Buddhism and Human Rights

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Buddhism and Human Rights Online Conference

Date: Sun, 01 Oct 1995 09:05:22 -0300
From: "Dr. Wayne R. Husted"
Subject: Buddhism and Human Rights Online Conference

BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Welcome to "Buddhism and Human Rights," an Online Conference sponsored by the _Journal of Buddhist Ethics_.

Thank you for choosing to participate in the first electronic conference ever attempted in Buddhist Studies. Those of us at the _Journal of Buddhist Ethics_ are truly excited to be venturing forth into new intellectual territory in an attempt to make important scholarship on Buddhism and Human Rights available to the widest possible audience. We hope you enjoy the conference and feel free to contribute to it in a constructive and productive manner.

Consistent with our previous announcements, participation in the conference is structured on three levels: (1) conference papers, which were prepared in advance and are already posted in the JBE, (2) conference panelists, who have prepared advance statements, also posted in the JBE, and who will facilitate the discussions of the papers, and (3) conference members who "attend" by subscribing, free of charge, and who offer comments, questions, and observations at their discretion.

Because we are exploring uncharted territory, it is rather difficult to anticipate the volume of participant response. As such, all comments, questions, and observations will be monitored. We will post as many of these as we possibly can (screening out any submissions deemed inappropriate for publication by the editors). It is our fond desire that the fine papers prepared for the conference will provoke serious, thoughtful discussion that reflects the deep concerns of the conference's constituents,
while at the same time preserving the spontaneity that hopefully emerges in any conference setting.

We hope that the _Journal of Buddhist Ethics_ will be able to sponsor a yearly online conference for our subscribers. In recognition of Buddhism's status as a thoroughly worldwide religion, it is anticipated that next year's topic will be "Buddhism in the Western World."

Thank you again for joining us in this new experiment.

The Editors of the _Journal of Buddhist Ethics_:

Damien Keown
Charles Prebish
Karen Lang
Wayne Husted

Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy
Faculty of Arts
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330, THAILAND

Position Statement on Buddhism and Human Rights

In my conference paper, I showed that there is a contrast between two leading Thai thinkers on this problem. Phra Dhammapidok argues that human rights presuppose divisiveness and contentiousness, which then are not conducive to the ideal end of Buddhism. Social critic Sulak Sivaraksa, on the other hand, thinks the human rights are constitutive of the ideal end itself; thus Buddhism has much to offer to the struggle for greater awareness and actualization of the rights. In the paper I left the question open regarding who is right on this matter and did not discuss it, for that would require another paper in itself. However, in this position statement I would like to sketch a possible answer to the question. I think Theravaada Buddhism itself is neutral on this issue. That is, it neither affirms nor denies that the concept of human rights is inherent to it. Here I speak only of the Theravaada tradition, for that is the tradition in which I grow up and know better than any other. That Theravaada Buddhism is neutral on this does not mean that it is withdrawn or cut off from life outside the monastery. Far from it, the neutrality, in my view, makes possible an open space whereby debates and disagreements can occur on how best to accommodate people who are not enlightened, how best for almost all of us, who cannot
get rid of egoistic tendencies, to live together.

Moreover, the neutrality points to the *pragmatic* nature of Buddhism. In one of the Sutras, the Buddha told a story of a man suffering from an arrow. The immediate need for the man is to get rid of the arrow and treat the wound as soon as possible; but if the man or those around him insists on asking such questions as where the arrow came from, from what material it was made, and so on, the man himself might not be able to live long. These questions are irrelevant to the man's suffering, so are all philosophical speculations which detach people from making a direct effort to end their //dukkha.//

So debates on whether there are human rights in Buddhism is comparable to the needless questions in the parable. What should be immediately attended to is that proper action take place, not just debates. This does not, however, necessarily mean that all philosophical discussions or debates are useless, in my view. But it accentuates the point that for Buddhism the only course is toward cessation ofsufferings, and if discussions and debates contribute to that end, then they are valuable.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 06:32:36
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Re: Position Statement on Buddhism and Human Rights

I would like to request a definition of "human rights" so that we all are on the same wavelength. I found when I lived in China, for example, that this idea differed from that used in the US. People tend to talk about it as though we all "know" what human rights are. As an example, where I lived in China, the right to personal safety was considered an essential huamn right and here in the US we don't talk about that. Thank you!

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:17:20
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Kimberley - are you asking for a definition of human rights or a list of the particular rights which should go on a list of "human rights"?

If the former, I would say human rights are rights a person possesses by virtue of being human, in the sense that they are possessed by everyone regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth etc and are not conferred by--or removable by--a political or other authority.

As to what things should go on a list of human rights: things like life, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, equal treatment before the law, a right not to be tortured or persecuted, and a right to form political parties usually feature somewhere near the top. The UN Declaration goes further to mention a right to education and employment, and begins to sound a bit like a wish list or political manifesto than anything else. The Declaration seems to include personal safety (in some sense) in the right to "security of person" mentioned in article 3. If there are any activists out there, perhaps they could say what sort of rights they campaign for specifically.

Damien Keown

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:37:43
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Dear Mr. Keown and All,

My point is that in order for us to share a discussion concerning rights [whether human or for sentient beings or even for social units such as family or nation], I believe that we need to establish some perhaps contested agreement on a definition of what we are talking about. Since coming back from China, I too often hear the buzz words, "human rights", which appear to be essentially the same as our US Bill of Rights, when in my experience from living other places where people think of their rights in different terms {in some cases meaning that the social unit takes precedence over the individual as strange as that may seem to many Americans}. When we are dealing with Buddhism, a philosophy and religion with worldwide roots in beliefs and traditions and practice, I feel that we need some foundation of common language and ground before we can deal with Buddhist ethics and rights.

For example, some of you have talked about organ transplantation and Buddhist ethics. In our evaluation of rights are we, for example, considering the rights of baboons in liver transplantation? What would their rights be in the context of Buddhist thought? If the retrieval of human organs for tranplantation is discouraged after death, wouldn't it also be so for animals? The reason I bring this up is that I feel the cultural contexts in which we define and evaluate these issues of rights shape both our questions and our answers in different ways. If we are all to accept the UN human rights guidelines as our standards -- and with its focus on individuals -- the ideas with which this conference will conclude about Buddhism and ethics will perhaps be very different than if we pursue definition of human and sentient beings rights from global and Buddhist perspectives. Since the voices of people involved in this net conference are international, we here have an opportunity to really move forward from the UN standard, which seems to me to be culturally fixed on a Western first world standard, toward perhaps sets of ideas about human rights and Buddhist ethics [meaning not a list of what they are necessarily, but rather at what levels individual/social unit/ or greater culture/society we are trying to consider]. This task indeed might be too much for one conference, but if that's the case, why not limit right at the start by clearly stating we will only deal with the rights of human individuals as clarified in the UN document on human rights? Then I and we will all know where we are heading with the perspective of the current discussions and conversations.
Thank you very much, Kim

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 04:41:17
From: "Anthony Matthews" 100103.722@compuserve.com
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 10:16:36
From: "Hendra Widjaja" hendra@cs.adelaide.edu.au
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

I would say that the concept of human rights without *human responsibilities* is weak. What I perceive is that the concept of human rights is a western concept, which is "imported" by eastern countries as a result of present-day circumstances.

In my opinion, such an explicit concept of human rights is hardly found in Buddhism. If you would remember, in some Jataka stories, the Boddhisatva himself sometimes made great sacrifices, either of himself or of his family members.

Therefore, I tend to see that "human rights" are something which is important, but may not necessarily be a central tenet in Buddhism. On the other hand, such rights are indeed to be accompanied by responsibilities. Buddhism always stresses the importance of good deeds to others. The five silas (PancaSila) is one example. Since everyone is both a subject and an object of good-deed, it means that everyone has both rights and responsibilities. Imposing one without the other could well mean chaos.

All in all, I think that both human rights and human responsibilities are important, and that they form the "infra-structure" of the Buddhistic goal of life, i.e. the final liberation (Nirvana).

As a question, I wonder, whether there is any "balance" between "human rights" and "human responsibilities" in Buddhism? And if yes, how "balanced"??

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 10:47:39
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

But this is precisely the problem: If these are not bestowed by a political authority, then where *do* they come from? The use by rights activists of terms like "inalienable" makes it clear that the fundamental thinking is essentialist: this is not a historical or social happenstance, but somehow an essential part of the phenomenon that is the human being. And here is where we can see the spectre of atman-thinking creeping back into Buddhism.

As to what things should go on a list of human rights: things like life, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, equal treatment before the law, a right not to be tortured or persecuted, and a right to form political parties usually feature somewhere near the top.

I think we can all agree that these are GOOD THINGS. That is not the issue. The issue is whether the importation of rights terminology into B'ism does not violate the latter's insights into the human condition, ie radical interdependence and non-essentialism. And if it does, what kind of terminology B'ists could use that would be consonant with the *goals* of human rights without compromising the B'ist uncompromising stance on nonsubstantiality.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 17:09:21
From: "Soraj Hongladarom" soraj@chulkn.car.chula.ac.th
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Since I am limited to only about an hour each day on the Internet, I have to prepare my post off-line. Reading the new posts, I feel that my contribution here might not be directly in the thick of things. But, anyway, here it is. I feel very much like to respond to many of the excellent posts directly, but for now at least I can't do that. So please bear with me if my posts or responses are a little late. I would appreciate it a lot if any of the conference participants comment or criticize what I have to say here. This has been brewing in my mind for some time, and this conference is a perfect opportunity to air this view. Thanks.

Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy
Faculty of Arts
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330, THAILAND
******

Clarifying my position

In my position statement I said that Theravaada Buddhism is neutral regarding the question of founding human rights within its system. This does not mean, however, that I am saying that Theravaada Buddhism is unconcerned or ignorant of the actualization or enforcement of the rights. But what I am proposing is that Buddhism is very clear and specific on what the ultimate goal of humans is and how they could go about attaining it, and the one who sets himself or herself toward the goal is not progressing toward it if he or she becomes engaged in 'academic' questions without realizing that they could only be means, to be discarded once their usefulness is exhausted or their true nature is fully grasped. The pragmatic nature of Buddhism teaches that philosophical argumentation and questionings are only valuable if they help those pursuing them realizing the Path; these activities are not ends in themselves. However, questions regarding the nature or the foundation of human rights, while important in their own right, do not directly promote the path to the ultimate goal, if their pursuit comes in form of contentions and endless debates. The Buddha, I think, is clear on this. One does not attain the goal if one is always engaged in such contentions and philosophical pursuit.

This is the reason why I think Buddhism is neutral on the problem of grounding human rights. I would venture to say that the Buddhist position I am interpreting here is largely similar to that of a pragmatist.

The grounding problem is by nature an epistemological one, and the typical pragmatist attitude toward this kind of problem is that the whole idea of grounding is suspect. Philosophical problems such as this do not lend themselves to easy and neatly defined answers precisely because they are not capable to. Dialectic is built into the nature of such philosphical activity. What this implies for our question at hand is that the Buddhist, as well as the pragmatist, sees the grounding problem as an exercise, the activity of searching for the answer itself being a means toward an end. What is crucial is not which position is the right one, but that engaging in such activity as searching for the 'right' answer through debate and discussion--which could well go on and on, limited only by external circumstances--is valuable if it serves some purpose. For Buddhism that purpose is that, eventually, the ideal end itself is achieved.

This has become a bit too theoretical. What I am proposing, in short, is that Buddhism is analogous to an open arena where opponents in debates can participate in their games. The image of Tibetan monks intensely debating the fine points in the texts comes to mind.

Buddhism is equally at home with both with absolute monarchy and with egalitarian democracy. Asoka was a powerful autocrat, albeit a relatively benevolent one, and one can easily imagine a state which is genuinely democratic whose citizens are predominantly Buddhist (not just nominally, but really practicing ones). What this shows, in my view, is that Buddhism does not actually care for what kind of government is in place, so long as the populace are satisfied, the state stable,and the Sangha community is well cared for.

If human rights are inherent in Buddhism, then it should have had conflicts with autocratic, absolute monarchical regimes, but history seems to show that Buddhism prospered tremendously during monarchical regimes.

Due to limited time I can only cite textual support from memory. In my position statement I cited the arrow parable. Another story coming from the Suutras is that once the Buddha was staying with his disciples in a forest. He picked up some of the leaves which had fallen around him in his hand and asked the monks which ones were larger in number--the leaves in his hand or the ones in the whole forest. The monks answered that the latter were larger. The Buddha then said that all the knowledges that were known by him were as numerous as the leaves in the forest, but he did not teach them because they were not conducive to cessation of suffering. He only taught those knowledges which were conducive to cessation of suffering, which were fewer in number.

I interpret this Suutra as saying that such philosophical questions as the grounding of human rights are comparable to the leaves in the forest the Buddha prefers not to talk about. The immediate task is to attain cessation of suffering. This saying of the Buddha has been vexing me for a long, long time. For, as has been acknowledged by many in this conference, human rights at least are not incompatible with the Buddha's teachings, and the ideal Buddhist community is surely one where the *purpose* of having the rights is clearly actualized. Perhaps a way out is to take it that talks of rights are still necessary for us imperfect beings who are still attached to egoistic tendencies. In this type of situation talks of rights, I agree, are necessary and important. But as for the question whether such talks are 'grounded' in Buddhism, that's another matter.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 22:12:21
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Human Rights Position Statement: Soraj Hongladarom

Many examples have been given. The right to life is a fundamental one. Freedom to practise one's religion is another.

The concept itself doesn't vary in meaning -- what happens is that people disagree about who has rights to what, and the claims have to be examined to see who is correct.

"Human" rights are primarily moral claims, although they are commonly enshrined in and given effect through political instruments. Their ultimate authority is a moral rather than a political one.

Like Buddhism, Christianity traditionally used the language of duties and responsibilities, but now talks in terms of rights as well. Christians haven't changed their beliefs, they just find the new vocabulary more appropriate in certain contexts. There is no real distinction between the moral and political spheres in this context: human rights are a means of giving legal/political effect to what is "right" on moral grounds.

Damien Keown

Human Rights Position

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 09:23:49
From: "Wayne R. Husted"
Damien Keown - Goldsmiths, University of London

I can see four important issues in connection with Buddhism and Human Rights, although there may well be more:

1) Is the concept of "rights" appropriate in a Buddhist context? Specifically, does "rights talk" distort or in some important way misrepresent Buddhist teachings? If so, should Buddhists avoid this language and evolve a distinctively Buddhist vocabulary for addressing issues which are nowadays expressed in the language of rights?

I think using the language of rights in a Buddhist context presents no major conceptual or doctrinal problems. In this respect I share the view of HHDL who in his writings and public statements makes use of the concept of "human rights" freely and without qualification. I do not believe his remarks are directed solely at Western audiences, and even if they were, he surely would not use the concept of rights if he felt it was in any way incompatible with Buddhist teachings. Perera goes through the UN Declaration on Human Rights article by article and shows (in some cases more convincingly than others) how there is a precedent for each item in early Buddhist teachings.

In his statements on human rights, what HHDL seems to be calling for above all is justice, and respect for human dignity, neither of which seem incompatible with traditional Buddhist moral principles. Traditionally, Buddhism would express these ideals by speaking of virtues and duties (such as the virtue of compassion, and the duty not to harm others as embodied in the First Precept) , but they can just as easily be expressed in terms of rights (the corresponding right of others not to be treated unjustly or harmed). Most societies (including the West until comparatively recently) have traditionally expressed their moral ideals in terms of duties, and only in recent centuries has the concept of rights come to prominence. There are historical reasons for this, but the fact that the concept first evolved in the West does not preclude it from being applicable in other cultures, IMHO.

2) Even if Buddhism CAN invoke the language of rights, should it do so?

I share the concern of several commentators that the Western predilection for analysing moral and legal responsibility exclusively in terms of rights is not without its dangers. The exclusively subjective orientation of rights creates a tendency for individuals to conceive of themselves as atomic units who are "owed" something by "society", rather than participants in a community to which they have responsibilities and to which they can make a contribution. In Buddhist terms, the danger is a reinforcement of the notion of "self" and a failure to recognise interdependence ("interbeing"). A society which places too much emphasis on rights may therefore not foster other-directed virtues (such as generosity and compassion) which Buddhism values. To the extent that rights enshrine the idea of "self" in social institutions they represent a tendency that needs to be monitored. At the same time, the important corrective role of rights must not be lost sight of, in that rights emphasise the unique value and dignity of the individual and offer protection against abuse by institutional authority.

3) How is a doctrine of human rights to be grounded in Buddhist doctrine?

Given that Buddhists seem to support the aims of human rights charters, how is this support to be accounted for in terms of Buddhist doctrine? There are several suggestions as to where Buddhism might ground a doctrine of human rights: i) dependent-origination (Inada, Unno, Evans), ii) compassion (Garfield), iii) human dignity deriving from the radical capacity for enlightenment (Keown). This question is a long way from being resolved but in a sense is the most important, since if there is no foundation for human rights in Buddhist teachings the other questions are academic.

4) What is the appropriate Buddhist response in the face of human rights abuses?

This concerns the practical stance Buddhists should take, whether protests should always be non-violent, the kinds of tactics to be used (boycots, embargoes, demonstrations), and so forth. Hovering in the background are larger questions concerning the involvement of Buddhism in politics and other issues of the kind dealt with in writings on socially engaged Buddhism, such as the kind of social philosophy and political system Buddhists should espouse. The relationship between Buddhism and business is extremely important here in view of the influence of multinational corporations on almost every aspect of daily life, and particularly in the third world. This question is dealt with in the paper by David Bubna-Litic.

Damien Keown

Human Rights Position Statement: Jamie Hubbard Sender

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 09:23:51
From: "Wayne R. Husted"
Buddhism and Human Rights: A Few Thoughts Jamie Hubbard, Smith College
September 29, 1985

I. Speaking without regard to the historical record:
A. Buddhists would probably find that the ethical values of the dhamma are entirely consonant with many of the values enshrined in "human rights."
B. This is not to say that the presuppositions behind those values are consonant with the presuppositions of human rights.
C. In fact they are radically opposed.
1. The notion of rights is:
a. historically tied to the idea of individual ownership, contracts, and an underlying metaphysical structure of independent and sovereign "beings;" it is thus clearly a product of a particular time and place, i.e., post- Enlightenment Euro-America.
b. realized through legal and ultimately coercive authority; rights are adversarial in nature. (1) Realized through legal authority, the natural adjudicators of human rights are elected officials, legislators, and the courts.
2. The ethics of the dhamma:
a. presuppose no-self, hence the inherency of rights is problematic, as is the idea of the inherent existence of their owner.
b. demand individual cultivation of discriminating wisdom as the only real solution to suffering of self and others.
(1) The embodiment of Buddhist discriminating wisdom is the monastic community.
D. This is why Western rights theory is troubling to many Asians and philosophically problematic for Buddhists; the culturally particular genesis of human rights also helps to explain why the import/export of the human rights culture is often associated with the import/export of other aspects of Western culture, including the hyper-consumerism so oft-attacked by Sivaraksa.
E. So while to be Buddhist might mean upholding the values of human rights and might dictate using rights language as a rhetorical expediency for today's world (skillful means), the rationale *and* the goal is different.

II. Speaking in terms of the historical record:
A. Insofar as Buddhist cultures derive normative social values from dhamma, they still have no particularly privileged record of sanctity or sagacity. Wars and injustice have been known throughout the Buddhist world in the past and, from the current vantage point, it would be hard to say that Buddhist cultures were particularly well-equipped for their encounter with modernity and the onslaught of Western culture (although the story is by no means over yet). The postcolonial experience for Asia, as with most of the world, has been one of turmoil and tragedy, perhaps only slightly less so than the colonial experience.
B. Perhaps this is because, reflecting I.C.2. above, Buddhist doctrine has had little to say on social issues (not to say that Buddhists have not been inextricably intertwined with social and political realities); Buddhist political activism in the name of "justice" or "human rights" is a new phenomena.
1. Even when Buddhist doctrines have been deployed in the name of state and social values, the record is mixed at best, as when the Japanese understood their national polity in terms of Kegon philosophy (which caused the downfall of the Nara court and more recently served as a buttress for the militarism of the 30's); Muslims in Thailand don't always get such a fair shake from the dominant Buddhist population. In today's world I am nervous about overt and covert forms of theocracy.=7F

III. Thus it seems to me that:
A. Buddhists can derive the necessary social values from Buddhist doctrine without recourse to the culturally and philosophically problematic notion of rights-- perhaps Phra Dhammapidok's notion of "social kamma" is a good place to start; although social kamma is a traditional element of Buddhist doctrine, it can be derived from the tradition more easily than human rights.
B. for human being living in this particular time and place, the rhetoric of human rights seems of good service and should be advocated, as the Dalai Lama and others have done so successfully; Buddhists, however, might ultimately have other priorities.
C. the Buddhist goal of eliminating the suffering of self and others puts the primary focus on self-cultivation; in my opinion the social genius of Sakyamuni was not in organizing protests about the conditions of palace slaves or the rights and duties of householders but rather in creating an institution devoted to the purpose of individual self-cultivation (monasticism); insofar as the monastic institution succeeds *in that pursuit* society benefits.

Jamie

Panelist Statement: Peter Harvey

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 09:28:53 -0400
From: "Wayne R. Husted" wrh7@psu.edu
Subject: Panelist Statement: Peter Harvey
Peter Harvey
peter.harvey@sunderland.ac.uk
Sunderland

BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS: SOME PRINCIPLES AND ISSUES

DUTIES TO ALL SENTIENT BEINGS

As all beings have been close relatives or friends in past rebirths (//Sa.myutta Nikaaya// II.189-90), they have all been good to one, and it is one's duty to respect them and never harm them or prevent their flourishing. As Emperor Asoka said: There is no better deed than to work for the welfare of the whole world, and all my efforts are made that I may clear my debt to all beings. I make them happy here and now that they may attain heaven in the next life (Sixth Rock Edict).

In all beings is the 'brightly shining mind' (//pabhassara citta//), known in the Mahaayaana as the 'Buddha nature'. This represents the potential for enlightenment in all and contains the seed of great lovingkindness and compassion. One has a duty to nurture this seed in oneself, which entails expressing these qualities in respect for others, and their potential.

If a being had a Self, it would be invulnerable, and in no need of protection by such things as 'rights'. As beings are composed of factors which are all not-Self, they are vulnerable, and share this vulnerability as a basic quality of being sentient. To abuse another being is to ignore this shared vulnerability.

At a basic level, all sentient beings are alike in disliking pain and wanting happiness (//Majjhima Nikaaya// I.341). One should therefore not inflict on another what one would not want done to oneself: Having traversed the whole world with my thought, I never yet met with anything dearer to anyone than his own [empirical, vulnerable] self. Since the self of others is dear to each one, let him who loves himself not harm another (//Udaana//47).

All tremble at punishment,
Life is dear to all.
Comparing others with oneself,
One should neither kill nor cause to kill (//Dhammapada//130)

For a state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must be to him also; and a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how can I inflict that upon another? (//Sa.myutta Nikaaya//V.353-54). This is the principle of sympathy with other sentient beings (//anukampaa//), which all sentient beings have latent in their minds, however much it is masked or ignored.

Any suffering that one sees other sentient beings undergoing is something that one has oneself undergone in a previous life (//Sa.myutta Nikaaya// II.186); one therefore has no grounds to ignore or turn one's back on this, but has a duty to help.

To the extent to which one hinders the flourishing of another, one impedes one's own flourishing.

Non-human sentient beings should be respected to the extent that they can benefit from this.

DUTIES TO HUMANS
In a being's wandering in the round of //sa.msaara//, to be reborn a human is a rare event (//Dhammapada// 182, //Sa.myutta Nikaaya//V.475-76), which offers a great opportunity for moral and spiritual growth and flourishing. One should make the best use of this opportunity, and do one's best to aid the moral and spiritual flourishing of other humans, and never to hinder this. One should seek to help others' human rebirth be a truly 'precious human rebirth'.

As emperor Asoka emphasised, moral and spiritual growth is facilitated by conditions of social peace and lack of poverty.

HUMAN RIGHTS
To the extent to which one might say that human rights, in Buddhism, are founded in Dharma , this is primarily as the nature-of-reality, not the Hindu sense of a pattern of social roles. Those who abuse others can be said to be not right-with or true-to Dharma, as they ignore the sort of principles as those set out above.

As is made clear in one of the papers, not all duties entail corresponding rights.

To the extent that the five precepts encode moral norms that are incumbent on all humans, perhaps one can say that one has, at the very least, 'a right' to expect to be treated in accordance with these precepts, that is:
i) a right not to be deliberately killed or physically harmed
ii) a right not to have one's property respected
iii) a right to marry according to the customs of one's country, and have this respected by others, and a right not to be sexually abused.
iv) a right not to be lied to.
v) a right not to be subjected to loutish, drunken behaviour.

Put this way, such rights entail duties on all other humans. While it does sound odd to say one's 'human rights' have been abused if, for example, one is lied to, it is less odd to say 'you have no right to deceive me'.

GOVERNMENTS AND HUMAN RIGHTS
Human rights talk are relevant primarily in regard to how governments or quasi-governments (cf.civil war situations) treat their people. Historically, the idea of human rights arose in the West, and is often connected with the idea of the social contract as the basis of society and government legitimacy. It has been said that Buddhism has no notion of the social contract, but this seems not to be the case. In the //Agga~n~na Sutta// (//Diigha Nikaaya//III.92), the first ruler is said to have been chosen by the people, in a situation where natural morality was in decline, in order to punish wrong-doers and thus ensure social harmony. This surely implies that the legitimacy of a ruler rests one their carrying out their role of protecting people. To the extent to which they act immorally towards their people, they have no right to govern them. Not only do they abuse people's right to be treated in accordance with the precepts, but they abuse the right which people have invested in a ruler to rule.

Of course, a government's right to 'punish' can be abused. In Buddhism, to be culpable, one must have intended to do an act, and have done it. There are thus no grounds for arbitrary punishment of those who a) did not actually do an act or b) did not fully intend what they did. To punish someone for supposed threats to 'the state' or 'the government' , per se, does not make sense from a Buddhist perspective, 'The state' or 'the government;' is not a sentient being that can be harmed. Only individual sentient beings can be harmed. To the extent to which a person harms or threatens harm to sentient beings, they can be legitimately punished.

While Buddhism praises voluntary self-sacrifice, it has never endorsed the enforced sacrifice of a person or minority 'for the benefit of the many'. Even in cases, from Mahaayaana texts, of killing out of skilful means, this is only under VERY special circumstances, where compassion is the motive, and the one who is killed is not innocent, but involved in an act of killing others.

If a member of a government picks on someone who uncovers unsavoury truths about the government, such an act of persecuting is one aligned with, and based on, untruth.

Being a ruler /member of a government does not place one above Dharma-based rights. Indeed it places greater responsibilities on one, such as the ten qualities of a true king (Jat.III.274): generosity, virtue, liberality, straightness, gentleness, self-restraint, non-anger, non-injury, forbearance, and non-opposition. The last of these would seem to entail not interfering, without good grounds, in the liberty of subjects.

BUDDHISTS RELATIONSHIP TO HUMAN RIGHTS
Rights can be
a) negative: the right to freedom //from// something, eg. arbitrary arrest
or
b) positive: the right //to// something: eg. an adequate education. The first kind of rights are negated by being //abused//, the second by being //neglected//.
While Buddhism contains teachings to correct it, it has a tendency to emphasise non-harming (not abusing) rather than positively benefitting (not neglecting)

One aspect of human rights talk that Buddhists may be uncomfortable with is the aspect of 'demanding rights'. What is problematical, here, though, is not the concept of 'rights', but of //demanding//, with its flavour of anger and egoism. Rights are something that should be respected and protected, but righteous indignation just gets in the way of this. This even applies to //demanding// rights for others. The appropriate Buddhist way is to calmly and firmly point to abused rights and affirm, with determination, that they be respected.

Of course, as regards one's own rights, one may choose to forego them, but this can never be demanded of one by someone else.

Peter Harvey

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 12:23:37 -0400
From: "Wayne R. Husted" os0dwe@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Panelist Statement: Peter Harvey (David Webster)

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 20:01:31 -0400
From: "williams" wrh7@psu.edu
Subject: Re: Panelist Statement: Peter Harvey

Of course, a government's right to 'punish' can be abused. In Buddhism, to be culpable, one must have intended to do an act, and have done it. There are thus no grounds for arbitrary punishment of those who a) did not actually do an act or b) did not fully intend what they did. To punish someone for supposed threats to 'the state' or 'the government' , per se, does not make sense from a Buddhist perspective, 'The state' or 'the government;' is not a sentient being that can be harmed. Only individual sentient beings can be harmed. To the extent to which a person harms or threatens harm to sentient beings, they can be legitimately punished.

The statement "'The state' or 'the government;' is not a sentient being that can be harmed" gives me some concern here as it seems to me that social entities can very well be sentient beings. In this context I am concerned with the rights and responsibilities of one social entity in regard to another social entity. I'd prefer it if any principles developed regarding individual human rights and responsibilities can be transfered pervasively into the social realm.

This is not the same issue as that concerning individuals and social entities. Social entities are composed of individuals, and within this context all rights and responsibilities should be stated in terms of individuals.

Sphere.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 13:21:08 -0700
From: "Dan Zigmond" djz@west.net
Subject: Re: Panelist Statement: Peter Harvey

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:34:53 +0100
From: "david.webster" david.webster@sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Panelist Statement: Peter Harvey

In the light of karmic operation, there appears no need for earthly punishments of any kind.
Are we not only increasing our own future suffering by punishing others for that which they will suffer as a result of anyway? This applies to governments as well as individuals.

Does karma then preclude war-crime trials?

There are justifications for war crimes trials (and other criminal trials) that have little to do with punishment. I believe that in Buddhism (as, for that matter, in mots religions) there exists a mechanism for "punishment" that does not require human intervention. But we still may wish to try people who commit crimes and sentence them to prison if guilty, both to prevent them from doing such crimes again and to discourage others from doing so. Although we are "punishing" them, it is not out of a moral sense that justice must be done, but as a practical matter of how best to reduce the suffering of the world by minimizing these sorts of acts.

Is this really why such trials occur? In such a light, would the buddhist approve of the death penalty - it would seem to achieve the ends you ascribe to "punishment"?

If we see such trials in this light, they may become a moral imperative. If war crimes trials actually do prevent future war crimes in some way, then they become part of a Buddhist's obligation not to allow others to be killed.

But do they? There seems little evidence of this, people do not expect to get caught when they commit crimes.

D.Webster

What Questions are we trying to answer

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 12:23:23 -0400
From: "Wayne R. Husted" wrh7@psu.edu
Subject: What Questions are we trying to answer? (Peter Harvey)

Peter Harvey
peter.harvey@sunderland.ac.uk

WHAT QUESTIONS ARE WE TRYING TO ANSWER?

In looking at the topic of 'Buddhism and human rights', are we seeking: a) potential reasons, based in Buddhism, to persuade Buddhists, especially Buddhist rulers, to repect human rights, or to do so to a greater degree, or b) to persuade rulers - who may themselves be non-Buddhist, or pay only lip-service to Buddhism, to respect the rights of their Buddhist subjects, or c) to articulate reasons, based on Buddhism, for enhancing the notion of human rights, in a way which is persuasive to all, Buddhist and non-Buddhist?

We are interested in the possible grounding of the notion of human rights in Buddhism- will we also give some attention to //which// supposed human rights have a basis, or strong basis, in Buddhism? I note that the paper by Strain makes a useful distinction between 'intrinsic rights' and 'instrumental rights', the latter being instrumental in securing the former.

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 23:03:45 +0100
From: Damien Keown d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: What Questions are we trying to answer? (Peter Harvey)

WHAT QUESTIONS ARE WE TRYING TO ANSWER?

In looking at the topic of 'Buddhism and human rights', are we seeking: a) potential reasons, based in Buddhism, to persuade Buddhists, especially Buddhist rulers, to repect human rights, or to do so to a greater degree, or
b) to persuade rulers - who may themselves be non-Buddhist, or pay only lip-service to Buddhism, to respect the rights of their Buddhist subjects, or c) to articulate reasons, based on Buddhism, for enhancing the notion of human rights, in a way which is persuasive to all, Buddhist and non-Buddhist?

I would say c). Any reasons for respecting human rights which Buddhism offers must have universal appeal.

We are interested in the possible grounding of the notion of human rights in Buddhism- will we also give some attention to //which// supposed human rights have a basis, or strong basis, in Buddhism? I note that the paper by Strain makes a useful distinction between 'intrinsic rights' and 'instrumental rights', the latter being instrumental in securing the former.

The most basic rights must include those in Article 3 of the UN Declaration, namely the right to "life, liberty and security of person." The rights to recognition and equality before the law, ie justice (articles 6 and 7) would also seem fundamental.

Damien Keown

Panelist Statement: Steven D. Jamar

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 17:21:14 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Panelist Statement of Steven D. Jamar

There appear to be two very distinct fundamental concerns when examining human rights and Buddhism. First, and the topic which consumes much of the digital ink spilled thus far in the articles submitted, concerns looking at the underlying, core philosophical approaches to the world reflected in Buddhism and in a rights-based approach. The second concern is a more pragmatic one of considering the extent to which Buddhists are right to be concerned with human rights, or at least it is not "religiously incorrect" for a Buddhist to be concerned with human rights. I will comment further on these two concerns in order.

1. I think the distinctions being drawn between Buddhist teachings and the human rights approach to the human condition are being drawn to sharply. My reasons are as follows. First, human rights is premised not on a rights tradition, but on a view of human dignity. Human dignity requires that people have certain conditions of existence. To the extent the law can affect those conditions of existence, it ought to do so in such a way as to enhance human dignity. The basic human rights movement dovetails with the idea of the rule of law rather than the rule of individuals. Both the rule of law and the human rights movement are concerned with the temporal and the secular. The domain of applicability is not the same as religions focusing on ultimate questions of the nature of existence.

But Buddhism also has something to say about the temporal and the secular and about human dignity. Indeed, the Middle Way, and the Noble Eightfold Path can easily be seen as being concerned with the here and now and about proper living. One can, I think, easily find human rights to be fully consonent with the Middle Way and the Noble Eightfold Path. As pointed out in Prof. Jay Garfield's article, Human Rights and Compassion: Towards a Unified Moral Framework, JBE Conf on HR & Buddhism, (1995), the idea of compassion carries with it much of the idea of human dignity which underlies human rights.

