Acknowledgement
Many attempts have been made in the recent past to discuss Buddhism in relation to Western Psychology. But the effort to bring about a dialogue between Buddhism and sociological and political critical thinking is less developed and fewer authors have researched this area. The ancient Wisdom of the various Buddhist traditions has helped countless beings on their path towards Awakening or, more humbly, towards a deeper, happier and better life. But can this ancient Wisdom, revealed long before the European Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution and all the other major events that have formed the present world, still meet the global challenges of our time?
The life and work of Ajahn Sulak Sivaraksa and the efforts of the scholars, monks, and social activists that he has inspired, thus fill a gap that urgently needs to be addressed. This article is a modest effort to follow this line of thought, as a tribute to Ajahn Sulak. I have been inspired to write this article, amongst other influences, by the visionary analyses offered by Edmund O'Sulivan in his ground braking critique of contemporary education: Transformative learning. Educational vision for the 21 st Century. 2 This book has inspired several of the ideas presented in this paper, and I can only encourage the readers interested in these issues to study this significant work.
The other major source of inspiration for this writing has been the teachings, the books, but above all, the living example of my Teacher, Venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. He has demonstrated during the Vietnam War, and ever since, in many situations of conflict and suffering, how the Practice of Mindfulness applied to everyday life, can be a powerful path of transformation and healing, not only for the individual, but also for society.
Finally, as I was in the midst of writing this paper, I read "The spiritual roots of Modernity" by David R Loy3, and I was deeply impressed by it. Studying this article, I realized that many of the thoughts I was trying to convey in a stumbling way, were already formulated in a deeper manner and understood in a far broader context by D. R. Loy. Although my pride was somewhat humbled by this finding, my joy in reading his very profound ideas greatly illuminated my own intuitions and filled me with gratitude.
Prologue
After his awakening, the Buddha offered his first Teaching in Dear Park near Sarnath, on the Four Noble Truths: the existence of suffering, the causes of suffering, the ending of suffering and the Noble Eightfold Path that leads to the cessation of suffering. This teaching is common to all schools of Buddhism, and I would like to show that it offers a relevant tool to analyze and understand the present world situation, as well as to indicate new directions that might help relieve some of the tremendous suffering of our troubled world.
I. The Noble Truth of Suffering
The present world situation can be described as the post-modern era, referring to the fact that modernity and the rational-industrial paradigm on which it is based has come to its limits, and is now becoming self-destructive. The fact that its manifestation is wider spread and apparently more powerful than ever does not contradict the fact that modernity is on the decline, because it offers no alternative out of the dead end it has led us into.
Modernism has brought about industrialism, state-nationalism, competitive transnationalism, materialism, consumerism, structural violence and individualism, and the combination of these various factors has created an unprecedented danger for the mere survival not only of mankind, but also of the whole planet.
Globalization, the way it has developed in the past decades, is grounded on a very shortsighted and narrow vision based solely on profit, trade and marketing, oblivious of the moral responsibility connected with it. It seems totally blind to the destruction it causes not only in the human and social realms, but also to the very infrastructures of the earth, on which all species depend for their survival.
The Buddha has identified suffering in its fundamental aspects, and His analysis is still valid in our time. Having the courage to face the truth of suffering without trying to deny its reality is the first step towards liberation.
It seems relevant to try and understand the specific manifestations of Dukkha in our time, because the other aspect of this question is the development of compassion, and Karuna has to be born from deep understanding. Therefore, we need to see clearly the roots and the unfolding of the problems we are facing, in order to find the appropriate medicine to try and relieve the serious suffering our present world is confronted with. Let us now consider three levels of suffering directly connected with the present world situation. These three levels that can be described as macro-sociological, meso-sociological and micro-sociological levels, are interdependent and interconnected, but are differentiated here for the sake of clarity.
I.1. Planetary suffering
On the planetary level, global warming, ozone depletion, toxic wastes are but some of the symptoms that show the outcome of a global lack of responsibility towards our planet. According to the Worldwatch Institute Report, the tropical rainforests are shrinking by 11 million hectares per year, and 31 million hectares in industrial countries are damaged by acid rain and air pollution, 6 million hectares of new desert is formed annually by land mismanagement. Underground water tables are declining in most parts of the world, and the war over water resources might become the next major cause of conflicts of this century. Extinction of plants and animal species are now estimated at several thousand per year; one-fifth of all species may disappear over the next twenty years.
