Evans.txt Page:1 JOURNAL OF BUDDHIST ETHICS ONLINE CONFERENCE ON BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS 1-14 October 1995 BUDDHIST RESIGNATION AND HUMAN RIGHTS (FREEDOM IS WHAT I AM) "SANTIPALA STEPHEN EVANS Metropolitan State College of Denver Philosophy Department Campus Box 49 P.O. Box 173362 Denver, CO 80217-3362 U. S. A. e-mail: tbm@usa.net Publication date: 18 September 1995 Copyright (C) 1995 "Santipala Stephen Evans COPYRIGHT NOTICE Digital copies of this work may be made and distributed provided no charge is made and no alteration is made to the content. Reproduction in any other format with the exception of a single copy for private study requires the written permission of the editors. All enquiries to JBE-ED@PSU.EDU. ABSTRACT Buddhism's first weapon against suffering is acceptance. Demanding one's rights seems to contradict that. A Buddhist articulation of "rights" must address that issue. It must also address the question of authority, and it must be comprehensible to ordinary Buddhists and heads of state. Buddhist ethics provide the necessary framework or "behavioural grammar," but lacks the ultimate authority implied in the western notion of "rights." The Buddha advises acceptance of the human condition as articulated in the Karma-rebirth mythology, //pa.ticcasamuppaada// etc.: we are free, responsible and contingent, creators and creatures of our world and of each other. Ruler and ruled, then, have an existential claim on each other. Moreover, it is not the case that human beings //should// be free, but that we //are//. We create our own futures and it is in the state's interest to accommodate that creativity. As a subject, simple Evans.txt Page:2 honesty may bring me into conflict with authority and the language of rights may be an appropriate weapon. Acceptance of my current situation becomes the basis for action toward a future of my own choosing, a choice which I cannot //not// make. As the Buddha was fond of saying: "My teaching leads to happiness in this world as well as the next." TEXT Western civilization is often criticized by Buddhists as being excessively individualistic. "Human rights" may be criticized on similar grounds. The notion of inalienable rights, somehow inherent in the individual, who then is encouraged to demand recognition, not only partakes of that individualism, but intensifies it, perhaps strengthening the very "I" which Buddhism advises us to weaken. Critics might point to the fragmentation of U. S. society as evidence that the individualism fostered by the human rights movement is destructive. Asian governments accused of abuses, meanwhile, often claim that "human rights" is a Western concept irrelevant in the East. Moreover, Buddhist tendencies to self-effacement and resignation may leave individuals and groups hesitant to protest abuses in their own countries. In a word, the first Buddhist weapon against suffering is "resignation;" demanding one's rights seems to contradict that. Yet, intuitively, for many, Buddhism does support human rights. Dr. Ambedkar found in Buddhism the best religious foundation for human rights in India. Western Buddhists are well represented in the human rights movement. The Buddha's proclamation that "Not ... by birth does one become a //Braahma.na//. But in whom there exist both truth and righteousness... a //braahma.na// is he." (//Dhammapada// 393), [1] sounds like Martin Luther King Jr.'s hope that we be judged not by the color of our skin, but by the content of our character. In order to be convincing and inspiring, any Buddhist theory of rights should meet the following conditions. 1. Simplicity: ordinary Buddhists must be able to understand the argument. 2. Universality: based on principles that all Buddhists accept. [2] 3. Authority, or dignity: the theory must articulate the moral inviolability, or its equivalent, of the human person. 4. Integrate Buddhist "resignation" with human rights advocacy, including advocacy of one's own rights. Damien Keown grounds human dignity in the ability of each to achieve enlightenment, and derives the content of rights from simple Buddhist ethics, e.g. //pa~ncasiila//. He meets the first two conditions above. [3] Evans.txt Page:3 I have not seen the problem of resignation addressed at all. Yet this is critical. It is one thing to assert that the state has certain duties toward its subjects. It is quite another to grant citizens effective recourse when they believe those duties have been neglected. Human rights abuses in Asia are well known: pro-democracy demonstrators gunned down in Rangoon, Beijing, and Bangkok; communal violence in Sri Lanka; repression and even extermination attempts against ethnic minorities. Escalating communal violence is particularly difficult as the state often lacks the moral authority or even the will to mediate. [4] We must ask: how did the home soil of our faith degenerate into such