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Evading the
Transformation of Reality
— Engaged Buddhism at an Impasse —
“A very popular error: having the courage of your convictions.
The point is to have the courage for an attack on your convictions!”
—Nietzsche
In 1993 I wrote Strong Lessons for Engaged Buddhists, a
leaflet welcoming the emergence of socially engaged Buddhism as a healthy development but
also pointing out a number of its shortcomings. Several thousand copies were handed out at
Thich Nhat Hanh appearances in Berkeley and San Francisco or mailed to engaged Buddhist
groups around the world, and over the next few years my friends and I continued to
distribute it at local appearances of Gary Snyder, Robert Aitken, the Dalai Lama, etc. It
has been reprinted several times, including in Turning Wheel: Journal of the Buddhist
Peace Fellowship (Summer 1994), and can now be found online at this website.
Despite the predictable negative reactions (“How dare you criticize Thich
Nhat Hanh!”) and even a few unsuccessful attempts to prevent the circulation of the
text, the great majority of the responses were positive (“It’s about time
someone raised these issues!”). Unfortunately, most of these positive responses do
not seem to have had much practical follow-through. While many people, including several
BPF authors and board members, privately informed me that they agreed with much
of what I said, their subsequent public writings have contained no mention of the leaflet
and scarcely any discussion of the issues it posed. I hope that the following remarks will
provoke a more public debate.
The Buddhist Peace Fellowship’s stated purpose is “to bring a Buddhist
perspective to contemporary peace, environmental, and social action movements” and
“to raise peace, environmental, feminist, and social justice concerns among Western
Buddhists.” In the most narrow sense, I suppose the BPF has indeed been
“raising” such “concerns” over the last two decades. But I doubt if
either its founders or most of its subsequent participants intended to limit themselves to
such a meager goal as merely making Buddhists passively “aware” that people are
socially oppressed in various ways — something that practically everyone in the world
is already only too well aware of, even if they have little idea of what to do about it. I
think it is fair to say that the spirit of the BPF’s aim could be summed up as:
(1) Buddhism has some contributions to make to radical social movements.
(2) Buddhists also have some things to learn from such movements.
I agree with (1) (if I didn’t, I wouldn’t even bother to make these
critiques), but the point I wish to make here is that engaged Buddhists have largely
evaded (2). While they constantly imply that social activists would do well to adopt
meditation, mindfulness, compassion, nonviolence and other Buddhist qualities, they rarely
acknowledge that they themselves might have anything to learn from non-Buddhists —
except for predictable nods to kindred spiritual figures like Gandhi or Martin Luther King
who merely confirm their own preconceptions. If they occasionally venture into the secular
realm, it is only to echo a few left-liberal platitudes from trendy commentators like
Ralph Nader, Jerry Brown, Jeremy Rifkin or E.F. Schumacher, none of whom represent any
radical challenge to the dominant social order, however cogently they may denounce a few
of its more glaring absurdities.
The two aspects are interrelated. The fact that engaged Buddhists have not bothered to
investigate truly radical movements is the main reason that such movements have remained
equally indifferent to any advice from engaged Buddhism (assuming they are even aware of
its existence, which in most cases they are not).
In 1992 a number of Buddhists in various countries, apparently dissatisfied with the
level of discussion on these issues in the BPF and INEB (International Network of Engaged
Buddhists), organized a Buddhist Social Analysis Group. More recently some of the same
people have formed an online “think tank” called the Think Sangha.(1) The first notable public expression of this seemingly
promising development is a book entitled Entering the Realm of Reality: Towards
Dhammic Societies (ed. Jonathan Watts, Alan Senauke & Santikaro Bhikkhu; INEB,
Bangkok, 1997).
In the Introduction the editors call for new visions, then slip into a myopic
pretension:
We urgently need visions and maps. Some of us are on the front lines of social change,
working with refugees, prisoners, the homeless, and AIDS victims. Some are campaigning for
the abolition of nuclear weapons, land mines, and handguns, issues that differ in payload
but stem from the same source of fear and hatred. Some are protecting our fragile
environment, standing up for the trees, the waters, for the wide circle of all beings. [p.
9]
Far from being “on the front lines of social change,” most of these
activities have nothing to do with social change. Those listed at the beginning are forms
of social service. The rest are defensive reactions against a few of the
more glaring symptoms of the social system. This does not necessarily mean that
such activities are not worthwhile. It’s simply a matter of being clear about what
you are doing and what you are not doing.
These are all social, structural issues that we must meet in an organized social way.