The dramatic effects of genetically engineered seeds and animals on the natural world have yet to be understood. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have increased about 30 % from 1850 to 1980 and are projected to leap further 75 % by 2060; yet, no serious international agreement on this very serious matter has been reached. Moreover, the energy policy of the industrial countries is still mainly based on oil, and their foreign politics guided by the strategic issues connected with oil resources.
These few examples are sufficient to show clearly, that the stakes at hand is the very survival of our planet and of all species, including our own. O'Sullivan aptly formulates the central issue that we want to address: "The task of our time is to make the choice for a sustainable planetary habitat of interdependent life forms over and against a dysfunctional calling of the global marketplace."
I.2. Social suffering
The discrepancy between the affluent countries in the North and the impoverished countries in the south is but one example, although a very striking one, of the dysfunctional global economic system and the structural violence that is dominating the world. Even within the rich First World countries, the present development produces a growing number of socially handicapped people, new poor, school dropouts, chronically unemployed, and people who are homeless, substance-addicted and de-institutionalized.
There is a largely unchallenged assumption that its level of production can measure the wellbeing of a nation. That is to say, that the Euro-American model of industrial society has been projected in an unreflective way on the rest of the world. By doing this, we are not taking into consideration the fact that 20% of the world population consumes almost 80% of its resources, and that if the rest of the world would share the living standard of the "happy few", the planet could not survive very long. A recent research has shown that since the eighties, the overall consumption in natural and other resources is 120 % of the planet's capability to restore itself. This means that the earth needs one year to produce what mankind consumes in only 10 months.
Poverty is defined from the point of view of the Western market oriented culture, as the lack of spending power. This leads to the questionable conclusion that through economic growth; this situation can be resolved, not asking what the overall results of even more consumption would be for the global balance of the planet. Under the pressure of this view, whole societies have been forced to reorganize themselves into modern financial market oriented, money economies, the consequences of which can be seen throughout the Third World. Sachs4 rightly points out, that traditional cultures can be described as living in "frugality": everyday necessities are gained from subsistence production, and money plays an insignificant role. Confronted with modern market economy, these cultures lose the very foundations of their survival mode, including land, water, forest, water, community ties, cultural values and beliefs, thus bringing about destitution and despair as it can be observed in the many slums of most Third World megalopolis.
Moreover, "structural adjustment" as imposed by the World Bank and other international financial and economical institutions, forces countries to cut back on their educational, health and other social programs in order to put the emphasis on export production to the developed countries. In addition to "structural adjustment", the program called "debt for nature", consists in exchanging debt instruments held by creditors for natural resources in the debtor country, thus merchandizing and selling away the very natural foundations, ecological infrastructure and common heritage of the debtor country.
The ruling elite of the Third World countries has been mostly trained and educated in American and European Universities, and thus implicitly shares the values and beliefs of the Western culture, not to mention the personal profit it usually gains from this situation. As the consequences are dramatic for the local people, popular dissatisfaction and protest is usually met with state violence, human rights abuse and the build up of heavily armed militia, army and police, using a significant part of the scarce national resource on weapon and armed forces.
Here again, the question is to decide whether we want go on in this direction, even though it clearly shows to lead to a dead end. Or are we seriously willing to reconsider in a radical way our priorities and our goals, and to apply totally different values to the very structure of society?
I.3. Personal suffering
The characteristics of modernity are linked with the falling apart of community ties and family structures, the loss of the sense of mutual responsibility replaced by anonymous state bureaucracy. The overestimation of the so-called individual freedom, autonomy, and fulfillment is the other side of this phenomenon. Simultaneously, the myth of personal happiness equated with the possession of material products has deepened the gap between the few who have almost unlimited access to material wealth and the many who live in destitution and scarcity. At the same time, American television series, shown all over the world, nourish the phantasmagoric images of an unreachable material paradise.
Even in the affluent North, the amount of personal suffering caused by the current life style is growing, and isolation, depression, burn-out syndrome, loss of values and of a sense of meaning to one's life is the heavy price that Western society has to pay for its material comfort. The tendency towards the commodification of culture5 brings about a growing feeling of meaninglessness, and compulsive consumerism does not manage to hide away the shallowness of a life entirely centered on making and spending money.