I also think that the conception of human rights is too narrow as written by some, in particular Prof. Peter Junger's article, Why the Buddha Has No Rights, JBE Conf on HR & Buddhism (1995). As Junger recognizes, though perhaps incompletely, human rights involve much more than the rights relating to physical integrity and the civil and political rights of the western rights-as-limits tradition. Human rights extends to a panoply of economic, social and cultural rights as well. Extending the term rights to encompass these other aspects (such as the right to work, the right to a clean environment, the right to health, the right to education, etc.) requires one to extend the very concept of rights beyond the original Lockian boundary.

One of my mentors, Prof. Goler Teal Butcher, defined human rights as follows: A claim, interest, demand, or need which is cognizable at law and which proceeds from moral precepts necessary for human dignity. Viewed in this more expansive and inclusive way, I think that human rights is cut loose from its negative rights origin. One cannot exclude the Marxist critique which found its way into the very conception of rights and which, indeed, permeates Roosevelt's speech on the four freedoms which include freedom from want and freedom from fear.

2. Turning now to the second thread I would like to consider, the more pragmatic side. The fruit we call human rights might grow from several differnt roots. If one looks at the content of the rights more than the sources of them, that is, if one looks at the apple, not at the roots, then I think a great deal of what we call human rights is consonent with Buddism, at least as it is understood and practiced by many Buddhists.

Examples are legion. The Dalai Lama advocates human rights as a proper concern of people. Buddhists immolated themselves in Vietnam in protest to the war. Ashoka sought to create a Buddhist culture in his empire. The Middle Way does not counsel complete otherworldliness.

If one finds that Buddhism is concerned with virtue, not rights, there is no conflict if the rights are virtuous. And since human rights are concerned with human dignity, it would seem almost tautological to say that practicing virtue leads to or includes respect for human dignity.

Thus it seems to me that rights-based approach to human dignity and a Buddhist approach to compassion and virtue are not only not in conflict, but are at core concerned with many of the same things.

Cheers,
Steven D. Jamar
Assoc. Prof. of Law
Howard University School of Law

To Whom It May Concern

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 11:42:46 -0700
From: "Joachim H. Steingrubner, PhD TransMillennium, Inc." jhs@newciv.org
Subject: To Whom It May Concern

Ladies and Gentlemen,

following this online-conference for the past few days was a shocking and a learning experience at the same time.

Recognizing that this virtual congregation includes many of the most educated and advanced Buddhist scholars currently on the globe, I resisted the initial impulse to just simply leave.

Some of the propositions brought forward in this forum have not been just uncritical but also highly unethical both from a Buddhist as from any other ethical and responsible perspective.

Phenomenologically, the very first as well as the very last insights into the nature of this world have always been that its appearance is inherently deceptive.

Practically, attachment or insistence upon any feature thereof is invariably destined to result in failure.

The strategy of implementing 'Human Rights', as pursued worldwide during the past decades, is best paraphrased in George Orwell's fable 'Animal Farm'. No further comment is needed.

From a practical viewpoint, all this does not, or at least should not, affect a monk who has left the intrigues and insanity of politics behind in order to pursue his path to spiritual liberation.

But how does a Lay-Buddhist survive in such an environment? And what would constitute a helpful advice based on Buddhist principles?

First and foremost, I would proclaim that the basic effort of a Buddhist should be to recognize worldly phenomena as such and as they are.

That alone should suffice to preclude any temptations in actually taking part in the meddling and hustling in affairs pertaining to global political schemes.

Secondly, the study of double-speak and deceptive strategies to mind-control major parts of the world's population is serving as an ideal template for one's own effort for spiritual development.

After all, the basic patterns are similar for both deception and self-deception.

Thirdly, a compassionate look at the intermediate _results_ of the efforts of the global so-called Human Rights movement suits extra- ordinary well as a means to propel even the most ardent follower of worldly delights into a deep shock, which - it is hoped - will bring about a wake-up-call rather than a trauma.

It is granted that most persons who jump on this bandwagon promising a social paradise on Earth are well-meaning beings who wish well.

This circumstance does not completely relieve those involved from the responsibility and accountability of their actions.

For a cat aspirin is a deadly poison, and giving it to a sick cat as a medicine, will kill the cat, regardless of the beliefs and attitudes of the one who wished to help.

Therefore, as for the potential final results of the underlying vector of the activities in this imposed movement, rather than to point again to one of Orwell's books, I would like to remind all of you who did not leave the audience yet of the working of the so-called 'Frog Farm Strategy'.

A frog farmer boils frogs alive for various reasons. But if he would throw a frog into water that is already boiling, the frog might just jump out again. Therefore, he
fills a kettle with cold water, throws in the frogs, and then starts slowly heating up the water, little by little, in very small increments.

Before the frogs realize that they are in a deadly trap, they are already immobilized. Finally, they are boiled alive.

The reason this strategy is so dangerous is because it is barely recognizable in its innocent inception. However, the results are undoubtedly cruel and deadly.

The 'Frog Farm Strategy' is applied everyday, on frog farms and in global politics alike, everyday, as we speak.

Please, dear fellows on the path to spiritual enlightenment, do not be part of it !

Joachim

Re: Steingrubner statement

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 15:29:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Steingrubner statement

Joachim Steingrubner writes:

But if one's stance towards the world is to be based //only// on the first statement, it makes Buddhism as about only developing a one-fold training (wisdom) rather than a three-fold training (moral virtue, meditation and wisdom), and being totlally passive.

On the second statement: sure, there are lots of spiritually-wasting ways of being involved in political matters, but need this include work on a basically //moral// front, relating to human rights?

Some Defining Issues

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 21:34:25 -0400
From: "Spellman J" jws@server.uwindsor.ca
Subject: Some Defining Issues

The definition that "human rights are rights a person possesses by virtue of being human" is much too narrow and limited for a Buddhist or global perspective. The argument is that these rights are "*possessed* by every- one regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth, etc. and are not conferred by - or removable by- a political or other authority." Historically, culturally, politically, and factually, this statement is not supportable. This view is, however, acceptable as the rhetoric of a particular western idealism.

The nub of the issue seem to be that the various human rights listed as found in various U.N. documents are rooted primarily in western historical traditions. They are called "universal" not because they are even remotely so, but because the doctrine of universalism has been a traditional and consistent buttress used to spread western cultural values and institutions. Since human rights discourse is largely among westerners or at least partially western trained persons in other parts of the world, the claim of universalism is widely argued.

The last ten years or so has seen growing opposition to this universal- ist view. The western response has been too often to attack - claiming alternative views are a ruse or cover up for despotic or totalitarian governments. Others dismiss them under the simplistic label of cultural relativism or call them peripheral. Some activists have labeled practices in traditional societies as "barbaric" and resorted to western human rights interpretations as justification for campaigns against those indigenous traditions. There is also the position that even if human rights as defined in U.N. resolutions are a western concept, they still ought to be enforced on a global basis, since no one in their right mind could reasonably object to such standards of good government. The 1993 human rights conference in Vienna was a major forum for espousing these views against those delegates from the South who objected to the dominance of the western perspective.

One of the major problems to effective communication and cross- cultural understandingis that the concept, definations and standards of human rights, as it developed in the west in recent times, has been dominated by lawyers and legal institutions. This has profoundly altered the meaning and direction of traditional concepts of human rights in areas such as religion, ecology, sociology, psychology, and other relevant fields. Academically, the subject is usually taught as Human Rights Law.

However, most of the peoples of the world do not share in any meaningful way, the values, reasoning, or infrastructures that are fundamental to western law. This includes the adversary process, rules of evidence, written legislation, secularism, the guilty-not guilty dichotomy, or the need for lawyers. India, for example, throughout most of its history had no such occupational class as lawyers. Even today, in conflict resolution for the 70 to 80% of people who live in villages, lawyers have virtually no role.

To appreciate the meaning and essence of human rights in different cultures, it is necessary to fundamentally and substantially alter and reduce the legal definitions, standards, and interpretations. It is the legal domination which insists that the word "human" means only human beings and that the word "rights" means entitlements. These are both recent historical interpretations. To properly and fairly understand the concept we must look behind these terms.

Down to the beginning of the 18th century, according to the unabridged Oxford English Dictionary, the word human was spelled "humane". The present primary defination of human is, "1. Of, belonging to or characteristic of man." "Humane" is defined as "1. Characterized by such behaviour or disposition towards others as befits a man. a. Gentle or kindly in demeanour or action; civil, courteous, friendly, obliging. b. Marked by sympathy with and consideration for the needs and distresses of others; feeling or showing compassion and tenderness towards human beings and the lower animals; kind, benevolent."

The word "right" has 8 pages of definition in thhe unabridged O.E.D. We do not have to look any further than the first major definition. "I.1 The standard of permitted and forbidden action within a certain sphere, law, a rule or canon. 2. That which is proper of incumbent on one to do; one's duty. 3. That which is consonant with equity or the light of nature; that which is morally just or due...justice."

There is thus, compelling and long established definition to assert that human rights are those duties and obligations which are morally incimbent upon us all to show consideration and compassion for all beings. Every society has such concepts of human rights; indeed they may have several primary or dominant standards. Dhamma, Respect for example. The challenge ought to be to discover in detail what these are, their rationale, manifestions and influence. We may also compare and contrast them with those of the United Nations or other legal concepts such as civil rights and civil liberties.

Obviously we should include the obligations that the government or ruler owes to its citizens in terms of economic, political, social and psychological freedom. Whether the section in the Agganna Suttanta (D.III.90-93) is a social contract or not is open to interpretation. But not much turns on the answer. In any case, that passage of the Digha Nikaya should be read in the context of similar legends in Hindu literature particularly section 67 of the Santi Parvan of the Mahabharata where the people ask Brahma to appoint a king for punishing the wicked and the establishment of righteousness. There are also fables on the choosing and duties of rulers in the Tittira Jataka and the Uluka Jataka. The important point is that in all cases the primary duty of the king is to govern righteously and to protect.

While it is doubtful that Buddhist texts contain a fully developed theory justifying revolution against oppressive government, they are clear that there is a causal relation between oppression and government injustice and the deposition or assassination of a ruler. Such arguments are found, among other sources, in the following Jatakas: Mahasutasoma, Khandahala, Manicora, Padakusalamanava and the Saccamkira. The Milindapanho (VI.17) lists a number of tortures and punishments which a person unfit to rule might undergo if he claimed the throne. In ancient India there never was any doctrine that the king was above the law. The relationship between the duties of the king and the concept of Dharma were explicit and intrinsic. His duties were known as rajadharma. This concept influenced the manner of government including the degree to which taxes were collected (as the bee takes honey from the flower or the calf takes milk from its mother) - gradually and without injury. That too could well be considered a human rights concept, absent in western standards, with respect to government oppression. The Arthasastra and Dharmasastra literature are clear on the obligation of the ruler to provide assistance to a wide variety of people including children, aged persons, pregnant women, needy students, orphans, widows, diseased and distressed persons, mentally ill and others. We can learn much from these st standards of government compassion in what we now call economic and social rights - many of which do not exist in western definitions of human rights. Western standards and definitions of human rights are especially deficient in those areas where Buddhist perspectives are strongest. The United Nations limits human rights obligations to *governments* which sign the various conventions or declarations. Those obligations are to the international community that it will not violate certain provisions. If a government does not sign the Convention on Torture or Slavery or others, it is not obliged to recognize those as human rights. Civil liberty generally refers to obligations that a government makes to its own people by way of constitutions, bill of rights, charters or similar instruments. These are interpreted by its own courts and they can be abrogated under certain conditions.

But the moral behaviour and obligations implicit and explicit in the long-standing defination of human rights which we owe to each other and to all sentient beings - these essential foundations are hardly mentioned in western concepts. The human rights responsibilities which we have in terms of the panchasila and compassion and giving, by way of disciplining our own greed, anger and lust -these are significant deficiencies in the western legal definations and standards. What Buddhist human rights identify as vice or defilement, we too often elevate, in our delusion, to virtues. A proper study of the various levels and components of Buddhism and human rights within the cultural values of its own framework has much to teach us personally and as a society and government. On the basis of historical definitions, past and existing world practices, valid and diverse cultural values, as well as a broader and more effective concept of human rights, we are justified not only in rejecting the claim of United Nations or western definitions as standards, but in insisting on the validity and integrity of other concepts of human rights - especially Buddhist.

J. Spellman

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:25:25 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Some Defining Issues

J. Spellman writes

The United Nations limits human rights obligations to *governments* which sign the various conventions or declarations.

Not true. Please read them before you make such a statement and please learn a bit more about international law concepts such as jus cogens and customary law.

As to universality of HR - it has been reaffirmed in the Rio Declaration, the Cairo Declaration, the Vienna Declaration, and the Beijing Women's Conference Declaration. And I think it hard to say that only western women or western representatives were there and/or signed on.

The rights are universal - the recognition or observance or respect for them is not. Murder is a crime - but some people still murder, even, I'll wager, in Windsor, Canada. Does this make murder not a crime? Or make it improper to say that one has a right to not be murdered, even if some people are still murdered?

But the moral behaviour and obligations implicit and explicit in the long-standing defination of human rights which we owe to each other and to all sentient beings - these essential foundations are hardly mentioned in western concepts.

I guess your reading list is significantly different from mine. For starters, Aristotle's Rhetoric is replete with such language. More modern jurisprudential scholars always address such issues as well, including Hart and Dworkin, who are on opposite sides on many fundamental issues, but who agree on the importance of these foundational ideas.

I find it very curious to be defending western legal traditions in this conference, since I am in general a critic of many of them. But I do think the criticisms ought to be accurate and ought to give the idea of rule of law and individual rights its due.

I think more helpful and meaningful approaches than anti-western law broadsides are (1) to see if the concept of rights can be useful in a Buddhist setting (the Dalai Lama thinks so - as do some others); (2) which rights are most compatible with Buddhist approaches to life; and (3) where is there common ground?

Having said all of that, I do agree that a particular blindness of Americans in general, lawyers included, is ignorance of different cultures and traditions and the need to patch into those other mindsets to accomplish useful work more easily. And I do agree that the HR movement continues to be dominated by those with knowledge, money, mobility, and access to information the means to disseminate it. But I have met many people from Africa, China, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, etc., who champion human rights as a sound, proper approach to curbing governmental abuse in their countries.

Would anyone have the temerity to justify Pol Pot on the grounds of cultural relativism?

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Late-Comer

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 10:21:30 -0700
From: "David Arnott" darnott@igc.apc.org
Subject: LATE-COMER

Dear Empty Screens,

I have just stumbled across the last moments of this party, where what I say may be something you have been discussing for the past 10 days (the first messages I saw are from 10 October). Please let me know if this is the case.

I am a buddhist activist working on Burma. For the past few years my main amplifier has been the UN political and human rights mechanisms in New York and Geneva. I receive human rights information from a multiplicity of sources in Burma, and put it into dossiers (e.g. a recent 1400 page dossier on forced labour in Burma) and analytical briefings for UN officials, diplomats, governments, journalists and so on. I also put out a lot of material on the internet. From time to time I go to the region to do interviews and meet the human rights monitors on the ground.

One or two points:

(1) In the human rights community there is a strong emphasis placed on the INDIVISIBILITY of rights. The Vienna Declaration is a good place to start looking at this dimension, with its echos of dependent origination ("All human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent and interrelated" - Vienna Declaration Article 5). Rights talk has moved on during the almost 50 years since the rather individualistic Universal Declaration was drafted. The dialectic of universalism and cultural relativism, for instance, is an immensely creative process as well as a North-South battleground. The work of the past 11 years on the rights of indigenous peoples - group rights - is another important development. I would go further and muse about whole-system rights - non-anthropcentric, non-biocentric, of necessity, since non-dual.

(2) The historical emergence of rights as the Gemeinshcaft of organic interdependence, as Needham calls the Ancient Uncarved Block, develops into Gesellschaft, is touched on in Junger's po paper. If I may quote from Sayadaw U Rewata Dhamma's address to the Asian Leaders Conference in Seoul in December 1994:

"At the heart of Buddhist ethics is inter-responsibility, or //Bodhicitta// - what His Holiness the Dalai Lama calls Universal Responsibility. In the Theravada we speak of //Samma-sankappa// or Right Thought, which leads to Bodhi, the Awakened Mind. This principle is expressed in everyday terms by the teaching of loving-kindness, non-violence, compassion, and particular responsibilities. For monks and nuns these are set down in the rule or Vinaya; for lay people in the //Sigalovada Sutta// and for rulers in the //Dasarajadhamma//.

"In the early, organic, societies the Buddha was addressing, these specific responsibilities were assumed to be adequate guidelines for human behaviour, with no need to identify the corresponding rights. In modern, fragmented societies, however, where the fulfillment of responsibilities cannot be guaranteed by the immediate community, the corresponding rights are specified and protected by States and International Organisations. In large part these bodies derive their legitimacy from their protection of human rights. A State which does not guarantee the enjoyment of human rights by its people loses its claim to legitimacy.

"The depiction of rights as simply a Western invention fails to understand the relationship of rights to responsibilities and ethical norms. If the ethical systems we find in different times and different parts of the world varied greatly, we might have a problem, but in fact the central values of all societies are very much the same. All ethical systems encourage people to love each other, and discourage killing, violence and so on. The universality and inseparability of human rights may therefore be understood as reflecting the universality and inseparability of inter-responsibility emerging from //Dhamma//."

(3) The martial law administration acting as the de facto government of Burma, the State Law and Order Restoration Council, or SLORC, makes a major point of its Buddhism. Not many issues of the one newspaper, "The New Light of Myanmar" are without a picture of some general or other making offerings to Buddhist monks, or taking on the mantle of the traditional ruler and talking sasana reform. For those who have read Bardwell Smith's "Religion and the Legitimation of Power", the mechanism is clear.

That's probably enough for now.

David Arnott
Burma Peace Foundation
777, UN Plaza, 6th Floor,
New York, NY 10017
Tel (+1-212) 338 0048; Fax 692 9748

(No Subject) (Human Rights)

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 15:13:17 +0000
From: "Stephen Evans" saevan1@future.uswc.uswest.com

D. Keown asks whether there is consensus that "human rights" is not inconsistent with Buddhism. K. Falk asks for a def'n of "rights."

The second, of course, will heavily impact the first. "Human rights" is really not the issue: the issue is human beings (& other beings as well -- yet I suggest we focus on the humans for now). and how do we excersize compassion for those sufferring under human institutions -- and for those us who are suffering under human institutions, what is our best course of action? For my part of the "consensus" that D. K. asks about: "Human Rights" is consistent with Buddhism to the extent that is helps us to excersize that compassion and to formulate a course of action. It is NOT consistent when it becomes reified as something absolute inherent in beings, or when it feeds a ME or WE obsession.

Even so, definition is unclear: WHO has the "rights" or WHO is the suffering human? Often "freedom" "rights" etc. apply to "the people" and mean such things as the absence of foriegn domination "freedom" for the American colonists meant kicking out the British with power devolving to propertied white males. To the former colonies of Asia & Africa it has often meant absence of European influence. I suggest that a "people" is a legitimate concept (perhaps a being just as real as a "person"). Certainly in traditional Asian cultures the "people" has reality beyond just the collection of individuals, or as an arena for the flourishing of individuals.

OTOH, "rights" and "freedom" are often spoken of as applying to individuals -- and the "person" is also a legitimate concept and a being with reality. It is meaningful to talk about freedom & rights vis a vis individuals.

It is not so clear that it is meaningful to talk about rights etc. of peoples and of persons separately -- though these often conflict. Sliping back and forth leads to much confusion. Yet to clarify this we need to know what a "people" is and what a "person" -- what is the extential relationship between them? It is here, I beleive, that Eastern thought, especially Buddhism and Confucianism can greatly contribute...

Santipala Stephen Evans

Agganna Sutta & 'social contract'

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 13:47:53
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Agganna Sutta & 'social contract'

Peter Junger questions whether the //Agga~n~na Sutta// passage I have referred to contains any idea of a social contract, though he unfamiliar with the passage except as I have so far described it. Perhaps it would be useful to say more on it.

The passage in question comes as part of an account of how human society as we now know it devolved from a previously (relatively) idyllic state in which there was originally no need to grow food, and thus no need for private property. Due to the greed of the beings in this state, the abundant natural food supply declines and people have to start cultivating fields, and decide 'So now let us divide up the rice into fields with boundaries', ie. property and ownership was invented. Once this developed, theft followed in its wake. When thieves repeated their theft, in spite of being sternly warned, they were beaten up, 'And in this way...taking what was not given, and censuring, and lying, and punishment, took their origin. Then those beings came together and lamented the arising of these evil things among them... And they thought, "Suppose we were to appoint a certain king who would show anger where anger was due, censure those who deserved it, and banish those who deserved banishment! //And in return//, we would grant him a share of the rice". So they went to the one among them who was the handsomest, the best-looking, the most pleasant and capable, and asked him to do this //in return for a share of the rice, and he agreed//'. (//Diigha Nikaaya II.92-93, as translated by M.Walshe, //Thus Have I Heard- The Long Discourses of the Buddha//, Wisdom, pp.412-13)

The passages highlighter in // // suggest that some sort of bargain or contract is being described. Of course, the most this could be seen to do would be to establish certain duties of a ruler to his human subjects, and their corresponding rights. More general rights of sentient beings, apart from extra, specifically //human// rights, need to be seen as separately supported, as I have already tried to argue, based on sympathy for fellow beings.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:43:20
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Agganna Sutta & 'social contract'

Peter Junger questions whether the //Agga~n~na Sutta// passage I have referred to contains any idea of a social contract, though he unfamiliar with the passage except as I have so far described it. Perhaps it would be useful to say more on it.

And then does say quite a bit more about it. Unfortunately I still do not see any "social contract" there.

What I see is a portion of a creation myth in which someone is paid to be the first ruler in exchange for his promise to be a good ruler. And apparently the ruler does keep his promise, so we do not even learn whether that particular promise was legally or morally binding, whether that promise was an enforceable contract.

But even if we do consider that promise to be a contract, it was not a social contract, for the only person bound by it was the king.

Now, from this mythical beginning, it may have become the custom that the king's successors were supposed to behave in certain ways, but such a custom is something very different from a contract (even a social contract). And anyway I don't see any suggestion in the //Sutta//, as restated at least, that suggests that I, who am not a member of that first mythical community, am in anyway given any rights by that first king's promise (or that President Clinton is somehow bound by that promise).

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 00:39:39
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Agganna Sutta & 'social contract'

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 22:18:19
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Agganna Sutta & 'social contract'

What I see is a portion of a creation myth in which someone is paid to be the first ruler in exchange for his promise to be a good ruler. And apparently the ruler does keep his promise, so we do not even learn whether that particular promise was legally or morally binding, whether that promise was an enforceable contract.

I think the idea was that the king would do a little bit more than just make a promise, and would actually have to discharge the functions of a king in return for the privileges of kingship. The agreement would seem to be morally binding and probably legally so, in that it appears to involve the essential elements of a legally binding contract.

That simply is not possible. There are no essential elements of a legally binding contract until some form of law is instituted. This creation myth doesn't get to the establishment of law and it certainly does not say anything about the establishment of the law of contract. (I doubt that any Buddhist just-so story about the beginning of things would contain a section about the development of the law of contract, it is, after all, a concept that is pretty much an invention of modern Western jurists and philosophers.) And anyway, since the king did keep the promise, we have no way--no judicial opinion or whatever--to tell whether it was legally binding. (If I promise to give you a quarter and I then give you a quarter, that tells us nothing about whether my promise was legally binding--though any first year law student in the United States (where law is not taught to undergraduates) would tell you that the promise was not binding.)

But even if we do consider that promise to be a contract, it was not a social contract, for the only person bound by it was the king. Surely the people -- as the other party -- were bound by it as well? The people got together and elected one of their number to be king, so everyone was party to the decision in some way. This sounds pretty much like a social contract.

A decision is not a contract. Apparently the people did carry out the king's dictates. That is not following a contract. (One of the big difficulties with the idea of a social contract is that the more you know about contracts the less coherent that idea sounds.)

Now, from this mythical beginning, it may have become the custom that the king's successors were supposed to behave in certain ways, but such a custom is something very different from a contract (even a social contract). Perhaps the "custom" should be analysed as the renewal of the contract on each coronation. Each new king would take an oath, and so forth, pledging to fulfil his duty to the people in return for whatever benefits kings get.

I suppose that it //could// be analyzed in that fashion. But it certainly is not a clear way to look at things. In fact, it begs the question, since if you analyze customs as contracts then one can no longer distinguish between what is customary and what is the result of a legally enforceable promise. (And since morals are derived from //mores//, it turns out that all morality is simply a matter of contract.)

I pray that we not try to import some sort of contract theory into Buddhism. And to the extent that we do agree that we should try to establish some sort of supra national legal system of human rights, I pray that we do not think that that system need contain any contract law. (But then I teach Property and Restitution and think that Contracts is sort of silly.)

Anatta, Rights and Duties

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 15:38:44 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: anatta, rights and duties

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 17:06:00 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: anatta, rights and duties

For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' : make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would : you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties : (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular : relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can : say the same of rights?

I guess that I may well be one of those who feel that, and to the extent that I do feel that I do think that the same logic applies to duties. If I were trying to follow the Dharma because I have a duty to follow the Dharma I do not think that I would be following the Dharma. But then my experience with Buddhism is largely with Zen.

The rest of my experience is with Shin, and from that background I would say that, though I may have a duty, I am utterly incapable of carrying out that duty under my own power.

Even outside of a Buddhist context, I don't think it makes much sense to speak of ``owning'' duties and I firmly believe that there is a category mistake in talking about "owning" rights. If you have all the rights to something that there can be, that it is appropriate to say that you own that thing, or that you have a right to it, but it is not at all clear what it could mean to "own" a right. (But these remarks are those of one who has spent much of his life teaching the subject known as property in American law schools--so I react to talk of owning rights the way someone who teaches Sanskrit and Buddhist Philosophy would react to someone confusing karma with its (karmic) consequences.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 23:40:36 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: anatta, rights and duties

I guess that I may well be one of those who feel that, and to the extent that I do feel that I do think that the same logic applies to duties. If I were trying to follow the Dharma because I have a duty to follow the Dharma I do not think that I would be following the Dharma. But then my experience with Buddhism is largely with Zen.

The rest of my experience is with Shin, and from that background I would say that, though I may have a duty, I am utterly incapable of carrying out that duty under my own power.

In Shinran we find a transformation of duty (giri) to gratitude (on) as the basis of a life of naturalness (jinen ho ni). For Shinran, the hakkarai (ingrained unhealthiness) of normative, samsaric jiriki (Skt. ahamkara - self making, rooted in satkayadrsti or the erroneous outlook of being a separate, alienated "self") is the basis (root) of social life. That condition cannot be cured; no amount of "practice" results in liberation from the self engaging in it. The futility of practice is likenable to trying to bite your own teeth: you simply cannot liberate the self whose ceaseless calculated efforts bind it to the wheel of birth and death, of suffering and sorrow. Resolution of the dilemma of "ethical works" (merit earning, or sucking up to illumination) for Shinran relies solely on rising above self perpetuation in a single instance of being outside, beyond, and free of calculated ethical good. From that basis, the life of jinen arises - the life of being beyond petty self concern (tariki). In place of carrying out duty to the group (giri), being so freed one lives from a deeply connected sense of gratitude and thanksgiving.

Shinran is hard to get to the core of for the simple reason he's a sort of mainstream buddhist gnostic making use of a mythology we're apt to read literally in the West. He does not harp on ethics nor preach duty. Instead he advocates a radical reorganization of how we frame and relate our lives from the outlook of what might be taken as grace - the grace of the NOT koan, the famous mu koan. His perspective is that of madhyamika or the middle way beyond relative opposites of good and evil. Thus, we might say he's transethical insofar as ethics of good and evil have roots in samsaric pettiness.

Even outside of a Buddhist context, I don't think it makes much sense to speak of ``owning'' duties and I firmly believe that there is a category mistake in talking about "owning" rights. If you have all the rights to something that there can be, that it is appropriate to say that you own that thing, or that you have a right to it, but it is not at all clear what it could mean to ``own'' a right. (But these remarks are those of one who has spent much of his life teaching the subject known as property in American law schools--so I react to talk of owning rights the way someone who teaches Sanskrit and Buddhist Philosophy would react to someone confusing karma with its (karmic) consequences.

Professor Junger is absolutely correct about category mistakes. When we look to the works of the Kyoto School, we begin finding Zen and Shin are two complimentary sides of the same coin that originated in early Indian buddhism. In that respect, there is no merit to be earned; instead, a cessation of earning must come to fruitition - be that earning religious or secular. Only from that foundation can a transethical sense of compassionate understanding gain life, therey renewing one.

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 14:48:52 -0600
From: "KENT BUNTING, SLU LAW SCHOOL" buntinkb@sluava.slu.edu
Subject: Re: logic, anatta, rights and duties

For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can say the same of rights?

Reviewing the work of Dignaga and Dharmakirti in light of these questions has helped me understand the questions more clearly and precisely. Almost everything I know of their work comes from Stcherbatsky's work on //Buddhist Logic//. Perhaps the real Buddhologists out there will alert me to more recent relevant scholarship.

These thinkers identified three different sources of knowledge: knowledge of ultimate reality (nirvana, enlightenment), inference for oneself (the interpretation of sensation into concepts), and inference for others (syllogism). From the standpoint of ultimate reality, which is beyond distinctions, abstract concepts such as human rights, as well as concrete concepts such as human beings, are unreal.

Dharmarkirti, however, proceded to investigate other types of knowledge because "All successful human action is (necessarily) preceded by right knowledge." Right knowledge is defined as effective knowledge, that is, knowledge that leads to right action. Therefore the question is not whether human rights ultimately exist, but whether the concept is one that leads to right actions. Several contributors have already made this argument in various forms.

The further question can be asked if the concept of human rights can be known as an inference for oneself or an inference for others. This question goes back to one of the early postings in the conference concerning the reasons we care about whether Buddhism and human rights are compatible.

An inference for oneself is the re-cognition that a certain set of sensory data can be represented by a certain phrase. I see a furry, black shape with four legs and a tail and my mind compares that to other shapes I have seen, and recognizes that the shape is my dog, Piper. It can also include an inference of the kind that recognizes from the presence of smoke the presence of fire. The key point here, I think is that this analysis is fact based, like an analysis from the common law. One looks at facts, compares the facts to what one knows, and reachs a conclusion about what the facts show.

In this source of knowledge, rights can only be seen in their violation (as in the common law). It makes no sense to talk of them in the abstract (and now I am finally returning to Peter Harvey's original question about rights and duties). This question is also addressed in Ihara's paper, where he used the example of someone driving through a stop sign. In that fact pattern (as we say in the law), no corresponding right can be found to the drivers duty to stop. On the other hand, if the driver runs a stop sign and strikes and injures a pedestrian, then one can find a right that has been violated.

This knowledge of a specific violation of a specific right can then lead to right action. Thus a judge might compare the facts to the facts of other cases and recognize the right not to be run over because of another's negligence. The judge might then take action based on such knowledge and order the driver to repay the pedestrian in some way.

This kind of a recognition of human rights seems compatible with Buddhist thought and teaching. One must recognize that there is a wrong in order to correct it. This talk of rights, however, depends on the specific facts of specific cases. We may say a certain person's rights are being violated. This statement is not the same as an abstract statement that all persons have such rights, the kind of statements that are issued by the U.N., etc. Such statements of abstract rules do not really come from this kind of knowledge, just as they do not really arise in the common law.

The final source of knowledge, the inference for others or the syllogism, is not really considered to be a source of knowledge at all. It consists merely of propositions about the world, which are resorted to for communicating to others. Thus, in teaching the common law, teachers must resort to speaking of general rules, even if these rules in themselves have less reality than the specific judgments in specific cases. Similarly, in order to talk about human rights, it may useful to speak as if such rights existed as abstract concepts. The test for whether such concepts should be used, it seems, is whether the use leads to right action. Does the use of such terms help our students understand and act?

I know many of these issues are being discussed in different threads at this conference an I hope I am not being too redundant. My goal was to clarify the questions more than the answers.

Sincerely,

Kent
St. Louis University
School of Law
3700 Lindell Blvd.
St. Louis, MO 63108-3412

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 16:12:28 -0400
From: "Jamie HUBBARD" JHUBBARD@ernestine.smith.edu
Subject: Re: anatta, rights and duties

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 14:40:57 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: More on anatta, rights and duties

Duties seem more clearly related to particular causes and conditions, e.g. I have a duty to feed my son because I am his parent, not because I am a human being...

But because "some" duties arise from specific social or biological relationships does not mean "all" do. "Whoever" one is, on can be said to have a duty e.g. not to torture any being.

Jamie also asked for a response on: how something conventional, that is, particular to causes and conditions, could end up being universal and inherent in the human condition?

Easy- look at the last word in this sentence. To be human is to be reborn in a certain condition, due to various past conditions. Given that temporary state, certain shared 9'universal') things apply.

Peter Harvey

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 01:58:34 -0500
From: "Robin Kornman" rkornman@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Subject: Re: anatta, rights and duties

I would reply that there are no "duties" either. The notion of "duties" as we understand it in the context of Western religious traditions and political traditions is not developed on the same cosmological or metaphysical foundation as Buddhist notions of duty or indeed most Asian concepts of duty. It's a trick question, which ignores the obscuration that occurs when you translate casually from one context to another.

For example, the quote beneath speaks of "duties owed to all sentient beings." Well, I wouldn't use the word duty to refer to the undertakings a bodhisattva has promised to engage in. People do not tell a bodhisattva to do his or her duty. They tell him or her to remember the vow. It's a different kind of reminder for a different kind of moral act.

For those who feel that anatta and emptiness imply that 'human rights' make no sense in Buddhism, as there is no real 'owner' of rights: would you apply the same logic to duties?? Surely, just as there are duties (even ones owed to all beings, not just ones arising from particular relationships) but no ultimate Self-essence which owns them, so one can say the same of rights? - Peter Harvey

Are rights wrong?

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 05:39:22 -0300
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Are rights wrong?