Individual heroics will not address the problems. Leave that to the cowboy movies. So we
create communities on every scale, lay and monastic, from Dawn Kiam at Suan Mokkh in Siam
and Plum Village in France to Sarvodaya, Sri Lanka’s vast network of self-empowerment
communities. [pp. 9-10].
The fact that social issues ultimately need to be dealt with collectively does not
imply that the first step is to “create communities.” As a matter of blunt
historical fact, most would-be alternative communities over the last two centuries
(utopian colonies, communes, coops, affinity groups, etc.) have either failed or, if
“successful,” have ended up being coopted and reinforcing the system they wished
to transcend. One of the articles in the book in fact admits the failures of Sarvodaya
(pp. 256-260), pointing out how such organizations function primarily as temporary
stopgaps among sectors neglected by capitalist development and are generally abandoned the
moment such development becomes accessible to them.
When people are sick, hungry, or filled with bitterness and hatred, it is not enough to
suggest that they let go of attachment to self or to show them how to meditate.
. . . Our difficult task is first to understand our complex relationship to
their suffering, then help us together to grasp the underlying conditions for collective
identity and liberation. And maybe then it is time to teach meditation. [p. 10]
That is well put, except that I would question the priority given to “our complex
relationship to their suffering.” In practice such existential,
“we-are-all-partly-to-blame” moralizing usually serves as a means to evade real
possibilities. Like many other people, engaged Buddhists waste a lot of time guiltily
berating themselves for their vague “complicity” in social-systemic evils they
can do little about while paying no attention to specific faults that, with a little
initiative, they could overcome (such as their passive reliance on leaders or
their ignorance of radical history).
Without a social analysis, a Buddhist social analysis, we may not know where our
attention and energy should be directed. Without an open, flexible social vision, we have
no idea where we are heading. [p. 11]
A social analysis is indeed needed, but the editors are prejudging matters by assuming
that it must be a “Buddhist” one. A truly open and flexible analysis,
investigating all the factors without attachment to preconceived views, might lead to
conclusions that contradict some aspects of Buddhism. Although engaged Buddhists deserve
credit for calling attention to discreditable episodes of Buddhist history (an excellent
recent example is Brian Victoria’s book Zen at War), they still tend to take
it for granted that “Buddhism” itself is inherently good — as if the only
problem were that for some strange reason it has sometimes been corrupted or
misinterpreted. Like Christians with the Bible, they go into elaborate contortions to fit
their political and ethical biases into a Buddhist framework, hunting up some
out-of-context scriptural quotation that with a little stretching can be interpreted to
accord with their views and ignoring anything that contradicts them. The implication is
that authentic Buddhism (if we can just determine what that may be) already has
all the answers.
Earlier in the Introduction, for example, the editors flatly declare that “our
violent self-centeredness and, by extension, society’s self-centered ills are the
root problem” (p. 8). While it is true that a narrow, “unenlightened”
self-centeredness can create or exacerbate many problems, the editors’ unmindful
Buddhist dogmatism leads them here to overlook the fact that people have also
remained oppressed because they have been conditioned into accepting hierarchical
conditions without being “self-centered” enough to insist on getting a fair
shake. The notion that we must “lower our expectations” and be more
self-sacrificing and altruistic is just buying into the system’s con, transferring
the blame from an absurd exploitive system onto the victims of that exploitation, as if
the problem were that the victims were too greedy.
Similar confusions can be found throughout the book. The “social analyses”
are usually naïve and often crudely dualistic (East versus West, North versus South,
“globalization” versus local communities, “modernization” versus
traditional practices, “consumerism” versus abstinence). The system’s
complex dialectical processes are reduced to simplistic quantitative terms: “The
fundamental problem is scale” (p. 230). “Small is the watchword. Huge is
ugly” (p. 9). The huge power structures are nevertheless largely taken for granted:
since overthrowing them is never even considered, the only option seems to be to convince
the system to reform itself. “Once we are more awake, we can join with
others to pressure government for changes in policy” (p. 232). Corporations should be
made “more accountable”; tax breaks for coops and small businesses will lead to
“fuller employment and truly free markets” (p. 236). Korean Buddhist leaders are
praised for advising “rich people and employers to share more with the poor and with
labor, as well as asking the government to improve the social welfare system and to
protect human rights” (p. 203).
Apart from a remarkably trite and insipid utopian fantasy by Ken Jones and a few rather
vague speculations in Santikaro’s article as to what would constitute a “Dhammic
Socialism,” the book contains little discussion of a possible alternative society.