barbarism? More to the point: what can we do now? How do we advocate -- not abstract rights -- but human life and welfare, both individually and collectively? There can be little doubt that Buddhists must do so: All tremble at the rod. All fear death. Comparing others with oneself, one should neither strike not cause to strike. (//Dhammapada// 129) ... not to mention the more active Buddhist values of friendship (//mettaa//), and compassion (//karu.naa//), extended to all, the enemy and the distant as well as to family and friend. It is true that Buddhism is a "lightweight" in the arena of human rights. [5] It is also true that Asia is undergoing social and cultural transitions which, even at a more leisurely pace were no less violent in the West. Still there is ample raw material in the suutras with which to forge a Buddhist social vision. Neglected for many centuries, Asian activists and scholars have already begun to recover it. Educated in the West, Aung San Suu Kyi's vision of democracy and rights is in line with Western standards. Nevertheless, she grounds her ideas in the Theravaada tradition. The potential for enlightenment shows the ultimate worth of every person. //Siila//, //dasaraajadhamma// (the ten duties of a ruler) etc. provide specific content to her ideas of rights and justice. Her treatment is simple, straightforward and convincing. [6] Ven. Walpola Rahula covers similar ground in _The Heritage of the Bhikkhu_, [7] and demonstrates precedent for Buddhist activism. Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand has founded the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. Thich Nhat Hanh offers activism and justification from a Mahayaana point of view, contributing concepts such as "interbeing." [8] It would seem that the scholarly work is done, the battle engaged. Like the occasional Confucian scholar, we might do well to cast aside our laptops and join the struggle at the front. Evans.txt Page:4 Authority, however, remains a problem. //Siila//, though sanctioned with the law of karma is not ultimate. Indeed, the ultimate, Nirvana, is beyond that law. In his famous discourse to the Kaalaamas, the Buddha expresses the right and duty of each to think for himself, even when deciding ultimate concerns. This attitude certainly supports the pro-democracy movement. But it may also contribute to the arrogance of abusive rulers. Since there is no higher authority than human choice why should they not choose greed and brutality, and to pay the price -- both in suffering in a future birth and in delay of Nirvana? If the potential for enlightenment is the ground for human dignity, where does that leave those who have no interest in realizing that potential? Sri Lanka, for example, has a tradition which denies the humanity of non-Buddhists. [9] That //siila// is not ultimate, is shown by the monks who chose to accept rebirth in hell for eating meat in order to bring Dharma to the Mongolians. [10] This obviously implies a higher ethic. Yet that higher ethic remains inarticulate. //Siila// might better be understood as a grammar of meaningful behavior whose constraints empower expressiveness and the possibility of mutuality and community. That mutuality, then, might be part of the "higher ethic." There are other questions. A Burmese monk says Aung San Suu Kyi is a trouble maker. A Vietnamese nun says that Thich Nhat Hanh is no true monk because of his involvement in politics. Many Thais are shocked by Sulak Sivaraksa and feel that he is engaged in a bitter pursuit of power that is not properly Buddhist. These opinions reflect, in part, the Buddhist hesitancy to self-assertion. [11] Moreover, voices for ethnic minorities are distressingly few. A 1947 declaration by the Sri Lanka Sangha proclaims the rights of the Sri Lanka people. [12] But who did they mean? Certainly not the Tamils. Rahula's book, which is really a manifesto for democratic reform, scarcely mentions them at all. And though the government of Sri Lanka seems interested in improving its human rights record, the suppression, not only of Tamils but of Sinhalese dissidents continues. The Tamil combatants, in turn, are certainly not interested in the rights of individual Tamils, nor of rival Tamil liberation movements. [13] The intellectual tools for articulating a rights ethic may be stronger in Western religions than in Eastern ones. [14] However, that theology did not prevent the Inquisition or religious warfare and the region of the United States known as the Bible Belt has been the most vehement in withholding rights from African Americans. The human rights movement, indeed, is contemporary with the decline of those very religions and its ascendancy is so short and so fragile, that we should not assume that the West has answers for itself, much less for Asia. This does not excuse abuses, but suggests that solutions are yet to be found. Evans.txt Page:5 Such