Sri Lanka's War Monk in Parliament

I don't even know where to start with this one. Check out this article on the Buddhist Channel site about Athurliye Rathana, Sri Lanka's "Parliament Monk."

Rathana is a celebrated figure in this predominantly Buddhist nation, where monks are cherished for their spiritual guidance. But he is known for more than just his religious leadership. Dubbed the Parliament Monk and the War Monk by the Sri Lankan press, he is a legislator who has pushed for the use of military force to end this island nation's 25-year civil war, which has left 70,000 dead and displaced nearly a half-million people at its height.

I've said it before, but I suppose it bears repeating. According to the Tipitaka, monks are not really supposed to be involved in politics. The relevant sections are in DN 2:

"Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to talking about lowly topics such as these — talking about kings, robbers, ministers of state; armies, alarms, and battles; food and drink; clothing, furniture, garlands, and scents; relatives; vehicles; villages, towns, cities, the countryside; women and heroes; the gossip of the street and the well; tales of the dead; tales of diversity [philosophical discussions of the past and future], the creation of the world and of the sea, and talk of whether things exist or not — he abstains from talking about lowly topics such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue.
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"Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, are addicted to running messages and errands for people such as these — kings, ministers of state, noble warriors, priests, householders, or youths [who say], 'Go here, go there, take this there, fetch that here' — he abstains from running messages and errands for people such as these. This, too, is part of his virtue.

Also see Buddhist Monastic Code II, Chapter 10. As stated in a previous post, it also appears impossible to maintain a monk's standard of virtue as a ruler.

I can sympathize with people in Sri Lanka wanting to get the civil war over with, but it's distasteful enough for a "king" or regular politician to be pushing for military action to "finish off" a conflict. Assuming this is even necessary, pushing for violence to end a conflict seems to me like a layperson's duty, not the duty of a monk. People are going to find enough reasons to kill each other without religious leaders encouraging it in any way shape or form. If I were a monk I'd either be discouraging violence or remaining silent.

Anyway, I have to wonder if this means that Sri Lanka is going to go the way of Tibet with monks running the government like this.

Is Peace Possible?

I recently found the following post by Dhamma81 to pretty much reflect my views on Buddhism and Politics, so figured I'd give it some attention.

Personally I've grown weary of political leaders, engaged Buddhists, economic systems and ideas that try to change the outer world into a better place. In my opinion trying to make the world a better place is a noble ideal but nothing more then that. It doesn't mean that we ought to shirk our responsibility for acting in accordance with the principles of morality in our day to day life but I think it's a waste to try to make the outside world a better place.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it a waste, but some people out there do seem focused on external things to the detriment of themselves. My philosophy is, do what I can when the opportunity arises but don't get obsessed with how everything is the fault of a certain politician, or buy into the delusion that if we just elect so-in-so then everything will be great.

I think it's also important to see the good and bad in everything. In other words, try to see the Tibet situation, for example, as it actually is. Is one side really all good and the other side really all bad? This is pretty much never the case. Often in many of these conflicts the more you look at it, the more it looks like two bad guys fighting rather than a good guy fighting a bad guy.

"Buddhism and Politics" by Ven. Dhammananda

An excellent essay that I came across a while back is Buddhism and Politics by Venerable K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera. The essay starts out:

The Buddha came from a warrior caste and was naturally brought into association with kings, princes and ministers. Despite His origin and association, He never resorted to the influence of political power to introduce His teaching, nor allowed His Teaching to be misused for gaining political power. But today, many politicians try to drag the Buddha's name into politics by introducing Him as a communist, capitalist, or even an imperialist. They have forgotten that the new political philosophy as we know it really developed in the West long after the Buddha's time. Those who try to make use of the good name of the Buddha for their own personal advantage must remember that the Buddha was the Supremely Enlightened One who had gone beyond all worldly concerns.

I have to say that I agree with almost everything he says. Other significant quotes:

When religion is used to pander to political whims, it has to forego its high moral ideals and become debased by worldly political demands.
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No political system, no matter how ideal it may appear to be, can bring about peace and happiness as long as the people in the system are dominated by greed, hatred and delusion.

Overall this essay does a good job of denouncing the idea of using Buddhism to gain political power or support some specific political philosophy. I hope that anyone who is thinking about Buddhism and Politics will give it a read.

Armies of the Enlightened?

From an interesting article in Newsweek:

In recent years, massive groups of fervent believers have taken to the streets of Asia with angry political demands. They've railed against government corruption, condemned the onslaught of Western values and decried the erosion of traditional morals. Having built an extensive network of grass-roots aid groups, their numbers are exploding. Some have even picked up arms to defend their beliefs. Sound familiar? It should—only the faithful in question aren't Islamic fundamentalists or conservative Christians. They're Buddhists: members of what used to be Asia's quietest religion, one usually associated with pacifism and contemplation.