None of the contributors have any serious notion of how a transition to such a society
might occur.(2) Jones imagines his utopia being ushered in
by a “Great U-Turn” that somehow happened when “a different kind of person
started to go into politics” (pp. 282, 284). Aitken envisions “our human network
having more and more appeal as the power structure continues to fall apart,” but
admits that the latter “might not collapse until it brings everything else down with
it” (pp. 7, 9). Most of the others don’t even address the issue. They all seem
to hope that the dominant system will simply fade away if only we can develop a
sufficiently extensive and inspiring network of NGOs and alternative communities and
general good vibes. In the entire book there is scarcely so much as a mention of the
movements that have actually challenged the system. The presumption seems to be that such
movements are of no relevance because they were too “violent” or too
“angry” or too “materialistic,” or simply because so far they have
failed. (Has Buddhism succeeded?)
Buddhism sees our problems as ultimately rooted in ignorance. The first step
in overcoming ignorance is to be aware of it, to be aware of what we do not know. How much
do engaged Buddhists really know about Karl Marx (as opposed to pseudo-Marxist
“Communism”)? Or about anarchists such as Peter Kropotkin and Emma Goldman? Or
utopian visionaries such as Charles Fourier and William Morris? Or social-psychological
critics such as Wilhelm Reich and Paul Goodman? Or situationists such as Guy Debord and
Raoul Vaneigem? Or popular nonauthoritarian revolutions such as Spain 1936, Hungary 1956,
France 1968, Czechoslovakia 1968, Portugal 1974, Poland 1980? Or more recent events such
as the Tiananmen Square occupation or last year’s jobless revolt in France? (“We
don’t want full employment, we want full lives!”) How many engaged Buddhists
have seriously explored any of these movements? How many are even aware of their
existence?
It’s not enough to respond, “Okay, so tell me about them — I’ve got
five minutes.” Buddhists often carry out their spiritual studies and practices with
an exemplary diligence, yet when it comes to social issues they somehow expect a Reader’s
Digest level of knowledge to suffice. Millions of people have been trying in a
variety of ways to bring about a radical, truly liberating transformation of this society
for hundreds of years. It’s a vast and complex process that has included many
disasters and dead ends, but also a certain number of still-promising discoveries. It
takes careful investigation to discern which tactics were mistaken and which remain
potentially useful. Just as you don’t expect to understand Buddhism or Zen by reading
one article, you can’t expect to get a real grasp of the range of radical
possibilities without a fair amount of exploration — and personal experimentation.
It’s not just a matter of finding out what has happened to other people in other
times or places, but of taking a clear look at your own situation. The uncritical
adoration and consumption of Buddhist stars like Thich Nhat Hanh or “His
Holiness” the Dalai Lama is silly enough when confined to a “spiritual”
level; when it is extended to the sociopolitical domain it becomes simply reactionary. But
even if overt hierarchical manipulation is not a major problem among the more
independent-minded engaged Buddhists, and even if many of their groups are participatory
and democratic, a more subtle problem remains. Those who find themselves in positions of
responsibility or “leadership” may be relatively free from the desire to cling
to those positions, but they generally remain very attached to the idea of
protecting their “sanghas” — the communities and organizations they have
built up over the years. There is a natural tendency to avoid rocking the boat. Divergent
tendencies are discouraged from developing into healthy rivalries. Conflicts are dealt
with by trying to bring about “reconciliation” (which, as Saul Alinsky noted,
usually means that the people on top remain in power and the people on the bottom are
reconciled to it). Critics are mollified and neutralized. (”That’s a very
interesting viewpoint! Thank you for sharing your feelings with us. Please join with us in
working on these issues.”)
If such attempts at cooption don’t work, criticisms such as mine are often evaded
by complaining about their “arrogant” or “contemptuous” tone. I admit
that I don’t have a very high opinion of many of the engaged Buddhists’ tactics
and ideas. But I have enough respect for the persons themselves to feel that they merit
being leveled with. It seems to me that the people who are really being contemptuous are
those in positions of influence who avoid publicly discussing important issues on the
grounds that their audiences are not capable of understanding them, or are not ready for
them and might be upset and scared off. As for arrogance, is there any better term to
describe those who claim to be bringing wonderful new perspectives to radical movements
while disdainfully ignoring virtually the entire history of such movements?
KEN KNABB
July 1999
[NOTES]
1. Information on these and other engaged Buddhist organizations can
be obtained from the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, P.O. Box 3470, Berkeley, CA 94703, USA, or
at the BPF website: www.bpf.org.
2. My own views on these topics are summed up in
The Joy of Revolution.
Published simultaneously as a printed leaflet (free on request).
No copyright.
[Strong Lessons for Engaged Buddhists]
[French
translation of this text]
[Spanish translation of this text]
[Italian
translation of this text]
[Buddhist
Anarchism (Gary Snyder)]
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