How to Change The World by Ajahn Brahm

This is not new, but it's new to me. I thought it was a pretty good talk.

I also have a playlist on YouTube where I'm collecting videos like this that are relevant to Buddhism and politics. (There's a widget embedded on the sidebar to the left that links to this also, and it includes an RSS feed.)

If you're in need of some humor, you might want to skip to the funny part using this link. I kind of like Dr. Who, but I don't like it that much!

Once sufficiently amused, rewinding to the beginning to watch the whole talk is recommended.

Mark Blum: Environmentalism, Buddhism & Transcendentalism

One of the things that really bothers me, and that I feel motivated to write about, is people trying to hijack Buddhism for their own purposes. So recently my attention was grabbed when I came across a talk by Mark Blum Associate Professor of Japanese Studies at the East Asian Studies department of SUNY Albany. Description:

"Environmentalism, Buddhism and Transcendentalism;" on April 3rd, 2008 as part of the Buddhist Studies Seminar at Columbia University. He explores how views of ecology among modern Eco-Buddhists might be grounded more in the philosophies of Transcendentalists such as Emerson and Thoreau than in Buddhist traditions.

The talk is 1 hour and 15 minutes long. I listened to the whole thing and attempted to take some notes. Some notable quotes and points from my notes are recounted below.

Blum: "In the process of two years of research, we discovered that there was no notion of 'nature' in Indian Buddhism."

Blum also says: "...what I discovered in trying to read through a lot of ecological Buddhist writings in the west, based in Buddhist thought...at least the American version of this...shares more with Transcendentalist thinkers like Emerson and Thoreau than it does with anything Buddhist."

The religious form of ecology, known as deep ecology or "ecological activism as spiritual path", originated in Europe. The term was coined by Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss in 1973.

One example that professor Blum gives of this becoming intermixed with Buddhism is "ecology monks" in Thailand ordaining trees.

What does it mean to ordain trees? Blum states, "The baptizing of trees by by monks in Thailand in the 20th century could have only happened because of the 20th century... because of the spread of the rhetoric of Transcendentalism from America to Thailand."

He mentions that bringing attention to ecological problems is good, but ordaining trees is just inconceivable within Buddhism. (In fact he can't help but snicker at the idea which is apparent in the audio.)

In Thailand, for exmaple, even though spirits who live in trees are revered, if something happens to a spirit's tree then the spirit simply moves to another tree. Even in this case, sacredness is not in tree but in the spirit itself.

Blum mentions parts of DN 27: The Agganna Sutta about how man affects environment and environment effects man. The interaction is moral, not about mutual dependence of man and nature. The main theme is that of attachment, the goal being to remove attachment to nature, not attach sacredness to it and embrace it or identify with it as some Eco-Buddhists have advocated.

Buddhist cosmology is hierarchical; animals are inferior to humans. Trees aren't sentient and don't even rate as part of a "realm". Animals are presumed to be unhappy and morally flawed; a more ideal world would have fewer animals in it. The Eco-Buddhist concept of humans and animals being part of the same realm (humans simply being more clever animals) is at odds with Buddhist tradition.

Blum relates the idea of the sacredness of nature in East Asian Buddhist writings to Taoist escapism and the animism popular in medieval Japan.

The second half of the talk focuses on American Transcendentalism and the idea of self in nature, the divine in nature, and transcending the self by getting back to "savage" nature, etc. Clearly these ideas are not Buddhist.

Henry David Thoreau advocated the idea of "self-transcendence in nature", transcendence of "who one is" by losing his consciousness of self "in nature." Thoreau held reverence for the wild and salvage, and faith in the salvation of self-discipline.

Thoreau: "It would imply the regeneration of mankind if they were to become elevated enough to truely worship sticks and stones." (Source) Not a very Buddhist idea.

Blum mentions that Thoreau and Emmerson were influenced by Asian philosophy, including Buddhism, which is perhaps why some transcendentalist philosophy does have some things in common with Buddhism, but it is not equivalent to Buddhism. Overall though, Transcendentalism comes from Unitarianism which was a Christian reaction against Puritanism.

Blum further mentions that there is nothing in Buddhism about agency in nature; earth is not a deity. This idea seems to have more to do with Unitarian or Transcendentalist ideas such as the presence of the divine in nature; nature IS God. (Similarly some have stated ideas such as nature IS Buddha but I can't remember at which point this came up in the talk.)