I really wish people would try to keep Buddhism out of politics, but it looks like that won't happen any more than it does with anything else.

"Is violence justified in Theravada Buddhism?" by Mahinda Deegalle

I recently happened across the paper entitled Is violence justified in Theravada Buddhism? by Dr Mahinda Deegalle, Senior Lecturer: Study of Religions at Bath Spa University. In this paper he seeks to answer a number of questions regarding violence including "Is there anything within Theravada scriptures or practice advocating violence?" (He mentions that his main purpose is to explore these questions "in relation to Buddhism in Sri Lanka.")

He first brings up a good question: What exactly is meant by violence? As I've noted in previous blog entries, some people in the west have had a bit of a tendency to trivialize the definition of violence by declaring practically anything they don't like as "violence." Mahinda writes:

The first question is, what do we mean by violence? How should we define it? What are its boundaries? In particular, what does it mean in English? Is it something very vague? In modern usage "violence" is used very broadly to include a wide range of negative human actions harmful to other living beings, living organisms, ecosystems and environment. While physical assault can be taken as its primary meaning, it also includes minor violations such as verbal abuse. In texts, violence can be understood primarily as physical assault and killing.

So it's pretty clear here that we're talking about assault and killing, and not overuse of non-renewable resources or some other broad or trivial definition convenient to certain western writers intent on hyperbole.

So what do the texts actually say?

Though Pali canonical texts do not contain explicit evidence to support violence or remarks to justify violence, a certain genre of post-canonical literature, for example, one of the Pali Chronicles, the Mahavamsa of Mahanama, composed in Sri Lanka in the 5th century, unfortunately contains a narrative which disturbs the pacifist image of Theravada Buddhism. Though the intention of this particular monastic author is open to debate, this isolated reference is problematic when placed within the early Buddhist Pali canonical corpus of texts. This narrative gives the impression that, in certain circumstances when the ultimate end is noble, the use of a certain degree of violence will not harm the Buddha's doctrine of non-violence and the path of pacifism.

So to get right to the point, the part of the Mahavimsa that's most problematic is this:

The Mahavamsa states (25:104) that the arahants (i.e. the "worthy of reverence", people who have reached the stage before nirvana) in Piyangudipa, knowing Dutthagamani's remorse, sent a group of eight holy monks to comfort him; when Dutthagamani confessed that he had slaughtered millions, what they said to him to eliminate his remorse is highly problematic:

"From this deed arises no hindrance in thy way to heaven. Only one and a half human beings have been slain here by thee, O lord of men. The one had come unto the (three) refuges, the other had taken on himself the five precepts. Unbelievers and men of evil life were the rest, not more to be esteemed than beasts. But as for thee, thou wilt bring glory to the doctrine of the Buddha in manifold ways; therefore cast away care from thy heart, O ruler of men!" Thus exhorted by them the great king took comfort. (Mahavamsa 25:109-112)

This is a rather shocking thing to have in any remotely "Buddhist" document. Even killing animals is considered to be killing in Buddhism, so it seems rather odd that this passage would, in addition to trying to liken people to animals, suggest that killing these animal-like people would somehow be without consequence.

This is also the first I've ever really heard of any Buddhist calling anyone an "unbeliever." In my view, people in Buddhism often believe some of it and don't believe some of it. People of other religions often have some degree of Right View even if they still believe many things that are Wrong View. So this idea of people either being "believers" or "unbelievers" is kind of bizarre to me.

Needless to say, I won't be looking to the Mahavimsa for any sort of inspiration or understanding of Dhamma.

Dr. Deegalle goes on to point out many examples of anti-violent messages in the Tipitaka. Finally he concludes with:

Through a close examination of three textual resources, we can see that a Buddhist cannot justify violence under any circumstance. Examining a pervasive myth used for violence, we perceive that the position of the Pali Chronicles, the Mahavamsa, is rather contradictory to the fundamental Buddhist teachings of the Pali Canon."

The only thing I really disagree with him on is that Buddhism is somehow about being able to or not being able to "justify" things. The idea of justification is more of a legal or social term in my mind. Dhamma talks about cause-and-effect. Whether you can think of some way to "justify" your violence, it's going to have some negative consequence that is highly unbeneficial to you. There's no way around it.

So though I'd say that a Buddhist could think of a way to "justify" violence, the "justification" couldn't be from Dhamma, and this person must experience the consequences of their act of violence according to the Dhamma. As Major General Ananda Weerasekera says:

However it should be stressed that a soldier like all others is subject to the law of Kamma and will not escape the Kammic fruits of "taking the Life" of a sentient being (panatipatha) even though he may have had the overall noble intention of protecting his country and his people.

So though I disagree with Dr. Deegalle's framing of things in terms of "justification," I completely agree that there's nothing in Dhamma that says that people will somehow avoid facing the negative consequences for acts of violence in certain situations.