A question. Most of the statements so far seem to accept that the concept of "rights" is at least not incompatible with Buddhist doctrine. Is this the general consensus, or does anyone feel there is a fundamental incompatibility between rights and Buddhist teachings, such that to talk about "rights" in a Buddhist context would be a bad thing?

Knowing this might help establish some common ground, which I think is what we should aim to do at this stage.

Damien Keown

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 07:53:23 -0400
From: "Michael J. Wilson" aa793@freenet.carleton.ca
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

The only idea that pops up with regard to this question occured about a year ago in my books when His Holiness the Dalai Lama was advocating the universality of human rights and was meeting objections from people like the Chinese communists who pulled out of a hat some jargon from anthropology of all places called "cultural relativism". In this view distint cultures have the inalienable right to determine their own culturally specific rights for the individual.

Now the question may be where did His Holiness get the notion of these rights for all within the confines of Buddhist thinking? Therefore, it would be good to know about these "rights" in a buddhist context as Damien Keown is suggesting.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 14:58:54 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" clasqm@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Are rights wrong? -Reply

I believe that talk about "rights" would be acceptable in a Buddhist context only within the further context of "skilful means". But I fail to see how there can be a Buddhist doctrine of rights when there is, "essentially", no bearer of rights, and most inportantly, no bestower of rights. In such a context, "rights" are contingent on the social stucture and other contingent aspects of the environment in which the individual finds him/herself. Thus, rights are real in the sense that they are part of the overall experience, but in what sense can they be said to be "inalienable" or "basic"?

In my opinion, and as I said in an article some time back, "human rights" is a concept with a *legal* background. This made it fairly easy for religions that have always maintained legal systems to incorporate it into their thinking - and let's face it, this primarily means the theistic religions. Even there, as Prozesky has pointed out, the relationship between God and human rights is problematic. (I can get the references, if anyone would like them). In Buddhism, the nondualistic perception of reality makes the relation between "rights" and the "right-bearer" even more problematic.

Michel Clasquin
Research Instittute for Theology and Religion University of South Africa

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 09:09:18 -0400
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

I am sorry to harp on this issue, but until there is so agreement on what rights are and whether or not they would include those of sentient beings that are non-human then I cannot answer that question. This is why I asked earlier for a definition of human rights because it is so different corss-culturally. In my understanding of the Dharma we must also be concerned with those sentient beings who are not human. I look forward to hearing from you all on this issue. Thank you.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 11:04:39 -0400
From: "David Gould" dgould@aix1.uottawa.ca
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 11:11:03 -0500
From: "Harry Mullin" hmullin@panix.com
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

What about a definition of "rights" so the quotes can be dropped. Much of the confusion may be that we are talking about different things.

Harry Mullin
PS - just noticed the same request from Kimberley C Falk , so I echo.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:18:54 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

I think only if one becomes attached to rights does it become a bad thing. I think to discuss them and to see if they help is not. Buddhism is of this world, at least according to some Buddhist thinkers and reformers (e.g., Ambedkar (admittedly a special case)).

If one is more of a Zen Buddhist, then I suppose any such categorization is not such a good thing since it detracts from one just being - but, except at the extreme edge of such an approach to life, I don't see a fundamental problem.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law
Washington, D.C.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 23:04:27 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

Having tuned in a day or so late, I missed the statements made so far; whether the consensus Damien inquires of exists or not remains to be seen.

In all sincerity the notion of "rights" does not seem, on first glance, to make any sense in Buddhism at all. What rights? Rights stemming from the conventions of human societies, some natural rights ascribed to nature, or what?

So-called Buddhist ethics hinge on the notion of karma in relation to outcomes or fruits. Karma as action results in healthy, unhealthy or neutral outcomes. The notion of shila aims at healthy outcomes within oneself and in our relations with others. It is hoped that with transformation of behavior and its underlying motivations, one comes to a healthier karmic condition - one emphasizing inner and outer peace.

In bodhisattva buddhism, coming to an "awakened understanding" (bodhicitta, not the daft 19th century vestigal translation "thought of enlightenment" which makes no sense whatsoever) is said to consist of two dynamic, inseparable dimensions: prajna/empiness as seeing through and rising above convetional (samsaric) tunnel vision (avidya, mumyo - not ignorance so much as restricted understanding, an attention deficit disorder culturally and socially ordained) AND resolve to wake up everybody else (karuna, passion for life). In that respect, we come closest to the notion of "rights." But without political definition.

I'm surely interested to learn how others understand this business of "rights."

Gassho,

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 07:48:26 +0000
From: "John Richards" jhr@elidor.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

Would it not be the "religious" (not just "Christian" or "Buddhist") attitude that OTHERS have rights, and they should be defended and maintained rigorously, but that I have none, and would never wish to assert any for myself?

Someone (Berdyayev, if I remember correctly) once said rather neatly that bread for myself is selfishness, bread for others is religion.

John Richards
Stackpole Elidor (UK)

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:40:33 +0100
From: "david.webster" os0dwe@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

I think only if one becomes attached to rights does it become a bad thing. I think to discuss them and to see if they help is not. Buddhism is of this world, at least according to some Buddhist thinkers and reformers (e.g., Ambedkar (admittedly a special case)).

If one does not become attached to them (or at least 'attach' them to others can they really be of any use at all? Surely it is only through attaching them that they become "useful" in the practical sense in that they lead to the reduction (by a variety of potential mechanisms) of suffering.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 13:08:40 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

Although I am not against human rights, I have been puzzled by attempts to find support for this concept in Buddhadharma. It seems to me that the first message of the Buddha is that this life is completely unfair. We are at the mercy of our past actions (maybe that *is* fair) and to invent some conceptual justification for fair treatment such as human rights, is an adventious imposition, or in other words wishful thinking. The disadvantage with such wishful thinking is that we become outraged when reality does not conform (maybe we should be outraged). Would it not be better to be aware that there are no intrinsic rights, yet be aware of the consequences of actions?

The purpose of rights isn't to command reality to obey our whims (to regard rights in this way--which I accept many people do--is an abuse of the idea). Rights are claims made on other rational agents to do what justice requires (treat others fairly). I think this is not really so different from asking people to respect the precepts (e.g. not to kill me is to respect my right to life) something which Buddhism certainly calls on everyone to do. Since Buddhism makes this universal appeal through its precepts, it seems to be calling for universal respect for basic rights. Its teachings are thus in harmony with modern human rights manifestos.

Damien Keown

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 22:33:20 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: are rights wrong

David Webster quite thoroughly misunderstood my point about attachment. In the U.S. legal system and in any legal system rights attach to people and relate to things. But I was refering to the concept of detachment - that is, if one clings to any construct as though it were truth, then one cannot attain nirvana. Thus if one becomes attached to the idea of rights, then one is forming an attachment.

But so we end up in the muddle of working to improve the world an yet remaining detached from the fruits.

Cheers
Steve Jamar

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 21:33:41 -0800
From: "Craig K. Ihara" CIHARA@CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 14:20:21 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong? -Reply

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 21:11:55 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong? -Reply

Sorry, to jump from the precepts to rights is a leap of faith, not logic. If I refrain from taking your life, it is because I have developed sufficient wisdom to know that such an action will have unpleasant consequences now or in the next birth, and/or sufficient compassion to see that what divides us is much less (and less real) than what unites us. Killing you would be killing a part of myself, iow. There's simply no need to postulate this sixth skandha called "rights", except as a skilful means when talking with non-Buddhists.

Adding a skandha seems downright silly, and a misapplication of the skandha system of deconstructing samsaric "reality."

I've come to the conclusion that talking about "rights" in relation to talking about "Buddhism" treads on dangerous ground. Dangerous because we're only now begining to emerge from the Victorian era paradigm of generally accepted notions of early interpreters which we all call "Buddhism." That construction, as Thomas Tweed's excellent book shows, dovetails the outlooks of at least three special interest groups (philosophy, occultism, and romantics); now adding views hatched in modernity concerning rights demands treading cautiously - be that by affirmation or denial of a position.

Rights is certainly not tradition to the numerous Asian Traditional Religions we refer to as "Buddhism." But within the mahayana/vajryana tradition of bodhisattva teachings I believe there is ample ground to carefully apply the notion of "rights of all sentient beings, including those special rights of humans" to the ideal of awakening living (bodhisattva). In turn, bodhisattva karuna (awakened passion) re-expresses the intent of those pathmaking rules of training English speaking people insist on calling "precepts." Optimizing training through a recognition of the "rights" of everybody else just makes the training camp/dojo run smoother for everyone's benefit.

So, I don't believe we're adding a skandha. Instead we're learning to talk about buddhadharma in conceptual frameworks of sets of useful lies at variance with the Victorian paradigm. In the process we will be stretched, broadened and strengthened. And for Buddhists everywhere liberation from outdate interpretation should be gratefully received. Last but not least, we might even have a framework of buddhism as a universal emerge from its fragmented Asian Traditional Religions.

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 11:14:09 +0000
From: "Christopher Fynn" cfynn@sahaja.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: are rights wrong

But I was refering to the concept of detachment - that is, if one clings to any construct as though it were truth, then one cannot attain nirvana. Thus if one becomes attached to the idea of rights, then one is forming an attachment.

This can be said of becoming attached to anything including the Buddhadharma. Until we truely reach an exalted state (in which one would hardly violate or require human rights) I think that "ideas" like rights can be very useful.

But so we end up in the muddle of working to improve the world an yet remaining detached from the fruits.

Buddhism would hardly have survived as long as it has if it did not also deal with this illusiory world and improving the day to day lot of those caught up in it. The way is taught both for monks and lay people to act in this world.

Human Rights might be said to at least prevent many gross sufferings, and to restrain people from inflicting these on others so preventing the accumulation of bad actions.

As a society where human rights prevail is surely one that permits the practice and spread of the Dharma, and as most definitions of HR include many of the basic pre conditions required for practice, can HR not be considerd as a useful support for the Dharma and spiritual progress -possibly as a neccesary pre-condition in themselves.

Buddhist texts speak of the importance of being born in a central country or noble land - in this age the definition of such a place might include "a country where human rights are respected and promoted".

- Chris

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 07:49:48 -0400
From: "Damien Keown" 100012.3212@compuserve.com
Subject: Are rights wrong?

Damien, You say that "rights are claims made on other rational agents to do what justice requires. I think this is not realy so different from asking people to respect the precepts." But in you own paper you say that rights introduce a new perspective, i.e. the perspective of the one to whom obligations are owed, but even this may be to go beyond the precepts which simply forbid certain actions without attributing rights to anyone, or maintaining that something is owed to someone, but simply that these are ways that are understood to reduce suffering.

Craig -- I think rights introduce a new perspective *historically*, but that rights were always implicit in the preceptual requirements. I don't think the precepts are merely ways to reduce suffering, and would say they are fundamentally requirements of justice. Following the precepts DOES reduce suffering, but this is a side-effect, just as observing the law keeps you out of prison. However, we should observe the precepts and the law because they're just, not because they keep you out of prison.

Damien Keown

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 14:31:11 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

I think rights introduce a new perspective *historically*, but that : rights were always implicit in the preceptual requirements. I don't think the : precepts are merely ways to reduce suffering, and would say they are : fundamentally requirements of justice. Following the precepts DOES reduce : suffering, but this is a side-effect, just as observing the law keeps you out of prison. However, we should observe the precepts and the law because they're : just, not because they keep you out of prison.

And I, on the other hand, think that "justice" is a hangup of monotheistic religions that are afflicted with a judgmental god. It seems odd to me to claim that for Buddhists the "reduction of suffering" is a side effect rather than the goal. And it seems even more odd to say that one should follow the precepts because of the "requirements of justice", when, in so far as I know, the Buddhist teachings refer to wisdom and compassion, but never to justice.

Prajnaparamita (aka Sophia) may be a Bodhisattva. Justitia, on the other hand, belongs to a very different tradition.

Peter D. Junger
Case Western Reserve University Law School
Cleveland, OH

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 22:50:14 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Are rights wrong?

And I, on the other hand, think that "justice" is a hangup of monotheistic religions that are afflicted with a judgmental god.

Justice needn't be theologically grounded. It was regarded by the Greeks as a fundamental virtue (think of Plato's discussion in the _Republic_), and is something many atheists believe in. When people fight for civil rights and an end to discrimination, what they are calling for is justice. I doubt many people who are deprived of justice would dismiss it as nothing more than a theological "hangup."

It seems odd to me to claim that for Buddhists the "reduction of suffering" is a side effect rather than the goal.

Yes, perhaps that puts it rather too starkly. What I wanted to highlight was that Buddhism calls on us to do what is right, rather than what will make life less unpleasant for ME. However, I do believe the proper reading of Buddhist teachings on the matter is that suffering reduces to the extent one does what is right.

And it seems even more odd to say that one should follow the precepts because of the ``requirements of justice'', when, in so far as I know, the Buddhist teachings refer to wisdom and compassion, but never to justice.

Buddhist teachings don't refer to human rights either, but I think we have to look behind the scenes a little to see what the teachings involve.

Prajnaparamita (aka Sophia) may be a Bodhisattva. Justitia, on the other hand, belongs to a very different tradition.

I think justice transcends traditions, which is why there can be such a thing as universal human rights.

Damien Keown

Re: Buddhism and contracts

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 17:03:36 -0400
From: Jamie HUBBARD
Subject: Re: Buddhism and contracts

I would like to ask Peter Junger to reply to Peter Harvey's mention of the //Agga~n~na Sutta// (//Diigha Nikaaya//III.92). It is often remarked that early Buddhism grew up in an urban, mercantile setting that is reflected in much of the way the sangha is ordered (e.g., Thaper's well- known article from Daedalus), esp. regarding this sutta and the notion of exchange that is so central to the workings of merit and karma. Does this give a way to derive a contractual sense of rights, if not going so far as the notion of inherent ownership?

Jamie

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:45:48 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar"
Subject: Re: Buddhism and contracts

Does this give a way to derive a contractual sense of rights, if not "going so far as the notion of inherent ownership?

HR are not generally thought to derive from contract. Instead, they are thought to derive, by some, from their god, or, by others, from the inherent nature of being human. Others view them as positivist - they are what we say they are and that is that - whether this is contractual or legislative I think takes us a bit far afield.

So if we are to look for a bargain-type underpinning, I think we lose a very important part of the fundamentalist and universalist nature of HR. (This is the same problem I have with the positivist approach to HR.) I think Buddhism does not really create a legal system and so the idea of contract is not really part of Buddhism per se, unlike the in the three western traditions where it is explicitly recognized.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 19:44:16 -0400
From: "John Buescher" john_buescher@eap.VOA.GOV
Subject: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

I can't accept the idea that Buddhism might need to make human rights secondary to ecclesiastical authority or that rights might be set aside out of deference to a ruler's 'discriminating wisdom.' I also can't accept the idea that human rights are contingent on a metaphysics of "self", or that they are simply an epiphenomenon of the European Enlightenment or the symptom of some Western cultural disease of 'private property,' or even 'hyperconsumerism.' Does there really need to be a debate on whether 'rights are wrong'? If rights are merely "skillful means", I would like to hear about a human society anywhere short of nirvana that might profitably "set these aside."

Rights protect people against arbitrary power, whether the power is baldly asserted by the State or by a majority against a minority. Simply put, rights protect the weaker from the stronger. So, a Buddhist might connect rights with compassion. But rights are not declared in a vacuum, or, as one correspondent put it, rights aren't articulated for an ideal world. They're elaborated for a world of suffering. As Madison explained it, "The latent causes of faction are thus sown in the nature of man; and we see them everywhere brought into different degrees of activity." (Federalist 10) Rights are set out in the face of authority, which would otherwise be unchecked. Rights weave together a magic circle (pardon me the use of a figure from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's poem "Xanadu") into which this authority may not cross. But if the powers, authorities, and conventions are not within this magic circle, what is? Certainly not a hard knot of substance, a self. What's circumscribed is simply a place of freedom and liberty, where worldly structures and claims don't apply. Although some people have in fact described this realm of rights in a positive way (i.e., as having a positive being or substance), I think those who are trying to see how Buddhism might be amenable to the notion of rights should recognize human rights' fundamentally negative (and by that, I mean exclusionary) aspect. Rights define a realm of privacy, but they do it not directly but by exclusion: They define a place where public authority and power has no purchase, a place empty of worldly convention. That austere place can't be filled up with the bricabrac of substance. Rights point, not to substance, but to the liberty of emptiness, an acid that melts away power and pretension and exposes the insufficiency, impermanence, and contingency of worldly structures.

This definition of rights is consonant with the negative language of emptiness, impermanence, and selflessness, and with a critique of authority, ritual, convention, and language. Like Buddhism itself, it centers the moral point on the individual and indefinable--because wholly contingent--private moment, not on untested hearsay or arbitrary authority or tradition. That's the realm of liberty protected or marked off by 'inalienable' human rights. There is an unfortunate confluence of terms here, perhaps: 'inherent existence' and 'inherent rights.' Rights may 'inhere' in the individual, but they're not 'inherently existent.' They are 'areas' of action proper to--or located in--the individual.

Human rights are, at bottom, most emphatically not 'justified by an appeal to Christian authorities and traditions,' although, of course, many have tried to do this; I object to repeating the mistake by justifying rights by an appeal to Buddhist authorities and traditions, although I believe it's nice that Buddhism can in fact accomodate the notion in pointing to what is "beyond". Without acknowledging such rights, human individuals and factions are effectively unchecked in their subjugation of one another, and will often cite the benefits they are bringing to others as they smilingly club them into submission. Buddhists will do this, too. And they will justify their actions through an appeal to the 'discriminating wisdom' and the "skillful means" of the "unfathomable enlightened mind" of the one wielding the club.

Rights, then, are not the bloated bag of earthly powers, prerogatives, honors, riches, and substances of which some of the correspondents are rightly suspicious. Thinking of rights in that expanded and 'generous' way is what has weakened the notion of rights to the extent that people believe they have 'rights' to a certain level of material success or even to specific material goods. The magic circle of rights is stronger the smaller it is. Here's a short list of rights--the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Or add in the protection of property, security, and the right to resist oppression. Or another group--protection from the arbitrary authority of the State over matters of conscience--freedom of religion, expression, speech, and press, freedom of assembly and association-- protection against unreasonable constraint by authorities, such as in search and seizure, arrest, punishment, and a fair judgement.

These have nothing to do with specific social guarantees of prosperity, with positive things the government or society should give the individual. Contrary to what the Communist government of the PRC says about fundamental human rights being economic ones, the rights contract I propose is spare. It's not surprising that totalitarian apologists should believe that benevolent authority is the source of people's happiness, even their material happiness, but I believe a more reasonable understanding of human rights presupposes that authority's proper role is not to guarantee society's members their happiness, but only (at most) to insure the conditions under which individuals can seek their own happiness.

But you can't expect a government, without constraint, to seek anyone's happiness but its own, even if it's headed by an 'enlightened Buddhist ruler.' Again, Madison: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, nether external or internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself". (Federalist 51). I see no reason why Buddhism shouldn't welcome this insight. It knows well how dysfunctional the world is, how little we can trust it to give us happiness.

John Buescher
Voice of America
john_buescher@eap.voa.gov

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 01:43:20 -0700
From: "Scott LB Henderson" scottbo@IMAP1.ASU.EDU
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

Surely there is no argument that rights are somehow "bad" or "wrong". But it seems to me there is somewhat of a consensus in this conference (?) that they [rights] are not concepts from any traditional discourse of Buddhism. They are new, they are introduced - from a Western style of ethical/political discourse. The question then becomes, is the idea of rights, as understood in the West, compatible with Buddhism? And if so, are they useful and productive from a Buddhist perspective?

I would answer the first question "yes", the second, I'm still considering.

It seems that rights are looked at from at least 2 angles: from within the individual or group: ("I/We have rights!") and from without: ("peasants/political prisoners/all humans, etc. should be accorded certain rights...[add list here]"). I would think that the Buddhist position would tend to resonate better with the latter, which fits nicely with ideals of loving-kindness, compassion, etc. (If such terms are too soft for a discourse on political relationships, then perhaps we could either 1) stop thinking in terms of political relationships, or 2) substitute something like "respect", etc.

Very often it seems the discourse of "rights" lends itself to a focus on the former perspective, i.e. emphasis on individuals/groups engaging in confrontations with other individuals/groups as a means of establishing moral boundaries. While certain boundaries must exist, it is the idea of battling for one's moral territory that doesn't strike me as particularly Buddhist. It is this tendency of "rights talk" to paint an adversarial picture which causes me to look for language better suited to developing the Buddhist ideals of metta/karuna. In other words, I think the end driven at by "rights" is wonderful, but the conceptual means, problematic.

Without acknowledging such rights, human individuals and factions are effectively unchecked in their subjugation of one another, and will often cite the benefits they are bringing to others as they smilingly club them into submission. Buddhists will do this, too. And they will justify their actions through an appeal to the 'discriminating wisdom' and the "skillful means" of the "unfathomable enlightened mind" of the one wielding the club.

While these are real problems, again, I don't think the only solution is the approach of "rights". It doesn't seem to me necessary, or even best, to generate a list of rights in order to stop such activity. I am not totally against such lists, however, if the result is the reduction of suffering. But generating these lists (even the " short" one you submitted) would take a lot of time away from discussion of how to actually stop sowing the seeds, and reaping the fruits of hatred, greed, and ignorance.

Scott L.B. Henderson
Religious Studies, Arizona State University

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 21:24:47 -0800
From: "Craig K. Ihara" CIHARA@CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

My apologies for entering into the discussion at this relativly late date. I'm finding that one of the drawbacks of a virtual conference is that one is still embroiled in classes, committees, etc. In an case on the issue of defining human rights I have a comment for Damian Keown and one for Prof. Jamar. (By the way, of all the comments I have read so far, I most agree with those by Scott Henderson).

In one communication Damien wrote: "The Buddha respected the rights of others (..by his observance of the precepts he refrained from doing them any injustice, which is basically what rights seek to secure.) and since he represents the ideal in Buddhism, then respeting rights is part of the ideal." This argument begs the question by conceptualizing what the Buddha did in terms of rights. Certainly we can interprete his actions in this way, but the question remains whether doing so is compatible with a Buddhist understanding of what he did.

Further on he says that "whether we use the terminology of rights or human rights is not in the end important" if (I think the rest of it was) we treat each other with respect. I fully agree that we can conceptualize our moral relationships with one another in terms of rights and thereby pay resepect to each other, what I contest is that it is the only way we can pay such respect. It seems to me that many cultures have paid respect to its members without using or thinking in terms of rights, and that interpreting what they do or how they see things in terms of rights is to distort and misrepresent the perspective they have on the world (or at least to run the serious risk of so doing.) One other comment for Damien: At one point you define "human rights" as "rights a person possesses by virtue of being human." As a definition of human rights it leaves open the important issue of what a right is. I took it that in you paper you had fundamentally adopted the definitionof a right as an entitlement, and tried to point out why such a notion might not be found in classical Buddhism. (See my paper, "Why There are No Rights in Buddhism: A Response to Damien Keown.)

With regard to Prof. Jamar I would like to question the definition of human rights you provide - "A human right is any claim, interest, demand or need which is cognizable at law and whcih proceeds from moral precepts necessary for human dignity." I take it that the necessary moral precepts would be something like the ten commandments, or a subset thereof. But such precepts are put in terms of what not to do, i.e. what our responsibilities are, not in terms of our rights. And such duties need not be put in terms of rights. If so, the question is in what sensedo rights "proceed" from these precepts? They might in deed be compatible with them, but so might systems of morality which do not invoke rights. Human rights are usually grounded on human dignity, as you say, but I do not believe they are deduceable from it.

Craig K. Ihara
Philosophy Dept.
California State U. Fullerton

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 03:35:07 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

With regard to Prof. Jamar I would like to question the definition of human rights you provide - "A human right is any claim, interest, demand or need which is cognizable at law and which proceeds from moral precepts necessary for human dignity." I take it that the necessary moral precepts would be something like the ten commandments, or a subset thereof. But such precepts are put in terms of what not to do, i.e. what our responsibilities are, not in terms of our rights. And such duties need not be put in terms of rights. If so, the question is in what sense do rights "proceed" from these precepts? They might in deed be compatible with them, but so might systems of morality which do not invoke rights. Human rights are usually grounded on human dignity, as you say, but I do not believe they are deduceable from it.

Even though as a lawyer I make a living using words, it is with great trepidation that I engage a philosopher in a debate about words and in particular ones relating to deduction. ;-) But here goes . . .

I don't think moral precepts are necessarily or even always negative or what not to do - the golden rule comes to mind. And I certainly would not limit moral precepts to any particular religious tradition or any religious tradition.

I don't really understand Prof. Ihara's chain of reasoning about responsibilities and rights and duties so it is hard to respond, but I will try. Generally, a right has a correlative duty and vice versa. This being so in the practical world of the law, the point raised by Prof. Ihara is not really a practical problem. But there certainly are duties which do not correlate to rights and rights which one is hard pressed to find the duty holder. So if one accepts (which I don't) Prof. Ihara's point that moral precepts are all variants of "thou shalt not" and one cannot find a correlative right, then perhaps his concern about the term "proceeds" is well taken. But it seems to me that "thou shalt not kill" has a correlative right to life - and that this is a moral precept and a right. Or perhaps the moral precept is broader - have compassion, respect one another, do not injure others unjustly, etc. - in which case the right to life becomes just one subset of a broader moral precept. It is in this sense that the right "proceeds" from it. Not in the sense that it is imperatively deducible from it. Though in this particular case, I think that once one accepts the moral precept, the right is deducible, if one adds in a few other major premises regarding the proper domain of the law, etc.

I think that the difference between being "grounded in human dignity" and "deducible from it" is too nice a distinction by half. I will welcome a substitute word for proceeds if it is truly that bothersome and means the sort of logical deduction you attribute to it. I think of it as more along the lines of arising out of or following from - the connotation should be more like I proceed to the airport along a road in a car. The car and the road do not cause the airport - but they are a way of getting there. - an imperfect analogy - but it conveys a corrective to the degree of causality I previously had not intended.

Cheers
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 07:49:44 -0400
From: "Damien Keown" 100012.3212@compuserve.com
Subject: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

In one communication Damien wrote: "The Buddha respected the rights of others (..by his observance of the precepts he refrained from doing them any injustice, which is basically what rights seek to secure.) and since he represents the ideal in Buddhism, then respeting rights is part of the ideal." This argument begs the question by conceptualizing what the Buddha did in terms of rights. Certainly we can interprete his actions in this way, but the question remains whether doing so is compatible with a Buddhist understanding of what he did.

Hello Craig -- I can't do justice here to the many good points you make in your paper, and will hope to write a fuller reply when time allows. In the meantime...

Naturally, I think that interpreting the Buddha's actions in this way is perfectly compatible with a Buddhist understanding of what he did. Let's take the first precept. Why did the Buddha not go round killing people? This could be explained in various ways (bad karma, greed and hatred), but at bottom they come down to the fact he recognised it would be unjust (talk about karma and motivation is a roundabout way of saying the same thing and pointing out that such acts are bad for oneself also). There are many complex and interrelated issues here, which I've dealt with more fully elsewhere, but it seems to me we can say in a shorthand way that killing is wrong is because it does not treat people in a way which is their DUE -- by virtue (I would say) of their inherent human dignity which derives ultimately from their "Buddha nature" (I am not forgetting animals here -- they may also possess the Buddha nature -- just trying to clarify the issue with respect to humans first). In other words, the Buddha recognised that individuals were owed RESPECT and that it would be wrong (unjust) to treat them in ways incompatible with that respect (such as by injuring or killing them).

The next step is where rights come in. If we accept that individual X is OWED respect by individual Y, then individual X has a RIGHT to respect from individual X. In saying this nothing new is being added or smuggled in: all we are doing is shifting our perspective to look at things from X's point of view rather than Y's. It's really little more than shifting your weight from one foot to the other, and this shift of perspective is in keeping with the Buddhist notion of interdependency. Everyone is interlinked, and that interlinking gives rise to duties on the one hand and rights on the other depending on the different hats we wear as individuals.

Craig suggests there is another way to look at things, and that society can (should?) be regarded as a ballet or game of soccer, and that these are contexts in which the notion of rights is inapplicable. There is a lot that could be said about this. For now I would just say that society does not appear to fit this model very well. It is more like a ballet where everyone wants to be the lead ballerina, or where different members of the cast want to put on different ballets, or where someone marches in to try to close the performance down ( as the Chinese did in Tibet). Rights are necessary because everyone is NOT playing their part. Even in soccer there are rules, which give rise to duties (not to handle the ball) and rights (the right to a penalty if the ball is handled). The Dalai Lama is now screaming FOUL! against the Chinese and saying specifically that they are infringing "human rights." In other words, I think Craig's analogy of the ballet and so forth doesn't really work in practice and doesn't represent the Buddhist concept of society in which (I would say) justice (the requirements of which can be analysed into rights and duties) is the key concept (I accept it is implicit in Buddhist teachings rather than explicit).

A quick point is that I do concede (as Hohfeld did) that the strict correllation between rights and duties is sometimes problematic. In other words, not EVERY right has a duty on the other end of it. Theory is always neat, life is untidy. However, the theory seems to hold good in the majority of cases, and specifically to the examples I gave (husband and wife, ruler subject, and so forth).

further on he says that "whether we use the terminology of rights or human rights is not in the end important" if (I think the rest of it was) we treat each other with respect. I fully agree that we can conceptualize our moral relationships with one another in terms of rights and thereby pay resepect to each other, what I contest is that it is the only way we can pay such respect. It seems to me that many cultures have paid respect to its members without using or thinking in terms of rights, and that interpreting what they do or how they see things in terms of rights is to distort and misrepresent the perspective they have on the world (or at least to run the serious risk of so doing.)

I wonder if there is any real disagreement here. I accept that Buddhist sources do not speak of rights, but then again neither did Western sources until comparatively recently. My position is that the concept of rights does not IN ITSELF distort or misrepresent the Buddhist perspective on the world. I do accept there is a danger of people developing an obsession with rights, particularly in view of the fact that rights give prominence to the individual, but there is a danger with everything if it is taken to extremes (even Buddhism!).

One other comment for Damien: At one point you define "human rights" as "rights a person possesses by virtue of being human." As a definition of human rights it leaves open the important issue of what a right is. I took it that in you paper you had fundamentally adopted the definitionof a right as an entitlement, and tried to point out why such a notion might not be found in classical Buddhism. (See my paper, "Why There are No Rights in Buddhism: A Response to Damien Keown.)

The above definition relates more to the "human" bit of "human rights". A right in itself is a claim or entitlement of some kind. Some very good definitions of "human rights" have been offered which I have no quarrel with. I accept that the word and the concept are not found in traditional Buddhism, but Buddhism is a flexible and evolving tradition. So long as the notion of "human rights" is consistent with its fundamental principles (which I think it is, and perhaps even fleshes them out a little) there is no reason why it should not incorporate the idea and talk explicitly in these terms (note: this is not as a "skilful means" but as part of its core teachings).

Damien Keown

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 17:51:12 -0400
From: "Jamie HUBBARD" JHUBBARD@ernestine.smith.edu
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

One of the most difficult questions that keeps returning to us is just *why* are humans beings *owed* something as their due (since Buddhists cannot attribute it to something that granted by a Creator). Damien Keown answers this with:

Why did the Buddha not go round killing people?

killing is wrong is because it does not treat people in a way which is their DUE -- by virtue (I would say) of their inherent human dignity which derives ultimately from their "Buddha nature" (I am not forgetting animals here -- they may also possess the Buddha nature -- just trying to clarify the issue with respect to humans first). In other words, the Buddha recognised that individuals were owed RESPECT and that it would be wrong (unjust) to treat them in ways incompatible with that respect (such as by injuring or killing them).

If Buddha nature is the reason, this illustrates the problem nicely, as Buddha nature is problematic in the extreme: most schools dismiss it as but an upaya, and others denounce it outright as a smuggled essence.

Jamie

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 00:18:23 -0400
From: "M. Jinavamsa" Jinavamsa@aol.com
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

Which schools are we talking about here? thank you Jinavamsa

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 06:37:09 -0400
From: "Damien Keown" 100012.3212@compuserve.com
Subject: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

If Buddha nature is the reason, this illustrates the problem nicely, as Buddha nature is problematic in the extreme: most schools dismiss it as but an upaya, and others denounce it outright as a smuggled essence.

I was attempting to present the issue in Buddhist terms, but perhaps using "Buddha nature" as an analogue for "human dignity" creates more problems than it solves!

I don't think we need introduce the metaphysics of the self into the argument for human rights at all, so if "Buddha nature" as a technical concept creates problems I will happily drop it and say that individuals are owed respect because everyone is a potential Buddha. I think most schools of Buddhism would be comfortable with this.

Cheers,
Damien Keown

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 16:59:49 -0400
From: "Jamie HUBBARD" JHUBBARD@ernestine.smith.edu
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

I was attempting to present the issue in Buddhist terms, but perhaps using "Buddha nature" as an analogue for "human dignity" creates more problems than it solves!

I don't think we need introduce the metaphysics of the self into the argument for human rights at all, so if "Buddha nature" as a technical concept creates problems I will happily drop it and say that individuals are owed respect because everyone is a potential Buddha. I think most schools of Buddhism would be comfortable with this.

I agree. Now the question is how we get from "owing individuals respect" (which seems like a) responsiblity talk and/or b) well-grounded in the teleological nature of Buddhist ethics, i.e., I am doing it because it is an action that takes me closer to liberation and to do otherwise would take me further) to "rights" that I can claim. I am re-reading the statements that you and Jay made on these topics and maybe I'll figure it out...

Jamie

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 09:54:57 -0400
From: "HOLLY, BRIAN" bholly@ccac.edu
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

I don't think we need introduce the metaphysics of the self into the argument for human rights at all, so if "Buddha nature" as a technical concept creates problems I will happily drop it and say that individuals are owed respect because everyone is a potential Buddha. I think most schools of Buddhism would be comfortable with this.