He at one point makes a comment about how National Socialism (Nazi Party) was very ecologically friendly and had many green policies, which he associated with rejection of Christian policies and beliefs. (A recent book that talks about this is Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg.) He doesn't really get into it but I think the lesson here is that it's important not to reject or embrace things for negative reasons (hatred of Christianity for example) as it often leads one to embrace other forms of hatred.

My Comments

Overall, though I do a poor job of taking notes and editing them, he makes a good case that religious environmentalism doesn't really have much to do with Buddhism.

The main legitimate ties I see with Buddhism and environmentalism are that of compassion and refraining from harmful behavior. Nature is not sacred, animals are not noble, but that doesn't mean that it's ok to harm them and that one should not seek to protect them from environmental hazards.

So I think that the main point is that any Buddhist environmental focus should be on non-harm and compassion rather than some sense of "sacredness" in nature, or out of some reaction to Christian ideas about nature belonging to humans. Ultimately what matters is reducing the suffering of beings and this can be done to some extent by protecting the environment, but it's not Buddhist to take action out of some abstract sense of "sacredness" of nature. Any action must be directed at reducing the suffering of humans and other beings, and working for their welfare.

Of course, in order do this it is important that one is doing it for the right reasons and not out of hatred as the Nazis possibly did. Hatred will lead to more hatred, and actions out of hatred, even if they seem good at first, may not continue to remain good if the real goal is to harm those you hate.

This is why the elimination of hatred through personal practice is so important, and unfortunately this is probably neglected by most people, especially those overly focused on the behavior of others.

Site Features

Since I'm sort of a nerdy computer programmer type who does web and Internet-related technical stuff for a living, I sometimes like to tinker with stuff. This includes adding lots of crazy little features and widgets to this blog. Here are the ones that I've added, in case anyone is interested in reading about them. Feedback requested.

First off, you probably notice that the blog is implemented using Blogger. Really I didn't bother to compare with other blogging services but I'm pretty happy with Blogger.

This is a little button from addtihs.com that makes it a little easier to subscribe to the blog's RSS feed.

The feed is also processed by Feedburner which does some interesting things like collecting feed stats and performing some modifications to the feed. Feedburner also allows me to create this little animated GIF and collect clickthrough stats on it:


Also related to RSS, there are actually 3 RSS feeds here. The first is the actual blog RSS feed, the second is the Newsroll (which is also a widget over on the left), and the third is the Booklist.

The Newsroll is implemented using a special shared tag in Google Reader; basiclaly anything I tag as "politicalbuddhism" will show up in the newsroll. I try to keep this limited rather than flooded with articles about Tibet or something that are already all over the news.

The Booklist is implemneted using the "My Library" feature of Google Books. Any books that I tag as "politicalbuddhism" will show up in this book list RSS feed. So this allows people to keep track of books I come across that seem relevant.

Also from addtihs.com is this bookmark button at the bottom of each post that makes it easier to bookmark an individual post using a variety of bookmark services. Stole this idea from Buddhist News Digest.

This blog is indexed by Technorati (when Technorati is actually working properly, which is not all the time) and if you'd like to help promote the blog a little bit, please add it to your favorites using this button.

Page translation is supplied by the Google Translate Gadget. (I stole this idea from Forest Wisdom.)

Recent Comments are shown in a widget over on the left. I think this is kind of helpful to show what people are talking about recently without having to pick through the whole site.

The Popular Posts widget over on the left gives you some sense of what people have found most interesting based on the number of comments.

This blog participates in a few directories like Webring, Blog Catalog, and Blogflux.

According to Blogflux Top Sites, my blog is actually not at the bottom of the list! Amazing! This is at least somewhat confidence-inspiring.

This little thing is kind of cool. Click that button to see visitors to the site in the last day plotted on Google Maps.

Finally, the RSS newsfeed widget from SpringWidgets is kind of cool. I think I'll use it whenever I tell someone about a new blog or other news source so they can get an idea of what it's like. Example:



If you'd like to embed a widget like this for the Political Buddhism blog, you can do so by going here. You can create a widget like this for any one or more RSS feeds that you want by going here.

Well anyway, that ought to be enough dukkha for one blog, for now.