solutions will require a comprehensive Buddhist anthropology, including the relations among groups as well as persons, and addressing the new phenomena of the Western-style state and of the individual citizen. I can only hint at such an anthropology in this paper. THE HUMAN CONDITION In the language of human rights the person is an invariant bundle of rights and duties; invariant not only over time but also among distinct individuals. We become abstract units in the machinery of the state. This abstraction may be necessary in order to formulate legalisms through which real human beings are protected, but it misses the richness of human existence. In Buddhist terms it violates //anattaa// (non-self) and //anicca// (impermanence). Buddhism //may// recognize invariant laws by which the person develops, but the bundle of possibilities, limitations, habits etc. which "person" stands for is in flux, lacking even a sacred core of being to which the rights and duties might apply. The human condition is problem and possibility. The first and second noble truths seem to portray us as helpless creatures of desire (//ta.nhaa//): suffering the results of past acts, driven to acts which cause future suffering. According to the third and fourth noble truths, the cycle may be broken through personal effort. Freedom, then, is always possible: though trapped in the cycle of desire, we may at any moment //begin// to move toward enlightenment. The first and second truths also imply human freedom, however. For each act is intentional: //kamma// is //cetanaa//. [15] At the very least, every act is a free indulgence of //ta.nhaa//. KARMA-REBIRTH This is more popularly expressed among Asian Buddhists in the karma- rebirth mythology. This bundle of possibilities and limitations which I call "myself" is largely the result of past actions, both as //vipaaka// (effect of past acts, //kamma//) and as habit. It is also the result of other, more external, forces: biology, geology etc. Although the traditional literature has only a vague awareness of social-historical forces and does not list sociology as an independent force we may not be out of line in adding it to the list of forces that operate independently of karma. We may say then that a complex of moral, physical, and sociological forces conspire to make me what I have become. This "what-I-have-become" is faced by a situation whose origin is likewise a complex of forces, including, perhaps my own //vipaaka// returning by way of the world. Moreover, I usually will not recognize the connection between //kamma// and //vipaaka// so that even the moral force seems obscure and external. >From this point of view, I appear as a //creature// of circumstance. My response to the situation, however, is free by definition Evans.txt Page:6 (//kamma// is //cetanaa//), saved from arbitrariness by the limits and possibilities of the situation on the one hand, and by the limits and possibilities of the "what-I-have become" on the other. Moreover, there is no possibility of not responding to the situation: every moment is an act, if only an act of perception, and will have its //vipaaka//. [16] Even death does not stop the flow of intentional action, as the fruitioning of //vipaaka// as well as habitual thrust and raw desire, span over into a new birth. We might say, with the existentialists, that we are condemned to freedom. [17] The present act profoundly influences the future of both the world and of self: I create my own future in the same way that my past created my present. I am a //creator//. The "what-I-have-become" is the husk, as it were, of the past. The future is not yet. If there is anything that I //am// it is just the gap between has-been and will-be: the present act. I might say, "freedom is what I am," though freedom is no proper self. This continual creation of the future is normally carried out in ignorance, so that an act freely intended in itself leads to unintended results. I choose to //do// X, but I cannot directly choose to //become// Y. Rather what I become is the result of acts freely taken in ignorance of their long term effects. This ignorance is what so often makes us feel fated or pre-destined. Yet Buddhism defines us as free even in our ignorance: we cause our own sorrow and happiness. Asian Buddhists understand this in a way that helps them (individually at least) to thrive in difficult circumstances. Knowing that my current situation is partly a result of my past deeds helps me to accept it as a stage or platform from which to move. Knowing that every act is effective, helps me to plan a path to a better future and to act toward it, if necessary, in small ways. The long view given by the vision of rebirth allows me to pursue a course that will offer a better life to my children though I may never see it. In short, human-reality involves both freedom and contingency. This freedom is not an abstract, contextless