Once again, D.K. makes a tremendous amount of sense. The last thing we need is to go off on one of those other-empty versus self-empty debates that so often makes Buddha-L into an avici hell of unpronounecable Tibetan terms, self-righteous pronouncements, and strong-arm hermeneutics. I suggest that we follow the eminent nominalist tradition that allows us to bypass the issue analyzing what it is in a being that grounds the potential for buddhahood (whether it is just empitness or some more positively characterized buddha matrix). We can simply use the term Buddha nature to refer to whatever it is in a being that makes it possible for it to become a Buddha. - Brian Holly

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 01:34:12 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

I don't think we need introduce the metaphysics of the self into the argument for human rights at all, so if "Buddha nature" as a technical concept creates problems I will happily drop it and say that individuals aare "owed respect because everyone is a potential Buddha. I think most schools of "Buddhism would be comfortable with this.

The matter of "Buddha nature" (again harkening back to 19th century renderings) as a "metaphysical category" makes no sense whatsoever. But Conze did say Buddhism becomes philosophy when explained to outsiders, or engaged in by outsiders. Busshin is a key experiential matter of Buddhadharma gnosis. Those who would render it metaphysical show a paucity of understanding. Sorry, guys, but when the rubber hits the road you know whose blowing smoke.

Ken O'Neill

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:11:37 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Buddhism and the Rights of the Individual

Buddhism? What Buddhism?

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:25:32 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Buddhism? What Buddhism?

There is no single Buddhism. Buddhism changes as it adapts to the different cultural settings in which it finds itself planted. There will arise a "western" Buddhism, or more likely several of them. The outlines are beginning to be visible today as westerns trained in Zen or Tibetan or other strains begin to move in their own original directions.

I think one of the important changes from some forms of Buddhism will be the recognition of the existence of the self, or at least the individual, as separable (not separate) in some sense from the rest of existence. This seems most consonent with our intuition and experience - two forms of knowledge recognized in all strains of Buddhism.

So too the idea of rights will have its effect on "western" Buddhism.

Even the Dalai Lama has cautioned against trying to adopt without adapting. And he has studied western ideas and has adopted and adapted his philosophy accordingly.

So where does this observation lead? HR can fit for Buddhists here. And HR can, with I think only minimal restructuring, fit for Buddhists there.

And what of universalness of the HR ?- most now, I think, recognize quite explicitly that, to use a decidedly non-Buddhist colloquialism, there is a more than one way to skin a cat. We can still easily find a core right with some fuzzy boundaries, but still a core.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 19:00:12 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Buddhism? What Buddhism?

I think one of the important changes from some forms of Buddhism will be the recognition of the existence of the self, or at least the individual, as separable (not separate) in some sense from the rest of existence. This seems most consonent with our intuition and experience - two forms of knowledge recognized in all strains of Buddhism.

I do hope you are wrong on this point. It seems to me that not only is this the single most important point The Buddha was making, it is also in essential (if not complete) agreement with General Systems Theory. General Systems Theory is the underpinning of a revolution in western scientific thought. It would be unfortunate for western Buddhism to give up the notion of connected interdependence just as western science is embracing the notion.

Re: Clasquin; & Abhidhamma & rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 10:58:45 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Clasquin; & Abhidhamma & rights

Any of the five //skandhas//, say, 'feeling', is not 'essentially' owned either, but it still, in an 'empty' way, exists. However, it would not seem appropriate to give 'rights' the same status as process-events (//dharmas//) such as feeling. What their status is (if we accept them), I'm not exactly sure. The precepts can be said to exist, but as ideals, not process-events (though these are involved in following them). Impermanence exists (?) as a quality of all conditioned things, not itself a process-event. What this perhaps leads to is the question: what would an //Abhidhamma// scholar make of 'rights' talk. Or, on the other hand, is the appropriate type of discourse that of the //Vinaya//?

Peter Harvey

Re: compassion & the uncompassionate

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 17:02:41 -0600
From: "Stephen Evans" tbm@usa.net
Subject: Re: compassion & the uncompassionate

Yes, it is dangerous -- and non-compassionate people keep attempting to do it over and over. How is one to point out a problem without acknowledging the nature of the problem? These rulers are going to keep trying to bring about a complete identification, and they are going to keep failing.

My question is: How do you advocate the end of abuse to people who are not compassionate? Arguing compassion is fruitless, and a waste of time. It seems to me that the tool available to a Buddhist is causation -- and the realization that effects create their causes. Is the Buddhist going to convince the non-compassionate that effects create their causes? Not likely. Instead, point out individual loops within the web. Map "human rights" into small sections of dependent coarising. -Sphere

I agree fully (see my paper). Compassion is //my// motivation. For unjust rulers, corportations etc. I'll argue about results (if compassion doesn't work -- we might give them a chance at it). Even to the point of organizing boycotts, non-violent blockades, mobilizing public opinion to embarass etc. B'ism allows a wide range of activity.

-- Santipala

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 21:46:01 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: compassion & the uncompassionate

To argue compassion doesn't work at all. To instill compassion works totally. If you find a hook whereby to instill compassion then by all means use it -- otherwise don't bother. Attempting to use the lever of compassion where there is no compassion to leverage simply puts up a wall which you will then have to do exra work removing. With the non-compassionate you will at least gain more respect by moving forward immediately with your most effective available means, and you may even find the opportunity to wear off a bit more of the rock of ignorance in the process.

I'm fond of embarassment myself. I particularly like being able to embarass with the unintended side effects of their own actions. This strikes both at their actions and at the web of ignorance. Well placed embasassment can sometimes even avoid activating the us-them reaction.

-----
Sphere.

Conference papers, a response

Date: Sat, 7 Oct 1995 17:03:20 GMT+10000
From: "John Jorgensen EDA" J.Jorgensen@eda.gu.edu.au
Subject: Conference papers, a response

Dear editors, the following is a rather hasty but long response to some of the papers.

"Human rights" talk is a well-meaning rhetoric developed by humans. Even Buddhism is a human product, albeit the product of enlightened humans. Buddhism hence allows rhetoric as a skilful means, and so may use "human rights" rhetoric as a way of creating compassion or //ahi.msa//. But rhetoric, and skilful means, are in the realm of the provisional level of truth, that of ordinary, ignorant humans. In a sense that initially seems antinomian, the "rights" of some humans or animals, such as the cat killed by Nan-ch'uan (Nansen) in a vain attempt to enlighten his students, are depicted in some Buddhist texts as having being violated for a "higher good ". At least in Ch'an/Zen rhetoric, the enlightened transcend good and evil, and Hui-neng in the //Platform Sutra// advises against thinking in terms of good or evil, for that is dualistic discrimination. Having "no mind", the enlightened lack volition and are without intention, which means they are not culpable for killing etc, for like killer typhoons etc, they have no ego. They act automatically or spontaneously in the aid of other beings. Their ostensibly evil acts are not morally fathomable to a person mired in the provisional level of understanding. Yet the justifications for these deeds in Ch'an and Tantra texts at least, is akin to an appeal to a "greater good", which frequently has diabolical consequences, as in the PRC or Khmer Rouge Cambodia. Because "human rights" belongs in the category of rhetoric and legal fiction, as a concept that is deemed desirable, "human rights" contains the danger of becoming an object of craving (there is a palpable thirst for human rights) and thus a hindrance to liberation and enlightenment (the "end" of Buddhism, if Buddhism can be said to have an end).

The actuality in the provisional world is that "might is right". A right remains a mere fiction or idea if it is not //enforced// (note the elements of coercion here!) by people and states. If a person's rights are violated, that right in effect does not exist, for the right is empty of a function. Those tortured in Tibet had no enforceable rights. It is only the enforceability, the pressure of public opinion plus action that creates a right. A right is a human product, not a natural (although humans are part of nature) or inherent thing, for it comes from the mind. Only by making the values universally accepted (and that would mean an end to rights, just as Buddhism as skillfull means will disappear when all beings and their environments are liberated) can rights be made fully manifest and enforced. The vast majority of people and states would have to act, otherwise these rights become a form of delusion, a representation of craving, a "mirage" or "hare's horn". There is implicit in the call for human rights an assumption that ideas must lead to action, that people act on their beliefs. This does not necessarily follow (even in my own case), for "people may 'know' the good and yet not always act in accordance with it" (Callicott and Ames, //Nature in Asian Traditions of Thought//, 287).

Moreover, even where a majority of people hold an opinion, that may not be translated into action, especially when frustrated by totalitarian regimes. As Christopher Stone, //Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights for Natural Objects//, writes, "societies have long since passed the point where a change in human consciousness on any matter will rescue us from our problems. More than ever before we are in the hands of institutions", not just states, but also multinationals. Sometimes these companies and states are in cahoots, as in the case of BHP and the New Guinea government in respect of the denial of rights to sue over the pollution of a great river system.

More seriously for Buddhism and sentient beings, "rights" are divisive, and have led to violence, with US anti-abortionists for example, killing other humans in the name of the "rights of the unborn foetus".

Rights are a product of the concept of property. The theorists of "natural rights", such as John Locke, and the leaders of the American Revolution, linked property rights to the right of revolution when that state fails to protect property rights. The main beneficiaries of the English, American and French revolutions were the property owners. As hannah Arendt has observed, "Who said property, said freedom, and to recover or defend one's property rights was the same as the //fight//(my emphasis) for freedom". (Cited in Roger Bowen, //Rebellion and Democracy in Meiji Japan??, 190. Chapter 4, "Ideologies and Organizations", is most useful on how Western concepts of rights were made into Japanese "ken", the same character used for "provisional truth" in Buddhism.) Indeed, the suppression of full, grass-roots democracy for all, was restricted in these revolutions because the leaders of "state democracy" feared that "democracy was really mob rule, whose 'ultimate purpose' was 'the denial of property rights'" (Bowen, 189). Indeed, in Meiji Japan, leading Buddhists did not stress "civil rights" or the limits to the powers of the state, but rather the "rights of the state" (Winston Davis, //Japanese Religion and Society//, 164). Even in "early" Buddhism, the notion of property was an obstacle to extending //ahi.msa// to plants (Lambert Schmithausen, //The Problem of the Sentience of Plants in Early Buddhism//, 105, 45-48). This linkage of property and human rights is not something that can be wished away; it was a historical trend that still exerts influence. Some have thus thought that the greed for property may be insatiable in the majority of people even after basic needs have been satisfied, because an inexorable desire to strengthen the ego can only be sated by the accumulation of non-essential material possessions (Peter Russell, in Daniel Chira, //Environmental Science: A Framework for Decision Making//, 2nd edn, 60-61). Therefore " rights" include the dangers of the human will to possess and to ego, a craving which inhibits compassion, and the threat of violence, which violates //ahi.msa//.

Perhaps Buddhists should stress non-ego, //ahi.msa// and compassion, rather than "rights". //Ahi.msa// is more than an antidote to physical violence, for it also cures the ills of the violence of logic (which excludes paradox and ambiguity, important features of life), the automatic, mechanical application of laws and even rights, and ego. //Ahi.msa// involves mindfulness, right livelihood, and is probably a prerequisite for compassion (with the caveat of the "higher good" mentioned above). //Ahi.msa// extends beyond sentient beings into one's total environment.

In an analysis of karma, which seems to be the moral enforcing mechanism, Fa-tsang (643-712) stated that beside karmic requital proper (//cheng-pao//) of the "personality (not self) in rebirth" (whether in another life or other moment), there is also the dependent or collective requital (//i-pao// or //kung-pao/yeh//), the environment into which one is "born". That there is evil, or violations of the "rights" of humans and others, is due to one's karmic requital proper and to the collective karma of the environment in which one lives. Thus the environment is not the product of a single bein's karma or mentation; it is a joint, collective creation.

Therefore all deeds are linked, and the "rights" of an individual cannot be isolated from that of the whole. If there was no collective karmic requital, how can Buddhism explain the sufferings of Tibet and the killing fields of Cambodia, both Buddhist countries? How are we to react, other than with distant horror and pity, to these events. Although I cannot read His Holiness Dalai Lama's mind, it seems he has prohibited Tibetans from fighting physically for their rights, for that would create more bad karma on top of that which Tibet is already experiencing, thereby undermining the aims of "human rights". Violence in the name of rights violates //ahi.msa// and compassion. But for Tibetans now in Chinese occupied Tibet, these rights do not exist except as fictions in the minds of some people and in a few fine-sounding declarations. These rights have not been enforced, and thus remain fictive. The Dalai Lama's promotion of human rights then seems to be a means of convincing the vast majority of people and states to change the situation in Tibet by bringing moral pressure on the PRC leadership. But are the means skilful when the leaders of China fail to listen because they wish to retain possession of Tibet? Many proponents of human rights, I fear, underestimate evil. The evil is not simply that of the state; it is an evil born of ignorance which discriminates. The killings in Rwanda were not committed in the main by the former government. It may have encouraged the killing, but the majority of killers were the neighbours of the killed. Large numbers of ordinary people became killers of those who were discriminated on ethnic grounds, supposedly. History demonstrates that the rhetoric or ideology covers a much darker reality. Asoka conquered India violently before becoming an adherent of //ahi.msa// most conveniently (and for even that we really only have his word?). The pre-modern Chinese elite often proclaimed adherence to the Mencian strain of Confucianism that averred human nature is basically good and that there can be legitimate revolution (demonstrating "might is right" throughout history). Rather, the governments subscribed in their actions to the theories of Hsun-tzu, who stated that human nature tended to evil and required correction. That "correction" was usually oppressive and violent. In like manner, many writers on Buddhism take the optimistic approach that humans have the potential for enlightenment and so are basically good. But the core Buddhist analysis of existence is that of //du.hkha// or discontent, which is born of ignorance. Moreover, some Buddhists saw Buddhism as in a decline over historical time. The oppressed, who hoped for a new Pure Land on earth, often revolted violently when someone announced the advent on earth of Maitreya, the future Buddha. Thus history requires analysis, for Buddhism exists in time and place, and is not timeless, except in rhetoric.

Therefore, if Buddhists are to be socially active in this provisional realm in order to alleviate suffering and its cause, ignorance, //ahi.msa//, compassion and wisdom need to be promoted rather than rights. Analysis is required of the history of Tibet and the Cambodian genocide to see what lessons can be learned. We cannot hide behind well-meaning rhetoric, but rather should demonstrate compassion and non-violence in actual conduct. Right conduct, right livelihood, compassion, //ahi.msa// and the inculcation of wisdom that removes ignorance are the effective tasks at hand, not the rhetoric of rights. This does not imply that Amnesty International for example should stop championing human rights, but rather that it protests more and assists in removing ignorance and the demands of "state ego" (nationalism and central government) as a preventative measure. Buddhists should not forget human rights, but be mindful of the dangers within the demands and remember that rights are only fictions that can only become reality when enforced (which seems to violate //ahi.msa//, an example of the contradictions inherent in life). Ego and ignorance are the greater dangers and the true causes of the violations of human rights, and so education in non-ego and in insight and compassion etc are the real tasks. The powers of governments, large companies and the military must be curbed also, for these institutions are the main offenders. Be ever mindful.

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 09:45:03 -0700
From: "JHS" jhs@newciv.org
Subject: Re: Conference papers, a response

Thank you very much for your contribution to JBE-L!

You restored the confidence in me that there are _some_ scholars out there who are not deluded by the rhetorics of the power struggle on Earth.

I share your concerns (see my address to the conference 'To Whom It May Concern') from last Wednesday.

For me, even the discussion of double-think issues like 'Cultural Relativism', 'War Criminals', is a fallacy and is not leading to more insight and compassion. In the contrary.

Thank you again! ( It seems I'm not the only one.)

Joachim

Joachim H. Steingrubner, PhD
TransMillennium,Inc.
http://www.newciv.org/jhs/

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 17:30:56 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: Conference papers, a response

If a person's rights are violated, that right in effect does not exist, for the right is empty of a function. Those tortured in Tibet had no enforceable rights. It is only the enforceability, the pressure of public opinion plus action that creates a right. A right is a human product, not a natural (although humans are part of nature) or inherent thing, for it comes from the mind.

This seems to be a statement out of the positivist school law - rights are only what we say they are - there is nothing universal or transcendant about them. This goes even one step further to negate any claim of right whenever it is unenforceable. It even goes a stretch farther to say whenever a right is unenforced it does not exist. There is a long pedigree for this sort of approach. But many of us disagree.

"rights" are divisive, and have led to violence

Absence of rights has led to incredible violence. Divisiveness exists on the basis of any construct, including such things as the existence of a soul which is reborn, as in Tibetan Buddhism, or the lack of a soul as in other Buddhist strains. (I don't intend to spark a discussion of the meaning of soul here - I mean it as purely a shorthand for the idea of something is reborn and some Buddhist traditions don't really follow that approach and instead use a chain of dependent causality which is abstracted from the idea of self - under this idea of becoming, I explained to me by a Buddhist monk, who I am now is not who I was when I started this posting.) Though I've never heard of Buddhists coming to blows over this.

As to the equation of property rights with human rights - I don't really see the rights or free expression or free exercise of religion as necessarily having anything to do with property or property rights. So an indictment of property rights and the concept of property seems relatively irrelevant to many of the rights.

Even the economic, social and cultural human rights are not typically thought of as providing property rights, though they come closer.

And even the right to own property is not a property right per se. The ownership (apologies to and indulgence begged from Prof. Junger) of property is a property right, but the right to own property seems not to be one.

Many proponents of human rights, I fear, underestimate evil.

In my experience just the opposite is true and HR's is seen as a way to combat the evil. However, most HR proponents are optimists - pessimists can't take so many defeats and Pyrrhic victories and small steps over and over without getting discouraged.

Therefore, if Buddhists are to be socially active in this provisional realm in order to alleviate suffering and its cause, ignorance, //ahi.msa//, compassion and wisdom need to be promoted rather than rights.

I don't see this as an either/or situation. It seems both can be effective.

The powers of governments, large companies and the military must be curbed also, for these institutions are the main offenders.

With this I agree. And I agree that education in right thinking and wisdom and such is a good idea for this. And I would much rather see corporations born of compassion and wisdom than selfishness and greed since I do not see how a society founded on "me first" and greed can ultimately be a just one.

But I think that as to the military and the governments, the rights based concepts and the idea of the rule of law will be positive steps toward justice. Mulitnational corporations pose a knottier problem.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar

Re: Contract

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 08:55:51 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: Contract

The idea of contracts as being something fundamental in the law is--at least as far as the common law is concerned--very much a nineteenth century development. As far as the civil law of the European continent is concerned, I am under the impression that there too it was only in the nineteenth century that Contract was raised to its present mystical status,

Generally, I think this is accurate, though the roots of contract are much deeper. Mohammed taught that all Muslims must honor their obligations and keep their contracts and compacts and treaties and promises. Keeping one's promises is also found throughout the Christian and Jewish Bibles. The idea of contract certainly exists in the ancient Roman law as well, though, I agree, not in the full, absurd glory of the west in the last 300 years.

I also concur that social contract is a rationalists rationalization for society - as a result of a felt need to explain why there is society in a selfish, rational way. If one sees altruism and compassion and joy in companionship as parts of human nature, then one needs no social contract, fictional or otherwise, to explain society or government.

But the concept may have utility in revolution or revision of government - "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed." But that is a different matter.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:25:30 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: contracts as silly

But then I teach Property and Restitution and think that Contracts is sort of silly.

Don't tell that to your contracts colleagues who think contracts is the current embodiment of ultimate truth. ;-)

BTW, under the Sharia a promise to give a quarter may very well be an enforceable contract. It also may be one in Civil law countries, if done with proper formalities. Consideration is a very bizare concept created by the common law. I guess my point is that the term contract has more than one meaning, from a comparative law perspective.

That said, I would hope that fundamental HR will not be rested on any contractual grounds. But contractual undertakings in the form of treaties and formal agreements and declarations and commitments still can play a very large role in creating the conditions for respect for and improvement of HR.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Personal P.S. Give my regards to Katie Mercer. Cheers, Steve

Cultural relativism and rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 11:06:12 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Cultural relativism and rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:43:31 +0100
From: "david.webster"
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 13:08:36 -0400
From: "Michael J. Wilson" aa793@freenet.carleton.ca
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

Sometimes you can talk about the cultural survival of ancient Tibetan civilization, or you can say the culture of Thailand has been influenced by Buddhism. Can anyone say the government of Sri Lanka has Buddhist principles inherent in it's constitution? How many Buddhists in China commisserated with Marxist principles? That's a topic for a cultural anthropologist. What kind of insight have buddhist politicians like Aung San Suu Kyi given to the United Nations? What does that say about Burmese culture? And does the culture of the Chakma people in what is now East Bangladesh exist at all anymore as the buddhist organism it once was? I agree you cannot say cultures have rights. Cultures have boundaries, really materialistic ones, and that's about all they have.

Michael J Wilson
Ottawa Ontario Canada

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 17:48:04 -0400
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

As a cultural anthropologist, I would say that you are right that cultures have boundaries, although how this is viewed and defined (again) varies from one culture/society to the next. For example, many many Chinese Americans consider themselves Chinese, sharing a homeland with people who have cultural links that exceed the nation of the PRC. Materialist and national state boundaries exist, but these are not the only ones that can create a frame within or between which the notion of rights can be considered.

As to how at least some Chinese Buddhists interplay with the current PRC government (as a Buddhist and anthropologist who has worked in China), that depends to some degree on where they live (Beijing, in complexes maintained by the State, or out in the boonies), what Buddhist sect they adhere to (Tibetan Buddhists whether ethnically Tibetan or otherwise, of course, are under intensive scrutiny). In the PRC, some Buddhists appear to work influence on the government (I'll agree to a very limited degree) by using the PRC's stand on Buddhism as a "Chinese cultural tradition" to negotiate for what they need / want. But this, is an aside to the issue.

I would argue that rights determined within cultures that are set into laws reflect the dominant thinking of nation state or its representatives. They tend not to include the multiplexity of voices / beliefs that contest those of the powerful. Looking for how rights are viewed / constructed into law in a primarily Buddhist society might give us some idea of Buddhism and rights, but of course that would be bound in the cultural context of that nation state's and may not be part and parcel applicable to other places and people. That we can try to find something universally applicable in terms of Buddhist rights is possible, but as some of you have pointed out, this becomes immediately complex when we look at the Dharma and try to apply it to laws of the land.

Kim

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 22:29:06 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

I agree you cannot say cultures have rights. Cultures have boundaries, really materialistic ones, and that's about all they have.

I (somewhat predictably, I fear) disagree, at least unless we clear up a semantic problem. From a legal standpoint at least groups have rights and we define some groups by ethnicity or religion or culture. Genocide is a crime against humanity for what those committing it do to people in a group, or to the group itself.

Indigenous peoples have rights as groups (Chiapas, Yanomani) as do minorities (Kurds). Among those rights are cultural development, to the extent such development does not derogate other human rights like equality and speech.

So if you are using culture as a placeholder for a group, then the "culture" has a right. But if you are using culture to describe what the group does, then the culture, somehow abstracted from the group, does not have a "right" to an independent existence or to any other right.

But I do think it important to recognize that groups have rights and that those rights include cultural ones.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 01:20:57 -0400
From: "Michael J. Wilson" aa793@freenet.carleton.ca
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

If you were in Peking recently perhaps you attended the conference of women and human rights. I know a professor of anthropology, who is also a Buddhist who told me he thought the women representing the nations of the world at the conference were "beneath contempt" for going to the conference. By going there they were acknowledging that the government in Peking has some claim to credibility, which he believes it has not. Recall how some women from the NGO's were treated. As a professional academic, he has also gone on record for stating that Chinese anthropology is about 100 years behind. When I think about reading the first anthropology texts of one hundred years ago where the people being studied are called barbarians and ought to be assimilated with higher cultural values etc. I guess that's how it appears.

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 14:08:11 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Cultural relativism and rights -Reply

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 14:14:38 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights -Reply

To this, the obvious reply is: if there is at least one universal, non-culturally non-specific right -the right of cultures to determine their own culturally specific rights for the individual- then rights are not purely culturally relative, and there can be other universal rights!

We might evade the trap (if we wanted to), by not talking of 'cultures`' as having rights, but of cultural values having inherent worth, thereby avoiding the 'rights' trap. I'm not sure that this is a desirable position, but it may be a potentially plausiblke one.

This is easy enough to say in the abstract, but how can one make contact with a culture whose values radically contradict your own (say, a culture that demands high levels of human sacrifice) without experiencing revulsion. Would one, not being an Enlightened One, still be able to say that "this culture's values have intrinsic worth"?

Michel Clasquin
RITR, Unisa

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 23:33:44 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

We might evade the trap (if we wanted to), by not talking of 'cultures' as having rights, but of cultural values having inherent worth, thereby avoiding the 'rights' trap. I'm not sure that this is a desirable position, but it may be a potentially plausiblke one.

I'd think that a more direct Buddhist approach would be to point to dependent co-arising. Just as the culture has the right to form the individual, the individual has the right to form the culture.

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 09:15:38 +0000
From: "Rayya Ghul" Rayya@minarama.demon.co.uk
Subject: cultural relativism

Peter Junger responded by reacting with dismay at the thought of forcing things on other cultures, and referring to persuasion as the best way, to be done by arguing by reference to 'our common cultural assumptions'. I think this shows that he does not agree with total cultural relativism, and thus tthat there are some common values cutting across all cultures. If so, cannot one see 'human rights' talk (at least in some of its modes) as an attempt to articulate these?

The trouble with 'common values' across cultures is that they are also communicated by the people in power or those seen to be the spokesperson of the community. Thus they are tainted by vested interests too. Common values often do *not* include women's concerns, children's concerns and the concerns of elderly people. Therefore if we look to common values, we are probably only looking at common interests. Kimberly Falk has raised the issue of rights pertaining to all sentient beings - I would like to suggest that even our view of Human Rights is still limited to a minority of that group.

I'm not sure how Buddhism fits into this, though, other than by virtue of pointing out that every human has the potential of enlightenment regardless of gender or age and that implies a fundamental equality (this obviously relates to the practice of upekkha).

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:19:56 +0100
From: "david.webster" os0dwe@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights -Reply

To this, the obvious reply is: if there is at least one universal, non-culturally non-specific right -the right of cultures to determine their own culturally specific rights for the individual- then rights are not purely culturally relative, and there can be other universal rights!

We might evade the trap (if we wanted to), by not talking of `cultures` as having rights, but of cultural values having inherent worth, thereby avoiding the 'rights' trap. I'm not sure that this is a desirable position, but it may be a potentially plausiblke one. -D.Webster

This is easy enough to say in the abstract, but how can one make contact with a culture whose values radically contradict your own (say, a culture that demands high levels of human sacrifice) without experiencing revulsion. Would one, not being an Enlightened One, still be able to say that "this culture's values have intrinsic worth"? -Michel Clasquin

It may be possible to view something as having "intrinsic worth", but still wish to see it ended, or stopped.

The life of a tiger has intrinsic worth? Maybe, but we would still kill (or subdue) it if loose in a city.

D.Webster

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:24:01 +0100
From: "david.webster" os0dwe@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

Michael Wilson referred to the Chinese government's view that 'distinct cultures have the inalienable right to determine their own culturally specific rights for the individual'. To this, the obvious reply is: if there is at least one universal, non-culturally non-specific right -the right of cultures to determine their own culturally specific rights for the individual- then rights are not purely culturally relative, and there can be other universal rights! -Peter Harvey

We might evade the trap (if we wanted to), by not talking of 'cultures' as having rights, but of cultural values having inherent worth, thereby avoiding the 'rights' trap. I'm not sure that this is a desirable position, but it may be a potentially plausiblke one. -D.Webster

I'd think that a more direct Buddhist approach would be to point to dependent co-arising. Just as the culture has the right to form the individual, the individual has the right to form the culture.

This may be useful, as it halps undemine a view which may have been pervading these discussions that "cultures" and their "values" are static over time - which of course they are not.

D.Webster

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 12:45:10 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights

I'd think that a more direct Buddhist approach would be to point to dependent co-arising. Just as the culture has the right to form the individual, the individual has the right to form the culture.

This may be useful, as it halps undemine a view which may have been pervading these discussions that "cultures" and their "values" are static over time - which of course they are not. -D.Webster

Nothing is permanent. :)

More than simply undermining the view of cultures as static, I'd like to promote the view of cultures as arising from the individuals which constitute them. The culture is not something separate from its' members, and it is not something belonging to a portion of its' members.

If a society chooses to mistreat a portion of itself then what does this say about the mental health of that society?

Sphere

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 08:49:57 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Cultural relativism and rights -Reply

This is easy enough to say in the abstract, but how can one make contact with a culture whose values radically contradict your own (say, a culture that demands high levels of human sacrifice) without experiencing revulsion. Would one, not being an Enlightened One, still be able to say that "this culture's values have intrinsic worth"? -Michel Clasquin

It may be possible to view something as having "intrinsic worth", but still wish to see it ended, or stopped. The life of a tiger has intrinsic worth? Maybe, but we would still kill (or subdue) it if loose in a city. -D.Webster

Yes, but if it stayed in its jungle and ate nothing but deer, that would not call for any action, right? Now compare this to, say, Rwanda. We do not object to the genocide in that country because there are a few Hutus and Tutsis in New York. The whole point of HR discourse is that they are supposed to be universal (a colleague of mnine prefers to say "homoversal" - we're still waiting to see if the feminists will let him get away with that - "Its from the Greek, not the Latin word!" ). We are human and (rightly or wrongly) we feel a greater affinity to the Rwandese than to the tiger. "There but for the dharma go I", and sometimes even "There *despite* the dharma go I". :-(

Michel Clasquin

Cultural values and rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 17:01:10 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Cultural values and rights

David Wesbster suggests that cultural values might be seen as having 'inherent worth'. But, while it is right to approach the values of a culture with respect, and seek to understand them as best one can, if it turns out that human sacrifice, or gassing Jews, turns out to be a valued in a culture, does one grant 'inherent worth' to such values?

Peter Harvey

Duties

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 15:29:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Duties

Peter Junger writes: This is ambiguous, and might mean:
a) this is not the way to truly 'follow the Dharma', or b) if I were //only// doing it out of duty, I would not bother, as 'duty' would not motivate me.

On a) :One can say, once one follows the Dharma, then various duties, eg. to follow the precepts, are entailed by one's appreciation for and understanding of Dharma.

On b), this perhaps raises a general point about 'duty': we tend to think of 'duties' as something one would rather not do, something which is '//merely// a duty', but that need not be the case. One may happily concur with the rightness and appropriateness of the duty. This does not mean that laziness and other hindrances arising from various corners of the mind don't try and get in the way of what the clearer part of your mind sees to be right.

Peter Harvey

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 18:32:04 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Duties

Robin Kornman questions whether there are 'duties' in Buddhism, saying 'I wouldn't use the word duty to refer to the undertakings a bodhisattva has promised to engage in. People do not tell a bodhisattva to do his or her duty. They tell him or her to remember the vow'.

But:
a) having made such an important vow, surely there is a duty to keep one's word
b) even if one has not made such a vow, are there not other duties, of humane treatment of others, which apply whether or not one sees oneself as a bodhisattva, or even as a Buddhist?

Peter Harvey

Four Happiness

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 00:19:24 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Four Happiness

I would say human rights are rights a person possesses by virtue of being human, in the sense that they are possessed by everyone regardless of race, colour, sex, religion, birth etc and are not conferred by--or removable by--a political or other authority.

As to what things should go on a list of human rights: things like life, liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, equal treatment before the law, a right not to be tortured or persecuted, and a right to form political parties usually feature somewhere near the top. The UN Declaration goes further to mention a right to education and employment, and begins to sound a bit like a wish list or political manifesto than anything else. The Declaration seems to include personal safety (in some sense) in the right to "security of person" mentioned in article 3. If there are any activists out there, perhaps they could say what sort of rights they campaign for specifically.

You mentioned the rights of life and liberty, but not the right to the pursuit of happiness. If we look at the question of human rights from the point of view of one who defends the rights of others, it might be useful to consider the Four Immeasurables:

1) MAY ALL BEINGS BE HAPPY AND KNOW THE ROOT OF HAPPINESS.
2) MAY THEY BE FREE FROM SUFFERING AND THE ROOT OF SUFFERING.
3) MAY THEY BE ONE WITH THE GREAT HAPPINESS DEVOID OF SUFFERING.
4) MAY THEY ABIDE IN EQUANIMITY FREE OF ATTACHMENT AND AVERSION.

The first happiness corresponds to loving kindness, the second to compassion, the third to bodhicitta, and the fourth to justice. Similarly, they might be applied to a friend, a bodhisattva, a teacher, and a mediator/advocate.

I suggest that the fourth happiness, equanimity, is the one that best applies to a Buddhist view of human rights within the path of justice, and in the direction of enlightened government. An advocate in the Dharma is, in my view, a person who speaks for the happiness or against the suffering of others. As a mediator, the Buddhist advocate also promotes the happiness of both parties in a dispute and maintains a fair and even view of the issues.

A modern term for equanimity might be "unconditional respect." In my opinion, a good advocate is one who has an attitude of unconditional respect for all others without exception. Such an advocate speaks on behalf of a disenfranchised person (or cause) while at the same time respecting and considering the individual (or government) that is the agent of this disenfranchisement. This is, perhaps, another way of expressing satyagraha, or the priniciple of nonviolence. It is also another way of expressing the nature of justice--and why justice is represented by a set of scales and by a two-edged sword.

Justice might be said to be the expression of a a society that protects and defends the needs of all of the people within it. And the Dharma tells us that these human needs are the pursuit of happiness, the cessation of suffering, the vision of shared truth, and the openness of freedom.

Wherever there is disaffection, misery, dogmatism, or segregation -- whatever their cause -- then rights will be named to rectify them. There may be an infinite number of rights, but the motivation of the advocate remains the same, as do the qualities of enlightened society. Wherever the four happinesses are obstructed, then rights may be asserted and can be defended by right action.

(My apologies if this statement itself sounds dogmatic. I have tried to apply these principles within my work as peer advocate for psychiatrically labeled persons.)

Sally Clay, Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Government legitimacy

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 14:46:52 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Government legitimacy

Williams (first name?) writes that to talk of 'the basis of government legitimacy' implies a government is 'unconditioned'. How so?? It is conditioned, among other things, by the fact that if it breaches its legitimacy, it may soon be brought to an end.

Williams has also, in various postings, referred to certain social groupings as 'sentient beings'. I'm afraid I've no idea what this means- and even as an analogy, it is potentially dangerous. Does it give that 'being' a right to destroy part of 'itself' if it becomes disruptive? But that would be a classic government excuse for abusing people.