A Good Friend to All

Dhamma81 recently said something that I thought was good:

I always reflect on Ajahn Jayasaro's statement that a monk is a "good friend" to all, and that to get caught up in partisanship and political bickering could cause a lot of damage to all in the long run. If taken like that then a monastery would be a place where everyone could drop their worldly concerns and focus on the practice regardless of whether you're a criminal, a saint, or fall to the left or the right of the political spectrum. All would be welcome without conflict, because a monk and a monastery are supposed to be refuges, not tools for political agendas.

Also from his blog, Dhamma Reflections: Monks and Politics:

Ajahn Jayasaro echoes my sentiments in one of his talks when he says that the reason monks should stay out of politics is because they should be a refuge to all beings regardless of political persuasion. Here in the West a lot of folks seem to look down on people with the views held by Ajahn Jayasaro, especially those in the so called 'engaged Buddhist' movement, but his point is quite valid. If monks start taking sides in political affairs then that has the ability to corrupt the Sangha and cause a loss in faith in lay folks. People across the political spectrum should be able to go to a monastery and take refuge in the Dhamma, not monks that share political views.

King Bimbasara pays homage to the Buddha.

From the suttas we can tell that the Buddha generally didn't have any enemies among kings. (The only exception perhaps being Prince Ajatasattu, but then mostly due to the extreme manipulation of Devadatta.)

Would the Buddha have had such a non-hostile and even positive relationship with monarchs had he chose to go around praising one king while disparaging another?

Anyway, check out Dhamma81's blog. Since I've been tinkering with all kinds of web widget junk lately, here's a crazy flash widget that'll give you a quick overview of what it currently contains:

Advice to Sigala Part 2: The Six Ways of Squandering Wealth

This is the second installment (see Part 1) in a series of posts on DN 31: Sigalovada Sutta, The Buddha's Advice to Sigala the householder. Previously covered were the four impure actions and the four causes of harmful deeds.

Next the Buddha talks about the six ways of squandering wealth and this is where he starts to get more explicit about bad behavior. The sutta continues:

"And what six ways of squandering wealth are to be avoided? Young man, heedlessness caused by intoxication, roaming the streets at inappropriate times, habitual partying, compulsive gambling, bad companionship, and laziness are the six ways of squandering wealth.

Now you may notice that these things aren't really problems only for squandering wealth, as the Buddha is about to elaborate on. Again I suspect here that the Buddha is trying to frame things in a manner that will get Sigala to pay attention. After all, householders at that time were more like business owners than employees and their primary concern and occupation was the operation of their business.

So the Buddha here has mentioned six things, each of which he elaborates on starting with intoxication:

"These are the six dangers inherent in heedlessness caused by intoxication: loss of immediate wealth, increased quarreling, susceptibility to illness, disrepute, indecent exposure, and weakened insight.

You may remember from last time that consuming intoxicants was not mentioned as one of the four impure actions, whereas it is the last of the five precepts. This suggests to me that consuming intoxicants in and of itself is not necessarily an impure action, but it's the resulting state that's impure.

Also note that the Buddha here is talking about the state of intoxication and not simply "consuming intoxicants." This makes it clear that it's the state of being intoxicated that's the real problem. After all, if beer didn't get you drunk then drinking it wouldn't be any worse than drinking water or milk. This also suggests that having a single beer or glass of wine with a meal, something which is highly unlikely to cause intoxication, isn't such a big deal, though one might argue that any alcohol consumption at all is going to have some subtle effect. (I rarely drink any alcohol because even one drink causes me to feel a bit down or off, even if it doesn't get me drunk or anything.)

Also worth noting is that "intoxication" might be caused by more than just consuming intoxicants.

Furthermore, the Buddha was probably more interested in addressing gross errors here rather than nitpicking. The subtle effects of small amount of alcohol might be lost on Sigala, causing him to think that an outright prohibition on alcohol or other intoxicant consumption might be a bit dogmatic or superstitious. The Buddha does mention "weakened insight" which is somewhat subtle.

Here we also see that the Buddha gets beyond simply talking about wealth, and into the other practical problems of drunkenness such as the tendency to quarrel, health problems, and otherwise making an idiot of yourself. So clearly this is not just about wealth, but is simply being framed in householder terms. A householder's wealth is wealth, while a monk's wealth is wisdom and discernment, but Sigala is not a monk and not yet a lay follower of the Buddha.

