| AMIDA TRUST | |
Occasional paper FAITH AND LIBERATION, FAITHS AND JUSTICE by Prasada Caroline Brazier |
|
Faith and Liberation, Faiths and Justice The motive for social engagement in my faith Living with difference: Buddhism as a faith incorporates many different perspectives. As a faith community, Buddhists have generally been happy to allow anomalies and differences of interpretation to sit side by side. Sometimes these differences have been rationalised in terms of being teachings of greater or lesser scope, sometimes it has simply accepted that some schools teach one thing while others teach something different. Rarely have differences caused conflict though. Buddhists therefore have a model for living with difference. An emphasis on practice: One reason why apparent anomalies seem less troubling to Buddhists than to some faiths is probably because in Buddhism faith is rather more in the life of practice, than in belief. Buddhism is a religion of activity, and there are "many roads up the mountain". The Buddha taught his followers to "try it and see" and to do what they experienced to be fruitful. Through practice and experience, faith grows. In general the Buddha avoided making pronouncements on metaphysics and in consequence you will find Buddhists with a wide range of views, or no views, on such matters as the existence of an afterlife, or mythologies of creation. This emphasis on practice (and action) in Buddhism can lead naturally to practice through social action. A religion without judgement: Buddhism is a religion that does not place a god or gods as originator or determiner of human experience. In this sense, it is not a religion that uses concepts such as justice or forgiveness. There is no external arbiter. Buddhism places a great deal of emphasis on personal ethics, effort and right action, but it does not think in terms of judgement and retribution. The teachings on karma are the nearest that Buddhism comes to positing external source of evaluation, but karma is the law of cause and effect. According to this, "we get what is coming to us". This is a teaching of a natural process, in which we have the choice to act, knowing that there will be consequences. Each person must work out their own karma, but none of us has the power either to judge or to forgive another. Creating conditions: A central teaching of Buddhism is that of Dependent Origination. This teaching suggests that everything comes into being as a result of conditions. One thing leads to another. Certain conditions are conducive to certain things happening. If we want to create social change, we must look at the conditions that are supporting a social structure. We must look at how those conditions are holding oppressive situations in place, and we must look at how we can change those conditions. Of course, in this we must look at our own part and at how our actions are part of the chain of events that give rise to bad things happening. Changing the conditions, we change the future. Non-harm: Buddhist live by ethical codes which are both guidelines for action and a catalyst to growing awareness and a deeper understanding of our part in the creation of conditions. The first precept of Buddhism is not to kill. At a simple level, this can be taken to mean literally not killing other humans, but it is often also interpreted as not killing any creatures (Buddhism does not make a great distinction between humans and other sentient beings), at a deeper level, however, it is a precept that makes us aware of how we are inevitably embroiled in killing through our very existence. Buddhism motivates us to reduce the killing in the world through many means, including peace work and environmental protection. Greed, hate and delusion: The Buddhist analysis of the human situation is that we are all, unless we are enlightened, in a state of avoidance or ignorance. Our response to the inevitable afflictions of life is to retreat into a defensive stance, which we create by forming attachments. These attachments are positive, negative or ambivalent, traditionally termed greed, hate, and delusion. Understanding the mess that humans have got themselves into in terms of these analyses gives us a model for understanding the processes of avoidance that are at work, and suggests ways forward. It is not hard to see the forces of greed, hate and delusion in the world at present. Nor is it difficult to see their deepening levels as we move through the three stages of "sensual attachment" through "identity-attachment" to "destructiveness". Recognising the role of greed, hate and delusion in creating conditions for harm, provides us with an understanding of what is happening and how it may be transformed. The Bodhisattva Ideal: As Buddhism developed, an emerging strand in a large section of the Buddhist world is the Boddhisattva ideal. The Bodhisattva vows not to enter nirvana until all sentient beings have been saved. The Boddhisattva vow is the embodiment of the Buddhist virtue of compassion, one of the pillars of Buddhism. Compassion and wisdom are described as like the two wings of a bird. Variously represented in Buddhist iconography, these virtues underpin engaged action. Non-self and interconnection: A central doctrine of Buddhism is the teaching of non-self. This denial of a persisting individual self creates an understanding that we are not individually entitled to special rights and treatment, but that all life is to be valued and treated with respect. As humans, we are interdependent with one another, with all sentient beings and with the planet. We create the conditions for one another's existence and quality of life; the conditions for all living things. We therefore have responsibility to care for our planet and to be aware of the impact we have on it. The teaching of non-self invites us to take a wider view in which we do not see ourselves at the hub of existence, but rather as parts of a greater process with useful roles we can play. A vision of the Pure Land: Vision is important to change. Inspiration, and the aspiration or "vow mind" it evokes, is one of the most powerful ways out of the cycle of ignorance. In Buddhism, we have faith in practice and we have faith in a vision of the radiance of life. The image of the Pure Land is a symbol of the world transformed. It is both the vision of what potentially is and of what already is, viewed through enlightened eyes. The vision of the Pure Land is not a vision of another world. It is a vision of this world. As we develop faith in our vision of the Pure Land, we grow in our willingness and ability to bring it into being. P.C.J. Brazier |