Peter Harvey

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:13:30 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Government legitimacy

Perhaps I would better have said "an air of the unconditioned." I did not intend to say that this would in fact make a government unconditioned.

I do not talk of these social beings as analogies, but a factual beings. It may be a bit hard to talk of Buddhism as a single being, but -- for example -- the Catholic Church clearly exists as a social entity. Buddhism may itself be a social entity, or it may be an aggregate of social entities. The different branches and schools are social beings even if Buddhism itself is not.

These social beings have numerous characteristics similar to cells and individuals. The most obvious and direct such characteristic is that they maintain their existence through the mutual causes of their constituent parts. That is, social beings are made from the same fundamental "stuff" that everything else is made from even though the particular form of this "stuff" is individuals rather than thoughts or cells.

There are differences between social beings constituted of individuals and indviduals constituted of cells. The most obvious is that an indvidual may be part of more than one social being -- in fact most individuals are part of several social beings, such as family, community, religion, and nation.

Of course being a part of a social entity is dangerous. Just as I may choose to cut off my arm and cause myself suffering, a social entity may choose to destroy a sub-culture and cause itself suffering. The analysis up to this point is descriptive, not normative.

A nation has the same type of "right" (or lack thereof) to cause itself suffering as I do -- but it isn't "right" for either the nation or myself to cause ourselves suffering.

Normatively, I think Buddhists should suggest that perhaps it isn't such a good idea for a nation to destroy a sub-culture, given that this is part of the web of suffering and can only cause the nation to suffer. That is to say, Buddhism should offer the same prescription socially that it does individually. Buddhists should attempt to reduce suffering at all levels, not just the human level. The language of human rights has some faults in this regard, but it does capture some aspects of the Buddhist prescription and should not be summarily discarded. -Sphere

Grounding HR in Buddhist Doctrine

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 03:35:18 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Grounding HR in Buddhist Doctrine

How is a doctrine of human rights to be grounded in Buddhist doctrine? Distinctive Buddhist approach to human rights might be formulated in terms of the doctrine of dependent-origination or by reference to compassion. Would anyone like to speak in favour of either of these?

I think we wander directly into all those well-known contradictions in Buddhism - (as seen by outsiders, at least) is it optimistic or pessimistic? here & now or the divine blowing out? altruistic moral action or selfish pursuit of nirvana? The answer to these questions depends in no small part on who is asking and on who is being asked. The Zen Roshi answer may well be different from a Tibetan lama or a Theravadan Monk or an Ambedkar follower. And I think one's view on such matters drives the discussion. If one views Buddhism very intellectually and abstractly and selfishly, then compassion is not really the center and one must move toward the chain of dependent causality. If one views the precepts and the noble eightfold path as a guide to life, not just to nirvana, then compassion may be the source.

A third alternative is to look at what I consider the second-layer level of Buddhism, e.g., the Noble Eightfold Path and the 5 Precepts and such accretions. One can then ground HR quite easily in the sense of having the HR derivable (in a practical sense, not a philosophically rigorous sense) from these principles.

But if that level is not acceptable, I like the idea of compassion as a good grounding and found Jay Garfield's submission on this an useful analysis (though I think one need not define rights as he has and so much of what he seeks to do can become superfluous - but that is another story . . .)

Human dignity relates to both an internal sense (I still have my dignity) and an external observer (he is dignified). Buddhism has a lot to say about human dignity and proper treatment of fellow beings. So I think we can find our moral precepts which underpin HR in Buddhism without difficulty and I would trace it ultimately to compassion.

But for those whose path to nirvana is intellectual, we need to use the idea of dependent origination. Unfortunately, to the extent I understand it at all, my understanding is almost unexpressable (sort of Zen-like, huh, Prof. Junger ;-) ). So under this approach, I go to the second level noted above - the noble eightfold path as a simpler source. As a practical person seeking to persuade masses of people to accept the ideas of universal human rights, I would pitch them at this level rather than at the level of the abstruse obscurities of dependend origination.

I hope to read suggestions from others which will perhaps help me articulate my way through this thicket more clearly.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar

Re: HR defn

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:22:34 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: HR defn

I would like to request a definition of "human rights" so that we all are on the same wavelength. I found when I lived in China, for example, that this idea differed from that used in the US. People tend to talk about it as though we all "know" what human rights are. As an example, where I lived in China, the right to personal safety was considered an essential human right and here in the US we don't talk about that. Thank you!

Yes we do. It is just that we have viewed other rights as ascendant - i.e., those individual rights against the govt - like criminal procedure and due process and such. Indeed, the fourth amendment to the U.S. Constitution (regarding search and seizure) is intended to guarantee our personal safety - but the government is threat, not thugs - in our scheme of things.

As far as a defn goes - one can look to the Int'l Bill of Rights for a cateloguing or one can try a formal defn such as:

A human right is any claim, interest, demand, or need which is cognizable at law and which proceeds from moral precepts necessary for human dignity.

But I am not certain such a formal definition meets your need. And if we discuss definitions too much we won't get around to conceptual concerns relating to HR and Buddhism.
Cheers,
Steven D. Jamar
Assoc. Prof. of Law
Howard University School of Law
Washington, D.C.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 08:55:47 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Re: HR defn

Kimberley C Falk wrote about several HR concerns including cultural relativism and the tension between individual rights and what she labeled "social rights."

1. The Int'l Bill of Rights includes the Universal Declaration of HR (which includes social rights), the Convention on Civil and Political Rights (which reads like an updated version of the U.S. Bill of Rights), the Optional Protocol to the C&P Convention (which allows individuals to bring claims in international fora), and the Convention on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (which includes the social rights of work, community, health, etc.).

2. The ESC Convention rights are human rights just as much as the C&P Rights.

3. The term "social rights" as used by Kimberley may mean something different from how the term is used in HR law. Which confounds discussion and so we should get a firmer understanding of her meaning of it.

4. The tension between the individual and the group goes back to the creation of the UN. The Marxist states wanted the ESC rights to be primary, and generally treated them as such; the capitalist states wanted the C&P rights to be primary and generally treated and treat them as such (the US finally ratified the C&P Convention a couple of years ago -but the ESC Convention is still not ratified).

5. The use of the term "social rights" is often used as a dodge to avoid recognizing individual rights such as speech, assembly (not a social right??), and religion as well as due process rights. There are no unreconcilable rights - they may at times conflict, in which case the must be reconciled and a middle way found. Happens all the time in the US with the free exercise and establishment sides of freedom of religion.

6. Merely saying that rights are thus and so does not make them thus and so whether said by the U.S. govt or the Chinese govt or apologists for them. The international standards adopted by 126 countries or so - including many, many "eastern" countries and "third world" countries since decolonization, are the standards.

7. Cultural relativism has its proper play around the edges. A country can legitimately limit speech more than the U.S. does, but at some point one has violated the right of expression. One can ban human sacrifices, but probably not symbolic (or actual, according to some believers) eating of the body Christ.

8. Human rights extend only to humans. But by including a right to a clean environment, one can stretch them to include protection of spotted owls and such - though it is really a wishful-thinking kind of stretch, not a legal one in the realm of HR.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 16:39:03 -0400
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: HR defn

Dear Mr. Jamar and All,

I would first like to clarify my request for a definition of rights. It sounds like Mr. Jamar is working from the context of law and rights which I personally and from my field of anthropology find limiting. My talking about "social rights" was an effort to determine at what level we are discussing rights (individual/ small unit such as the family / or larger socially confined convention as set into law or other government / social stipulation) which is quite difficult to determine talking to all of you via computerized abbreviated messages. I want to know, is this conference defining rights in terms of human individuals only (which if so, as a Buddhist myself I find problematic since we are called upon to extend kindness/etc. to all sentient beings. Therefore consideration of human rights only seems to me somehow anti-Buddhist, but for the purposes of a conference limited by time I am willing to accept if clarified as a recognition that ethically as Buddhists we must concern ourselves with rights beyond people only).

Mr. Jamar, it was not I who addressed the Chinese government's use of cultural relativism here. That was someone else, although I mentioned that I have done work there. I did however make the claim that social-cultural concepts of rights and at what levels they are applied is based in specific cultural and social contexts in which they exist and these vary cross-culturally. For that matter, Buddhism as a belief system and practice also differ cross-culturally. That is not to say we cannot find universals, just that I would like to see further elaboration from conference participants on what their thinking is about rights so that I can grasp a sense of common and differing ground.

One of my problems with using the concept of human rights as laid out in the laws of primarily Christian first world countries is that underlying such laws is the assumption of Christian faith and I would ask if we can't move beyond that when trying to evaluate rights and Buddhism. While it is true that many third world nations agree with such documents and rights, it is equally true that the political and economic power of the first world in the creation of such documents exceeds theirs. I would therefore argue that one must be cautious when using such documents to form a universal standard as voices of those less powerful tend to be silenced or muffled when aggregated. If for the purpose of this conference we are to use those standards to examine the concept of Buddhism and ethics, so be it. I would simply ask that people make that clear.

That some of you are in fact elaborating further on your ideas about rights is not in contest and I appreciate all of your comments very much. Also I want to state outright that in reading this message I would hope that you can understand this is not in any way an attack on anyone, merely my views which if we were in person and talking face to face you could see and hear.

Mr. Jamar, I would respectfully ask you what is it about the conventions of law that are interesting to you in terms of rights? Do you feel that they are in some way better representative of a universal sense of ethics than looking at the Dharma? Do you see them as a measure of social consensus about rights? I very much look forward to hearing more about why this standard attracts you? Please write again! Thank you all very much. Respectfully waiting, Kim

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 22:29:04 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" JBE-L@PSUVM.PSU.EDU
Subject: Re: HR defn

Mr. Jamar, I would respectfully ask you what is it about the conventions of law that are interesting to you in terms of rights?

I think that law, as limited as it is, can help improve the lot of people and I think the Int'l HR standards represent a big step in the effort to get a world ordered more by law than by fiat. BTW, don't you find them interesting?

Do you feel that they are in some way better representative of a universal sense of ethics than looking at the Dharma?

Law and human rights viewed within the context of law certainly do not come close to being an ethical system. But I can't help but note the trend of scoundrels in politics to claim to have done nothing wrong simply because they did nothing illegal. The law never has claimed to fill the field of ethics or morality - and the nature of law is such that it could not.

As a way of looking at reality or life, law is inadequate. But as a step toward coming together, HR's seem a good first step. And we have lot of work to do to even make that step. I'm not sure this meets your inquiry properly, but it is late and I've not much time to really do it justice.

Do you see them as a measure of social consensus about rights?

Yes - or at least hopefully they will be.

It sounds like Mr. Jamar is working from the context of law and rights which I personally and from my field of anthropology find limiting.

Yes, I am working from the context of law and rights. And yes, law is limited - but I'm not sure I agree with it being limiting - unless one gets blinded by it.

So a question in return - what are anthropological rights as distinct from legal ones?

Does the duty to extend kindness to all sentient things mean we are not to distinguish between humans and others? If the point is that a human rights focus is at best incomplete - no thinking person of any faith with whom I have discussed the point would disagree. It seems to me a question to be concerned with is not whether human rights is coestensive with Buddhist morality and philosophy, but whether human rights are sufficiently consistent with Buddhism so as to not be foreign to it.

The question I find most interesting for this conference is to what extent the whole idea and approach of HR and rule of law are compatible with Buddhism both as practiced and philosophically.

I would be particularly interested in your insights (as an anthropologist) regarding Buddhism as it is in, to use Geertz's felicitous phrase, in sheer actuality, as compared to the Buddhism of the monks and philosophers.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law

Human and animal rights

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 14:15:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Human and animal rights

Several people have pointed out that Buddhists should be wary of human rights talk if it implies other sentient beings have no rights (assuming humans do!).

As I see it, 'human rights' include:
i) rights in common with other sentient beings, eg. the right not to be tortured, or the right not to be deliberately killed.
ii) rights peculiar to human beings, arising from specifically human qualities, eg. the right to free speech
iii) rights pecular to humans which arise, arguably, from a social contract: the right to expect a government to behave, or not behave, in certain ways.
iv) rights peculiar to humans which arise through positive legislation in particular countries.

I'm not totally happy with this categorisation and the examples given: perhaps someone else can improve it.

Peter Harvey

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 21:33:15 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Human and animal rights

Peter's right. Buddhadharma does not contain vestiges of the European's Great Chain of Being, which puts humans just below angels, who in turn are below God; nor does it put humans on top of everything else. The horizontal line of Buddhism means "sarva sattva" - all sentient beings. Every daily bodhisattva ritual (including the various Zens) aims at pounding that point into human awareness.

So, the first step in applying rights to Buddhist thinking is to distinquish, as Peter suggests, between those qualities distinquishing human samsara from samsara in general.

Ken O'Neill

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 01:40:24 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Human and animal rights

As I see it, 'human rights' include: i) rights in common with other sentient beings, eg. the right not to be tortured, or the right not to be deliberately killed.

Mistreatment is a waste. No problem here.

ii) rights peculiar to human beings, arising from specifically human qualities, eg. the right to free speech

We happen to be human, so we have an attachment... It's a bit problematical, but I think we have to accept the fact that we are human. I'd place the right of free association before all other rights -- it's our right to be part of dependent creation.

iii) rights pecular to humans which arise, arguably, from a social contract: the right to expect a government to behave, or not behave, in certain ways.

I'd like to find something more "organic" than "social contract." Perhaps pointing more toward freeing the social beings from sorrow.

iv) rights peculiar to humans which arise through positive legislation in particular countries.

Pure mechanism. A result which gets fed back into future activity.

Sphere

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 06:37:07 -0400
From: "Damien Keown" 100012.3212@compuserve.com
Subject: Human Rights/Animal Rights

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 07:43:12 +0100
From: "Ulrike Holzer-Petsche" ulrike.holzer@balu.kfunigraz.ac.at
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights

Since the question of the rights of animals has come up:

What is the Buddhist attitude towards animal experiments? I do not speak of deliberately and thoughtlessly inflicting suffering to animals, but of well planned experiments that try to minimize the suffering to the animals, but, of course, in the end involve the death of those beings. In order to help human beings suffering from various diseases (not all of which are self-inflicted by unhealthy life styles), we can, at present, not totally dispense with animal experiments. Are we to do away with all such experiments and tell the patients to just be content with those therapeutic measures we already have, or can we continue to look for better ways to help those people and be grateful to the animals helping us to reach this goal?

Ulrike Holzer-Petsche
Dept. Pharmacology
Univ. Graz

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 08:37:55 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights

What is the Buddhist attitude towards animal experiments? I do not speak of deliberately and thoughtlessly inflicting suffering to animals, but of well planned experiments that try to minimize the suffering to the animals, but, of course, in the end involve the death of those beings. In order to help human beings suffering from various diseases (not all of which are self-inflicted by unhealthy life styles), we can, at present, not totally dispense with animal experiments. Are we to do away with all such experiments and tell the patients to just be content with those therapeutic measures we already have, or can we continue to look for better ways to help those people and be grateful to the animals helping us to reach this goal?

I am reminded of the old Al Capp cartoon series "Lil Abner," in which schmoos were constantly laying down their lives for the benefit of humans. Schmoos are little animals shaped like bowling pins that are both friendly and good to eat, and eager to be of service however they can.

I think it that animals, too, can be boddhisattvas in their own way. And offering one's life for the benefit of others can be beneficial in the long run both to the bodhisattva and to the recipient of her generosity.

I know that Native Americans acted with this sort of motivation when they hunted buffalo (and other animals) and used the animals' bodies for food, clothing, housing, etc. This motivation included a profound respect for the animals and a sense of the sacredness of all life.

Perhaps someone more knowledgeable about this approach could comment.

Sally Clay, Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 14:30:00 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Human Rights /Animal Rights

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 15:45:39 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights -Reply

A thorny question - consider that Buddhists do not even all agree on the subject of vegetarianism!

You stipulate that the experiments are well-planned and designed to minimise pain. I would further stipulate that all unnecessary duplication would need to be eliminated - across national boundaries too. This would deprive research scientists of the "scoop" they crave for, of course, but I believe a centralisation of all such experiments worldwide (not necessarily at the same facility, but approved through a central clearing-house) would be a good thing. There are too many postgrad biology students trying to see if they can outsmart their professors and all doing essentially the same thing .

Secondly, while your post refers to medical research, I would propose an immediate ban on all further *cosmetic* research. It is now possible for human beings to look like anything from Casanova to the monster from the black lagoon. We do not need new cosmetics & fragrances.

These are, of course, very peripheral answers. Ideally, I would like to see advances in tissue culture etc make such experiments totally unnecessary. FWIW, I am prepared to assert that a colony of skin cells in a petri dish does *not* constitute a sentient being!

On a personal level, when I am in a position where I need to take a life (such as when the cat brings in a mangled bird), I recite my personal little mantra "May you be reborn as a human being". I do not really think that my merit is so great as to actually cause this to happen - the purpose of this is for me to acknowledge that this is a karmic act, and not to fall into the trap of killing without being conscious of what I'm doing. But if it caught on, I imagine it would eventually just become another recited-by-rote little ritual - "So I killed my wife, but I recited the `may you be' mantra, so it doesn't count..."

Does that start to answer your question?

Michel Clasquin
University of South Africa

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 16:17:07 +0100
From: "Stephen Clark" srlclark@liverpool.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights

It used to be a common theme of Christian sermons (and reappears in William James' essays) that `animals' virtuously surrender their lives for humans (and we are therefore entitled to claim those lives even if they seem to be doing their level best to avoid surrender!).

Forgive me if I find this sort of rationalisation completely nauseating.

I am sorry to intrude on this discussion: I'm not a Buddhist, though I have been strongly influenced by Buddhist writings, and by the example of good Buddhists.

I am well aware that not all Buddhists are vegetarian, and that there are as many rationalisations and excuses offered for the abuse of non-humans in Buddhist societies as in Christian or post-Christian ones. I am, however, very depressed that any Buddhists should continue to interpret the rare privilege of being a free-born human as a licence to oppress our brothers and sisters. THe very notion of there being a well-defined group of `human beings' is one that Buddhists ought to have abandoned (and which modern biologists have rendered very implausible).

There are, no doubt, good reasons to be glad that governments pay even lip-service to a system of law that is aimed to protect individual choices and well-being, even if only of those who can be regarded as mature human beings. I very much hope that Buddhists are not being sucked into affirming `human rights' at the very moment that we may be able to widen our view and seek to protect the choices and well-being of other creatures too.

See (for example) Peter Singer & Paola Cavalieri (eds) *The Great Ape Project * (Fourth Estate/St.Martin's PRess)

Stephen Clark

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 19:14:43 -0400
From: "M. Jinavamsa" Jinavamsa@aol.com
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights

Just curious: the only Western philosopher I know of who spoke of animal rights at the core of his philosophy is the Kant-inspired 20th Cent. American philosopher CI Lewis (not the English writer CS Lewis), esp. in his The Ground and Nature of the Right. In any case, animal rights (the rights of non-human sentient beings) has not been central to much philosophical discussion in the West that I know of. Are there, in fact, other Western philosophers who had this breadth of concern? in peace to all beings, Jinavamsa

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 19:15:06 -0400
From: "M. Jinavamsa" Jinavamsa@aol.com
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights

Re animal rights, experimentation, Am. Indian rites and values: 1. I don't know if it's mind reading or wishing thinking that suggests that animals are happily practicing daana while experiments are done on their bodies for the sake of (hopefully?) knowledge and "cures" ....

2. I have friends from the Oneida nation. They mentioned that the Lakota indians have this same respectful relation with the animals they hunt, eat, and otherwise utilize in their lives (re skins for pelts, bones for needles, etc) and the Cherokee, too, as described in the book The Education of Little Tree, by Forrest Carter, NYC: Delacorte Press, 1976; Albuquerque: U. of New Mexico Press, 1986,1991 .... There are other native tradtitions with this same sense of respectful interconnectedness (S. AMerican etc.) in peace for all familes in the human clan in the sentient-being family, Jinavamsa

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 08:36:43 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights -Reply

I am sorry to intrude on this discussion: I'm not a Buddhist, though I have been strongly influenced by Buddhist writings, and by the example of good Buddhists.

No problem. An outside view can be the most illuminating one. Please keep on posting!

Michel Clasquin

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 01:34:24 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Human Rights /Animal Rights

I think that animals, too, can be bodhisattvas in their own way. And offering one's life for the benefit of others can be beneficial in the long run both to the bodhisattva and to the recipient of her generosity'.

Where a being voluntarily chooses to give up his/her life, your argument works fine. But since when were the animals used in medical experiments given a 'choice'? Bodhisattvas volunteer themselves: they don't 'volunteer' other beings, whether these be humans or animals.

Not to dis on you, but bodhisattva theory (see the Dashabhumika sutra) in these matters reverses the notion of choice. If an animal is a bodhisattva/ or if a bodhisattva is an animal, then it's pure choice for the benefit of others. We simply cannot humanize bodhisattvas, primarily since doing so runs against the grain of sutra tradtiions embodying the buddhadharma worldview. Separating persons from other life forms, is in the final analysis, more of a Great Chain of Being Christian notion than one of buddhadharma.

Cheers,
Ken O'Neill

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:11:33 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Human Rights/Animal Rights

On the question of the rights of animals, which has come up several times ... I suggested that human rights in Buddhism are grounded in human dignity, and that human dignity derives from the fact that we are all potential Buddhas. This formulation also provides a basis for respect for animals, since they are also potential Buddhas.

I'm sorry ,but human dignity has utterly nothing to do with buddhadharma - it lacks the great chain of being. Human dignity is pure samsara. How much human dignity can you imagine as you imagine world leaders sitting on the crapper?

However, I think it follows that animals are entitled to lesser respect than human beings. Why? Because their dignity is not equal to -- is lesser than -- that of human beings. This is because they have actualized their nirvanic potential to a lesser degree (this is clear from the fact that they have been born in a less auspicious realm). If this line of reasoning is correct, it would follow that they have fewer rights.

You think "it follows" what. You've made an assertion, mostly an ad homiem (it's true because you say so) without slightest justification. Human dignity has nothing to do with being potential buddhas; where did you get such a strange idea? Certainly not from the wheel of becoming mandala or other teachings concerned with karmic embodiment in symbolic forms of consciousness.

What rights would they have? I suggested in my paper that "human rights are in essence what justice requires if human good is to be fulfilled." It follows that animals rights are in essence what justice requires if animal good is to be fulfilled. In what does animal good consist? In the realization of whatever good animal nature allows. This may vary from species to species.

This is all fine, but it says more about your cultural origins than those of buddhadharma. Justice, again, is a gaijin idea.

At a minimum it would include the right to life, since no animal can realise whatever potential it has unless it is alive. It would include a right to equal treatment and non-discrimination (as between others of its kind), a right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman (?) or degrading treatment or punishment, a right not to be arbitrarily detained (no factory farms?) ... etc etc I'm making this up as I go along - perhaps someone can help out.

Being alive guarantees nothing. Buddhists would echo Gurdjieff's famous remark that the average person is born into a coffin in which they abide until death.

The kind of rights animals would NOT have would be those peculiar to rational agents (eg a right to education) and rights related to features of human society (e.g. a right to marry, a right to a nationality).

You're notions of rights here really just point to cultural inflections of patterns of human behavior, not to breaking through samsara as cultural patterns of illusion.

Ken O'Neill

Re: Human Rights and duties

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:23:17 +0000
From: "Christopher Fynn" cfynn@sahaja.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: Human Rights and duties

As a basis realise the Buddhist goal, freedom from suffering, one must have the means and opportunity or a "Precious Human Birth". To me, this means that one must have life and health, education, sustinance, shelter, information, freedom of religion and a certain amount of free time. Surely a society founded on Buddhist principles would be one that assured everyone the right to, and the means to obtain, these neccessities in adaquate measure?

A Buddhist also has the duty of refraining from nom-virtue - which means causing as little suffering or harm to others as possible. There is also a positive duty of relieving suffering and its causes - surely this includes relief of hunger, fear, pain, illness, ignorance as well as spiritual suffering?

These rights and duties may be independent of any reasonable system of government and might exist under an enlightend monarchy as well as in a modern democracy. (In the first case we may only need one great bodhisattva in the latter perhaps everyone needs to be a little bodhisattva.)

Sally Clay has mentioned the "four immeasurables". It seems to me that humans have to have well being and the causes of well being in order to be free fom suffering and its causes so that they may be enabled to become "one with the great happiness, devoid of suffering" and attain equanimity free of attachment and aversion.

Mangalam

Christopher J. Fynn

Human Rights/Women's Rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 19:30:42 +0000
From: "Rayya Ghul" Rayya@minarama.demon.co.uk
Subject: Human Rights/Women's Rights

I am including in this post some excerpts from Hillary Clinton's speech at the recent Women's Conference in Beijing. As another poster reminded us, many of the Bills of Rights around the world have been drawn up to protect the vested interests of the ruling party/class/gender etc. If a Buddhist perspective on Human Rights is to be useful, I suggest that the status of women has to be brought into the consciousness of this conference as we all must know the power that the status quo and its symbols exert on us.

I personally do not see the need for a Buddhist perspective on Human Rights to worry about 'Self's or inherent existence of a being. To do so may be an interesting intellectual exercise, but it rather distracts us from the reality that all of us live in every day. It is the same reality that we all suffer and it is the reality that the historical Buddha reportedly sat under the tree to understand and find a solution to. The fact that our 'self' is no more coherent than the dots that make up a photograph, ignores the fact that that self is the current vehicle we each have to realise enlightenment. If 'precious human birth' means anything, do not we not have some responsibility to communicate that preciousness to the rest of the world? 'Human Rights' may be the current vehicle available to us to do that.

Compassion, lovingkindness, joy, - why do we practice any of these if we don't have some sort of connection to an improved state of human dignity? Action and Consequence - are these not central aspects to Buddhism that we focus our attention on every day? Our path is not distracted by random acts of Gods and Devils, or by divine punishment and retribution. Surely the very connection to *reality* of our practice can inform the issue of how better to provide for every sentient being? Rather than providing a panacea or utopian vision, maybe we can bring a simple reminder of karma and interdependence?

Perhaps the word 'rights' doesn't resonate with Buddhism but in today's world there is a move towards accountability - both personal and governmental. Buddhists will be asked for their perspective and I think we can perhaps contribute by emphasising a shift away from Rights based on vested interests towards Rights based on a basic notion of human dignity placed within a realistic view.

Although Ms. Clinton's speech is obviously also addressing a group with a vested interest, I think she makes some of these points very directly and I am hoping the fact that she is approaching the issue from a somewhat different angle may help us to see that we Buddhists may also choose the angle of approach and not feel restricted by prevalent precedents. Perhaps one day all the approaches will synthesise into a great mandala!

Begin extract:

FIRST LADY HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON REMARKS FOR THE UNITED NATIONS FOURTH WORLD CONFERENCE ON WOMEN
BEIJING, CHINA
SEPTEMBER 5, 1995

I would like to thank the Secretary General of the United Nations for inviting me to be part of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women. This is truly a celebration -- a celebration of the contributions women make in every aspect of life: in the home, on the job, in their communities, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, learners, workers, citizens and leaders.

It is also a coming together, much the way women come together every day in every country.

We come together in fields and in factories. In village markets and supermarkets. In living rooms and board rooms.

Whether it is while playing with our children in the park, or washing clothes in a river, or taking a break at the office water cooler, we come together and talk about our aspirations and concerns. And time and again, our talk turns to our children and our families.

However different we may be, there is far more that unites us than divides us. We share a common future. And we are here to find common ground so that we may help bring new dignity and respect to women and girls all over the world -- and in so doing, bring new strength and stability to families as well.

What we are learning around the world is that, if women are healthy and educated, their families will flourish. If women are free from violence, their families will flourish. If women have a chance to work and earn as full and equal partners in society, their families will flourish.

And when families flourish, communities and nations will flourish.

Speaking to you today, I speak for them, just as each of us speaks for women around the world who are denied the chance to go to school, or see a doctor, or own property, or have a say about the direction of their lives, simply because they are women.

The truth is that most women around the world work both inside and outside the home, usually by necessity.

We need to understand that there is no formula for how women should lead their lives. That is why we must respect the choices that each woman makes for herself and her family. Every women deserves the chance to realize her God-given potential.

We also must recognize that women will never gain full dignity until their human rights are respected and protected.

Our goals for this conference, to strengthen families and societies by empowering women to take greater control over their own destinies, cannot be fully achieved unless all governments -- here and around the world -- accept their responsibility to protect and promote internationally recognized human rights.

The international community has long acknowledged -- and recently affirmed at Vienna -- that both women and men are entitled to a range of protections and personal freedoms, from the right of personal security to the right to determine freely the number and spacing of the children they bear.

No one should be forced to remain silent for fear of religious or political persecution, arrest, abuse or torture.

Tragically, women are most often the ones whose human rights are violated. Even in the late 20th century, the rape of women continues to be used as an instrument of armed conflict. Women and children make up a large majority of the world's refugees. And when women are excluded from the political process, they become even more vulnerable to abuse.

I believe that, on the eve of a new millennium, it is time to break our silence. It is time for us to say here in Beijing, and the world to hear, that it is no longer acceptable to discuss women's rights as separate from human rights.

These abuses have continued because, for too long, the history of women has been a history of silence. Even today, there are those who are trying to silence our words.

The voices of this conference and of the women at Huairou must be heard loud and clear:

* It is a violation of human rights when babies are denied food, or drowned, or suffocated, or their spines broken, simply because they are born girls.
* It is a violation of human rights when women and girls are sold into the slavery of prostitution.
* It is a violation of human rights when women are doused with gasoline, set on fire and burned to death because their marriage dowries are deemed too small.
* It is a violation of human rights when individual women are raped in their own communities and when thousands of women are subjected to rape as a tactic or prize of war.
* It is a violation of human rights when a leading cause of death worldwide among women ages 14 to 44 is the violence they are subjected to in their own homes.
* It is a violation of human rights when young girls are brutalized by the painful and degrading practice of genital mutilation.
* It is a violation of human rights when women are denied the right to plan their own families, and that includes being forced to have abortions or being sterilized against their will.
* If there is one message that echoes forth from this conference, it is that human rights are women's rights . . . . And women's rights are human rights.
* Let us not forget that among those rights are the right to speak freely. And the right to be heard.

As long as discrimination and inequities remain so commonplace around the world -- as long as girls and women are valued less, fed less, fed last, overworked, underpaid, not schooled and subjected to violence in and out of their homes -- the potential of the human family to create a peaceful, prosperous world will not be realized.

end excerpt

Rayya

Re: ID of ruler with ruled

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 18:15:42 -0600
From: "Stephen Evans" tbm@usa.net
Subject: Re: ID of ruler with ruled

It seems to me that a ruler has the job of maintaining the social being of which the ruler is a member -- this is not necessarily the same being as the state being ruled.

It seems to me that the entire issue of human rights has arisen from the difference between the society of the rulers and the society of the ruled. If the ruler is a member of the same being as the ruled then the need to specify protections for the ruled vanishes. Of course, getting a complete identification of rulers and ruled might be a bit difficult.

This is dangerous: society as one being, ruler as responsible for it, loving it, cleanses it of the communist (or capitalst) cancer. Community is a being, yes, as is society, & the state etc. and an individual with complex overlapping hierarchies of inclusion, cooperation, conflict, moral, social, legal, political ... and we're //in// all this so can't get an objective view. Sometimes I think that the best we can do is to do our best: cultivate understanding in the service of compassion, excersize compassion in the service of wisdom. Simply advocate the end of abuse, help those in need, spread //metta//. While having no idea what the ideal form of social organization would be...

Santipala

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 15:55:14 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: ID of ruler with ruled

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 13:47:51 +0000
From: "Rayya Ghul" Rayya@minarama.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: ID of ruler with ruled

My question is: How do you advocate the end of abuse to people who are not compassionate? Arguing compassion is fruitless, and a waste of time. It seems to me that the tool available to a Buddhist is causation -- and the realization that effects create their causes. Is the Buddhist going to convince the non-compassionate that effects create their causes? Not likely. Instead, point out individual loops within the web. Map "human rights" into small sections of dependent coarising.

I am in agreement with you (if I understood you correcly, of course!) To give a somewhat prosaic example. I have found to that to convince my children to do something 'because it's a good thing to do, because we should try to be kind' etc. is ineffective and actually somewhat dubious. To try to explain the effects of their actions and making them think through to possiblities (ending with 'and you will happy/unhappy) is generally much more effective and, I think, helpful.

Rayya

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 13:16:33 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: ID of ruler with ruled

I think treating the world's leaders as children is a wonderful idea! You do not attempt to teach a child everything all at once. You attempt to teach them what you think they will understand, using words they already know.

For example: I think we should thank the government of China for giving the world Tibetan Buddhism and raising HHDL to such prominence. Perhaps from this they may learn a bit about unintended consequences. (Getting them to generalize and become compassionate? Well, a rock is worn away drop by drop...)

Sphere

Interdependence and rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 17:16:55 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Interdependence and rights

Several people, eg. Traer (in conference related material) see 'inter-dependence' as the foundation of rights in Buddhism. But, while we should of course be grateful to all those beings whose actions help us live and flourish, and respect them their rights, and their contribution to the whole, should one grant equal respect to: oppressive rulers, industrial polluters, the smallpox virus, HIV virus etc. etc., and to the extyent of letting them get on and 'do their thing'? We are just as 'inter-dependent' with them. So, to link inter-dependence with rights, more argument is needed.

Peter Harvey

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 20:14:32 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: Interdependence and rights

IMHO, respect is not the same thing as carte blanche. One can disagree with someone and at the same time respect him. One can respect one's enemy but abhor his practices. Or... sometimes one can respect his practices but abhor their consequences. etc.

When we talk about "unconditional respect," I think we are referring to people. Other kinds of respect require discrimination.

(I'm not sure what this has to do with interdependence either. Although I might add that although I hate mold, I love penicillin. I despise what Hitler has come to stand for, but I note in his home movies that he loved his animals and was good to them.)

Sally Clay, Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 00:22:26 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Interdependence and rights

It seems to me here, that if you ask me to let "them get on and 'do their thing'" then you are asking me to renounce my role in the drama. You are asking me not to be a part of this inter-dependence. This inter-dependence is all there is -- I cannot give up my role, even by dieing.