After this, some of the things that the Buddha start to get a little less obvious as problems to some people, especially to those in modern societies:

"These are the six dangers inherent in roaming the streets at inappropriate times: oneself, one's family, and one's property are all left unguarded and unprotected; one is suspected of crimes; then rumors spread; and one is subjected to many miseries.

I wish I knew more about what kinds of things might cause one to want to "roam the streets at inappropriate times" at that time and in that culture, but my guess is that it could range from innocent activities like looking for friends to say "hi" to and socialize with to looking for prostitutes. In any case, people with a wife and kids in any society generally don't have time for this while still taking care of their familial responsibilities, and people are likely to expect the worst when someone with a family is out at the bar or goofing off at late hours all the time.

"These are the six dangers inherent in habitual partying: You constantly seek, 'Where's the dancing? Where's the singing? Where's the music? Where are the stories? Where's the applause? Where's the drumming?'

It's important to note that the translators in this case used "habitual partying" whereas Ven. Nerada uses the probably more literal "frequenting theatrical shows." I'm going to assume that the translators of the first version did their research and that what was meant here is something more like "partying" rather than simply going to to movies or something.

Because so many people now have television, radio, and audio players, this may not seem like such a big deal anymore. After all, people can just walk around with their MP3 players and not have to worry about "Where's the singing?" because the singing is with them all the time; they don't need to seek out a live band all the time to hear music. Still, being overly obsessed with entertainment means that you're not doing more constructive things (like perhaps reading this sutta), and it can become an addiction as well as a distraction. At least these days the cost isn't as high as it used to be, for those in wealthier societies anyways.

So, while watching TV or listening to music isn't so bad especially with the convenience of such things in modern society, excessive "partying" would probably tend to lead one into excessive addition to entertainment, if not drugs and alcohol.

"These are the six dangers inherent in compulsive gambling: winning breeds resentment; the loser mourns lost property; savings are lost; one's word carries no weight in a public forum; friends and colleagues display their contempt; and one is not sought after for marriage, since a gambler cannot adequately support a family.

I'm not sure how much needs to be said here. Gambling is another form of entertainment for people, but it's a bad one. It's more addictive than music and TV, and it generally requires losing more wealth. It is also what is known as a zero-sum game, meaning that if you win someone else has to lose. So even if you're good at poker and win more than you lose, you're not creating any wealth, only taking it from other people.

In contrast, if you're a craftsman who makes things, then you're taking something worth less (like a raw material) and making it into something that is worth more to people than the sum of the inputs, like a finished craft. People will pay you for your craft, you will make money, and they will get something useful as well. Generally everyone will be happy with this, whereas in gambling someone will lose whether it's you or your opponent, and nothing useful will be produced except perhaps a very expensive sense of "entertainment."

Many other religions recognize this and denounce gambling as well, so this is not particularly controversial, dogmatic, or specific to Buddhism.

"These are the six dangers inherent in bad companionship: any rogue, drunkard, addict, cheat, swindler, or thug becomes a friend and colleague.

I think the key point here is that the more you hang out with thieves or other rowdy, dishonest, harmful people, the more you will become sucked-in to their activities. This will of course lead you to into impure actions and harmful deeds.

Note that the term used here is "companionship" which means don't hang out with these kinds of people all the time. It doesn't mean never speak to them at all or be overtly hostile all the time. Another terms might be "fellowship" which suggests that you shouldn't make such people your family.

"These are the six dangers inherent in laziness: saying, 'It's too cold,' one does not work; saying, 'It's too hot,' one does not work; saying, 'It's too late,' one does not work; saying, 'It's too early,' one does not work; saying, 'I'm too hungry,' one does not work; saying, 'I'm too full,' one does not work. With an abundance of excuses for not working, new wealth does not accrue and existing wealth goes to waste."

Some people out there would like to think that Buddhism is about slacking off. After all, the world is imperfect and wealth isn't the ultimate answer to siffering, so why do anything? Why make money at all? But the fact is that people are supposed to be taking care of their responsibilities whether they are laypeople or monks. As previously noted, a householder at the time was typically responsible for a business which various employees would be depending on for their livelihood. To neglect this business would make it difficult for the less fortunate employees to continue to eat. Wealth may not be the ultimate answer but people aren't going to find the ultimate answer if they can't eat, and are in a state of deprivation. Wealth is especially important for those who have others' depending on them to pay their salaries.