lack of restraint, but an effective power over self and situation. Neither is contingency mere limits on that power; rather context enters into the very definition of who I am. That is to say, I am both a product of the world, society and the past and a producer of world, society and the future. The concept of //vipaaka// expresses the ambiguity of human-reality rather well. It happens to me, like a contingency, inevitably but unannounced: early arthritis, say, cuts short my career as a musician. Yet it is, after all, but the final phase of an act taken in freedom. The karma-rebirth mythology lacks the detail to yield a complete theory of world or an anthropology of groups, society and the state. Evans.txt Page:7 We do see, however, that the world is, in part, constructed by human activity. Rebirth moreover implies that individual human-reality extends beyond its community. On the other hand, life streams may remain intertwined across many lifetimes, emphasizing the power of relationships independent of the communal context. To accommodate human freedom, then, is in the state's interest. People will aspire, and will act on those aspirations: for possessions, for self expression, for survival. To say we have a "right" may mean no more than that we //will//. To deny that reality is to invite unrest. Even death does not silence the force of will, as represented in the stories in which beings pursue each other life after life seeking revenge and counter-revenge. One imagines throngs of Tibetan ghosts haunting Dong in his dreams and beyond. If not inviolable, human-reality is at least //irrepressible//. As a subject, it is in my interest to recognize and to act on my freedom, for just so do I take responsibility for my own life and deliberately create a future in which I may support self and family etc. Since karma is //cetanaa//, even under a just regime living an ethical life is effective for me only to the extent that the choices are mine rather than in slavish obedience to the law. Indeed, subservience may be akin to //vibhavata.nhaa//, thirst for non- being: very bad karma indeed. Since every act is a choice, abdicating freedom constitutes inauthenticity, or in traditional terms, //avijjaa//. The Buddhist ethical question is not whether or not we are free, but whether or not we accept responsibility for the freedom we cannot abdicate. According to //Dhammapada// 127 there is nowhere to hide from freedom and responsibility, even we might add, within the protective confines of a totalitarian state. The Buddha was fond of saying that his Dharma led to happiness in this world as well as next, and even gave advise for achieving earthly happiness and a happy rebirth. [18] There is no dishonor in acting in one's own interest. //Karu.naa// and //mettaa// enjoin us to act in the interests of others as well. Right livelihood, moreover asks me to take responsibility for the wider effects of my actions. Active support of an unjust government may violate right livelihood and since I cannot //not// act, silence is complicity. But what about resignation and the stilling of desire? What is to be stilled is greed, hatred and delusion, or in the language of the noble truths: thirst for experience (//kaamata.nha//), thirst to be something (//bhavata.nhaa//), and thirst to be nothing (//vibhavata.nhaa//). [19] What is to be resigned to is not oppression, but human-reality: my own freedom and contingency. In terms of the state, the delusion to be dispelled is that I am no more than an extension of it (pure contingency) on the one hand or that I have no dependence or responsibility to it all (pure freedom) on the other. [20] //ANATTAA, PA~NCAKKHANDHA, PA.TICCASAMUPPAADA// Evans.txt Page:8 Buddhist writers frequently invoke these ideas to speak of universal interdependence. Politically, interdependence implies a society in which each honors the needs of all. Yet in this view, the unenlightened individual is a blind node in a web of interrelations at which she may only guess, and in whose benevolence she can only hope. As an oppressed member of a less than ideal society, she is left waiting on the enlightenment of others. What the Buddha of the Pali Canon describes, however, is not a web of interrelations, but the arising of individual consciousness. He is less interested in a theory of the whole than in a description of the immediate, tractable situation of persons. //Pa.ticcasamuppaada// describes the arising of suffering, and in the process, describes the arising of the suffering being itself. In fact, this whole complex of ideas appears as an answer to the question: if there is no eternal soul, how do you explain transmigration? Or, for that matter, given //anattaa// and //anicca// how is there continuity at all? Today we might ask why human behavior is not totally arbitrary. In his answer, the Buddha presents //pa~ncakkhandha// as the structure of human-reality