Sphere

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 14:22:42 +0000
From: "Stephen Evans" saevan1@future.uswc.uswest.com
Subject: interdependence re: P. harvey & Kim; garfield

Santipala Stephan Evans, in his conference paper, (p.4) says 'If the potential for enlightenment is the ground for human dignity, where does that leave those who have no interest in realizing that potential?'

Surely, one can respect a person's rights nevertheless: abusing them is no way to ehnance one's own potential OR draw out that of the abused.

Of course. But do we respect others //because// of that (possibly neglected, or even abused) potential? My point is that the potential for enlightenment (or Buddha nature, etc.) is a weak support for human rights and may even work against it, as the Sri Lanka tradition (first or second century CE I think) that non-Buddhists are not fully human, Bodhidharma's statement that killing a Hinayanist would be justified (reminescent of Acquinas advocacy of Capital Punishment for heritics), etc.

But my respect for others is not based in their potential for enlightenment -- and I seriously doubt that Christians respect others because of the //Imago Dei//. Rather what I respect is just //this person//. I do not see dignity or enlightenment or God (or rights) in that breast, but just this person. If I see anything there it is my own reflection -- that she has captured something of me even as I have of her. How to articulate this situation usefully, this mutual necessity, is the problem. Rights language is a short hand language for talking about certain aspects of that situation -- especially when the situation is elaborated to the relations among individuals, groups, societies, states ...

Kim (I think) keeps hammering for a clarification what level of human rights we're talking about: individual, group, society etc. I think this is a central problem area in HR talk in general AWA at this conference. I do not think we will make a contribution focusing on the individual in isolation: as though the individual were a self contained, self fulfilling unit and society no more than the arena of its flourishing (the maintenance of which we may have contracted out ...). Society //is// all that, but also it //is// our flourshing, and the source of our particular existences, and the creation of our mutual lives.

If rights apply strictly to the individual, than using that language we can only ask the PRC to grant a circle of privacy around each Tibetan: "Free Tibet" becomes meaningless. Applied strictly to the culture ... but here are problems. The culture is not the state, where are its boundaries etc. etc, is female infanticide OK if it's part of the tradition? Nevertheless a culture (or rather a people which has a culture) is some sort of reality and the crushing of Tibet is a tragedy quite apart from the many individual, personal tragedies. What I think we need is a method for formulating rights statements which would first look at a total situation, evaluate it in the light of Buddhadharma, //then// see whether rights language is useful in expressing/correcting/preventing abuses (abuses of beings not of rights).

Several people, eg. Traer (in conference related material) see 'inter-dependence' as the foundation of rights in Buddhism. But, while we (snip) should one grant equal respect to: oppressive rulers, iindustrial polluters, the smallpox virus, HIV virus etc. etc., and to the extyent of letting them get on and 'do their thing'? We are just as "inter-dependent" with them. So, to link inter-dependence with rights, more argument is needed.

We are not deities in a position to let them do their thing or not but contingent beings in the world of others in realtions of dependency and conflict. We make choices -- we cannot //not// make choices //vis a vis// these others. Often the promptings of compassion conflict -- as Peter H. points out: imprisoning a murderor is cruel to him, compassionate to his possible victims. In fact the Jatakas are full of stories of ethical conflict. As Buddhists, we make the best choices we can taking risks because we don't always know what is best, and accept the consequences. "Rights" provide guidelines in the form of boundaries for that decision making -- but they leave many loose ends: we still have to risk making choices even knowing that we are mired in ignorance.

BTW, I very much like Jay Garfield's article, "Human Rights and Compassion," grounding human rights in compassion. I wonder if he knows how very Confucian this thinking is, especially in considering the problem of compassion (or //jen//) at a distance. Ironic that the PRC cries "cultural imperialism" when so much of China's own tradition calls for restraint of unjust power. In any case, the early Buddhist social-political vision is strikingly similar to Confucianism at its best. Too bad that early vision has been so long neglected. One question for J.G. -- if we criticize the HR theorists for simply asserting inalienable rights with no justification might we not be criticized in turn for calling for compassion with no more justification than that the Buddha said so?

Santipala

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 22:26:13 -0400
From: "Jay L Garfield" jlgCCS@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: Re: interdependence re: P. harvey & Kim; garfield

BTW, I very much like Jay Garfield's article, "Human Rights and Compassion," grounding human rights in compassion. I wonder if he knows how very Confucian this thinking is, especially in considering the problem of compassion (or //jen//) at a distance.

No, I didn't realize that this was a Confucian idea. But, as you point out, that does add a touch of irony to the PRC protestations. Curious, since so many of my Chinese friends keep pointing out to me how really Confucian the PRC is in many other ways.

Ironic that the PRC cries "cultural imperialism" when so much of China's own tradition calls for restraint of unjust power. In any case, the early Buddhist social-political vision is strikingly similar to Confucianism at its best. Too bad that early vision has been so long neglected. One question for J.G. -- if we criticize the HR theorists for simply asserting inalienable rights with no justification might we not be criticized in turn for calling for compassion with no more justification than that the Buddha said so?

If that were our only justification, we would be subject to exactly the same criticism. But surely that is not. For philosophers such as Candrakiirti, Shantideeva, Tsong Khapa, Schopenhauer, and Hume--to name only a few--have provided rather careful, cogent arguments for the rationality of compassion as a reaction to our interdependence and non-uniqueness. Hume, in particular, has also argued that even if compassion were not a rational moral response, it is the natural response to one brought up in a healthy way--and it is the kind ofmoral response necessary to groundign a happy, well-ordered society. So there are good philospohical, psychological, and social arguments, and not just the Buddha's authority behind this moral standpoint. Now, one might challenge those arguments. But that is another story. I myself think that these arguments stand up better to scrutiny than do those of the liberal tradition. But that is too long a story for this forum. See Dick Garner's excellent book BEYOND MORALITY for a fine discsusion of this larger issue.

Jay

Re: Justice in Buddhism?

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 17:18:35 -0600
From: "Stephen Evans" tbm@usa.net
Subject: Re: Justice in Buddhism?

And I, on the other hand, think that "justice" is a hangup of monotheistic religions that are afflicted with a judgmental god. It... ... when, in so far as I know, the Buddhist teachings refer to wisdom and compassion, but never to justice.

Well, one of the traditional, commentarial explanations of //upekkaa//, usually translated "equanimity" is -- even handedness, like a judge. moreover, there is a tradition of Vinaya adjudication in which justice seems a concern.

Santipala

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 13:13:37 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Justice in Buddhism?

But surely even-handedness is more like "equity" than it is like justice. In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes a distinction between justice and ethics: justice consists of following the rules, equity consists of doing right in those cases where justice leads to the wrong result.

I am not at all surprised that the traditional Buddhists teachings make a virtue out of equity in this sense--in the sense of doing what is right, right here, right now, in this particular case--but that does not suggest to me that there was anything like the traditional idea of justice--following rules, recognizing rights--in those teachings.

Peter D. Junger
Case Western Reserve University Law School
Cleveland, OH

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 17:31:38 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Justice in Buddhism? Correcting a typo

In the Nicomachean Ethics Aristotle makes a distinction between justice and ethics. justice consists of following the rules... equity consists of doing right in those cases where justice leads to the wrong result.

I meant, of course to say that in the Nicomacean Ethics Aristotle makes a distinction between justice and "equity".

Mea culpa

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 06:15:15 -0600
From: "Dan Lusthaus" LUSTHAUS@macalstr.edu
Subject: Re: Justice in Buddhism?

I'm away from my computer for a few days, and return to find it packed with an intensive discussion. I haven't waded through everything yet, but some quick comments:

1. On contract: Contract as a basis for law did not originate in the 19th century, but goes back at least as far as the Hebrew Scriptures. God makes a Covenant (fancy word for "contract") with the people. While Buddhism does not have a covenant with God per se (although, one could argue some Mahayanic forms, such as Pure Land, presuppose some form of contractual agreement between devotees and grace-ful Buddhas), the vinaya code does indeed have elements of contract in it. By taking the vows one signs a verbal contract to conform to certain activities of body, speech, and mind. Various transgressions can get one censured, and even kicked out of the community. The contract itself is not held as the foundation of the agreement (that is deferred to the presumed purpose for which the contract is drawn up in the first place), but it is binding on all parties.

2. As for the rights vs. anaatman debate (and its correlaries), there seem to be some basic confusions. First, in the West, at least since Kant, philosophers have tended to distinguish Critical Reason from Practical Reason. The former concerns ultimate epistemological issues and the ability to make metaphysical claims; the latter is concerned with moral and ethical instruction and practice. They operate through different rational foundations. Similarly, in Buddhism, anaatman doctrine never prohibited anyone from using the first person pronouns, especially in the context of practice. Individuals have their own karmic issues to unravel and correct; to the extent this is an individual concern and practice, there are individuals. To the extent that no Self lies behind the karmic process, there are no metaphysical individuals.

3. It seems appropriate that the majority of Buddhist texts cited as possible sources of ethical material in the discussion (at least as far as I've seen so far) come from the Paali canon. Let me suggest a few further suttas for consideration:
1. Madhura sutta (Majjhima Nikaaya #84) which, in the course of arguing why members of the four castes are ultimately equal - though not so in social practice - uses a very capitalist argument (in the good sense).
2. Ka.n.nakattha sutta (Majjhima #90) which, buried amidst other concerns, argues that the two top castes only seem to be superior to the lower two because of a difference in training (= social conditioning), not inherent differences between the individuals in such castes (a theme further expounded in Vaase.t.tha sutta, Majjhima #98).
3. Esukaari sutta (Majjhima #96) is perhaps the most pregnant with possibilities for a Buddhist discourse to parallel "rights" discourse. Arguing against the notion of Brahmanic superiority and the caste hierarchy as conceived by Brahmans, it offers some interesting criteria for analysing "advantage" and "responsibility".
4. When all else fails, religions can always fall back on fire and brimstone preaching, and Dhaana~njaani sutta, Majjhima #97, is a potent example of that genre.

These fours suttas can all be found translated in volume II of the PTS _Middle Length Sayings_. I don't have time to summarize them now, but highly recommend that discussants read them. They offer much of value.

Dan Lusthaus
Macalester College

Karma, Punishment and War Crimes

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:22:24 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: karma, punishment and war crimes

an approach of skilful means //might// counsel non-prosecution in such circumstances (while leaving karma to bring its own natural results to the perpetrators). And yet, and yet... That would signal that war crimes would not be punished and would set a bad precedent. perhaps best would be a delay, to let the peace set in, and then prosecution.

The approach of delay would often not work because the price of peace may be amnesty. Can Begin or Arafat now be arrested for the creation of Israel by terrorism against the British and the creation of Palestine by terror against Israel, respectively? Or should we now let them be old and peaceful and solve the problems of centuries, if they can?

Or in South Africa - some should be tried -but who? Or Haiti - who and how many and to what effect?

Are we seeking deterence, through the WWII Nazi criminal approach of leaving "no place to hide"? Then what of the Khmer Rouge?

Are we seeking to be the instruments of karma? How are we to know that we should be?

Are we exercising compassion and hoping for growth of spirit in our enemies or the enemies of human dignity? Do Gandhi and the Dalai Lama give us the universal spirit and Buddhist answers - peace and perserverence and non-violent pressure?

It would seem to me that compassion and the Middle Way and "right thinking and right actions" would indicate that retribution is not the Buddhist response here. It would seem to me that Buddhism is less concerned with past bad acts than with present good ones and future harmony. If this is so, then a Buddhist approach to human rights issues would be a prophylactic and restorative one, not a retributive one. Establishing norms, education concerning them, and highlighting progress and error would seem more appropriate than tracking down violaters.

Cheers,
Steve Jamar
Howard Law
Washington, D.C.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 05:58:13 -0300
From: "Dr. Wayne R. Husted" wrh7@psu.edu
Subject: karma, punishment and war crimes (by Peter Harvey)

In the light of karmic operation, there appears no need for earthly punishments of any kind. Are we not only increasing our own future suffering by punishing others for that which they will suffer as a result of anyway? This applies to governments as well as individuals. Does karma then preclude war-crime trials?

On the general issue of punishment:
a) judicial punishment might be seen as //one// of the ways karmic fruits come to a person.
b) in any case, letting people get away with crime does them no good: they will probably go on to repeat it. That leaves open, however, what forms of punishment are best.
Capital punishment seems out of tune with Buddhism, though, as it cuts off all possibility of further spiritual growth in a person's present (rare and precious) human rebirth.
The considerations regarding war-crime trials only differ in the following respects:
i) Should one punish 80-year old Nazi war crimminals, when they //may// be very different persons now (//anatta, anicca//)? ii) What if it does not seem politically expedient to punish war criminals, say in the context of the end of a bloody civil war (eg Bosnia), where prosecution might upset the peace and lead to more deaths?

On i), I would say: yes, still appropriate to punish, just as karma is seen to catch up with people over long stretches of time. Of course, the punishment //might// be relatively mild, if the person now seems full of regret for their past.

On ii), an approach of skilful means //might// counsel non-prosecution in such circumstances (while leaving karma to bring its own natural results to the perpetrators). And yet, and yet... That would signal that war crimes would not be punished and would set a bad precedent. perhaps best would be a delay, to let the peace set in, and then prosecution.

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 13:07:12 -0600
From: "kelly george hirai" khirai@unm.edu
Subject: Re: karma, punishment and war crimes (by Peter Harvey)

(everybody's got a little light, under the sun)

I was always under the impression that there is a place for everybody in this world: that , say there is a person in a state where he would become a murderer that there would be a way to put him in a place or state (of mind or circumstance) that he would not murder, in a way that would not break the laws of society or would not require any special exemptions for those that rule (as rulers are no more (or less) human than anybody else)

...that this should be the goal of justice, not retribution or vengence.

Many civil rights movements in americia have turned their efforts tward the empowering of their members, breaking the glass ceiling, weather it be getting a job at the quick mart, or a seat on the supreme court.

now what is unusual is that those described in the first parapraph require attension to their uniqueness, to find their place in society, where as those in the second paragraph are having problems with their uniqueness in finding their place in sociey. I can't see equating this uniqueness to the ego as it has nothing to do with one's desire, its more about their soul, loosely translated as dharma. isn't this the goal of leaders... to guide the course of our dharma? if they choose to take on such responsablilty.

on a side note i've noticed that some jamacian rappers have been substituting for every pronoun the utter, "I", as if remembering past lives or evoking notions of universal compassion. oh wait a minute, maybe their saying the first name of that ethiopian king. hmm... i dunno.

Kelly Hirai

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 07:45:02 -0700
From: "James Kempf" James.Kempf@Eng.Sun.COM
Subject: Re: karma, punishment, and war crimes

With due caution about straying off the topic of human rights, this particular note string seems to be completely ignoring the entire Buddhist martial arts tradition (Chuan Fa) which has been so artfully laid out by Terrance Dukes in his book "Bodhisattva Warriors." The essence of this tradition, which Dukes maintains stems from the ancient Indian Ksyatra warrior caste training system, is that movement meditation and self-defense *without weapons* can be an integral part of a spiritual training program for some people. The philosophical basis of this program comes from Vashubandu's school. Vashubandu maintains that the prospect of seeing one's physical body come to harm tends to emphasize the mistaken notion of self, so teaching self defense builds freedom from fear of harm, and thus the ability to see the self for what it truely is.

There are some implications of this philosophy for the current discussion on human rights. One could apply Vashubandu's reasoning to human rights as well, in that, to the extent that individuals and governments abide by them, they tend to reduce the possibility of physical and mental harm, and thus reduce the tendency of physical and mental harm to cause growth of the self-concept. Additionally, when human rights violations are in progress, a kind of "Rainbow Warrior" concept would apply, so that people engaged in Chuan Fa spiritual training could apply physical means to stop or reverse such violation.

Unfortunately, as Dukes mentions, there are very few training programs that still follow the Chuan Fa tradition today, even in Asia. Most martial arts training programs have become sport or competitive endeavors rather than spiritual training programs.

James Kempf

Lay and monastic rights

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:00:54 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Lay and monastic rights

Ken O'Neill queried the relevance of the lay/monastic distinction and said : 'Setting monastics up as separate from others... has done Buddhist tradition a lot of damage by creating unneccessary hierarchies'.

The role of being a //bhikkhu// or //bhikkhunii// was instituted by the Buddha. He intended them to be //different// from lay people but not //separate// from them: they should be interdependent with them. Laity give material support, and monastic //Sangha// return teaching, inspiration and advise. This inter-dependent relationship was largely preserved in Theravaada countries, but it appears that in several Mahaayaana ones, monks became somewhat isolated from the laity.

Peter Harvey

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 12:54:38 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Lay and monastic rights

Refer only to Ms Magazine several monks ago for a charming article on the human rights violation of Shri Lankhan monks against women. Not only are they denied ordination, but subject to rape and other abuses by monks stitched into the dominant power structure. More than a few scandals loom in the codependency of monks and laiety in Theravadin countries. It seems to me that when international news reports on scandals in Buddhism, it reports on the conduct of monks!

The Buddha may well have initiated monasticism, along with parts of a vinaya that applied to existential circumstances unique to his limited experience in a small portion of norther india. The two schisms separating Theravada's remote ancestors from what became mahayana had much to do with following the letter of the law or its spirit. That buddhism spread beyond cultures effect by the Indian subcontinent largely resulted from mahayana's flexible application of buddhist principles. Perpetuity of buddhism doesn't depend on monks; instead it depends on people awakening, applying that awakening to the lives.

Gassho,
Ken O'Neill

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 12:52:25 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Lay and monastic rights

Ken O'Neill refers to an Ms Magazine article 'on the human rights violation of Shri Lankan monks against women. Not only are they denied ordination, but [are] subject to rape and other abuses by monks stitched into the dominant power structure. More than a few scandals loom in the coodependency of monks and laity in Theravaadin countries'.

If a monk is guilty of raping someone then, not only should he be jailed, but the monastic discipline demands that he be expelled from the monastic //Sangha// without possibility of re-instatement in the present life. Many monastic rules are specifically designed to guard against sexual improprieties. I hear than largely non-monastic American Buddhism has suffered from rather a lot of these??

On the issue of the re-instatement of the //bhikkhunii// ordination line: a) In Theravaada lands, Sri Lankans seem to be those who are keenest to bring this about: though there are those who disagree. b) If monasticism is such a dodgy thing, then women are not losing out by being currently unable to ordain as Theravaadin //bhikkuniis//!

Peter Harvey

More on human and animal rights

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 14:55:06 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: More on human and animal rights

In response to my posting on 'Human and animal rights', Ken O'Neill wrote:

Peter's right. Buddhadharma does not contain vestiges of the Europeans's Great Chain of Being, which puts humans just below angels, ...nor does it put humans on top of everything else. The horizontal line of Buddhism "sarva sattva" - all sentient beings'.

Yes, Buddhism does aspire for the happiness of all beings, but they are not all equal. It is, for example, clearly seen as worse to kill a human than a dog, and worse to kill a dog than an ant.

To be reborn a human is a rare and precious opportunity: to that extent one could say that human are 'superior' to non-human animals. BUT this does not give humans a right to abuse non-human animals. If humans are superior they should SHOW this by NOT abusing other forms of life. Humans have more freedom of action: they should use this freedom in a morally responsible way, thus not abusing their precious human rebirth.

More on the //Agga~n~na Sutta//

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 15:29:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: More on the //Agga~n~na Sutta//

Peter Junger writes, in response to my fuller elaboration of the //Agga~n~na Sutta// passage which , arguably, contains a 'social contract':

But the people were also bound by their collective agreement to 'take' the punishments meted out by the king, where these are in accordance with Dhamma (the Sutta stresses Dhamma in the sense of something like 'social justice' a lot).

Perhaps what one has to say is 'this is, from a Buddhist perspective, the precedent (whether seen as historical, mythic or both) establishing the grounds for the legitimacy of governments; a precedent, moreover, which shows what is in accordance with Dhamma'.

Neither Monk nor Layperson

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 15:15:18 -0400
From: "Tim Testu" R100RSBMW@aol.com
Subject: Neither Monk nor Layperson

"Later streams of Buddhism's development evolved beyond the earlier dualism separating monastics from laiety, instead stressing that we are all "neither monk nor layperson", just fellow seekers in quest of illumination."

If we're all the same, then I must be the Pope. Maybe "development" should be changed to degenerated.

Mr. McNeil continues...
"... Refer only to Ms Magazine several monks ago for a charming article on the human rights violation of Shri Lankhan monks against women. Not only are they denied ordination, but subject to rape and other abuses by monks stitched into the dominant power structure. More than a few scandals loom in the codependency of monks and laiety in Theravadin countries. It seems to me that when international news reports on scandals in Buddhism, it reports on the conduct of monks!

The Buddha may well have initiated monasticism, along with parts of a vinaya that applied to existential circumstances unique to his limited experience in a small portion of norther india. The two schisms separating Theravada's remote ancestors from what became mahayana had much to do with following the letter of the law or its spirit. That buddhism spread beyond cultures effect by the Indian subcontinent largely resulted from mahayana's flexible application of buddhist principles. Perpetuity of buddhism doesn't depend on monks; instead it depends on people awakening, applying that awakening to the lives."

Sorry Ken, I can't follow your line of thinking. Buddhism is here today because countless monks and nuns for thousands of years have given their light so that we can study Dharma. I am grateful for the Buddhism taught by Mahayana monks and nuns. Furthermore, these same people teach that monks, laypeople, non-Buddhists--everyone--is on a spiritual path of sorts, and that we should respect each others' beliefs. In Buddhism there's room for many approaches. Most of the left-home people I've met seem normal, happy, and well-adusted. Of course being human, there are going to be some bad ones, but to follow your logic--if a few laymen committed some grievous offenses, then all laymen are no good. Ridiculous! I've also met some most extraordinary monks who have inconceivable treasures to offer and who share their wealth of Buddha wisdom with those who value it without feeling the need to belittle laypeople.

To set the record straight, in Buddhism, the Sangha is the left-home order of monks and nuns. If you see things diffently, that's fine, but monastic Buddhism, pretty much as practiced in the time of the Buddha, is still alive and well today, and is an important part of life and practice for millions of Buddhists.

Of course, these are just my opinions. Richard Gere and Ms. Magazine may view things differently.

Beano,
Tim

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 18:05:06 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Neither Monk nor Layperson

Sorry Ken, I can't follow your line of thinking. Buddhism is here today because countless monks and nuns for thousands of years have given their light so that we can study Dharma. I am grateful for the Buddhism taught by Mahayana monks and nuns. Furthermore, these same people teach that monks, [etc.]

Dark Ages
----------
Chaos everywhere.
Books left rotting on the floor.
More precious than lives.

15-AUG-85 16:06:45 320 1
-----
Sphere

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 19:42:44 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Neither Monk nor Layperson

Tim Tetsu replied:
If we're all the same, then I must be the Pope. Maybe "development" should be changed to degenerated.

Care to offer more than a dis or an opinion - like a supporting reason?

Mr Tetus continues:
Sorry Ken, I can't follow your line of thinking. Buddhism is here today because countless monks and nuns for thousands of years have given their light so that we can study Dharma. I am grateful for the Buddhism taught by Mahayana monks and nuns. Furthermore, these same people teach that monks, laypeople, non-Buddhists--everyone--is on a spiritual path of sorts, and that we should respect each others' beliefs. In Buddhism there's room for many approaches. Most of the left-home people I've met seem normal, happy, and well-adusted. Of course being human, there are going to be some bad ones, but to follow your logic--if a few laymen committed some grievous offenses, then all laymen are no good. Ridiculous! I've also met some most extraordinary monks who have inconceivable treasures to offer and who share their wealth of Buddha wisdom with those who value it without feeling the need to belittle laypeople.

Buddhism is here today because of the efforts of monks, nuns, laymen, laywomen, and the dobo. In the case of Japan, it survived in tact as long as it did due to the self ordained (hijiri) more than the decadent State religion the 8 major schools turned into by the Kamakura period. Much of the real work was performed by the hijiri.

That Buddhism is alive at all is due to the efforts of laiety supporting monastic classes.

I would remind you that support of monastics hinges on the merit theory of karma. One is said to earn merit by support monks and nuns. Earn enough merit and you'll be reborn in another life in conditions permitting becoming a monk. As a woman, earn enough merit and you'll be reborn a man. The misogynist theory of merit, a degeneration from the Buddha's Buddhism, justifies a priveleged class (perhaps a welfare class) based on the premise that only monks achieve enlightenment. Monasticism has never been a condition of illumination except when perverting buddhism served the interests of a self-declared elite.

To set the record straight, in Buddhism, the Sangha is the left-home order of monks and nuns.

Nonsense. In early buddhism the sangha is fourfold, including male and female monastics, male and female laiety. Restricting and limiting the meaning of Sangha served only the interests of a self-perpetuating special interest group - rendering non-monastics is support system.

If you see things diffently, that's fine, but monastic Buddhism, pretty much as practiced in the time of the Buddha, is still alive and well today, and is an important part of life and practice for millions of Buddhists.

Sure it's alive and well today. It produces fine people, but at the expense of limiting Buddhism from a way of awakening to all people to an illusionary Buddhism whose enlightenment is the privelege of a special class.

One of Shinran's contributions was liberation of Buddhism from false, misapplied "Buddhism" based on a dualism between monastics and laiety. Contemporary Zen follows suit. Whatever one's social position or ordination position, illumination is an opportunity for anyone. In that respect, Shinran merely restored Buddhism to its foundational outlook - freeing it from excessive, misused monasticism.

Of course, these are just my opinions. Richard Gere and Ms. Magazine may view things differently.

No one understands your referrance to Richard Gere; could you please illumine us? As for Ms Magazine, you might read the article before blowing smoke before the Internet. Shri Lankha, at least, has a difficulty with the glass ceiling of misygony parading in the name of monasticism.

Gassho,
Ken O'Neill

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 23:31:07 +1300
From: "Wieland Hartwig" hartwigw@bmt.waiariki.ac.nz
Subject: Re: Neither Monk nor Layperson

Ditto (and not just Shri Lankha).
W Hartwig

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 12:32:43 -0400
From: "Tim Testu" R100RSBMW@aol.com
Subject: Re: Neither Monk nor Layperson

Ken O'Neil writes:
". . . The misogynist theory of merit, a degeneration from the Buddha's Buddhism, justifies a priveleged class (perhaps a welfare class) based on the premise that only monks achieve enlightenment. Monasticism has never been a condition of illumination except when perverting buddhism served the interests of a self-declared elite."

I disagree. This is not true at all, and I think it important that we set this straight. The very purpose of monasticism is illumination. Traditionally a monastery served as a focal point in the community where the laity and monastics could come together to study and practice and mutually benefit each other. In my experience--living in a monastery for almost a decade--enlightenment was always something available and encouraged for all. During the winter months especially, when the busy schedule was put aside in favor of Ch'an, monks, nuns, and laypeople alike sit side by side on equal ground. And the Ch'an talks and Dharma talks are always openly directed to anyone who cares to participate. There is no discrimination between left-home people and the laity.

I'm not saying that monasticism is for everybody. It's a tough life, and few choose to do it. Even so, it is merely one possibility, open to anyone who wishes to pursue it--not just for the elite. My understanding is that Buddhism has 84,000 Dharma Doors. If you wish to approach it in your way, that's fine. I truly wish you every success. But why are you so compelled to dismiss other approaches? As for the Richard Gere remark, I was just paraphrasing the cartoon on page 61 of October 9th New Yorker. Now, can we lighten up a little bit and get back to the topic at hand?

In the Dharma,
Tim

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 15:32:29 +1000
From: "John Powers" John.Powers@anu.edu.au
Subject: Re: Neither Monk nor Layperson

This thread seems to me to depart significantly from the main theme of the conference, which is Buddhism and human rights. It might be more properly discussed on another list.

Having said that, however, I'd like to disagree briefly with Ken O'Neill's comments on the sangha, which are derived from a Japanese viewpoint and in my opinion are largely irrelevant to most of Buddhism.

As a normative concept, the sangha consists of people who have dedicated their lives to the pursuit of nirvana. The reason why the Buddha instituted such an order (and Ken, it's very clear in the Paali literature that he did indeed do so) is that the institution of the sangha allows for some people to devote all their energy to this pursuit. It's not a question of becoming social parasites (although some of course do), but of forming an organization that allows for this. In the same way, symphony orchestras are formed in order to allow people to devote their energies to becoming excellent musicians, professional sports teams are formed that allow people to devote their energies to becoming excellent athletes, etc. The Buddhist sangha allows certain individuals to devote their lives to religious goals.

Those societies that value such practices support these organizations. Western society generally places a high value on entertainment and athletics, and so sponsors classes of people in their pursuit of these things. It doesn't value spiritual pursuits very highly, and so most monastic organizations have to be self-supporting.

But because of historical circumstances in Japan, which were exacerbated by the Tokugawa shogunate, the Buddhist clergy ceased to provide effective spiritual guidance to the populace and generally ceased to function as an organization that contained serious full-time spiritual seekers, and so it lost its original justification. But that isn't true in other Buddhist countries. Since your experience is so obviously based on Japan, it would be nice if you could be clear on when you're talking about Buddhism in general and when you're only speaking about the Japanese context, because particularly in the area of monasticism, Japan is quite different from other Buddhist countries.

John Powers
Faculty of Asian Studies
Australian National University

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 01:34:20 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Neither Monk nor Layperson

In point of fact, the rationale supporting the fourfold Sangha is illumination. That monks later appropriated the silly notion making them top dog marks a deviation from the Buddha's teaching - and a basis for a self declared elitist class.

As for monks having more rights, I'd have to argue nuns have even more; after all, the vinaya imposes many more rules on them! To the extent any Buddhist countries still maintain the orders of nuns!

A final word. I'm in agreement with the spirit of Sangha you offer, and your seeming backing away from the distorted notion that Sangha is made up of monks and nuns solely.

84,000 paths bodes well for unity in diversity - as well as a basis for dropping ethnic and national traditions in order that Buddhism may come to some understanding of its many families, relatives and kissing cousins.

Gassho,
Ken O'Neill

Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:04:08 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Steven Jamar suggested that the Noble Eightfold path and five precepts were second-level 'accretions' in Buddhism. If that were the case, the Budhha must have taught the Three Noble Truths, and left others to work out a fourth!

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 12:48:30 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Jamar's not so far off. The Fourth Truth is nirodha, while the eightfold path may be an addition. Nirodha merely says it can be stopped. The Path offers one scheme of how to do the stopping in broadstroaks.

Evidence also exists that dependent origination was originally an 8 step model. Throughout most of its history buddhism has not been a fixed or frozen tradition, and sutras were written for at least 16 centuries. In similar vein, I find the Kyoto School so fascinating because its century of activity has taken buddhism yet another giant step forward.

Gassho,
Ken O'Neill

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 00:18:22 -0400
From: "M. Jinavamsa" Jinavamsa@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Dear Ken, where might it be found that the fourth noble truth is nirodha *without* the path being given as the 8fold one? That's an interesting idea; I have seen the fourth referred to simply as nirodha but thought it simply a convenient abbreviated way to refer to the 8fold path itself. also where can dependent origination be found as an 8part schema? thank you,

in peace,
Jinavamsa

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 07:09:41 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Hahaha, now you got me. I'm beginning to wonder if when you get around 50 memory fades; so does my wife; and it just may be that we've found a wonderful excuse that makes all sorts of problems disappear - delusively!s

I know well that the dependent origination point was brought up in an article by Alex Wayman, probably published in the late 60s or early 70s. What a brilliant response. But I actually read back then, and it was fairly hot off the academic press. I may even have a copy tucked in one of my binders; if so, I'll provide you with the reference. Just be patient for a day or two. We have our big weekly program today, and it's a special event including a Japanese tea ceremony - then we close escrow on our Dharma Center starting tuesday. Big week, so I may be a bit slow.

As for the eightfold path being an add on to the four truths, that's my intuition - or maybe I read it somewhere. I've been involved in Buddhism for thirty years, read widely, but not as an accountant keeping detailed records. At times points process through my own thinking, applying them to other items. The four truths as a whole are organically perfect; their origins are a healing system. On the other hand, the eightfold path just doesn't have that kind of organic unity - at least as I see it. It seems much more arbitrary; how do the links connect? Just a topic for contemplation.

Gassho,
Ken

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 18:48:30 -0600
From: "Alan Sponberg" sponberg@selway.umt.edu
Subject: Re: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Regarding variations on the number of nidaanas, there are many different lists given in the early canonical literature, some shorter and some longer, but most if not all having a core sequence in common. Erich Frauwallner provides one useful summary survey of the varients in his _Philosophie des Buddhismus_, 29-60, of which there is, I believe, an English translation though I do not have the reference. One of the 9-fold nidaana chains he cites is in "Mahaanidaana-suttanta" itself (Diiga-nikaaya xiv: 19-22). I don't recall off-hand, but I suspect Lamotte treats this topic thoroughly as well in his _Histoire bouddhism indien_ (also available in Eng. translation).

Regarding a varient of the Four Truths with nirodha as the fourth, I am rather dubious I must say. What, Ken, would be the third truth if the fourth is give as nirodha (cessation) rather than marga (path)?

Hope this helps.

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 19:14:40 -0400
From: "M. Jinavamsa" Jinavamsa@aol.com
Subject: Re: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Ken,
much good fortune for all those who may be touched by your Center, closing escrow this week. even granting for the moment that we see that the eight parts of the eight-fold path do not have the tight interlocking characteristics that obtain between the four parts of the four noble truths, it is perhaps still the case that the idea of these eight came up when the Buddha first tried to articulate what this fourth truth might amount to. Of, course, perhaps it is a later addition to the dharma/teaching. i have patience. may your memory maintain its usefulness whenever it is beneficial for you and those around you! in peace for all beings, Jinavamsa

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 07:59:20 +0200
From: "j kahila" kahila@kyyppari.hkkk.fi
Subject: Re: Noble Eightfold Path as an 'accretion'

Regarding variations on the number of nidaanas, there are many different lists given in the early canonical literature, some shorter and some longer, but most if not all having a core sequence in common. Erich Frauwallner provides one useful summary survey of the varients in his _Philosophie des Buddhismus_, 29-60, of which there is, I believe, an English translation though I do not have the reference. One of the 9-fold nidaana chains he cites is in "Mahaanidaana-suttanta" itself (Diiga-nikaaya xiv: 19-22).