The Buddha also lectured monks about laziness extensively. One major sutta on this is AN 8.80: Kusita-Arambhavatthu Sutta, The Grounds for Laziness & the Arousal of Energy. An example:

"There is the case where a monk has some work to do. The thought occurs to him: 'I will have to do this work. But when I have done this work, my body will be tired. Why don't I lie down?' So he lies down. He doesn't make an effort for the attaining of the as-yet-unattained, the reaching of the as-yet-unreached, the realization of the as-yet-unrealized. This is the first grounds for laziness.

Some people think monks don't really do anything, probably because meditation doesn't look like work to most people, but they have duties such as the practice, studying, and teaching. Buddhism is not about being a lazy slacker, because Nibbana will not come if you just wait long enough and pontificate on how great it is to be lazy.

This part of the sutta finishes with another section of verse:

That is what the Buddha said.

Summing up in verse, the sublime teacher said:

"Some are drinking buddies,
Some say, 'Dear friend! Dear friend!'.
But whoever in hardship stands close by,
That one truly is a friend.

Sleeping late, adultery,
Hostility, meaninglessness,
Harmful friends, utter stinginess:
These six things destroy a person.

Bad friends, bad companions,
Bad practices — spending time in evil ways,
By these, one brings oneself to ruin,
In this world and the next.

Seduction, gambling, drinking, singing, dancing,
Sleeping by day, wandering all around untimely,
Harmful friends, utter stinginess:
These things destroy a person.

They play with dice; they drink spirits;
They consort with lovers dear to others.
Associating with low-life and not the esteemed,
They come to ruin like the waning moon.

Whoever is a drunkard, broke, and destitute,
Dragged by thirst from bar to bar,
Sinking into debt like a stone in water
Into bewilderment quickly plunges.

When sleeping late becomes a habit
And night is seen as time to rise,
For one perpetually intoxicated,
A home life cannot be maintained.

'Too cold! Too hot!
Too late!': they say.
Having wasted work time this way,
The young miss out on opportunities.

For one regarding cold and hot
As not more than blades of grass,
Doing whatever should be done,
Happiness will not be a stranger."

Again, one thing to point out here is that the Buddha is not talking about how you need to become fabulously wealthy, but for one who is lazy and constantly makes excuses, "a home life cannot be maintained."

Next in the sutta, the Buddha talks about the nature of true friends and those who are just pretending to be, and this will be the subject of the next post.

Paul Harrison Interview on "Buddhism and Politics"

From the Buddhist News Digest:

Jayshree Bajoria of the Council on Foreign Relations recently did an interview with Professor Paul Harrison, who currently holds the George Edwin Burnell Professorship in Religious Studies at Standford University and is a faculty member of the Stanford Center for Buddhist Studies. The interview is entitled "Buddhism and Politics," and deals mainly with the increasing role Buddhist monks have played in modern politics across Asia.

Link to the original post where you can listen to the interview. Dr. Harrison seems to know what he's talking about.

Video: The Politics of Buddhism in Burma

Description from YouTube:

Jesse Hirsh host of 3D Dialogue interviews Bush Gulati, from the Committee for Restoration of Democracy in Burma, regarding the role of Buddhist Monks in the struggle against the military dictatorship.

The discussion starts with the history of Buddhism in Burma, and goes on to explore the relationship between the monks and the lay people. This is followed by a brief history of the political activism of the monks, as well as how they're engaging politics in Burma in the modern day. The discussion ends with a call to action to the International community to step forward and help the people of Burma.

I thought this video was interesting. Mr. Gulati describes the monks more as "encouraging" the lay population to do something. He spends a bit of time describing the relationship between the monks and lay community.

Advice to Sigala Part 1: On Impure Actions, Harmful Deeds

Well, enough talking about world events and wondering why monks are doing this-and-that with regard to politics. Time to talk about suttas again.

One of the most important ones for laypeople, perhaps, is DN 31: the Sigalovada Sutta (Narada Thera | Kelly/Sawyer/Yareham) also known as the Layperson's Code of Discipline. Note there is more than one translation on Access to Insight, and it doesn't include the Maurice Walshe translation from The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of the Digha Nikaya.

