not-self and awakening

While I'm not a qualified teacher, or even an experienced meditator, I don't agree with those who say the Buddha's position was that one can't actively develop mindfulness, concentration and wisdom; that, ultimately, there's no control in the present moment. In fact, it seems to me that the Buddha did indeed encourage his followers to develop just these things.

To begin with, the Buddha taught that whatever is inconstant (anicca) is stressful (dukkha), and whatever is stressful is not-self (anatta). The goal of Buddhism is to essentially take this analytical knowledge, along with a specific set of practices, as a stepping stone to what I can only describe as a profound psychological event in the mind. Nevertheless, that doesn't mean that I believe the teachings on not-self are understood to deny individuality (MN 22) as well as individual effort (attakara), far from it.

I believe that their intended purpose is to merely point out the ultimately unsatisfactory nature of the psycho-physical entity consisting of form, feeling, perception, consciousness and mental fabrications in a variety of ways, as well as the insubstantiality of our ego that's built upon these five, fleeting phenomena, not to suggest that mindfulness, concentration and wisdom can't actively be developed.

Even though we have no real control over the unsatisfactory and inconstant nature of our existence – and this is evident by the fact that we cannot say, "Let my body be thus, Let my body not be thus. Let my feelings ... perceptions ... mental processes ... consciousness be thus. Let my my feelings ... perceptions ... mental processes ... consciousness not be thus" (SN 22.59) – if you try to move your arm, your arm still moves. In other words, don't let the teachings on not-self lead to inaction but to right action.

The way I see it, craving is the cause of suffering, and to end suffering its cause must be removed; the difficulty arises when it comes to how exactly this is done. My theory is that craving is a very subtle but powerful aspect of our psychology. It's there, latent in the mind, waiting to exert its influence through mental fabrications by directing or at the very least encouraging the mind to feed upon sensory experiences via the five clinging-aggregates in an unhealthy way.

The problem is that these processes of subtle movement in the mind are so subtle that they're almost impossible to discern as they're taking place. That's where I believe meditation comes in; meditation helps to calm and still the mind so that these mental events become easier and easier to observe. One, in effect, uses conditionality in order to fabricate controlled states of mental absorption until they're able to discern the presence of craving, its movement in the mind, and the fact that even these refined and subtle states of mental absorption are ultimately stressful and unsatisfactory.

This leads one to develop dispassion, and dispassion leads one to cease fabrication, thus opening the doors to the deathless by ending the psychological chain of causation that gives rise to suffering. Therefore, my suggestion to someone serious about their practice would be to stick with whatever method of meditation they find to be more conducive to attaining states of mental absorption, and supplement that with a moderate amount of study to strengthen right view.

buddhism and politics (expanded)

As a Buddhist, I do my best to apply Buddhist teachings and practices to all aspects of my life, including my political activism. This, of course, raises some questions, such as, What sort of political philosophy is most compatible with Buddhism? and Does Buddhism support radical political views? As a Buddhist who also happens to be democratic socialist, I'd like to say yes; but the teachings of the Buddha that are recorded in the Pali Canon are more or less apolitical, so applying them to my political philosophy requires a bit more investigation and thought.

The Buddha doesn't explicitly promote a particular political philosophy, being more concerned with problems of ethics and phenomenology. But he does give some pragmatic advice to lay-followers within the existing political economic system of the time, mainly dealing with generosity, honesty and fulfilling one's duties in society (e.g., DN 31). So in answer to the first, I'd say that Buddhism itself is compatible with pretty much any political-economic system as it predominately deals with developing virtue, concentration and discernment within whatever worldly circumstances we’re confronted with, not the circumstances themselves.

Moreover, I agree with Richard Gombrich that, "The Buddha's Dhamma represents a strong form of what has been called 'religious individualism'" (Theravada Buddhism, 72). I say this because the teachings on kamma (literally 'action') focus on individual actions and their consequences, and not so much collective or societal actions. So Buddhist virtue ethics are generally seen as a personal matter that each individual is encouraged to explore and develop on their own.

As for the second question, there's nothing in the Suttas to suggest that the Buddha was either for or against private ownership of the means of production, especially in the modern industrial sense. That's not a question anybody could have foreseen 2,600 years ago.

Furthermore, while it's true the Buddha encouraged generosity among his lay-followers, and that his monastic community has a relatively egalitarian communal structure, his teachings were also quite popular with the rising mercantile class in India at that time, and many of his wealthier lay-followers were merchants. In fact, I think the Buddha's advice to the lay-community regarding livelihood sounds more like some kind of enlightened entrepreneurialism than socialism.

In DN 31, for example, the Buddha advises lay-followers to use a portion of their income for personal use, including charitable donations, but he also advises that some of it should be used for business investments and saved for hard times, as well. This shows that the Buddha wasn't necessarily against consumption, private property rights and/or the accumulation of wealth, but there are suttas which seem to suggest that he was at least in favour of some type of welfare-state.