On a personal level, dissatisfaction with the superficiality of one's life can only be concealed for a while, but sooner or later, deeper questions and doubts surface and fundamental existential issues need to be addressed. Loneliness is another characteristic of this situation, with more than 50 % of the Western urban population living alone. It is estimated that in a typical North American family, each individual will have been spoken to by television figures more than they have been spoken to by each other (O'Sullivan 1990). In a society based on "turbo-capitalism" and consumerism, people are only valued as long as they are a useful part of the economic system. As a consequence, there is less and less space for young children, for the elderly, for the disabled and for all those who do not fit perfectly in the dominant scheme.
The promotion of physical beauty at any cost, youth, hyperactivity, and similar values rejects the majority of mankind as well as important parts of anyone's life. In many developed countries, suicide among the youths is a major problem and the primary cause of death in the 15-25 age group.
In the South, on the other hand, the gap between a financial elite, copying blindly Western trends and fashion, and the mass of the destitute people more and more alienated from their own culture is growing ever deeper. When consumerism becomes the driving force in society, greed becomes normal, ruthless competition becomes a virtue, and social Darwinism (the survival of the fittest and the exploitation of the weaker) is considered a natural law. Egotism is consciously trained in educational institutions and described as a worthwhile goal to achieve, while religious values are downplayed as remnants from the Dark Age or are only being paid lip service to, without any real influence on daily life.
At the same time, this general trend of the Western world nourishes deep resentment and ongoing frustration in many parts of the world, fostering fanaticism, fundamentalism and violence. The price paid individually and the mass of suffering created in this search for a phantasmagoric, ever-eluding, material paradise is totally out of proportion. The paradox is that even those who have actually reached the expected goal and belong to the rich and famous don't seem to have found any kind of deep and long-lasting happiness or satisfaction. We thus see, that the notion of suffering: Dukkha, as characterized by the Buddha more than 2500 years ago, seems to aptly describe our present situation, and the question we must now address is as whether the causes that the Buddha showed for the creation of suffering still apply in our time.
II. The Noble truth of the cause of suffering
According to the Buddha, the basic cause of suffering is "craving". In other teachings, the roots of suffering are described as the three poisons of the mind: delusion, greed and hatred. From a Buddhist point of view, we can make the assumption that the poisons of the mind are at the same time the original cause of the problems met on a social and planetary level. From a non-dual perspective, we can assume a circular relationship of mutual cause and effect between mind, society and environment. This is what we shall try to demonstrate in the following paragraphs.
II.1. Delusion
Delusion has its roots in "wrong view", a view that is unwholesome and that creates suffering both for oneself and others. Wrong view is based on a distorted perception of reality that hinders seeing "things as they are". Let us consider some of the paradigms on which modern society is build to try and understand the relationship between these views and the situation that we have described.
The machine metaphor
Fritjof Capra has shown that Western culture since the Enlightenment has been based on the so called "machine metaphor":
To Descartes the universe was a machine and nothing but a machine. There was no purpose, life or spirituality in matter... The whole elaboration of mechanistic science, including Newton's grand synthesis, was but the development of the Cartesian idea. Descartes gave scientific thought its general framework - the view of nature as a perfect machine, governed by mathematical laws.6
The development of this view led to the consequence that the earth was but a dead entity to be controlled, manipulated and exploited. According to Descartes, there is an absolute dualism between human mind (res cogitans) and matter (res extensa). This is the fundament of the modern idea of the "individual", independent from its environment, and it brings about a breakdown of the organic unity of the human being within the cosmos. Not only is man7 separated from nature, but also he is also considered to be superior and thus feels the right to exploit it in a ruthless way.
Progress, growth and development
Another myth that pervades Modernism is the idea that scientific progress and economic growth and development are the ultimate goals of mankind. Both Marxism and capitalism share this view, even though they each have their own interpretation of it. These notions all refer to the idea that evolution is basically a quantitative process directly linked to technological progress and to an endlessly growing industrial production, no matter what consequences this growth might have otherwise.
Rowledge and Keeth8 propose the thesis that present time economic development follows an addiction model. Addiction involves a compulsive drive, just like a drug addict who must have his heroin at any price. In a similar way, production and consumption follow the same addictive pattern of compulsive behavior.
