#santikaro

[eelhound]

"I think it’s a matter of right understanding, seeing that I have suffering and can practice and do something about it. But a more mature level of right understanding is that it’s not just my suffering. We no longer ask, 'What creates my suffering?' but 'What creates suffering?' When we do this, we start to look into the bigger aspect of the question. We then ask, 'What aspects of my lifestyle create unnecessary complication, stress, burden, attachment, fear, insecurity — in me, my family, my friends, the people I practice with — and how does all of that ripple out into the neighborhood where I live and into the larger society?' We can see this question and our response to it as a further development of practice, a challenge. Can we open up to the larger realm of suffering?"

- Alan Senauke, Barbara Gates, Dennis Crean, Diana Winston, Santikaro, and Wes Nisker, from "A System of Suffering." Inquiring Mind, Spring 2001.

[eelhound]

"[Inquiring Mind:] 'Even though the Buddha emphasized sangha [community], it has often been seen as support for individual liberation. Is there any evidence that he was challenging the social system and power structure of his time?'

[Santikaro Bhikkhu:] 'He may not have challenged the system in grand or overt ways, but the simple fact that all castes and social classes were welcome in the Buddha’s sangha was a powerful political statement for his time. He also abandoned the traditional symbols of caste and power. For instance, in ancient India long hair was a sign of power, but the Buddha, who was from the warrior caste, cut off all his hair. In some way, he was saying that he no longer identified with a system of inequality that helps perpetuate suffering.

At the same time, the Buddha didn’t withdraw completely, but continued to teach kings and their ministers, interacting with those in power. The very fact that the Buddha set up the monastic sangha to be economically dependent on others through begging for alms was a way of keeping the bhikkhus connected to the larger society. It also kept his teaching visible through the presence of the monks in society.

By the way, whose reading of the suttas claims the Buddha’s sangha was primarily about individual liberation?'"

- Alan Senauke, Barbara Gates, Dennis Crean, Diana Winston, Santikaro, and Wes Nisker, from "A System of Suffering." Inquiring Mind, Spring 2001.

[eelhound]

"[Ajahn Buddhadāsa's] understanding of 'socialism' was not a Marxist understanding. The Thai translation literally means 'in favor of society' or 'to be on the side of society.' In this sense, socialism means taking the side of society and can be contrasted with individualism. While individual responsibility is important in Buddhist ethics, 'the individual' cannot ultimately be found and Buddhism was never meant to be individualist, though it may often look that way in the modern era. Rather, Dhamma [aka Dharma] teachings naturally emphasize the collective good — not at the expense of the individual, he didn’t go that far — but social well-being cannot be sacrificed to personal desires.

This notion of socialism arises from the core perspective that Dhamma is nature and nature is Dhamma — inseparably. Since everything is Dhamma; there is nothing that is not Dhamma. Dhamma also means 'natural law,' which is the law of conditionality and inter-relatedness. If you look at our world, and our place in the world, from these eyes, it’s not hard to see a socialist nature, as opposed to an individualistic one. In an interconnected world, individual responsibility is emphasized over individual rights and is as responsible to the collective as to oneself.

The most prominent forms of socialism at that time, and probably still today, were materialist visions of socialism. Buddhism, however, is not a form of materialism, nor is it the kind of idealism that sees the world as just an unimportant derivative illusion. Reality is the interdependence of body and mind, group and individual, and so on. Therefore, Ajahn Buddhadāsa insisted that a Buddhist socialism could never be a materialist socialism.

In addition, the primary historical forms of socialism have been violent, and clearly a Buddhist socialism would be non-violent. Ajahn Buddhadāsa critiqued communism and Marxism, with their terminology of class war, as primarily motivated by revenge. He contrasted 'blood-thirsty capitalism' with 'vengeful Marxism,' and endeavored to create an alternative, middle-way understanding. Thus, he described a socialism that is primarily a moral system based in spirituality. This sort of socialism can only work if we curb egoism; it won’t work with the usual incentives — such as greed and fear — employed by non-Dhammic systems."

- Santikaro, from "Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu and His Practice of Dhammic Socialism"