So which translation do I use? Well, I'm too lazy to type from a book so I'll use one of the ones that I have in electronic form. The John Kelly, Sue Sawyer, and Victoria Yareham translation seems to be a bit more colloquial (using terms like "drinking buddies") while Ven. Nerada's translation is a bit more literal (using terms like "bottle friend"). I'll use the former with reference to the later.

For those who aren't familiar with it, this is a sutta about Sigala the householder, who encounters the Buddha during his morning ritual of "worshiping the six directions" in the literal sense. The Buddha recognizes that the young householder is taking things too literally and doesn't see the significance of the six directions.

At that time a young householder named Sigalaka arose early and set out from Rajagaha with freshly washed clothes and hair. With palms together held up in reverence, he was paying respect towards the six directions: that is east, south, west, north, lower and upper.
...
[The Buddha said:] "But, young man, that is not how the six directions should be worshipped according to the discipline of the noble ones."

The Buddha starts out talking about protecting oneself in the general sense through basic virtue:

"Young man, by abandoning the four impure actions, a noble disciple refrains from harmful deeds rooted in four causes and avoids the six ways of squandering wealth. So, these fourteen harmful things are removed. The noble disciple, now with the six directions protected, has entered upon a path for conquering both worlds, firmly grounded in this world and the next. At the dissolution of the body after death, a good rebirth occurs in a heavenly world.

"What four impure actions are abandoned? The harming of living beings is an impure action, taking what is not given is an impure action, sexual misconduct is an impure action, and false speech is an impure action. These four are abandoned."

At this point he is not addressing the directions specifically but in the more general sense of protecting all directions from oneself and oneself from all directions. Note that the Buddha is speaking of rebirth in a heavenly world and protection in this world; he isn't talking about Nibbana. I should try to find some commentary to confirm, but it sounds like he is speaking to someone who hasn't gone for refuge and may not know anything of Buddha-Dhamma. Therefore we can probably conclude that this is the sort of advice that the Buddha would give to anyone regardless of their stated religion.

Note also that he has covered the first four of the Five Precepts. Why? Because these are the ones that "really matter"; the fifth precept (to abstain from intoxicants) is mostly there because intoxication tends to cause one to break the other four. It's quite possible that intoxicants would be just fine if they didn't cause heedlessness, but really the causes of heedlessness aren't limited to chemical intoxicants. In fact, the Buddha doesn't mention this yet because he's about to elaborate on the whole subject of heedlessness-causing things in a big way later in the sutta. He may also not mention it in brief here because, without additional explanation, urging him to avoid intoxicants might seem arbitrary and dogmatic to Sigala at this point.

So, this covers the four impure actions. These four actions tend to be condemned by Buddhists and non-Buddhist alike.

"What are the four causes of harmful deeds? Going astray through desire, hatred, delusion, or fear, the noble disciple does harmful deeds. But, young man, not going astray through desire, hatred, delusion, or fear, the noble disciple does not perform harmful deeds."

That is what the Buddha said.

Summing up in verse, the sublime teacher said:

"Desire, hatred, delusion, or fear:
Whoever transgresses the Dhamma by these,
Has a reputation that comes to ruin,
Like the moon in the waning fortnight.

Desire, hatred, delusion, or fear:
Whoever transgresses not the Dhamma by these,
Has a reputation that comes to fullness,
Like the moon in the waxing fortnight."

Now the Buddha is getting a bit deeper, talking not only about the more obviously harmful actions but harmful deeds in general and what causes them. Why he would describe these in terms of "reputation" I'm unsure, but perhaps it's because this would have more obvious meaning for Sigala, who might not believe in a doctrine of kamma.

For negative actions that one might "get away with" in the legal sense, because perhaps the actions are bad but not actually illegal, reputation and the political consequences of being a harmful individual are probably the most obvious natural consequence. And again, we might imagine here that the Buddha could be talking to a Christian or someone to whom the idea of kamma might not mean anything, whereas "bad reputation" would.

So at this point the Buddha has covered basic core virtue for anyone, and the six directions only in general. Next in the sutta the Buddha describes specific activities to be avoided (and thus some things with more specific political implications) and that will be the topic of my next post.

Book Review: The Foundations of Buddhism

This is my little review of The Foundations of Buddhism, by Rupert Gethin. The author originally got my attention because of a paper mentioned in a previous post.