and //pa.ticcasamuppaada// as the dynamic process, or the engine which drives it. In its standardized form, //pa.ticcasamuppaada// reads as follows: avijjaa paccayaa sa.nkhaaraa sa.nkhaaraa paccayaa vi~n~naa.na.m vi~n~naa.na paccayaa naamaruupa.m naamaruupa paccayaa sa.laayatana.m sa.laayatana paccayaa phasso phassa paccayaa vedanaa vedanaa paccayaa ta.nhaa ta.nhaa paccayaa upaadaana.m upaadaana paccayaa bhavo bhava paccayaa jaati jaati paccayaa jaraamara.nasokaparidevadukkhadomanassa upaayaasaa sambhavanti. [21] This is often interpreted as describing the workings of karma across three lifetimes, where //sa"nkhaara// is glossed as a synonym for past karma, //vi~n~naa.na// as rebirth consciousness and //naamaruupa// as the embryo. The following stage, //sa.laayatana// is then taken to mean the physical development of sense organs and //bhava// as new karma. This interpretation is supported in //Mahaanidaanasutta// (//Diigha Nikaaya//) where the Buddha asks whether //naamaruupa// could appear in the mothers womb if //vi~n~naa.na// did not first descend there. Given that different sutras give variants of the formula (this //sutta//, e.g. omits //sa.laayatana//), we should not be rigid in our interpretations. In the same //sutta//, the Buddha uses similar language to describe how grasping leads to violence in society. This cycle clearly refers to events within a life time, without the "magical" cement of //kamma-vipaaka//. Moreover, still in the same //sutta//, he insists that not Evans.txt Page:9 only is //naamaruupa// dependent on //vi~n~naa.na//, but that //vi~n~naa.na// is dependent on //naamaruupa// as well , suggesting a more immediate dynamic. Another interpretation understands this as an ontological rather than a chronological process: the Buddha is describing the momentary arising and ceasing of suffering being. With this reading, //sa"nkhaara// might be more naturally translated as "orientation", //bhava// as "becoming" and //vi~n~naa.na// simply as "consciousness". //Naamaruupa// is always difficult, yet here as in many places, "naming appearances" ( //naama// means "name", //ruupa// means "color" or "shape") or "the interpretive act," works well. That act then conditions or defines the instrumentality of perception, //sa.laayatana//, and so forth. In this view, the distinct subject and object are derivative, and //what// is "out there" and "in here" are interpretations. This meshes perfectly with the Buddha's refusal to affirm either existence or non-existence. There is simply nothing we can say about being-in-itself not because "it" is beyond language (i.e. transcendent) but because in saying something (or even just in pointing, perceiving) we have already interpreted. We cannot designate objective being independent of a perceiving subject but neither can we designate subjective being independent of a perceived object. The suutras support both interpretations, and I suspect that to the enlightened intellect they will converge. In either case, //pa.ticcasamuppaada// deepens the theory of karma in affirming that not only do I receive the results of my acts -- but that I //am// the results of my acts: thirst yields grasping yields becoming yields birth -- and cycling back -- yields an orientation (or karmic formations?) informed by ignorance. Moreover, by including the instrumentality of perception and contact, it is clear that the act is a response: called forth, as it were, by an //other//. In fact, throughout the sutras, //act// is analyzed into a relational event between self and other, neither of which is granted full independence from that event. [22] The doctrine of //anattaa// (no self) radicalizes this to the point that we may say that what I //am// is response to an //other//. [23] //Pa~ncakkhandha// is the structure of individual being. //Ruupa// (shape, color) may better be understood as appearance and instrumentality, than as the anatomical body as is often done; //sa~n~naa// is related to memory; //vedanaa// is feeling; //sa"nkhaaraa// is mental formations, or orientation, in which intention (//cetanaa//) is decisive; and //vi~n~naa.na// is simple awareness. Against the usual translation of //sa~n~naa// as perception, I'll say that //pa~ncakkhandha// as a whole looks very much like a phenomenology of perception. Since it is also a decomposition of //naamaruupa//, we may say that //pa~ncakkhandha// is the structure of the interpretive act. That is to say, //I am an (act of) interpretation of the world//. What I am, then, is dependent on what is "out there" to be interpreted. But also, the world (what is "out there") is dependent on the interpretation, for example because what I perceive is shaped at the most fundamental level by my Evans.txt Page:10 past (//sa~n~naa//, and to some extent //ruupa//). What I am responding to, at each level of integration has already been shaped by incipient interpretation at prior levels. This