An other aspect of these notions is that most of the world has been declared "underdeveloped", and thus has to follow the American-European model in order to reach to goal of development and progress as defined by the level of economic production. Once again, the price that indigenous cultures, peoples and nature have to pay does not seem to be taken in consideration. Besides, who is to decide that the path of economic development is the one and only road to happiness and fulfillment?
These are just some examples on how wrong ideas and views ultimately manifest in actions, institutions and systems, creating the social environment we live in. Therefore, overcoming delusion and offering a deep understanding of reality that can become the basis for a healthy society and a harmonious way of living together for all sentient being on this planet, is the first step towards the transformation of suffering.
II.2. Hatred
If the survival of the fittest is accepted as the natural law of human and social life, the consequence of it is, then any individual, group or state has not only the right, but even the duty to be the strongest in order to defend its territory, both in the material and in the symbolic sense. Let us consider just a few examples that illustrate the consequences of this worldview.
Competition
Competition is, according to Adam Smith, the very engine of economical development. This idea is prevalent in our time, and since the breakdown of the USSR it has become an unchallenged dogma.
The Darwinian philosopher H. Spencer (Darwin's nephew) was sponsored by early "captains of industry" the likes of Carnegie and Rockefeller, to lecture on how the Darwinian notion of "survival of the fittest" could be applied to the social realm. This was a mean to give an ideological justification to the ethos of brutal competition that prevails in the productive order of capitalism.
This is just another way to say that greed and egotism are the "natural laws" of human and social life. Competition is certainly the natural outcome of uncontrolled greed: making sure that I get the largest portion of whatever is accessible; but is greed the only option for mankind?
The logical outcome of competition is violence and war, because war is a form of competition carried out with more radical means, but out of the same attitude.
Kropotkin9, in agreement with most spiritual traditions, argues that love, sympathy, sacrifice and cooperation play the most important part in social and human development. According to O'Sullivan (1999): "Now even contemporary thinking in biology, anthropology and paleontology follow Kropotkin in arguing for the pre-eminence of cooperation over competitiveness in the evolutionary development of life forms."10
Military development
According to O'Sullivan, the worldwide military spending in the nineties was US$ 1000 billion per annum. In 2002, the American government has decided to raise its military budget to US$ 365 billion per annum, that is to say US$ 1 billion per day. These figures show the enormous increase of military spending in a world where approximately 40 000 people, most of them children die of malnutrition and hunger everyday. If we consider weapons to be the material manifestation of fear and violence, what is the dominant state of mind of mankind, that is manifested by the 57 000 nuclear weapons stockpiled worldwide?
Military violence and warfare has killed millions of people during the twentieth century, it has also caused unimaginable environmental devastation. To give but one example, the American Army dumped approximately 25 million gallons of defoliant "Agent Orange" during the course of the Vietnam War. Twenty-seven years after the end of the war, the consequences of this poisoning are still tragically present, and an unusually high proportion of disabled children are born even today in the areas that were contaminated during the war.
Violence is not only expressed in military development, but from the film industry to video games, it pervades modern culture, and manifests itself in schools, on the street and in families to an extend that was unheard of before. From the point of view of Buddhist psychology, it is easy to understand that in a society that waters the seeds of violence and greed in such a way, the manifestation of the same forces in real life is not to be avoided. The scientific controversy over the influence of violence and sex shown on TV on the mind and behavior of children and youth who have been exposed to it since early childhood, only shows how contemporary academic thinking has often lost touch with mere common sense and with reality.
II.3. Greed
The other poison of the mind is craving or greed. Although Buddhism, as well as all world religions considers greed as a basic defilement, desire is considered in our time as the fundamental driving force of the economy and thus of society. Everything is done to try and fuel the craving for commodities, from material objects to services, new experiences or cultural goods. Let us consider some characteristic aspects of our greed-oriented society.
Consumerism
Consumerism, is the very foundation of our economic system, and it is entirely based on an insatiable desire for the latest, most fashionable, fanciest, trendiest, fastest (car), biggest (house) or smallest (cell phone), most sophisticated (computer), furthest (holiday and journey) and so on. But this greed for objects and goods, as destructive as it is, seems not to be the most troubling aspect of consumerism.