Would it be possible to get a cite for the translation? (The original is Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1969 for those who are interested.)

I don't recall off-hand, but I suspect Lamotte treats this topic thoroughly as well in his _Histoire bouddhism indien_ (also available in Eng. translation).

Lamotte, Etienne. _History of Indian Buddhism: from the origins to the Saka era_. Sara Webb-Boin, tr. University Catholique de Louvain, Institut Orientaliste, 1988. ISSN 0076-1265 ; 36.

Regards,
John

Not-Self and rights (Peter Harvey)

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 06:32:38 -0400
From: "Wayne R. Husted" wrh7@psu.edu
Subject: Not-Self and rights (Peter Harvey)

Jamie Hubbard says:
2. The ethics of the dhamma:
a. presuppose no-self, hence the inherency of rights is problematic, as is the idea of the inherent existence of their owner.

But the kind of Self-owner repudiated by Buddhism is one that would be totally invulnerable (unchangeable, beyonnd //dukkha//). If such a Self existed, it would //need// no rights, as it could not be harmed. Only //because// a person is not such a Self is there a need for rights. From a Buddhist perspective, one needs no 'owner' of a right; it is only necessary to affirm that there is a right way to treat another sentient human being. Sentient beings are //owed// respect, but do not //own// the right to it, except in a conventional sense of ownership. Of course, at the level of ethics, this conventional sense is recognised in Buddhism, otherwise there would be nothing wrong with theft.

Peter Harvey

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 23:12:44 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Not-Self and rights (Peter Harvey)

Hey guys, we're mixing relative and absolute statements here.

Where in buddhadharma is theft held to be "wrong". Bottom line has nothing to do with "right" and "wrong", nor political "right" or "left". The notion is reinforcement and ever deepening of samsaric patterning as outcome of individually and socially unhealthy behaviors and their underlying motivations.

Buddhist shila - training rules - can be easily confused with monotheistic laws of a cosmic dictator. let's take buddhadharma on its own ground, a Way of Waking Up. It's shila aren't absolutes of ethical definition of good v evil, but instead akin to the training guidelines one follows for achievement of artistry or mastery in sport or arts. keep yourself obsessed with booze, sleeping around, having many things, and soon you've disappated whatever energy, skill and proficiency you once had. So it is with wakefulness training in buddhadharma.

Gassho,

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Only negative rights?

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:02:39 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Only negative rights?

John Buescher argues that the smaller the list of human rights, the stronger the concept is. Fair enough, perhaps. He thus wants to restrict them to negative, protective, rights, and exclude positive rights such as the right to work (unlike Stephen Jamar, who wants rights to be more than negative ones). Part of the justification for this, though, is that 'Rights define a realm of privacy... a place where public authority and power have no purchase, a place empty of worldly convention'. This suggests that once one gets to the 'individual in his/her privacy', one reaches an other-worldly place beyond 'worldly convention'. But the unenlightened, ordinary mind is much shaped by 'worldly convention'. It //can// attain the supra-mundane, but this is a rare event. Moreover, //some// 'worldly conventions', eg. the //Sangha// can enhance spiritual growth. In any case, one cannot say only 'the invividual' is some kind of sacred, empty, space, thus to be protected by negative rights: for society is also empty!

Peter Harvey

Potential for enlightenment and rights

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 15:44:26 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Potential for enlightenment and rights

Re: potential for enlightenment

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 16:31:06 -0600
From: "Stephen Evans" tbm@usa.net
Subject: Re: potential for enlightenment

However, I think it follows that animals are entitled to lesser respect than human beings. Why? Because their dignity is not equal to -- is lesser than -- that of human beings. This is because they have actualized their nirvanic potential to a lesser degree (this is clear from the fact that they have been born in a less auspicious realm). If this line of reasoning is correct, it would follow that they have fewer rights.

By this line of reasoning those human beings who CANNOT achieve nirvana in this lifetime have fewer rights too.

According to the Pali Canon these include those who have: Killed an Arahant, injured a Buddha, killed a parent, or caused a schism in the Sangha.

This is not just an arcane piece of buried trivia but a teaching that is included in Buddhist education in many countries (I don't necessarily believe it myself).

The Vietnamese government could eaisly accuse UBC officials of causing a schism, thus lessening their dignity. In fact, that's pretty much what they are doing -- and a good case can be made that the UBC is schismatic.

Yet another reason for not using the potential for enlightenment as the basis of human dignity.

Santipala

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 12:20:17 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: potential for enlightenment

Santipala Stephen Evans has again argued against using the idea of 'enlightenment potential' as the basis for 'human rights', preferring more direct, less abstract arguments. But one thing that the principle of Dependent Origination entails is that nothing exists with only ONE cause. Things exist/arise from the coming together of various conditions. So if we wish to ground the concept of human rights, why not do so by linking it to //various// supporting concepts/considerations?

Stephen also argues that, if we only respect humans due to their 'enlightenment potential', what of those seen as incapable of Nirvaana in this life, eg. those who have caused a schism in the Sangha, or killed a parent?

But such people are still capable of Nirvaana in a future life, and can still do a fair amount of work towards it in this. In any case, one should not inflict on another what one would not like done to oneself.

The issue reminds me of something in the //Visuddhimagga// on the development of lovingkindness. In this, it is said that, in developing it to someone you see as, in some way, hostile, you should focus on whatever //good// points they have. In the case of someone who is, so to speak, a real shit, with no good qualities, one should, instead, develop compassion towards them: for it must be awful to be in such a state, and it will lead to much suffering in the future. So: compassion even for Hitler!

Peter Harvey

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 14:32:48 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: potential for enlightenment

My formulation doesn't depend on enlightenment being ACHIEVED in this lifetime, or in any lifetime. By being reborn as a human being, one has demonstrated a realization of nirvanic potential. What we do in the course of this life will affect our future course. There is naturally a lot of variation among human beings. Some are very pious, others are wicked. However, so long as they are human beings they must be recognised to have human rights. When their evil ways cause them to be reborn as pigs, then they will have only the rights of pigs.

The Vietnamese government could eaisly accuse UBC officials of causing a schism, thus lessening their dignity. In fact, that's pretty much what they are doing -- and a good case can be made that the UBC is schismatic.

Human dignity doesn't fluctuate according to accusations, even if they are true.

Yet another reason for not using the potential for enlightenment as the basis of human dignity.

I don't see a problem in this respect. (What were the other reasons?)

Damien Keown

Reply to Jamie Hubbard--Buddhism and the "Social Contract"

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 23:08:42 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Reply to Jamie Hubbard--Buddhism and the "Social Contract"

Jamie HUBBARD writes:

I would like to ask Peter Junger to reply to Peter Harvey's mention of the //Agga~n~na Sutta// (//Diigha Nikaaya//III.92). It is often remarked that early Buddhism grew up in an urban, mercantile setting that is reflected in much of the way the sangha is ordered (e.g., Thaper's well- known article from Daedalus), esp. regarding this sutta and the notion of exchange that is so central to the workings of merit and karma. Does this give a way to derive a contractual sense of rights, if not going so far as the notion of inherent ownership?

I am not familiar with this //Sutta// but I take it that the reference is to this quotation from Peter Harvey's Panelist Statement:

Human rights talk are relevant primarily in regard to how governments or quasi-governments (cf.civil war situations) treat their people. Historically, the idea of human rights arose in the West, and is often connected with the idea of the social contract as the basis of society and government legitimacy. It has been said that Buddhism has no notion of the social contract, but this seems not to be the case. In the //Agga~n~na Sutta// (//Diigha Nikaaya//III.92), the first ruler is said to have been chosen by the people, in a situation where natural morality was in decline, in order to punish wrong-doers and thus ensure social harmony. This surely implies that the legitimacy of a ruler rests one their carrying out their role of protecting people. To the extent to which they act immorally towards their people, they have no right to govern them. Not only do they abuse people's right to be treated in accordance with the precepts, but they abuse the right which people have invested in a ruler to rule.

I am afraid that I see nothing in the passage paraphrased from the //Sutta// that corresponds to the rather peculiar idea of a "social contract." The practice of electing a leader, or a ruler, is found in many societies; and it is often true that the legitimacy of the ruler depends on his continued acceptance by those whom he rules. But there is, I think, no idea of a social contract in such situations.

The frogs decide to elect a ruler and elect king log, then, finding him unsatisfactory, they elect king stork. This undoubtedly has happened many times in the history of sentient beings, whether frogs or men. But where is the contract? I just don't see one.

Again, though I am not qualified to have an opinion on the matter, I do tend to believe that Buddhism had an especial appeal to the mercantile and urban classes. But I see no reason why that should lead to a belief that rights against the ruler, or the rights of the ruler over the people, are created by some sort of contract.

Remember that no one actually believes that a bunch of nasty, brutish, and short Europeans sat down one day and actually executed a "Social Contract". The Social Contract is at most an implied contract--what we common lawyers call a quasi-contract; and, as I keep telling my students, a quasi-contract is no more a contract than a mock-turtle is a turtle. Quasi-contractual obligations are imposed by the law "as if" they were created by a contract; but the whole point of that label is that they are not actually created by any contract.

The (Quasi-)Social Contract is very much like Human Rights; such concepts were never conceived until some philosophical types in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries felt obliged to invent them to justify their political positions. (I expect that they got the idea from the Biblical covenant between God and Israel; and they probably were also influenced by the medieval practice of a ruler granting rights and liberties to a community by a charter--with Magna Carta being the great example.) The trouble with the idea of the Social Contract is, of course, that it is hard to explain why any one should feel obligated by a fictional contract to which he was not a party. When a ruler abuses people, he abuses people, which is a bad thing. I don't think that it adds anything to say that he violates the people's rights or violates the Social Contract. Or rather it does add something: muddle-headness; and while we argue about the nature of rights, or the existence of the Social Contract, the lash goes on.

The idea of contracts as being something fundamental in the law is--at least as far as the common law is concerned--very much a nineteenth century development. As far as the civil law of the European continent is concerned, I am under the impression that there too it was only in the nineteenth century that Contract was raised to its present mystical status, the child of a Germanic fascination with a peculiar faculty called ``the Will'' that was originally invented by Augustine to exculpate God from liability for the sufferings of his creatures, who are responsible for their own //dukkha// because they have Free Will.

Of course, various consensual exchanges and agreements will be considered to be binding by the customs of any society, and merchants--and aristocrats--will often place a high value on keeping their word. But that does not mean that the merchants--or the aristocrats--believe that their customs were actually, or impliedly, created by some contract to which they were not even a party.

It seems to me that the Buddha's teachings suggest that we should behave ourselves, not that we should behave ourselves because we are non-parties to a fictional contract. Peter Harvey lists mainy invocations of ``the principle of sympathy with other sentient beings (//anukampaa//), which all sentient beings have latent in their minds, however much it is masked or ignored.'' That is the reason why we--and why rulers--should not cause others to suffer. To say that others have a ``right'' not to suffer and that that is why we should not mistreat them is simply to obfuscate the issue. I don't think that thinking in terms of such a right--or of a Social Contract--is consistent with the teaching that we should clarify our minds.

(But, of course, this does not mean that it is not skillful to talk of rights to someone who is attached to that concept--or that we should not try to //establish// legally enforceable civil rights.)

Peter D. Junger
Case Western Reserve University Law School
Cleveland, OH

Right action/Ethical society

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 15:11:01 +0200
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Right action/Ethical society

Can't we all simply agree on the statement that all beings are capable of awakening, and that human existence offers the best opportu ity for actualising this potential?

And can't we agree that, in talking about human rights, we are talking about the relative goodness of an ethical society? An ethical society may not quite yet be an enlightened society, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 15:11:01 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Right action/Ethical society -Reply Sender

I can live with that. The "enlightened society" is only a hypothetical ideal of course (so far - watch this space ), but so are "democracy" and the "free market". No reason why a hypothetical ideal can't be used as an (impermanent) yardstick.

Michel Clasquin

Rights and Compassion

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 17:55:30 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Rights and Compassion

Jay Garfield writes:

Hume, in particular, has also argued that even if compassion were not a rational moral response, it is the natural response to one brought up in a healthy way--and it is the kind ofmoral response necessary to groundign a happy, well-ordered society.

In his careful and thoughtful paper Jay Garfield makes an excellent case for grounding rights in compassion -- a view shared by HHDL. Certainly this perspective has its attractions, but IMHO there are also a number of major problems, similar to the ones faced by Hume. I will try to put these in a Buddhist context.

Mahaayaana Buddhism speaks of two basic values, not one, and compassion is usually linked to the exercise of Wisdom. In the common imagery, compassion is the feet which provide the motive power, and Wisdom is the eyes, which tell you where to go. Making compassion the "bedrock" seems to leave reason (Praj~naa) out of the picture or make it subsidiary.

What obligates non-compassionate people? History has seen many cruel and ruthless tyrants. If someone does not feel compassion, on what grounds do we say he has an obligation to respect human rights? He may say: "You feel one kind of thing, I feel another." If moral approval derives from sentiment, how can we show he is wrong (objectively speaking) in torturing and killing people? The broader question is how we get universal human rights from a sentiment which may not be universal.

While compassion provides the incentive to respect other people it is not clear how it generates the kind of inalienable rights we need for human rights. Specifically, caring about others doesn't help decide what sort of ACTIONS are (and are not) morally acceptable. For example, if I am a compassionate person who cares about the poor, is it right for me to steal money from the rich and redistribute it? If it is not, then it seems that compassion has run up against a superior principle (such as justice), and so cannot be foundational.

What if the abuse of human rights in certain situations leads to a reduction of suffering for many people (for example, by by torturing one Chinese guard you obtain a secret which allows you to rescue 1000 Tibetans from a labour camp). Does compassion demand that you torture the guard, or what principle prohibits it?

Sorry to raise so many questions all at once!

Regards,
Damien Keown

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 11:11:50 -0400
From: "Jay L Garfield" jlgCCS@hamp.hampshire.edu
Subject: Re: Rights and Compassion

Not at all. These are perfectly natural questions to ask from the standpoint of a framework that takes rights as primitive, such as a liberal contractualist framework of the type I criticize. And, from that standpoint, they are crucial questions.

But note how subtly a question can be begged even in the posing of questions! The supposition here is that it is the job of moral theory to answer (as Kantian and utilitarian moral theories, for instance, attempt to answer) questions concerning what one OUGHT to do in particular circumstances, and to what who has a right in certain circumstances. That presupposes that there are general answers to be given to such questions, and that moral theory is competent to provide them. And indeed, if liberal moral theory were correct, that would be the case. But only because by taking rights and duties as foudnational and as implicitly enumerated and ranked by an explicit or implicit contract it builds that fact in to the very structure of morality.

On the other hand, alternative approaches to morality, such as those of Aristotle, Hume or Schopenhauer on the West (or more recently Baier, Garner, Noddings and Tronto among others) and Shantideva, Candrakirti and Tsong Khapa in the Buddhist tradition, among others, have emphasised, do not presuppose either that such an enumeration is possible, or that it is in general possible to provide a theoretical answer to all questions of the form, "What should one do in situation x?" And in fact we might see all of the huge literature of counterexamples, counter-intuitive patches, and subsequent counterexamples that both contractualist and utilitarain moral theory spawns as indicating exactly that impotence of theory. Rather, one might say, the task of ethics is to elicit and to cultivate such traits of character as compassion, kindness, patience, etc.... The result of this will be both fewer and rarer situations of type x, and persons of good sense who will see what to do in situations of type x when they arise. (Aristotle is nice on this one. Right? To know what the right thing to do in a situation that requires, e.g. generosity, see what the generous person does. Don't provide a theoretical specification in advance.)

Now, I have argued in my paper, and won't repeat that argument here, that one appropriate compassionate response to many global and problematic moral situations is the erection of a set of rights for one another, and mechanisms to ensure respect for those rights--not because people antecedently have rights of that kind, but because compassion plausibly dictates those.

But to ask, from the standpoint of a morality that takes compassion as fundamental, as I and the Buddhist tradition generally suggest that morality should, what happens when that morality is confronted by clashes of rights, moral dilemmas, etc...., and to expect a theoretical enumeration of rights to be respected in order, is to beg the question in the larger debate between regulative and compassion-based ethics generally.

Sorry to have taken so long to reply. The pace of an electronic conference is perhaps too much for me!

Yours,
Jay

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 13:24:35 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Rights and Compassion

Personally, I wouldn't make the case for human rights on a liberal contractualist basis. That, and compassion, are not the only alternatives. Christianity has traditionally claimed that individual human beings are worthy of respect because of their inherent dignity (deriving ultimately from the notion of "imago dei"), and the the same point can also be made in secular humanist terms ("How noble a thing is man, etc".).

Questions about how we should treat other people in specific situations would seem to be of the essence where human rights is concerned.

But note how subtly a question can be begged even in the posing of questions! The supposition here is that it is the job of moral theory to answer (as Kantian and utilitarian moral theories, for instance, attempt to answer) questions concerning what one OUGHT to do in particular circumstances, and to what who has a right in certain circumstances. That presupposes that there are general answers to be given to such questions, and that moral theory is competent to provide them. And indeed, if liberal moral theory were correct, that would be the case. But only because by taking rights and duties as foudnational and as implicitly enumerated and ranked by an explicit or implicit contract it builds that fact in to the very structure of morality.

Again, I don't think it's only liberal moral theory which claims this, virtually every system of ethics is geared towards giving guidance as to what people ought to do. Ethics is concerned with the norms of human conduct -- I don't see it as question-begging to ask for normative guidance from this discipline.

On the other hand, alternative approaches to morality, such as those of Aristotle, Hume or Schopenhauer on the West (or more recently Baier, Garner, Noddings and Tronto among others) and Shantideva, Candrakirti and Tsong Khapa in the Buddhist tradition, among others, have emphasised, do not presuppose either that such an enumeration is possible, or that it is in general possible to provide a theoretical answer to all questions of the form, "What should one do in situation x?"

I wouldn't say myself that Aristotle represents an "alternative" approach to morality. His views are foundational to mainstream Western moral philosophy, and were incorporated into Christian though by Aquinas, who found Aristotle very congenial to all manner of theoretical deductions as to what should and should not be done in specific cases. Nor am I aware of any explicit moral theory in the Buddhist authors mentioned above which is in disagreement with this approach. Broadly speaking they seem to emphasise the traditional virtues, and do not appear to claim anywhere that theoretical answers can't be given (I accept that they do not give them explicitly themselves). Aren't they always repeating, for example, that we should respect the precepts and never do certain specific things (like killing, lying, stealing)?

No moral theory, I think, would claim that it can answer all questions of the form "What should one do in situation X." Life is too complex for that, and there may be several right answers. Instead, most theoretical approaches content themselves with identifying only the things one should NOT do in situation X. This is really what the Buddhist moral precepts are, a list of possible "solutions" that are ruled out in advance. In this respect, it would seem the Buddhist authors mentioned would quite happily endorse many theoretical answers of a negative form of the kind: "In no circumstances should anyone ever be tortured." They would thus seem to be elaborating (admittedly in a rudimentary way) the very kind of theoretical system a compassion-based ethics says cannot be produced.

And in fact we might see all of the huge literature of counterexamples, counter-intuitive patches, and subsequent counterexamples that both contractualist and utilitarain moral theory spawns as indicating exactly that impotence of theory.

Moral problems are certainly difficult, but I don't think we should abandon all hope! Even if we turn away from theory, what principles will guide us when it comes to setting up the derivative system of rights which compassion demands?

Rather, one might say, the task of ethics is to elicit and to cultivate such traits of character as compassion, kindness, patience, etc.... The result of this will be both fewer and rarer situations of type x, and persons of good sense who will see what to do in situations of type x when they arise. (Aristotle is nice on this one. Right? To know what the right thing to do in a situation that requires, e.g. generosity, see what the generous person does. Don't provide a theoretical specification in advance.)

Agreed, although I would say PART of the task of ethics is to encourage the cultivation of virtue. I accept that Aristotle is an excellent example of an approach to ethics that is congenial to Buddhism, but I would say this is because Aristotle includes BOTH reason and emotion in his account of moral virtue, and so is in harmony with the Buddhist emphasis on the mutually supporting functions of Praj~naa and Karu.naa.

For Aristotle, the virtous man (the phronimos) behaves the way he does because he is acting in accordance with a rational principle, namely practical wisdom (phronesis). This is the perfection of the rational part of the soul in its capacity to select right means to good ends. Practical wisdom is thus an INTELLECTUAL virtue; it rectifies desire and helps in the formation of the moral virtues (virtues of character) such as justice, bravery and temperance, which have their source in the emotional (non-rational) dimension of the psyche.

Because of this involvement of reason, it is possible to give a theoretical account of the conduct of the virtuous person. Since the virtuous person will never act irrationally, reason can determine the appropriate course of action in specific circumstances. Aristotle does not develop this idea very far in terms of a particular moral code, but others (like Aquinas) have filled in the gaps. This seems a very different approach to that of Hume, for example, whose work is essentially a critique of the rationalist tradition in all its forms.

Now, I have argued in my paper, and won't repeat that argument here, that one appropriate compassionate response to many global and problematic moral situations is the erection of a set of rights for one another, and mechanisms to ensure respect for those rights--not because people antecedently have rights of that kind, but because compassion plausibly dictates those.

Is there not a problem here in that the above seems to be saying that X's human rights are grounded in nothing more than Y's compassion? Normally we think of human rights as something inherent and inalienable to X as a person in his own right, regardless of what others may think or feel about X. The above formulation seems to make X's rights completely contingent on Y's compassion, or have I missed something important in the argument?

But to ask, from the standpoint of a morality that takes compassion as fundamental, as I and the Buddhist tradition generally suggest that morality should, what happens when that morality is confronted by clashes of rights, moral dilemmas, etc...., and to expect a theoretical enumeration of rights to be respected in order, is to beg the question in the larger debate between regulative and compassion-based ethics generally.

I may be coming at this the wrong way, but there seems to be a contradiction here, in that "compassion dictates the erection of a set of rights for one another," but we cannot "expect a theoretical enumeration of rights to be respected in order." How would the UN Declaration, for example, fit into the picture here? It seems to be precisely the kind of theoretically ordered enumeration of rights a compassion-based ethic is unable to provide.

Cheers,
Damien

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 10:01:00 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights and Compassion

For Aristotle, the virtous man (the phronimos) behaves the way he does because he is acting in accordance with a rational principle, namely practical wisdom (phronesis). This is the perfection of the rational part of the soul in its capacity to select right means to good ends. Practical wisdom is thus an INTELLECTUAL virtue; it rectifies desire and helps in the formation of the moral virtues (virtues of character) such as justice, bravery and temperance, which have their source in the emotional (non-rational) dimension of the psyche.

I don't understand the relevence of Aristolian logic/ethos to Buddhist reasoning. That entire system of "rational" thought is in disagreement not only with Buddhist philosophy, but with some of the most modern western philosophical systems of thought. The notion of causes preceeding their effects is losing ground.

Now, I have argued in my paper, and won't repeat that argument here, that one appropriate compassionate response to many global and problematic moral situations is the erection of a set of rights for one another, and mechanisms to ensure respect for those rights--not because people antecedently have rights of that kind, but because compassion plausibly dictates those.

Is there not a problem here in that the above seems to be saying that X's human rights are grounded in nothing more than Y's compassion? Normally we think of human rights as something inherent and inalienable to X as a person in his own right, regardless of what others may think or feel about X. The above formulation seems to make X's rights completely contingent on Y's compassion, or have I missed something important in the argument?

I think your misunderstanding here is rooted in the Aristolian method. X's human rights, if they are to exist, must be "grounded" in the web of causation. Compassion would dictate the rights, and the rights would dictate compassion. Linear notions of cause and effect are incorrect.

(Note: I am rejecting the notion of there being a "ground" upon which to base any absolutes. "Grounded" above is a delusion, and the rights would have to "float." I have no problems with floating a few rights.)

Sphere

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 01:34:16 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Compassion

I don't understand the relevence of Aristolian logic/ethos to Buddhist reasoning. That entire system of "rational" thought is in disagreement not only with Buddhist philosophy, but with some of the most modern western philosophical systems of thought. The notion of causes preceeding their effects is losing ground.

I quite agree. One is baffled, saying "Okay, but so what? Aristotle like Shakespeare, Marquis de Sade and Henry Miller all wrote rather interesting things; but what on earth is their relevance to Buddhism - and its alleged ethics. I vote for Henry Miller; ethics aside, he wallowed in the bonno we're all made up of, starting out on solid ground. That Uma Thurman would play his girlfriend in the filme Henry & June may speak of dharma transmission of udnerstanding in the West.

Is there not a problem here in that the above seems to be saying that X's human rights are grounded in nothing more than Y's compassion? Normally we think of human rights as something inherent and inalienable to X as a person in his own right, regardless of what others may think or feel about X. The above formulation seems to make X's rights completely contingent on Y's compassion, or have I missed something important in the argument?

Grounded in Xs human rights? Buddhist awakening has a lot more to do with aesthetics as value than as some contorted ethical good.

I think your misunderstanding here is rooted in the Aristolian method. X's human rights, if they are to exist, must be "grounded" in the web of causation. Compassion would dictate the rights, and the rights would dictate compassion. Linear notions of cause and effect are incorrect.

Don't know about linearity, but Aristolte's method seems questionable to a system rooted in non-Aristotlean logic.

(Note: I am rejecting the notion of there being a "ground" upon which to base any absolutes. "Grounded" above is a delusion, and the rights would have to "float." I have no problems with floating a few rights.)

Actually, grounding is pretty basic to Buddhist formulations. Abhisthana means that which stands under, or grounding as understanding. Dharma itself rests on the root dhri, again something we're on top of. So, too, for bhumi - one's basic stance. Under-standing, locus, and outlook are real buddhist - as perspective, outlook, identification/identity. All gnostic stuff when push comes to shove.

Ken O'Neill

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 11:16:04 -0600
From: "Dan Lusthaus" lusthaus@macalstr.edu
Subject: Re: Rights and Compassion

Don't know about linearity, but Aristolte's method seems questionable to a system rooted in non-Aristotlean logic.

You don't mean Buddhism, do you? If you do, reexamine the roots. Buddhist logic (and there is definitely such a thing -- ask the nonBuddhist Indians who scrambled for a millenium to respond adequately to it, and sometimes lost their lives trying to surreptitiously learn it) is fairly consistent with Aristotelean logic -- even if it formulates syllogisms differently. If you think Ch'an/Zen has different roots, reread Lin-chi/Rinzai...

Dan Lusthaus
Macalester College

Re: Rights and Precepts

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 13:29:00 -0400
From: "A. Chu" CHU@bear.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

It does not seem necessary to go as far as Sulak Sivaraksa does, though, when he says that human rights are constitutive of the Buddhist ideal. The ideal goes beyond talk of rights, but talk of rights helps to protect people in their process of moving towards the ideal.

If I could just add a comment to this, I think both positions are compatible in the sense that rights BOTH help people move towards the ideal AND are constitutive of the ideal. The Buddha respected the rights of others (for example, by his observance of the precepts he refrained from doing them any injustice, which is basically what rights seek to secure), and since he represents the ideal in Buddhism, then respecting rights is part of the ideal.

There is a logical lapse in this argument. The historic buddha was male. Would you also say that maleness is part of the buddhist ideal? He was said to be very handsome. Would you say that handsomeness is part of the buddhist ideal? The key is that the ideal is manifested IN the Buddha. The ideal is not EQUIVALENT to the Buddha.

Is talk of human rights part of the Buddhist ideal? I would also say : no, though a spontaneous respect for other humans (without needing to talk of 'human rights') would be. I think we are probably in agreement on this -- whether we use the terminology of "rights" or "human rights" is not in the end important, so long as we treat others with respect. -Damien Keown

Words DO make a difference. They each have their histories and connotations. Usage of a word brings up a whole web of related ideas and attitudes. Many(most?) participants see rights as claims against governments to protect/ benefit the individuals. This clearly puts it in the realm of politics. Respect for one another is clearly in the realm of interpersonal relationships. It seems to me the most one can say is that Rights Talk is one way to express respects for human beings in the political realm.

The purpose of rights isn't to command reality to obey our whims (to regard rights in this way--which I accept many people do--is an abuse of the idea). Rights are claims made on other rational agents to do what justice requires (treat others fairly). I think this is not really so different from asking people to respect the precepts (e.g. not to kill me is to respect my right to life) something which Buddhism certainly calls on everyone to do. Since Buddhism makes this universal appeal through its precepts, it seems to be calling for universal respect for basic rights. Its teachings are thus in harmony with modern human rights manifestos. -Damien Keown

Precepts are voluntary standards of conduct and thought one adopts for oneself. Rights are claims or demands on the conducts of others. Precepts are guidelines in the context of the Sangha and lay community of practitioners to futher one's way toward full realization of buddhahood. Rights are guideline to help unenlightened beings to minimize sufferings in a community. Precepts and Rights may be complementary, but hardly equivalent.

I do not understand why people are dissatisfied with Rights as skillful means. Medecine, engineering, and democratic institutions are ALL skillful means. They are all immensely beneficial to human kinds, but they do not have the power in themselves to bring forth enlightenment. Same with promoting Rights and doing charitable works.

I would like to highlight a subtext of the current discussion:

What is the appropriate degree or ways for buddhists to engage in politcal works?

This is perhaps too big a topic to cover in this conference. However, I cannot see how one can avoid this question while trying to analyze the relation between Buddhism and Human Rights.

Regards,
A. Chu

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 18:11:14 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 00:40:02 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

If I could just add a comment to this, I think both positions are compatible in the sense that rights BOTH help people move towards the ideal AND are constitutive of the ideal. The Buddha respected the rights of others (for example, by his observance of the precepts he refrained from doing them any injustice, which is basically what rights seek to secure), and since he represents the ideal in Buddhism, then respecting rights is part of the ideal.

There is a logical lapse in this argument. The historic buddha was male. Would you also say that maleness is part of the buddhist ideal? He was said to be very handsome. Would you say that handsomeness is part of the buddhist ideal? The key is that the ideal is manifested IN the Buddha. The ideal is not EQUIVALENT to the Buddha.

The Buddha's physical appearance and gender have no bearing on ethics. The point is that Buddhists regard him as a moral exemplar with respect to his conduct. If Buddhists take their cue from the Buddha (and where else would they take it from) they should respect the rights of others.

Words DO make a difference. They each have their histories and connotations. Usage of a word brings up a whole web of related ideas and attitudes. Many(most?) participants see rights as claims against governments to protect/ benefit the individuals. This clearly puts it in the realm of politics. Respect for one another is clearly in the realm of interpersonal relationships. It seems to me the most one can say is that Rights Talk is one way to express respects for human beings in the political realm.

Human rights are fundamentally moral rights. They can be given legal effect (which is what human rights activists call for) and be exerted against governments. Why is this a
problem?

Precepts are voluntary standards of conduct and thought one adopts for oneself.

The precepts are duties which apply whether you voluntarily adopt them or not.

I do not understand why people are dissatisfied with Rights as skillful means.

To regard human rights in this way is to strip them of any real foundation. Totalitarian regimes would be very happy with a concept of human rights as something provisional which could be suspended if "skilful means" demanded it for some more pressing reason.

I would like to highlight a subtext of the current discussion:

What is the appropriate degree or ways for buddhists to engage in politcal works?

This is the subject for the second week of the conference.

Damien Keown

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 20:19:18 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

I do not understand why people are dissatisfied with Rights as skillful means. Medecine, engineering, and democratic institutions are ALL skillful means. They are all immensely beneficial to human kinds, but they do not have the power in themselves to bring forth enlightenment. Same with promoting Rights and doing charitable works.

I would like to highlight a subtext of the current discussion:

What is the appropriate degree or ways for buddhists to engage in politcal works?

How about regarding politics also as skillful means, and adhering to its root meaning (in the singular, at least)?

pol'i tic, adj.
1. Using or marked by prudence, expedience, and shrewdness; artful. 2. Using, displaying, or proceeding from policy; judicious: a politic decision. 3. Crafty; cunning. [from Greek politikos, from politTs, citizen, from polis, city. ]
-----
Adjective: Showing sensitivity and skill in dealing with others. sensitive, diplomatic, delicate, discreet, tactful.

Sally Clay
Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 21:53:50 -0800
From: "Craig K. Ihara" CIHARA@CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

To A Chu
I concur with your comments. -Craig Ihara

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 22:00:40 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

It seems to me that at last we are coming to an important issue. Which could perhaps be rephrased as asking: What actions should Buddhists take to create a polity and economy that is supportive of the Buddhadharma?

It seems to me the first step buddhists must take lies in the question Shin'ya Kasugai required answered as part of entrance to Bukkyo Daigaku graduate programs: what is the buddhism beyond the buddhisms?

Kasugai was a Jodo scholar who had spent lots of time in India, spoke several tibetan dialects, and had a remarkable life of scholarship and pilgrimage. His question, as a good Kyoto thinker/doer, asked to focus on an emergent global sense of buddhism - as it outgrew being Japanese Buddhisms, Tibetan Buddhisms, etc.

We're importing virtually every kind of Buddhism still holding spiritual importance. But dangers surround us. In the United States, a powerful and growing backlash to this century aims at establishment of a Christian theocracy. Little by little it erodes liberal institutions rooted in the spiritual vision of America's founding fathers. Asian spirituality, Buddhism in particular, is a target for removal. One need only watch the disinformation campaign at work in Pat Robertson's news broadcasts when they feature Buddhist subjects to get the point. So, Peter's question is intensely practical.

First, the art of our personal lives and family lives is the theatre of putting buddhadharma in action. After all, the intent of the shilas is quality of relationship. If our lives and families are not attempts at establishing minisanghas, what hope have we?

The first paramita is dana, giving. Shikshadana is upheld as a virtue - giving of education. Dharma centers and monto have traditionally been known as educational centers. Not for creating little private country clubs that abuse dharma as an escape and avoidance of life, but as practical centers of liberating education and strategic agenda planning. For example, it's nice to know about dependent origination and samsara; how can we deconstruct the use of television for mind control (advertising), stable reality construction (political campaigns and news), and other in-forming (namarupa) activities to shape and imprison consciousness? Application and understanding of buddhist values affective of supporting human and life rights depends on transforming practice and education the liberates enslavement to free people. In turn, the whole issue of rights depends on a free spirited people.