sort of mutual dependence is what the Buddha meant when he said: ... in this very fathom long body with its perceptions and thoughts, there is the world, the world's origin; the world's ending and the path leading to the world's ending. [24] "World" is constituted by human consciousness as the arena in which human consciousness appears. We are at once creatures and creators of the world. The importance of the human-other is expressed in the many aphorisms about choosing our friends well -- for we become like them. [25] Although Buddhism does not draw an absolute boundary between human and other types of existence, human birth is especially prized (e.g. //Dhammapada// 182). Perhaps the clearest expression of this is in the //Sigaalovaadasutta// in which the Buddha insists that our most important relationships are not with the sky, the earth, the four directions but rather with parents, children, spouse etc. Even for monks who "left the world" he counseled good friendships. The //human-other// calls forth the //human// response: it is //for// this human-other that I can be human, that I may enter the realm of meaning. This calling forth is done with a certain consistency of signification and instrumentality, e.g. of language, gesture, of marking time. That is to say a culture, in terms of which human-reality is embodied, recognized and expressed. The human-other calls me forth -- into a //particular// humanity. Raised in a Christian household in the West I //cannot// enter fully into the Buddhist tradition. Since human-reality //is// response, and //anattaa// denies an independent //someone// (and culture-free expression is hardly imaginable), I appear as a simple extension of the community. What I am includes even the other's image of me: i.e. I am what appears to him, subject to his interpretive act as much as he is to mine. This existential compromise of autonomy is why a bad reputation is prominent among the evils listed in the //Sigaalovaadasutta//. On the other hand, as language allows infinite (but not universal) expressiveness, culture empowers infinite (but not all) ways of being. Not only am I called forth (I exist //for// others), but also, I call forth (others exist for //me//). The world is what appears when I respond to the human-other: we, in personal interaction call it forth: The other bears my world and is necessary to my human existence, and //vice versa//. In other words, this actual culture and community is created and sustained by my participation. Besides a free contingency, then, human-reality is an ambiguous dialectic between self and other, person and community, individual and society. I am condemned to freedom in a world that depends on me even as I depend on it. Human worth appears as an invariant mutual Evans.txt Page:11 dependency, one on the other. How this tension is lived varies from person to person and from culture to culture. Like language, one culture may not be immediately comprehensible to another and what is abusive in one, for example, polygamy, may not be so in the other. However, //siila// provides a minimal cross-cultural grammar of behavior, while //pa.ticcasamuppaada// reveals a kind of deep structure through which the underpinnings and internal authority of //siila// may be discovered. The ambiguity of human-reality leads us to attempt security by denying one side of it. Traditionally, as the heresy that "everything exists" or that "nothing exists." Politically, modern Western societies seem to place primacy in the individual, as though we were //not// extensions of community. This emphasis leads to disintegration, alienation, //anomie// etc. Traditional Eastern societies seem to place primacy in the community, as though it were not fully borne by persons. This leads to expendability, psychological repression etc. To deny either side of the person-community ambiguity, however, is ignorance, which informs a certain orientation and modality of presence and of contact etc., an impossible project which experiences the inescapable ambiguity as anguish. As a ruler, my reality may [26] seem to be infinitely greater than that of my subjects. Yet that inflated reality is conferred by the human-others for whom I exist as ruler. To the extent that I deny their reality, e.g. by forbidding free expression, they lose the power to inflate my reality. Rather they become for me an extension of my own contingency, like my own body, mastery over which is meaningless in isolation. Hence, I am likely to require "spontaneous" demonstrations of support. Yet, because human-reality is irrepressible, freedom lurks behind every face, the intent of which I can only surmise to be rebellious since //otherness//, independent freedom, is banished. Any expression of dissent gives the lie to the fiction of domination -- as though my own body were rebelling, like cancer. In general, since I am //for// you, when I order your execution, I