Capitalism began with the commodification of goods, production tasks, human labor and other social activities that used to be performed in the home and all have been absorbed into the market. The characteristic of modern capitalism is the expropriation of various facets of life into commercial relationships. Habermas11 has described this situation as the colonization of the "lifeworld" by the system. That is the process by which state bureaucracy on one hand and the economic system on the other, gradually take over the everyday life of ordinary people in all its aspects, leaving less and less space and time for creativity, freedom, friendship, love, celebration, prayer... simply life.
The post-modern era is defined above all by the increased commodification of all human experience and all human relationships.12 Global travel and tourism, theme parks, entertainment centers, wellness, fashion, cuisine, sports and games, gambling, music, film, television, the virtual world of cyberspace, all of these are becoming the center of an economy that trades in cultural resources. Most of the duties that used to be performed within the family, on the basis of personal relationships, conjugal, brotherly or filial love, are now mostly paid for services provided by professionals: taking care of the newborn, of the elderly, of the sick, listening to one an other's problems, learning how to cook or giving advice on how to raise children.
Cultural celebrations used to be community building events related to religion, tradition, spirituality, strengthening the sense of belonging and giving meaning to life. More and more, the cultural supermarket hijacks all forms of tradition, art and creation and sells out the very spiritual heritage of mankind. These are but some examples to show how consumerism - as a life attitude based on the immediate satisfaction of all of one's selfish desires and on the illusion that happiness can be bought for money - is not only related to limited fields of life like shopping in the mall, but is pervading all of human existence.
III. The Noble truth of the end of suffering
After having looked into suffering and the causes of suffering, the Buddha brings us the Good News of a possible Liberation from Dukkha and of the Awakening from delusion. Let us try and approach the Third Noble Truth in a very simple and realistic way, without being carried away by metaphysical theories. Thich Nhat Hanh offers a very down to earth approach to this question:
The first turning of the Third Noble Truth is the "Recognition" of the possibility of the absence of suffering and the presence of peace... The second turning is to "Encourage" ourselves to find peace and joy. If you want to garden, you have to bend down and touch the soil. Gardening is a practice, not an idea. To practice the Four Noble Truths, you yourself have to touch deeply the things that bring you peace and joy... Don't throw away your suffering. Touch your suffering. Face it directly, and your joy will become deeper. Learn the art of cultivating joy. Practice like this, and you come to the third turning of the Third Noble Truth, the "Realization" that suffering and happiness are not two. When you reach this stage, your joy is no longer fragile. It is true joy.13
We have approached the First and the Second Noble Truths not only from a personal, but also from a social and even planetary point of view. The Third Noble Truth is presented here on a more individual level, and this apparent discrepancy has to be addressed.
From the point of view of Buddhist epistemology and psychology according to the Vijnanavada School, one very fundamental insight is the fact that the deepest level of consciousness, the "Store-Consciousness" (alaya vijnana) is simultaneously individual and collective. Therefore, personal transformation and social transformation cannot be considered to be separate events. The observer and the observed cannot be distinguished as separate entities, the world problems that I have described, are fundamentally my problems, the consequence of my own ignorance, greed and hatred. Becoming aware of the suffering inflicted by my deluded mind on others and on myself, I become firmly determined to change both my own violence and the structural violence that manifests as its consequence in society.
IV. The Noble truth of the path that leads to the end of suffering
The fourth Noble Truths: the Noble Eightfold Path, is one of the subjects that has brought about the largest number of profound works in Buddhist literature. Many learned and realized monks, scholars and masters have talked and written about this topic, and it is somewhat pretentious to even dare to write anything about it. Nevertheless, I would like to offer just a few aspects that are connected with this presentation, focusing on the relevance of the Eightfold Path for our present time. Traditionally, the eight steps of the paths are often divided in three main chapters, and I will also follow this sequence that seems pertinent to our theme.
IV.1. Prajna: Wisdom / Insight /Understanding.
The two first steps of the eightfold path: Right View and Right Thinking, sometimes also translated as Right Intention, are generally considered to form the first aspect of the Path, namely Wisdom (prajna). We have tried to show earlier in this article, how wrong views are the very basis of the confusion and delusion that can be experienced worldwide in so many fields. In the "Discourse on the Right View" the Venerable Shariputra offers a very complete explanation of what should be considered as "Right View":
"Please listen friends, and give full attention to what I say. Friends, when a noble disciple understand the unwholesome and the roots of the unwholesome, then that disciple has the right view, a view that is upright...The roots of the unwholesome are greed, hatred and delusion." 14
Indra's Net: overcoming the machine metaphor.