There's the case of DN 5, for example, where the brahmin Kutadanta asks the Buddha for advice on how to best conduct a great sacrifice. Kutadanta, who was evidently wealthy, had been given a village and some land by King Bimbisara, which he ruled as a king himself. On being asked by Kutadanta — who had a legion of animals waiting to be slaughtered — how to perform a great sacrifice, the Buddha answered with a fable about a great king who asks his chaplain a similar question.

Long story short, the king (i.e., the state), who'd amassed great personal wealth but whose kingdom was "beset by thieves" and "infested with brigands," is told by his chaplain that taxing the people, executing and imprisoning them, or simply banishing them from the land won't solve his kingdom's problems, and is given this advice:

To those in the kingdom who are engaged in cultivating crops and raising cattle, let Your Majesty distribute grain and fodder; to those in trade, give capital; to those in government service assign proper living wages. Then those people, being intent on their occupations, will not harm the kingdom. Your Majesty's revenues will be great, the land will be tranquil and not beset by thieves, and the people, with joy in their hearts, will play with their children, and will dwell in open houses.

Nevertheless, I don't think that the Buddha would object to a more egalitarian, socialist society that tries to limit the economic and societal conditions which foster things like greed and violence, and the way Buddhism has affected me personally has lead me to adopt more socialist-leaning views. As Albert Einstein put it, "the real purpose of socialism is... to overcome and advance beyond the predatory phase of human development," and I have a hard time not getting involved when I see what I perceive to be people being preyed upon by greed, hatred and delusion.

Before I became interested in Buddhism, I didn't really have any political-economic views to speak of. In fact, I was completely uninterested in political economy whatsoever. After years of studying and practicing Buddhism, however, I began to take more of an interest. This was partially due to cultivating compassion and being more sensitive the suffering of others.

Of course, it became clear to me early on that the world was imperfect, and that there is, and always been, suffering in the world. I also realized that it can't be 'fixed,' that there are no perfect solutions. But that doesn't mean we shouldn't try our best to do what we can to make things better, and that's certainly compatible with Buddhism and Buddhist ethics in general. But more specifically, I think that the seemingly unrelated aims of communism/socialism and Buddhism are actually quite compatible, even in the sense that Karl Marx uses it, i.e. the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the working class. For example, in The German Ideology, Marx writes:

Further, the division of labour implies the contradiction between the interest of the separate individual or the individual family and the communal interest of all individuals who have intercourse with one another. And indeed, this communal interest does not exist merely in the imagination, as the “general interest,” but first of all in reality, as the mutual interdependence of the individuals among whom the labour is divided. And finally, the division of labour offers us the first example of how, as long as man remains in natural society, that is, as long as a cleavage exists between the particular and the common interest, as long, therefore, as activity is not voluntarily, but naturally, divided, man’s own deed becomes an alien power opposed to him, which enslaves him instead of being controlled by him. For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic. This fixation of social activity, this consolidation of what we ourselves produce into an objective power above us, growing out of our control, thwarting our expectations, bringing to naught our calculations, is one of the chief factors in historical development up till now.

One of the things that I really find interesting in Marx's writings is his materialist conception of history and the idea that "the nature of individuals depends on the material conditions determining their production." While Marx's theory was set within a specific context — that of the complex relationship between the production and reproduction of material requirements of life and the historical development of human society — I think it has much wider implications.

For example, I'm of the opinion that things such as identity are conditioned, at least in part, by the historical and material conditions that we find ourselves in, and that changes in those conditions can fundamentally alter our identity and the ways in which we express ourselves, and vice versa. Not in a rigidly deterministic way, however, but in a complex and symbiotic way.

This idea isn't necessarily new, of course. The Buddha, for example, developed similar ideas about identity in his teachings on kamma and dependent co-arising. In short, he viewed our sense of self as a continuous process—something which is always in flux, ever-changing from moment to moment in response to various internal and external stimuli. Furthermore, he observed that there are times when, due to the presence of clinging, our sense of self, those momentary and fleeting identities and the objects of our sensory experience on which they're based, cause us a great deal of stress and suffering.

But whereas the Buddha's focus was primarily on how to liberate the individual from their suffering by mastering this process of 'I-making' and 'my-making,' Marx's focus, the bodhisattva that he was, was primarily on how to liberate society from their suffering and alienation by changing the material conditions that support it. In the words of Erich Fromm, "His concept of socialism is the emancipation from alienation, the return of man to himself, his self-realization."

According to Marx, all individuals in capitalist society are essentially alienated, from their labour as well as from each other. The reason Marx singled out the working class was because he saw in the working class the means by which capitalism could be transformed. It was his hope, however, that once this economic transformation was underway, the alienation of each individual would gradual be eliminated via a more socialized means of production, which, in turn, would sow the seeds for the "resolution of the antagonism between man and nature, and between man and man." As the 'young' Marx wrote in Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844:

[T]he emancipation of society from private property, from servitude, takes the political form of the emancipation of the workers; not in the sense that only the latter's emancipation is involved, but because this emancipation includes the emancipation of humanity as a whole. For all human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker to production, and all types of servitude are only modifications or consequences of this relation.