order also my own; when I order your imprisonment, it is mine as well. The person appears embedded in a community felt as a secure world in which freedom is exercised. The reciprocal dependence of the community on the person is rarely recognized, giving community a kind of ultimacy. The modern state appropriates the authority of community with the language of self-determination, peoplehood etc. and the citizen clings to it as a kind of sham community over which he has little power. Even in democracies, power is constrained and sporadic, not the day to day re-creation of life of community. Now, though the state is essentially alien, I feel it as the source of my own reality and hesitate to challenge its abuses publicly. The quiet, interpersonal way in which abuses may be addressed in genuine community is utterly ineffective, however. [27] Powerless, I may accept abuse even against myself and my group, granting superior Evans.txt Page:12 authority and wisdom to the state. This may seem odd, but insecure myself, I gain security by clinging to the larger reality. In other words, the citizen solves his lack of being by submerging in that of the state (whose emptiness is hidden). I then view the dissenter with deep suspicion, even hatred, for he discloses the relativity of my world. Nevertheless, //pa.ticcasamuppaada// holds. I am a relationship to the state involving both freedom and dependence and my human-reality involves forging effective means of expressing both. I have a claim on the state, even as it has a claim on me. The appearance of an out-group is threatening to both ruler and subject. The foreigner is a human-reality for whom I exist but in which relationship I have no language for creating/interpreting a meaning. I do not know who I am for him, and I cannot influence that image since I don't know the culture. The foreigner, in other words, removes part of my reality beyond reach. It becomes less threatening to interpret him as an undifferentiated extension of his group. Yet in denying his reality, I deny that of myself which he bears. As a ruler, the foreigner is someone for whom I am not a ruler. The out-group reveals the relativity of my rule, hence of my being. Of course the ethnic minority within my own borders may be particularly threatening. On the other hand, it provides the hope of reaffirming my inflated reality, //vis a vis// a recognized //other//, through conquest: a project that fails in its success. When I order the suppression, or extermination, of the hill people, I order the destruction of a whole world: a world in which I and my people live as //others// and which indeed is mutually inclusive of //our// world. In other words, I order the destruction of my own world. In socio-political life as in personal and communal life, //pa.ticcasamuppaada// holds. In ignorance (//avijjaa//) we grasp (//upaadaana//) at certainty , denying the ambiguity that we are only to be reconstituted (//bhava//, //jaati//) as an ambiguous tension in denial of its ambiguity (//mara.na// cycled back to //avijjaa//). The Buddhist, growing in the acceptance of the ambiguity of being and non-being, freedom and dependence, will more and more express freedom (as well as dependence), very possibly in opposition to the state. CONCLUSIONS The Buddha recognized human existence as the rare state in which freedom could be maximized, as the state in which we could progress toward enlightenment. When he urged us to respect others, however, it was not in terms of their supreme potential, but in terms of their ordinariness: the other is one like me, subject to fear, pain, joy etc. (//Dhammapada// 129). It is in ordinariness that we too have found a basis for "human Evans.txt Page:13 rights." In the karma-rebirth mythology we discovered not inviolability, indeed, but irrepressibility. Not that human beings //should// be free, but that they //are//, and that the state would be wise to accommodate that freedom, while managing it for the common good. Since the mythology implies both the freedom and the effectiveness of each act, I might say that freedom is what I am, hence, to abdicate freedom to the state e.g. by remaining silent in the face of a known injustice, is to be in denial, or in Buddhist terms, ignorance, //avijjaa//. Examining the deeper Buddhist analysis of the human condition reinforces and deepens these conclusions. Instead of saying "freedom is what I am," we assert that "I am a response to you." More than free and contingent, individual human-reality is at once creature and creator of community, society and world. If the ruler claims the relativity or "emptiness" of the individual, we cannot argue, //anattaa// holds. But if he extends this to expendibility, in effect taking the position that "I am real and you are not," we must say, first, that the same logic justifies assassination, since the ruler is "empty" as well. More than that, we must