We have discussed how the "machine metaphor" has progressively destroyed the experience of the organic interconnectedness of all beings. Contemporary ecologists have used the notion of "web of life" or "circle of life" to describe the fundamental oneness of all life. In the Mahayana Scripture, Avatamsaka Sutra, we find the image of Indra's Net as a description of the universal interdependence: each knot of the net is a jewel, and in each jewel, all other jewels are reflected. Therefore, in each jewel, we see an image of the Buddha and, at the same time, all Buddhas from the ten directions are present in this image.
Thich Nhat Hanh has offered the notion of "Interbeing" to describe the fact that nothing can exist by itself, but is entirely dependent on all other elements of the cosmos to live. A flower is a flower, but without the earth, the rain, the sunshine, the air, the compost, the gardener and so on, the flower could not exist. So the flower "inter-is" with the entire universe. If this is true for a simple flower, it is easy to understand that it is also true for each one of us, and to an even greater extend.
David R. Loy15 argues that the sense of "lack", coming from a repressed experience of the absence of reality of the usual self-consciousness, is the hidden motivation behind the effort to objectify oneself. He argues that the scientific/technological project is directly linked with this hopeless effort to reach an absolute knowledge that would equate with a total mastery over the world. From a Buddhist perspective, prajna is not aimed at gaining an absolute control over the material world, but at seeing reality as it is, and allowing our mind to flow freely with the ever changing stream of life.
The awareness of our interconnectedness with all life also implies a sense of mutual responsibility and solidarity. Progress and development gain a totally different meaning when we consider them in this light. They can be understood as the gradual path to Awakening. Creating material conditions favorable for the spiritual development of mankind is certainly a major task, but it is a very different matter from compulsively longing for always more production and consumption. The Earth is so generous, and She offers more than enough for all of Her children to be sustained. The problem is our ability to share, and to use moderately what we really need for our physical wellbeing and our spiritual growth.
Progress, growth and development could thus become a manifestation of bodhicitta, the Spirit of Awakening. From this point of view, Wisdom and Love are two aspects of the same fundamental experience of the true nature of reality.
IV.2. Sila: ethics, discipline, precepts.
The three next steps of the Eightfold Path: Right Speech, Right Action, and Right Livelihood are connected with the practice of an ethical way of life. The five lay precepts offered by the Buddha in many scriptures16 are a powerful tool to help find a healthy orientation if applied in everyday life. Thich Nhat Hanh17 calls them "Mindfulness trainings", to remind us that they are not moral rules or commandments, but exercises that we can practice in order to lead a more happy and peaceful life. He has offered a formulation of the precepts that helps us understand their relevance for our time.
The first mindfulness training: transforming hatred, fear and violence
"Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, in my way of life."
To live according to this training, it is not enough to refrain from killing, but we are encouraged to learn ways to protect all forms of life. The first step towards this goal is to cultivate compassion.
To look with the eyes of the Buddha does not mean primarily to be clairvoyant or to see extraordinary visions, it means to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion. When we look in this way, we understand others very deeply, and we perceive what they truly need, and how we can help them.
Violence and fear are intimately related, both arise when mutual comprehension fails. The other is not perceived in his true being any more, but merely as a manifestation of evil, as a threat that has to be eliminated at any cost.
Violence is always caused by the inability to understand each other. Violence is a form of communication, but it is a very unskillful form of communication. Killing is the ultimate lack of communication. It is the paradox of our time that we have developed the most sophisticated communication technology, but that the simple communication from heart to heart, from person to person seems more difficult than ever. We can send our thoughts and words all over the world and to thousands of people in just an instant, but what do we have to say, and whom are we saying it to? Are we able to listen deeply and speak lovingly to the person that is next to us right now?
We are encouraged not to support any act of killing in the world, but also in our thinking and in our way of life. In a resolution adopted in 1999, the General Assembly of the UN stated the following: "Recalling the Charter of the United Nations, which states that ‘since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses of peace must be constructed.'"18
This is a very profound and important statement, but there is no indication given on how the mind can be transformed in such a way that peace can be present in a practical way. It would seem that the Buddhist tradition has a fundamental contribution to offer in this field, as the transformation of anger, fear, violence and other unwholesome energies of the mind is the very object of its practice. This leads to the next chapter of the eightfold path that is devoted to meditation.