This is a pretty good "scholarly" book that touches on many things within the the huge degree of variation in Buddhism. Being a Theravada Buddhist I'm annoyed by the constant use of Sanskrit terms (Dharma vs. Dhamma) even when speaking in a Theravada context. Considering that most of the book is about "core" Buddhist beliefs, it seems like he should be using Pali terms rather than Sanskrit, but perhaps scholars who study all of this stuff have largely standardized on the Sanskrit or something.

Since I already have a fairly good understanding of Buddhist doctrine (the Theravada anyway) I mostly found the chapters on history, the evolution of Buddhist scriptures, Abhidhamma, and Mahayana to be interesting. I particularly wasn't aware of the variation in Abhidhamma between Northern, Southern, and Eastern branches of Buddhism. I think the author does a good job of contrasting differences within different Buddhist schools and this is where I learned the most from this book.

For example, the Bardo state which is made much of in Tibetan Buddhism comes from Sarvastavadin Abhidharma. Not exactly earth-shattering information, but interesting to know.

Page 100 contains a reference to politics titled "A note on the Sangha and the state" part of which I quote below:

Strictly speaking the Sangha is an autonomous organization and no provision is made with the Vinaya for formal links with the state or government. But this does not mean that in practice close links between the Sangha and the state have not developed. The history of Buddhism in all the regions of the world where it has taken root, from ancient times down to the present day, affords numerous examples of such links and associations.

He then mentions some stuff about king Asoka, but doesn't get into any really important details, unfortunately. He then continues:

Once a king has become involved in supporting the Sangha, the avenues are not only open for state interference in and control of the affairs of the Sangha but also for the Sangha to become involved in the affairs of the state and political intrigue. The state may seek to justify its actions—including war—in the name of support for the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha; it may seek to support the sections of the Sangha that it judges as representing the true Dharma; the Sangha may connive in this, with different factions appealing for state support.

He then mentions some stuff like the Mahavimsa, Tendai monks fighting in mideval Japan, and the role of Buddhism in the legitimization of power in Southeast Asia.

I am a bit disappointed that he mentions "no provision is made with the Vinaya for formal links with the state or government" but then leaves out any mention of the political nature of certain aspects of "wrong livelihood" for monks which is mentioned in the Vinaya. Not sure if he didn't know about that or if he just didn't mention it considering the limited space he decided to devote to the subject.

In any case, I originally got this book hoping to learn more about history and the conditions in the time of the Buddha. This book focuses more on Buddhism and the variations of different schools rather than the historical context of Buddhism. For that I guess I'll have to look for another book. (Any recommendations?)

By the way, I've set up a list of books on political buddhism on Google Books. You can subscribe to my tag via RSS if desired and you'll see any new books I add to the list as I add them. I also added an RSS feed page element to the left that will link to books as I add them, but unfortunately I can only get the page element to list the last 5 books I added.

Poll: What political activities should be considered permissible for monks?

I added a poll "What political activities should be considered permissible for monks?" Click here or scroll down to the bottom of the page to see it. You can select more than one option in this poll, so select all that you think are permissible (or should be) for monks.

If there are any options you wish were on the poll that aren't there, please comment on this post and say what they are.

Blog on Burma: Ashin Mettacara

I've been too lazy, or maybe tired, to post anything for a while, but someone just submitted this to me so I thought I'd create a real blog post about it.

Ashin Mettacara has a nice looking blog on the political situation in Burma. It looks useful for keeping up with the situation there. The author is a 27 year-old monk in Burma, though he doesn't say much more about himself and I don't really blame him given the circumstances.

Anyway, check it out. (Preview below in widget form.)

Nirvana and other Buddhist felicities

I finally got a hold of a copy of Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire, By Steven Collins. This is a fairly expensive scholarly book and luckily I was able to borrow it using my state's interlibrary loan system.

The first part of the book is about "What is Nirvana?" which is of course less of a unique subject than the second part of the book which "explores other Buddhist utopias and relates Buddhist utopianism to studies of European and American utopian writing." Of particular interest to me is "Chapter 6: The perfect moral commonwealth? Kingship and its discontents" which talks about the political implications of the Pali texts.

Anyway, I'm going to read the interesting parts of the book and attempt to post some of its more interesting points here as I get time.