential. In other words, it is the exact opposite of exploitation and oppression. It means that if we are truly free we will work to free others from fear, animosity, greed, oppression, exploitation, and the delusion of isolation. It also means that we will work to alleviate the conditions that create these things.
The historical Buddha shocked the social conservatives of his day by accepting disciples from all social classes, including from the lowest caste, the 'untouchables'. Within Indian culture, as in North American protestant culture today, there was a notion that status and wealth had some relation to moral worth; that wealth and status are the fruits of karma, or a reward from God. The Buddha insisted that anyone, no matter what their social position might be, was worthy and fully capable of realizing the truth.
The Buddha also took the unprecedented step of accepting women into his monastic order. In the patriarchal society of fifth century BCE India, as elsewhere, women were seen as little more than property. In early Buddhism nuns never became the exact equals of monks, but they were regarded with respect and included within the monastic community. This was unprecedented.
The issues that the Buddha addressed are still current today. Elitism, racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression are as relevant now as they were then. As a movement, Engaged Buddhism is perhaps simply way of acknowledging this pressing truth and continuing the work that the Buddha started twenty-five centuries ago.
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Nevertheless, a gulf remains. Those who face a daily struggle against racism, and systemic economic and cultural violence can scarcely be called upon to work to save the Arctic Wildlife Refuge or the Florida Everglades. We must stretch the imagination to realize that there is no genuine cause more worthy than another. We work where we are and trust that others will do the same.
IMAGINATION. As has been famously pointed out by Arundhati Roy, the imagination is one of the casualties of oppression. This is true for both oppressor and oppressed. The perpetuation of violence and systemic exploitation creates a vortex in which fewer and fewer alternatives present themselves to all of those involved. Oppression become the norm. Imagining alternatives becomes harder and less appealing.
A unique gift of Buddhist practice is that it restores the imagination and the heart. The cultivation of awareness and insight, the ability to look deeply, allows us to look at the conditions of the world around us, as well as at the conditions of our own life. Practice brings our faculties into balance. Intellect, intuition and emotions work together. We drop our selfish point of view. We stand with others, we appreciate their point of view. But we are not lost in mere relativism. We desire to help where we can. Far from seeking to abolish desire, Buddhist practice seeks to realize desire, to move towards the full expression of the desires that are born out of compassion and love, empathy and human affection. The healthy imagination supports this work. It allows us to know that there is always something else beyond the horizon of our immediate understanding.
A healthy imagination also allows us to see that the places where humans live and work need to be as beautiful and safe as any pristine unpopulated place. The imagination lets us know that our kinship with those displaced into abject desperation by policies implemented half a world away is a real as with those who live next door. Environmental malpractice is interwoven with racism, homophobia, sexism, and other forms of discrimination and violence. When the imagination is healthy you already know this to the core. And if the grief of knowing is more than you can bear then the imagination allows you to build community and friendship-communities of resistance-where the imagination can then become even richer and wilder, nourished by common cause, and and where healing can take place. . .
see also our page on Deep Ecology
.. hurt not the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree . . . Revelation 9:4
The absolute desire of 'having more' encourages the selfishness that destroys communal bonds among the children of God. It does so because the idolatry of riches prevents the majority from sharing the goods that the Creator has made for all, and in the all-possessing minority it produces an exaggerated pleasure in these goods.
Archbishop Oscar Romero
Batahola Norte liberation theology church in Managua
Liberation Theology in its Latin-American, African-American, Native-American, Ecological and Feminist forms has been the principle force for change within Christianity over the last several decades. It has worked to open the eyes of Christian communities and churches to oppression and human misery and to oppose the socioeconomic systems and political structures that perpetuate it. Archbishop Oscar Romero and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. were both articulate martyrs to its cause-martyrs because they were so articulate.
Engaged Buddhism is a counterpart to Liberation Theology, drawing attention to the need for a deeply Buddhist response to the oppression of these times. It challenges the patriarchal and apolitical tendencies within many Buddhist institutions. It draws, as does Liberation Theology, from elements outside itself, feminism, deep ecology, Gandhian principles of active non-violence, marxist analysis. It is not a dilution either of Buddhism or of those other elements it learns from. It is a confluence, always seeking an appropriate and skilful response to difficult and dangerous situations.Speak out for those who cannot speak, for the rights of all the destitute. Proverbs
LINKS
Buddhist Peace Fellowship http://www.bpf.org
International Network of Engaged Buddhists http://www.bpf.org/html/resources_and_links/think_sangha/ineb/ineb.html
Harvard Forum on Religion and Ecology: Buddhism http://environment.harvard.edu/religion/religion/buddhism/links.htmlSarvodia Shramadana Movement. Sri Lanka http://www.sarvodaya.org/
The Prison Dharma Network http://www.prisondharmanetwork.org/
New Voices in Engaged Buddhist Studies by Kenneth Kraft http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/7/kraft001.html
A Concise History of Liberation Theology in Latin America http://www.landreform.org/boff2.htm
BOOKS
The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World Donald Rothberg
Seeds of Peace Sulak Sivaraksa
Conflict, Culture, Change Sulak Sivaraksa
Dharma Rain edited by Stephanie Kaza and Kenneth Kraft
Engaged Buddhist Reader edited by Arnold Kotler
New Social Face of Buddhism Ken Jones
Interbeing: Fourteen Guidelines for Engaged Buddhism Thich Nhat Hanh
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. .
. all things are interconnected,
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Those who say
that politics and spirituality
are not connected to each other
understand neither spirituality nor politics.
Mohandas K. Gandhi
manzanita@ordinarydharma.org
Telephone
800-619-8416
760-782-9223
Ordinary Dharma and Manzanita Village
PO Box 67,
Warner Springs,
CA 92086
Telephone
800-619-8416
760-782-9223
Fax
760-782-0655