IV.3 Samadhi: concentration, meditation
Right Effort, Right Mindfulness and Right Concentration represent the third element of the Noble Eightfold Path. These three sequences are not to be understood in a chronological way. All three aspects are simultaneously present, supporting each other, and creating the necessary harmony and balance on the Way.
Right Effort, also sometimes called Right Diligence represents a transition from the Sila (discipline) dimension of the Path to the meditative aspect. Mindfulness and Concentration describe two fundamental attitudes of the meditative mind. Mindfulness is a vast, spacious, open awareness that perceives what is present in us and around us. It is a global, all embracing consciousness, totally alert in the Here and the Now. Concentration is a very focused awareness, where subject and object become totally united in completely collected attention. Mindfulness and concentration are like the out breath and the in breath of the meditative consciousness, and the balance of the two leads to Understanding and Insight, thus closing the circle and bringing us back to the starting point: Prajna or Wisdom.
Meditation and the healing of the sense of lack
We have mentioned before that David R Loy explains consumerism as one of the consequences of the sense of lack coming from a repressed experience of "anatman" (non-self). Although I basically agree with his idea that Modernity, in its pathological aspects, is the outcome of a repressed sense of lack, coming from the loss of true spirituality, I question the argument that this sense of lack is the result of an unconscious intuition of "non-self". It rather seems that the intuitions of "non-self" and of "emptiness" (shunyata) are the healing factors that can help to free us from the prison of ego and self-centeredness.
Piaget19 has shown how the gradual construction and maturation of the child's intelligence is related to its progressive ability to overcome his self-centered naive experience and to understand the world from an always-broader viewpoint. In a similar way, as long as we perceive, feel, think and act from an illusionary ego center and selfish point of view, we are always in discrepancy with the all-embracing reality. So how is this related to Emptiness? Thich Nhat Hanh explains the meaning of Emptiness in a very simple and yet profound way:
" Emptiness always means empty of something. A cup is empty of water. We are empty of a separate, independent self. We cannot be by ourselves alone. We can only inter-be with everything else in the cosmos... Emptiness does not mean nonexistence. It means Interdependent Co-Arising, impermanence, non-self." 20
The experience of non-self and emptiness is thus the very aim of Buddhist meditation. It is the medicine that frees us from the fear and the greed that come from our hopeless efforts to sustain something that has no reality: our own self as a separate being alienated from the rest of the world.
Far from creating a feeling of lack, non-self and emptiness are the door to the experience of fullness, infinite space and infinite consciousness, liberating the mind from the narrow boundaries of ego.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama often begins his teachings by reminding us that all beings have in common their striving for happiness and their desire to escape suffering, but that the problem lies in the ability to find skillful means to do so in an intelligent way.
Consumerism is definitively an effort to reach happiness; the question is simply to see if it is a skillful and efficient way to reach this goal. We have seen how, from a global, planetary and social point of view, far from bringing the fulfillment of it promises, consumerism is the cause of great suffering and devastation. On an personal level, consumerism, following a pattern of addiction, creates more craving, more dissatisfaction, bringing only brief and momentarily satisfaction that is soon replaced by greater dissatisfaction and the compulsive need to consume the next object, service, or cultural good. The increasing speed of obsolescence of all material and immaterial products makes this process all the more visible in recent times. No wonder that the generation that first challenged the consumer society in the sixties, adopted almost as an hymn, the famous song by the Rolling Stones: "I can get no satisfaction."
Meditation, on the other hand, offers an experience of inner fulfillment dependent on nothing by the mind itself. It stands in diametrical opposition to consumerism that always promises happiness in the future, dependent on this new product, or that new exciting experience. Meditation does not strive toward anything outside of the immediate authenticity of the present moment that contains the fullness of limitless reality: "Suchness", the original nature of the mind.
According to Buddhism, there are two kind of truths: relative reality ( samvriti satya ), and absolute reality ( paramartha satya ). Genuine and lasting peace can only be found by getting in touch with the absolute reality, the unconditioned mind. This does not mean to discard relative reality, for it is precisely through the door of ordinary experience that the ultimate can be found. This peace is also the ultimate medicine to cure the insatiable greed of consumerism.