Of course, I disagree with some of Marx's ideas and methods, but I still find a lot of his writings worth reading. Hell, even the Dalai Lama once said:

Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. Marxism is concerned with the distribution of wealth on an equal basis and the equitable utilization of the means of production. It is also concerned with the fate of the working classes--that is, the majority--as well as with the fate of those who are underprivileged and in need, and Marxism cares about the victims of minority-imposed exploitation. For those reasons the system appeals to me, and it seems fair. I just recently read an article in a paper where His Holiness the Pope also pointed out some positive aspects of Marxism.

As for the failure of the Marxist regimes, first of all I do not consider the former USSR, or China, or even Vietnam, to have been true Marxist regimes, for they were far more concerned with their narrow national interests than with the Workers' International; this is why there were conflicts, for example, between China and the USSR, or between China and Vietnam. If those three regimes had truly been based upon Marxist principles, those conflicts would never have occurred.

I think the major flaw of the Marxist regimes is that they have placed too much emphasis on the need to destroy the ruling class, on class struggle, and this causes them to encourage hatred and to neglect compassion. Although their initial aim might have been to serve the cause of the majority, when they try to implement it all their energy is deflected into destructive activities. Once the revolution is over and the ruling class is destroyed, there is [not] much left to offer the people; at this point the entire country is impoverished and unfortunately it is almost as if the initial aim were to become poor. I think that this is due to the lack of human solidarity and compassion. The principal disadvantage of such a regime is the insistence placed on hatred to the detriment of compassion.

The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.

So, in the end, even though Buddhism is essentially apolitical in nature, I think that one can easily synthesize their political beliefs, even radical ones, with their Buddhist practice as long as they're able to do so based upon the principle of ahimsa or harmlessness, along with a healthy dose of compassion and loving-kindness.

is buddhism just an offshoot of hinduism?

I've often heard it said that Buddhism is simply an offshoot of Hinduism, but is there any truth to that claim? I'd argue no. While they both come from the same region and share similar terminology, making them a part of a larger tradition of Indian thought and philosophy spanning thousands of years, their connection isn't as one-sided as many assume.

To begin with, from what I understand, Hinduism is a relatively modern term (coined by the British if memory serves me right) that's used to describe a diverse collection of Indian spiritual traditions, many of which arose after the Buddha's lifetime. Much of the Mahabharata, including the Bhagavad Gita, for example, was most likely composed after the Buddha's lifetime, as was the Ramayana and the majority of the Puranas. In fact, I think it's fair to say that Buddhism actually influenced much of what we call 'Hinduism' today.

For example, it should be noted that the concept of anatman in Sankara's version of Advaita Vedanta is similar to the Buddhist anatta, being derived from it. In one of his commentaries, Sankara writes, "Whenever we deny something unreal, we do so with reference to something real; the unreal snake, e.g. is negatived with reference to the real rope." Sankara essentially used the notion of anatman to deny the reality of the individual self (atman) in favour of Brahman. Many of Sankara's critics actually accused him of being a Buddhist in disguise.

The Buddha, who was born into the khattiya (warrior) caste, was one of the great wandering ascetics (Pali: samana, Skt: shramana) who taught in the later Vedic Period, and whose teachings were considered heterodox because they rejected the authority of the Vedas, the self (atman) of the early Upanishads, and the four main social classes (varna).

The most prominent 'orthodox' tradition in northern India at that time was Brahmanism, which, of course, relied heavily on the Vedas for their religious authority, and included some of the early Upanishads as well. It's clear from the Suttas that the Buddha was extremely familiar with them, but it's unclear as to precisely how he acquired this knowledge. Being from a prominent family, it's possible that he studied them, or it could be that he learned of them while wandering and debating with other religious teachers.

In any case, while many people think of the the Buddha as a reformer of Brahmanism, I think it's more correct to say that he replaced it with his own unique philosophy, often redefining many of the key philosophical terms and concepts of his contemporaries, giving them his own meaning and context. This is clearly documented with a variety of words such as brahmin and kamma.

The Buddha was also an expert at word play, especially puns (which don't always translate well into English), and many of these were in reference to passages from the Vedas and Upanishads. Much of this was apparently lost on later Buddhist commentators, but has since been rediscovered by modern scholarship and textual analysis. Nevertheless, the Buddha wasn't limited to just puns, and he added his own unique ideas to Indian thought, e.g., his introduction of khandha as a technical philosophical term (and possibly nibbana as well). Moreover, in The Place of Buddhism in Indian Thought, Ananda Guruge writes:

Lastly, the contributions to Indian thought made by the Buddha should be carefully borne in mind. It was no doubt the Buddha's admirable sense of humility, which led to his statement that he was not an original thinker. His theory of Dependent Causation or Origination was the most remarkable contribution to Indian thought. It is unique in the history of philosophy.

So, in the end, I think it's safe to say that both Buddhism and Hinduism are closely related and have a lot in common, but I definitely wouldn't go so far as to say that Buddhism is just an offshoot of Hinduism. I think doing so is not only inaccurate, but does a disservice to both in that it denies their individual achievements in the history and progression of Indian thought.