say that his reality is dependent on the subject's: as soon as one enters into relationship with any other, the other ceases to be expendable because human-reality is radically dependent, each on the other. Here is a kind of inviolability. Not that there is a "dignity" resident somehow in every human breast, but that such a dignity, as it were, appears along with the relation between persons: I //am// for you, and you for me, and as soon as I enter into a relationship with you, you become necessary to my being. This "dignity," is inescapable //because// ephemeral, //my// lack of self corresponds to //yours//. If I order your execution, I //am// that death. As a //subject// if I fail to resist known injustice, I am complicit, because "resignation" is a choice. We may say further, that since the world is what appears to human eyes, when I order an execution, I destroy a world: human death is an unutterable tragedy. Analysis along these lines will yield a Buddhist anthropology and theory of human rights serviceable in the modern world. BIBLIOGRAPHY Amnesty International 1993 _Amnesty International Report 1993_. New York: Amnesty International USA. Aung San Suu Kyi 1991 _Freedom From Fear_. New York: Penguin Books. Conze, Edward 1967 "Buddhism: The Mahaayaana," in _The Concise Evans.txt Page:14 Encyclopedia of Living Faiths_, 296-320 ed. R. C. Zaehner, Boston: Beacon Press. Human Rights Watch 1993 _Human Rights Watch World Report (Events of 1993)_. New York: Human Rights Watch. Keown, Damien 1995 "Are There 'Human Rights' in Buddhism," _The Journal of Buddhist Ethics_, 2:3-27. Naarada, Ven. Thera, trans., ed. 1979 _A Manual of Abhidhamma: Abhidhammattha Sa"ngaha_. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Buddhist Missionary Society. Naarada, Ven. Thera, trans. 1978 _The Dhammapada_. Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: Buddhist Missionary Society. Nhat Hanh, Thich 1987 _Being Peace_. Berkeley, California: Parallax Press. Nyanaponika, Ven Thera, trans. 1981 _A"nguttara Nikaaya: The Discourse Collection in Numerical Order, An Anthology_, Part I. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society. Rahula, Walpola, Ven. 1974 _The Heritage of the Bhikkhu_. New York: Grove Press. Walshe, Maurice, trans. 1987 _Thus have I heard: The Long Discourses of the Buddha (Diigha Nikaaya)_. London: Wisdom Publications. NOTES [1]. All Dhamapada quotes are from Narada (trans) (1978). [2]. Keown (1995:5). [3]. Keown (1995:16, 18). [4]. Human Rights Watch (1993:xix). [5]. Keown (1995:5). [6]. Aung San Suu Kyi (1991:167-179). [7]. Rahula (1974:3-7). Evans.txt Page:15 [8]. Nhat Hahn (1987:83ff). [9]. Rahula (1974:21,22). [10]. Conze (1967:307). [11]. These opinions were expressed in private conversions. I have no idea what proportion of each group shares these feelings, but they are not unusual. [12]. Rahula (1974:134-136). [13]. Amnesty International (1993:265-268). [14]. Keown (1995:6). [15]. See e.g. //A"nguttara Nikaaya// VI, 63, or //A"nguttara Nikaaya// III, 61. [16]. In the language of //Abhidhamma//, //cetanaa// is universally present in consciousness. See, e.g., Naarada (1979:77). [17]. This analysis may have to be revised for fully enlightened beings. Our concern, however, is with the ordinary person. [18]. For example in the //Mahaama"ngalasutta, Sutta Nipaata// and in the //Vyagghapajjasutta, A"nguttara Nikaaya//). [19]. //Bhavata.nhaa// and //vibhavata.nhaa// are also interpreted as lust for certain mystical experiences, but these are not relevant to our purposes. [20]. Compare these to the heresies leading to inaction, e.g. //A"nguttara// III,61. [21]. Naarada (ed) (1979:354). The translation of several of these terms is controversial and published translations are generally skewed to support the translator's interpretation. A fairly literal translation would be: ignorance conditions formations [mental? karmic?] formations condition consciousness consciousness conditions nameshape nameshape conditions the six fields [of perception] the six fields condition contact contact conditions feeling feeling conditions grasping grasping conditions becoming becoming conditions birth birth conditions decay, death, sorrow etc. [22]. See, for example, //A"nguttara// VI, 63 where the subject seems to dominate and III, 68 where the object seems more important. [23]. The concept of an "other" need not lead to a metaphysical Evans.txt Page:16 dualism, we are in the realm of phenomenology here, and the Buddha of the Pali Canon did not even address such speculative issues. [24]. //A"nguttara// IV, 45, Nyanaponika (trans) (1981:85) [25]. See, e.g., //A"nguttara// IV, 246. [26]. The following analyses are not meant to be universally applicable, but to suggest possible modes of being a ruler or subject. [27]. I certainly do not intend to romanticize traditional communities. They have their own problems, different from those of modern societies.