Conclusion
As already mentioned, the assumption underlying this paper is the fundamental unity between personal and collective "Store-Consciousness" (alaya vijnana). From this point of view, facing the reality of suffering, understanding it's causes, and finding the way out, is both a social and an individual process.
Transforming the mind thus transforms society and it's institutions, as they are all products of the mind. On the other hand, becoming active and committing oneself for a wholesome social order respectful of the fundamental dignity of all beings can be seen as a manifestation of bodhicitta, the Heart of Awakening.
Ajahn Sumedo21 compares the three aspects of the Path with the human body: - Prajna , Wisdom is connected to the head: the cultivation of right thoughts and deep understanding.
- Sila is connected to the limbs, because it is with the body that we move, act, and perform deeds that are either wholesome or unwholesome.
- Samadhi is connected to the heart, the seat of the emotions, inner stability or restlessness, equanimity or passion, and it is through meditation that the heart can find peace and freedom.
Borrowing the ideas of David R. Loy, I have offered as a working hypothesis, that this vision also applies to the collective body of society. The scientific/technological project is the unwholesome outcome of delusion, and prajna shows the path of transformation that is needed to free society from wrong views.
Similarly, the nation-state is built on war, violence and power, thus, sila shows the way to heal through grassroots actions and the empowering of a civil society based on ethical principles. Finally, corporate capitalism is rooted in greed and craving, and only through the transformation of these roots in the depth of the mind by way of mindfulness, concentration and meditation can inner peace and insight be found that can become the foundation of an economy based on universal compassion.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 1. Han Van Tho is a longtime meditation teacher with Thich Nhat Hanh and lives in Switzerland. Tho and his wife Lisa are devoted to working with handicapped children and their Eurasia projects conduct several programs in Viet Nam where they travel regularly. In addition to handicraft and technical education, in 2002 they were successful in having Special Education classes taught at the University of Hue in central Vietnam. 2. Eward O'sullivan, Transformative learning. Educational vision for the 21 st Century (New York: Zed Books, 1999), p. 121. 3. David Loy, "The spiritual roots of Modernity : Buddhist reflections on the idolatry of the nation-state, corporate capitalism and mechanistic science" in Socially engaged Buddhism for the new Millennium (Bangkok: Sathirakoses- Nagapradipa Foundation, 1999). 4. W. Sachs, "Development," New Internationalist 202 (1992). 5. "Commodification of culture" takes place when cultural institutions become economic institutions. That is when investment in culture is done for the purpose of reaping the biggest return. Culture is produced first and foremost as a commodity rather than as ideology. ( Jhally 1989, Plumb 1995) 6. Fritjof Capra,TheTturning Point (New York: Simon and Shuster, 1983). 7. We intentionally write "man", because this attitude has been mainly a masculine one and has included the domination and exploitation of women in many ways. 8. D. Rowledge and L. Keeth,"We've gotta have it: Economic growth as an addiction," Environment Network News 3-5. (1991). 9. Peter Kropotkin, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution (Porter Sargent, 1976). 10. "Transformative learning. Educational vision for the 21 st Century" Edmund O'Sullivan Zed Books, New York, 1999.P. 121. 11. J. Habaermas, The theory of communicative action, Vol 2, Lifeworld and system: a critique of functionalist reason (Boston, Beacon Press, 1987). 12. Jeremy Rifkin,The age of access, The new culture of hypercapitalism where all of life is a paid-for experience (New York:Putnam, 2000). 13. Thich Nhat Hanh, The heart of the Buddha's teaching (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1998). 14. Sammaditthi Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 9. 15. David Loy, "The spiritual roots of Modernity : Buddhist reflections on the idolatry of the nation-state, corporate capitalism and mechanistic science" in Socially engaged Buddhism for the new Millennium (Bangkok: Sathirakoses- Nagapradipa Foundation, 1999), p. 87. 16. Upasaka Sutra, Madhyama Agama 128. 17. Thich Nhat Hanh, Plum Village Chanting and Recitation Book (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2000). 18. Resolutions Adopted by the General Assembly 53/243.Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace. 19. J. Piaget, Six Psychological studies (New York: Random House, 1967). 20. Thich Nhat Hanh, The Heart of the Buddha's Teaching (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1998). 21. Ajahn Sumedo, The Four Noble Truths (Amaravati, 1992).
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