Buddhism does not exist outside development of communities we know as sanghas (except from pratyekabuddhas - the metaphysical "special case" wanker class). In the West, Sangha is growing out of the limiting sense of monastics, since most of us are not monastic. So, how we raise children together, care for the elderly together, treat one another, and move together to place our values into decision making in business, politics, voting, and other common activities can become quite powerful. I personally feel that as the economic crunch, unemployment, homelessness, etc grows, sanghas ought to be creative incubator centers for new service industries and artisan communities, food buying clubs, etc, paving alternative economic growth - all embodying and teaching us to embody the high principle we say we'd like to live up to!!!

Gassho,

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 22:11:14 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

Hang on for this one. Upaya originally meant deceipt, and was a political term. Upaya or skill in means is deceipt elevated to a spiritual art rooted in wisdom/emptiness//compassion/awakened passion. Take the famous metaphor of the Lotus Sutra as guiding light. A father returns home from the market only to find his house on fire, wife and kids inside. Does he yell "fire". No, He'll either panic them, or more likely, they'll ignore him. In full passionate deceipt, he yells out (not too loudly either, because compassion works with greed) - "hey everybody, come see the presents and gifts I bought for you." They come out immediately.

One reason I love the mahayana sutras so is that the clever ones are filled with examples of passionately awakened deceipt - skill in means. Time and time again they pull the carpet from beneath us, unsticking us in our ways. Take the Kegon Sutra; only the lowest bodhisattvas are monks; all the rest are laywomen, lay men, and ten goddesses. All manifestations of coyote, tricksters through and through.

Once we unimprison buddhism from the avidya that it's a respectable Eastern religion, we can start getting to its core. Take Vimalakirti - playing sick on us, the buddha sending reluctant monks and bodhisattvas to this old layman, only for him to wake them up. The metaphor is clear: politics and skill in communication arts drives real buddhist activity. Droning capsulated philosophy and theology at the ears of listeners, all packaged in everlasting formulas and canned talks miserably fails as powerful, transforming communication.

Bodhisattvas live for personal and social transformation. All come to realize in their innermost heart their job is to establish buddharealms - to wake thier portion of this world. And to become artists of deceipt in order to get the real work done.

Gassho,

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 02:10:14 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

I do not understand why people are dissatisfied with Rights as skillful means.

To regard human rights in this way is to strip them of any real foundation. Totalitarian regimes would be very happy with a concept of human rights as something provisional which could be suspended if "skilful means" demanded it for some more pressing reason.

Yes, they have to be skillful means to a well stated end. The end point must be visible, and the means must always be stated in terms of this end. The skillful means must be protected from being subverted to a lesser end.

I think Buddhism should take the stance that "Rights" are the current common coin. The Buddhist goal is compatible with this coin, and therefore Buddhists are doing business in this coin. But Buddhism is not about this coin, and Buddhism will abandon this coin immediately if it becomes devalued.

Sphere

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 17:53:39 -0400
From: "A. Chu" CHU@bear.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

The Buddha's physical appearance and gender have no bearing on ethics. The point is that Buddhists regard him as a moral exemplar with respect to his conduct. If Buddhists take their cue from the Buddha (and where else would they take it from) they should respect the rights of others.

We might all agree that he respected others. To say that he 'respected the //rights// of others' is casting a specific interpretation.

Human rights are fundamentally moral rights. They can be given legal effect (which is what human rights activists call for) and be exerted against governments. Why is this a problem?

I have no problem with buddhists participating fully in the realms of law or ethics or politics. I do feel that we need to be clear about the type of discourse we are engaging in. Rights Talk are in the realm of law, but more so in the realm of politics, IMHO. Even within the context of 'rule of law' and effective law enforcement, political actions may still be necessary to assert particular rights: the case of the ERA in the US comes to mind. However, in the absence of a world goverment with police power, human rights advocates must rely upon moral suasions and political influences to modify the behavior of another government. ( I assume that no one in this forum would advocate the use of military force to assert rights. But perhaps a good case can be made for Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia... Topics for the second weeks, I think. )

Precepts are voluntary standards of conduct and thought one adopts for oneself.
The precepts are duties which apply whether you voluntarily adopt them or not.

Perhaps we are thinking of different terms. Surely you would not say that the Precept of 'not eating pass noon' is a duty applicable to an Hindu?

To regard human rights in this way is to strip them of any real foundation. Totalitarian regimes would be very happy with a concept of human rights as something provisional which could be suspended if "skilful means" demanded it for some more pressing reason.

Many advocates of Human Rights as universal and fundamental appear to be searching for an absolute and transcendent ethical standpoint from which to make judgements. I harbor doubts as to whether this approach resonates well with buddhist approaches to resolving conflicts and reducing sufferings.

Regards,
A. Chu

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 06:37:14 -0400
From: "Damien Keown" 100012.3212@compuserve.com
Subject: Rights and Precepts

We might all agree that he respected others. To say that he 'respected the //rights// of others' is casting a specific interpretation.

Yes, indeed. It's offering an analytical account of his behaviour to show (I hope!) that his conduct is intelligible in terms of -- and perfectly consistent with -- the concept of rights. I am suggesting that the Buddha's conduct can be explained quite intelligibly by reference to the concept of rights, and that if this is correct there is no bar to Buddhists today making use of the concept to promote the cause of human rights.

I have no problem with buddhists participating fully in the realms of law or ethics or politics. I do feel that we need to be clear about the type of discourse we are engaging in. Rights Talk are in the realm of law, but more so in the realm of politics, IMHO.

The discourse of rights crosses many disciplinary boundaries including morals, law and politics. The law comes in to enforce what we believe to be morally right (this oversimplifies things, but I think it holds in the case of human rights at least). In other words, we want the law to enforce human rights because we believe them to be just and fair.

Example: the First Precept prohibits murder, and most countries have a law prohibiting homicide. Yes, we can say one is the realm of morals, the other is the realm of law, but why is the fact that the law intrudes problematic? Laws are a requirement of social life -- we need legal sanctions because not everyone acts morally of their own volition.

Politicians may also become involved, for example by asking other countries not to torture political prisoners. The various "realms" may thus overlap, but doesn't Buddhism tell us that everything is interdependent? Buddhism in the modern world has to deal with all of these levels - moral, legal, and political, since they are inextricably linked. HHDL seems to be setting a good example in this respect.

Even within the context of 'rule of law' and effective law enforcement, political actions may still be necessary to assert particular rights: the case of the ERA in the US comes to mind. However, in the absence of a world goverment with police power, human rights advocates must rely upon moral suasions and political influences to modify the behavior of another government.

Agreed. Some do not like the idea of Buddhism becoming involved in law and politics, and I can understand their reasons. However, I think Buddhism has to address these issues and take a stand if it is to be a force for good in the modern world.

I assume that no one in this forum would advocate the use of military force to assert rights. But perhaps a good case can be made for Vietnam's intervention in Cambodia... Topics for the second weeks, I think.

Good question. I think a case could be made out for the use of military force -- let's see if it comes up next week!

The precepts are duties which apply whether you voluntarily adopt them or not. Perhaps we are thinking of different terms. Surely you would not say that the Precept of 'not eating pass noon' is a duty applicable to an Hindu?

This is a monastic precept, binding only on those who take monastic vows. However, I think most people would agree there are basic obligations we all have to one another as human beings regardless of whether we are Hindus, Christians or Buddhists -- for example to respect each other's human rights. If we are to have human rights at all, those obligations must be present whether we have voluntarily adopted them or not. If they were purely voluntary we could just say "Sorry, I haven't adopted them so they don't apply to me" and carry on torturing.

Many advocates of Human Rights as universal and fundamental appear to be searching for an absolute and transcendent ethical standpoint from which to make judgements. I harbor doubts as to whether this approach resonates well with buddhist approaches to resolving conflicts and reducing sufferings.

It is hard to see how there can be universal human rights unless we have some absolute ethical standard to base our judgements on. Compassion, dependent-origination, and human dignity have all been proposed in this conference as providing such a foundation. I accept that speaking in these terms does not sit well with some interpretations of Buddhism and at least on the surface with certain doctrines. On the other hand, Buddhist teachings do proclaim universal truths about the world, human nature, and its ultimate destiny. The Dharma is unchanging, and includes moral teachings, as in the Fourth Noble Truth. There are thus good grounds for saying that Buddhism teaches there are universal moral standards.

Buddhists who reject this idea, however, must then either i) explain how they ground their belief in universal human rights in the absence of such standards, or ii) reject the idea of human rights as incompatible with Buddhism. Anyone who adopts ii), however, would have dubious grounds for objecting to Chinese labour camps in Tibet and the examples of human rights abuses against women of the kind mentioned by Hilary Clinton in her speech.

Cheers,
Damien Keown

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 11:58:46 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 19:13:11 -0400
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

Following this argument further, I would ask that we also not become attached to any one government being positioned as the enemy. It offends me greatly to read blasts against the PRC as though they work only for evil and against people. I am not their apologist, but I am neither willing to stand by silently as they are constantly positioned as the enemy. I lived there in that land, and not all of their people feel and think the way some of you do. That does not stem from ignorance, but from alternative views. An attachment to thinking of others as evil inhibits our understanding and listening to them. We would first do better to look at ourselves and our own cultures; to try to then listen and understand and through dialogues formed through trust work toward our goals. Most people in the Chinese government now fully see the lack of trust and inability of others to see beyond their own perspectives. How can they ever understand others' positions on Tibet when outsiders do not earnestly hear / listen? This needs to come from all sides of debate; and all sides need to contemplate their own motivations. I am willing to accept and acknowledge that there have been terrible abuses in Tibet and elsewhere, which is morally wrong in my view, but I am also willing to try to understand and listen to what they have to say about it.

This offends me so much to hear China being positioned in this negative light, because in China more than anywhere I have ever lived I found 90 % of the people held a powerful commitment to sharing and caring for each other (huxiang bang mang). Their approach to dealing with others was one of interconnectedness and interbeing that stems from a historical tradition (some rural people say this is throughout Chinese history, others say it stems from Mao) of watching out and caring for others. Can you imagine my shock to overhear people talking causally with each other about having fewer children for the sake of their villages' or their counties' development? [And for you skeptics, no, it was not just done for my benefit.] Can you imagine a breastfeeding mother riding her bicycle 10 miles to visit me in the hospital, looking for me for four hours, riding back to the village to breastfeed her baby because it was time, then another 10 miles again to find me to make sure I was cared for? These are not isolated stories, folks. It took me a long time to understand that people were asking me how I was, what I was doing, etc., not to report to Public Security or to watch my movements but to show that they cared for me. Their caring was in part because the idea of the importance of the individual is different than in the US. Individuals are instead viewed in terms of their relationships to others (as friends, families, fellow villagers, neighbors). Taking care of others is taking care of your self and your own.

The gulf in lack of understanding of the Chinese, their government and culture is vast here in the West. Even among the Buddhist communities there is not universal agreement there in China, although I do not feel qualified to represent their views here in this venue. My priest in Beijing would say that we must listen and be compassionate. Before there can be discussion, there must be listening and contemplation. Understanding will slowly follow.

I hear that many of you writing and reading here feel strongly pro-Tibet, and I respect that. I too have read the Amnesty International and Snow Lion accounts, and follow the Chinese news closely. But I say to you, that you will never get farther than your own anger and fear if you set up for a war in your minds.

Thanks for reading. I look forward to hearing from you... -- Kim

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 15:03:47 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Rights and Precepts -Reply

It is hard to see how there can be universal human rights unless we have some absolute ethical standard to base our judgements on.

Precisely. Now let's see how that went again?

"Samma sankharaa anicca"

If *everything* is impermanent, in what sense is it absolute? I remain unconvinced that HR is consonant with core Buddhist teachings except as an upaya. The metaphysics simply don't match up.

Michel Clasquin

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 16:02:22 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Re: rights and precepts- a reply

Damien Keown wrote:
'It is hard to see how there can be universal human rights unless we have some absolute ethical stadard to base our judgements on'.

Michael Clasquin, replied:
'... If *everything* is impermanent, in what sense is it absolute? I remain uncovinced that HR is consonant with core Buddhist teachings except as an upaya. The metaphysics simply don't add up'.

Is it the case that 'all conditioned things are impermanent' applies to //principles// as well as mental and physical states/events? Is the principle 'all conditioned things are impermanent' 'impermanent'? There is a passage somewhere which says, 'whether Tathaagatas arise or not, it remains true that... "all conditioned things are impermanent "'. Is the principle 'the compassionate Bodhisattva should seek to save all (empty) beings' 'impermanent'? Arguably, the only thing 'impermanent' about human rights is:
i) whether they are respected in a particular time and place, or even codified in law at a particular time and place.
ii) the precise items specified by that agreed code of human rights (given that fundamental rights might be cashed out through different instrumentasl ones, according to social conditions).
ii) whether the precise language of 'human rights' is used.

But others may disagree!

Peter Harvey

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 14:24:51 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts -Reply

Perhaps "fixed ethical standard determined by the consent of citizens" might be a more usable standard than "absolute"?

Sally Clay
Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 15:39:57 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: rights and precepts- a reply

Is it the case that 'all conditioned things are impermanent' applies to //principles// as well as mental and physical states/events?

Yes.

principle 'all conditioned things are impermanent' 'impermanent'?

Yes.

is a passage somewhere which says, 'whether Tathaagatas arise or not, it remains true that... "all conditioned things are impermanent"'. Is the principle 'the compassionate Bodhisattva should seek to save all (empty) beings' 'impermanent'?

Yes.

Arguably, the only thing 'impermanent' about human rights is: i) whether they are respected in a particular time and place, or even codified in law at a particular time and place. ii) the precise items specified by that agreed code of human rights (given that fundamental rights might be cashed out through different instrumentasl ones, according to social conditions). ii) whether the precise language of 'human rights' is used. But others may disagree!

Yes.

Sphere

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 17:56:13 -0400
From: "A. Chu" CHU@bear.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

Even within the context of 'rule of law' and effective law enforcement, political actions may still be necessary to assert particular rights: the case of the ERA in the US comes to mind. However, in the absence of a world goverment with police power, human rights advocates must rely upon moral suasions and political influences to modify the behavior of another government.)

Agreed. Some do not like the idea of Buddhism becoming involved in law and politics, and I can understand their reasons. However, I think Buddhism has to address these issues and take a stand if it is to be a force for good in the modern world.

I'd agree that buddhists SHOULD take stands for what they believe in. However, the reason I stress the separation of the realms of discourse is that I have different degrees of condfidences on how well my actions accord with Dharma. In the ethical realm, restricted negative rights can live comfortably with buddhist approaches, IMO. In the legal realm, I would have less confidence as we are depending on imperfect laws enforced by probably unenlightened people. In the political realm, I'd have even less confidences in my stands as there are few other realms so awashed with ego, fear, and greed (perhaps in commerce?).

This is a monastic precept, binding only on those who take monastic vows. However, I think most people would agree there are basic obligations we all have to one another as human beings regardless of whether we are Hindus, Christians or Buddhists -- for example to respect each other's human rights. If we are to have human rights at all, those obligations must be present whether we have voluntarily adopted them or not. If they were purely voluntary we could just say "Sorry, I haven't adopted them so they don't apply to me" and carry on torturing.

D.K. To Craig-I think rights introduce a new perspective *historically*, but that rights were always implicit in the preceptual requirements. I don't think the precepts are merely ways to reduce suffering, and would say they are fundamentally requirements of justice. Following the precepts DOES reduce suffering, but this is a side-effect, just as observing the law keeps you out of prison. However, we should observe the precepts and the law because they're just, not because they keep you out of prison.

It is clear from these 2 passages what we have very different views on the main thrust of buddhism and the role of justice within buddhism. For me, the primary and unique thrust of buddhism is toward liberations of all sentients beings through enlightenment. Reduction of sufferings can contribute to this goal. Justice can reduce suffering and is an important adjunct. But there are certainly situation where one can reduce suffering without always insisting on equity.

My take is that the Buddha was never here to pass judgements on us. He made observations on the nature of being and invited us to verify them. He laid down precepts to help us practice in community, but not commandments to save or rule the world. We may just have to agree to disagree on this thread.

Regards,
A. Chu

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 20:45:47 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts -Reply

Perhaps "fixed ethical standard determined by the consent of citizens" might be a more usable standard than "absolute"?

Is there something we can possibly replace that "fixed" with? How about "common," or "contemporary," or "known," or even " world-wide."

That is unless you want to get everyone to agree that "fixed" isn't really Fixed.

Sphere

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 11:58:49 +0700
From: "Soraj Hongladarom" soraj@chulkn.car.chula.ac.th
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

Buddhists who reject this idea, however, must then either i) explain how they ground their belief in universal human rights in the absence of such standards, or ii) reject the idea of human rights as incompatible with Buddhism. Anyone who adopts ii), however, would have dubious grounds for objecting to Chinese labour camps in Tibet and the examples of human rights abuses against women of the kind mentioned by Hilary Clinton in her speech.

There are other alternatives than the apparent dilemma Prof. Keown posts in the last paragraph. Buddhism in my view, let me repeat, neither asserts nor denies that it is compatible with human rights. Thus it is perfectly possible that a Buddhist goes about protesting such acts as torturing and other forms of human rights violations, but such a Buddhist has to bear in mind that the protesting actions be done with the right attitude. That is, the Buddhist has to realize that the ultimate aim of an, any, individual is to release himself or herself of suffering. With this aim in mind, the Buddhist can surely progress toward the path by helping others, for by doing so the helper himself is right on the path. The content of helping is very wide, and includes actions at the social level. So the help certainly includes such social actions as civil disobedience, organizing mass movement, work stoppage, and other similar means, aimed at realizing particular objectives against unjust power. I see these actions not incompatible at all with the teaching of Buddhism, even though it does not have anything specific to say about them. However, what Buddhism does teach is that the actions must not be performed with anger, delusion or hatred.

This directly implies that the proper social actions for Buddhists must be *non-violent*. I think if any this is the one Buddhist requirement for social actions. And I believe no one would disagree on this.

Sometimes, however, non-violence does not seem to be able to realize the objectives, at least in the minds of some ardent activists. These activists argue for some channels where violence is permitted to achieve objectives they believe to be just, and to be effective against the unjust power. But this type of belief just runs counter to the Buddhist tenet, and I see no way how Buddhism could be molded to fit this type of attitude. One must always be aware of one's own kamma, and according to Buddhism the only *telos* of an individual is his or her own realizing of the Path. (Here I disagree with my respected colleagues of the Mahayaana tradition.) Hence if one does one's act with violence, which naturally involves hatred and anger, then one does *oneself* a kind of 'harm,' for one then diverges from the Path.

Does this mean that Buddhists remain always pacified and docile? By no means, for non-violent actions can achieve ends more effectively than violent ones. Consider a mass strike. If done properly and with clearly defined and stated objectives supported by the majority of the people, then it becomes a potent weapon against the unjust rulers. And I strongly advocate such movement against rulers who blatantly disregard respect for human rights.

While these actions are indeed justified in response to abuses of human rights, this to me is dissociated from the philosophical nature of justification Prof. Keown seems to want. He seems to believe that, without the 'universality' of human rights being properly grounded through some true philosophy, claims by fighters and activists would not carry weight. I disagree. The people on the street or the activists could not care any less about philosophy. How, then, are they supposed to know that the rights they are advocating are 'universal' and 'well grounded' hence 'true'?--a philosopher of Prof. Keown's bent might ask. My reply is that they don't have, qua activists, to be concerned with the philosophical problem of grounding; they, moreover, do not even need to believe that such rights are universal. They merely need believe that such rights will bring them good life and a way out of the reign of terror they are suffering in. And since rights are a guarantee--necessarily coupled with proper rule of law and effective legal institutions, of course--of such life the people and activists envision, it is not difficult to imagine people fighting for them. They fight for some kind of power they can have--legal entitlements against arbitrary abuse of power. This seems to be adequate for them; the reason is that, in my view, rights are only that; they are not groundable on any type of universalist reasons.

Is my view here compatible with Buddhism? I would say yes. However, one has to bear in mind that such quibblings about the philosophical nature of rights are comparable to the leaves in the forest the Buddha prefers not to talk about. I take it that this is the genuine Buddhist attitude toward such a problem. Which by no means implies that a Buddhist, a lay Buddhist suffering from an unjust, abusive regime, has no right to improve his or her living, as a citizen and as a lay person.

Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy
Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok, Thailand

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 08:44:37 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts -Reply -Reply

Perhaps "fixed ethical standard determined by the consent of citizens" might be a more usable standard than "absolute"?

I have no problems with that at all. Although we'd have to realise that it would only be "fixed" until the consent changed. The question then is, what would the distinctively Buddhist contribution be to molding the citizens' consent? And that, I think is a worthwhile topic for debate. Anyone?

Michel Clasquin

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 08:55:53 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: rights and precepts- a reply -Reply

'... If *everything* is impermanent, in what sense is it absolute? I remain uncovinced that HR is consonant with core Buddhist teachings except as an upaya. The metaphysics simply don't add up'.

Is it the case that 'all conditioned things are impermanent' applies to //principles// as well as mental and physical states/events? Is the principle 'all conditioned things are impermanent' 'impermanent'?

I'd respond by asking if this principle exists *as a principle* without being present as a mental state. Back in the precambrian period, things changed, quite naturally. But the *principle* "all phenomena are impermanent" didn't exist until it was formulated as a hypothesis to explain observed phenomena. Another example: for a long time, it was a principle that the earth was the centre of the universe. That principle has now changed. One cannot just regard principles as floating around in the abstract, divorced from their embodiment in (human?) thought. That road takes us all the way back to Plato's ideal forms.

But this is material for the first week. I think all our positions are on the table now, and it's time to move on to the issues for the second. I'd be happy to continue this thread privately, though.

Michel Clasquin

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 09:00:35 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts -Reply

There are other alternatives than the apparent dilemma Prof. Keown posts in the last paragraph. Buddhism in my view, let me repeat, neither asserts nor denies that it is compatible with human rights. Thus it is perfectly possible that a Buddhist goes about protesting such acts as torturing and other forms of human rights violations, but such a Buddhist has to bear in mind that the protesting actions be done with the right attitude.

How, then, are they supposed to know that the rights they are advocating are 'universal' and 'well grounded' hence 'true'?--a philosopher of Prof. Keown's bent might ask. My reply is that they don't have, qua activists, to be concerned with the philosophical problem of grounding; they, moreover, do not even need to believe that such rights are universal. They merely need believe that such rights will bring them good life and a way out of the reign of terror they are suffering in. And since rights are a guarantee-- necessarily coupled with proper rule of law and effective legal institutions, of course--of such life the people and activists envision, it is not difficult to imagine people fighting for them. They fight for some kind of power they can have--legal entitlements against arbitrary abuse of power. This seems to be adequate for them; the reason is that, in my view, rights are only that; they are not groundable on any type of universalist reasons.

I strongly endorse this view

Michel Clasquin
RITR, Unisa

Date: Wed, 11 Oct 1995 01:34:28 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts -Reply

If *everything* is impermanent, in what sense is it absolute? I remain unconvinced that HR is consonant with core Buddhist teachings except as an upaya. The metaphysics simply don't match up.

Absolutely impermanent! How else. Vraiment, ne c'est pas?? Core buddhist teachings are themselves (sunawachi) upaya - it's all useful lies, not a final creed. The metaphysics never match up, but that goodness there's no karma cost accountants to balance the books by means of generally accepted accounting principles - to do so requires dogmatists or philosophers.

Gassho,
Ken O'Neill

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:11:41 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Precepts

What distinquishs shila from secular law is intent and praxis. For buddhists, the intent is not to follow the law (once in the robe, you've declared yourself out of caste, an out law), but to uphold patterns of living maximizing peace of mind and emergence of awakening. Secular law has no concept of spiritual illumination, so it would count as a provisional teaching at best.

Gassho,
Ken O'Neill

Rights and Responsibilities

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 02:42:55 -0400
From: "Tim Testu" R100RSBMW@aol.com
Subject: Rights and Responsibilities

The discussion on rights could also be considered from two points of view: 1. Monastic Buddhism (Bhikshus, Bhikshunis, Shrameneras, Shramenerikas) 2. Lay Buddhism (Upasikas, Upasakas)

Those involved in Traditional Monastic Buddhism probably don't spend much time thinking about the concept of "rights." Normally they have enough work to do seeking enlightenment for themselves and for all living beings. They help themselves by studying, contemplating, meditating, and living an ascetic life. They benefit others by translating and explaining Sutras and Shastras, maintaining and displaying the awesome manner, and making the teachings and practices of Buddhism accessible.

Since the very beginning of "Buddhism" Shakyamuni Buddha himself has maintained that members of the left-home Sangha have the right to a reasonably peaceful place to practice (Bodhimandala), and a right to be treated with dignity and respect by their fellow cultivators of the Way. Nowadays the Abbot of a monastery ensures these rights (harmony in the Sangha) by utilizing monastic codes of the past, and by enacting new rules in accordance with present needs--as one participant so aptly wrote, "to protect the weak from the strong." Thus, Buddhism has a long history of preserving and protecting the rights of the left-home Sangha and anyone else who directly participates in the religious community.

Lay Buddhist's, on the other hand, have no limits on their involvement with "rights," human and otherwise. The five lay precepts do suggest a basic guideline for self-respect and respect for all living beings. From there, with a mind free of hatred and selfish greed, one can "assert with love," fighting for the rights of others. Is this not the Bodhisattva Way? Buddhists have been far too passive in the past. Why not speak out for what we believe in? We have a right to create change and to make a difference! For example,if we don't take an occasional time-out from staring at our navels and start standing up for the (rights of) the environment (which is incapable of speaking for itself) there isn't going to be one--witness the clearcuts all around this particular area. Caring for living beings and the planet is not apart from Buddhism.

As Damien Keown's post says ... "Rights are claims made on other rational agents to do what justice requires (treat others fairly). I think this is not really so different from asking people to respect the precepts (e.g. not to kill me is to respect my right to life) something which Buddhism certainly calls on everyone to do. Since Buddhism makes this universal appeal through its precepts, it seems to be calling for universal respect for basic rights. Its teachings are thus in harmony with modern human rights manifestos."

Right on! If people simply followed the Buddha's precepts, there'd be no need for rights.

A venerable teacher often said:

"Why are their rules? Because people don't follow the rules."
"Why is their Wisdom? Because the stupid make their mark."

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 21:41:44 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Rights and Responsibilities

The discussion on rights could also be considered from two points of view: 11. Monastic Buddhism (Bhikshus, Bhikshunis, Shrameneras, Shramenerikas) 2. Lay Buddhism (Upasikas, Upasakas)

Such a distinction is useful, but we must not confuse parts with wholes. Later streams of Buddhism's development evolved beyond the earlier dualism separating monastics from laiety, instead stressing that we are all "neither monk nor layperson", just fellow seekers in quest of illumination.

Secondly, those movements today advocating human rights in Asian countries seem to be doing so across the board since depotism doesn't distinquish between monastics and laiety, so equal rights to life (eg, Tibet) are fundamental. Setting the monastics up as separate from others, it can be argued, has done Buddhist tradition a lot of damage by creating unnecessary hierarchies.

Ken O'Neill

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 11:53:14 -0400
From: "Kimberley C Falk" kcfst1+@pitt.edu
Subject: Re: Rights and Responsibilities

This is essentially my problem with only dealing with human rights, for in focusing on humans too, are we not creating a hierarchy of human beings? This greatly concerns me as a female Buddhist, as it worries me that some could argue (albeit in an extreme stance) that we should only deal with rights for men (who in Buddhism remain tradionally in the top of the hierarchy).

To move away from this concern with definitions, I do like very much the ideas being circulated about "inter-being" and interrelatedness and human rights, as these ideas seem key to working toward peace and compassion, and can be applied on a number of social levels (from the individual's engagement with and response to others all the way up to levels of nation states). This potentially leads us to places where we can talk about practice. (But maybe that's next week's topic?). -- Kim

Rights and the Buddhist ideal (from Peter Harvey)

Date: Mon, 02 Oct 1995 12:23:10 -0400
From: "Wayne R. Husted" wrh7@psu.edu
Subject: Rights and the Buddhist ideal (from Peter Harvey)

Soraj Hongladarom's Position Statement says: Phra Dhammapidok argues that human rights presuppose divisiveness and contentiousness, which then are not conducive to the ideal end of Buddhism. The first part of this claim od Phra Dhammapidok seems uncontentious: in an ideal (or even relatively ideal) world, one would not need to talk of human righs, which is only pertinent when good human relations break down. The first part of the claim is reminiscent of the part of the //Agga~n~na Sutta// which says that, when natural morality had reached a certain point in tis decline, people chose one person to rule over them end punish wrongdoers., or, one might say, protect people's rights.

The second part of Phra Dhammapidok's claim does not seem to follow from the first part. Until another relatively ideal state of society arises again (when the next Buddha is around!), it is skilful to have social institutions to protect people's rights.

It does not seem necessary to go as far as Sulak Sivaraksa does, though, when he says that human rights are constitutive of the Buddhist ideal. The ideal goes beyond talk of rights, but talk of rights helps to protect people in their process of moving towards the ideal.

So, to put the above in terms of issues to debate, and to give my response to the issues:
a) Is talk of human rights unconducive to the goal of Buddhism? b) Is talk of human rights part of the Buddhist ideal?

To a), I would say: no (provided it is not done in an aggressive, angry way). To b) I would also say : no, though a spontaneous respect for other humans (without needing to talk of 'human rights') would be.

Peter Harvey

Date: Tue, 03 Oct 1995 20:17:33 +0100
From: "Damien Keown" d.keown@gold.ac.uk
Subject: Re: Rights and the Buddhist ideal (from Peter Harvey)

Rights for others, not oneself?

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 10:52:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Rights for others, not oneself?

John Richards wrote:
Would it not be the "religious" (not just "Christian" or "Buddhist") attitude that OTHERS have rights, and they should be defended and maintained rigorously, but that I have none, and would never wish to assert any for myself? Someone (Berdyayev, if I remember correctly) once said rather neatly that bread for myself is selfishness, bread for others is religion.

Well I know what you mean (//demanding// MY rights is problematic), but: The Theravaadin way of spreading lovingkindness is to develop it towards oneself first, and then seek to spread it to others, even 'enemies' to an //equal// degree. If you have no regard for one's 'own' real benefit, how can one genuinely have it for others? Also, the attitude 'I am unimportant' //can// (but not necessarily) lead to the inferiority conceit: //I// am no good, others are better, more important...

Peter Harvey

Rights of peoples and institutions

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 11:45:39 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Rights of peoples and institutions

Santipala Stephen Evans talks of the rights of people. Williams sees such social entities as a government or state as being able to be 'sentient beings', which can have rights and responsibilities in regard to another social entity.

Now clearly a social entity can have rights and responsibilities arising from specific contracts that it enters into //as// a social entity. But does it have any 'intrinsic' rights irrespective of such contracts -- analagous to the human right to, say, life -- other than the collection of the rights of its members? Does 'Tibet' or 'the Tibetan people' have a right to self-govenment which is other than, or more than, the right of Tibetans to self-government? And if so, how is this best to be articulated?

Peter Harvey

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 21:16:35 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights of peoples and institutions

I do not necessarily consider all modern nation states as sentient beings -- in particular, I doubt this status for many of the nations created by the carving up of territory by colonial powers. I'd also wish to include many other types of social being, such as families, tribes, and religions as potential sentient beings. Being a being at the social level is different than being a being at the individual level, just as we are different than our cells. (Note that a modern nation state might not be an organic being while at the same time its' government is an organic being.)

As we are people, not cells, animals, or nations -- clearly we are going to tend to favour other people and their rights over then rights of non-people. This is to be expected, and to some extent not even wrong. But it is important to remember that we are doing this, and we should be able to relate what we decide as correct between people to what we decide is correct with regard to non-people.

A social entity is an organic being through the actions of the people which constitute it. It is through the interplay of our causes that the social being exists and acts. Through contacts, not through contracts.

Within the U.S. Constitution a basic right of existence is enshrined in the statement: Congress shall make no law ... or abridging the ... right of the people peacably to assemble ... (Other 1st admendment rights elided.) This "right" is in actuality more an acknowledgement of existence which I wanted to point to.

I'm inclined to view the whole issue of "rights" within the Buddhist manifesto -- to save all beings from suffering. The current "common coin" is human rights. I think we should simply use this coin as skillful means toward the ultimate objective.

Toward this end. I think the Tibetan People have a right to self governance if the collection of people who would constitute this Tibetan People consider themselves a Tibetan People, and also wish self governance. The is no way I can consume the Tibetan People as food to sustain my own being, therefore dismembering this social being can seem to me as nothing other than needless cruelty.

Sphere

Rights, enlightenment potential and 'non-human' humans

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 12:36:06 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Rights, enlightenment potential and 'non-human' humans

Santipala Stephen Evans argues that respect for an other person is not based on the abstract notion of their enlightenment potential, but on one's immediate awareness of them as a particular person, like oneself, and with awareness of oneself. Why cannot one say it is based on both, and that sometimes one emphasises one aspect, sometimes another?

Santipala also says 'the potential for enlightenment... is a weak support for human rights and may even work against it, as the Sri Lankan tradition (first or second century CE I think' that non-Buddhists are not fully human, Bodhidharma's statement that killing a Hinayanist would be justified...'.

I am not familiar with this supposed statement attributed to Bodhidharma. Whoever put it in his mouth was clearly no true Mahaayaanist, for there are Bodhisattva precepts concerning respect for so-called Hiinayaanists.

The Sri Lankan case referred to concerns a passage in the Mahaava.msa chronicle, ch.XXV, concerning the actions of king Dutthagaamani (first century BC). The story is as follows. Being king of Buddhist Ceylon, he made war on (Hindu) Tamils who had invaded the island and established an enclave in the North which lasted forty-five years. For protection, king Duttagaamani's army is said to have been accompanied by monks and to have had Buddhist relics on spears. The king is said to have fought not for the 'joy of sovereignty', but for the protection of the Buddhist religion. His actions are therefore the nearest thing to a 'holy war' in Buddhist history (though even this can be seen as a defensive war). After defeating the Tamils, the king was distressed at the many deaths he had caused, but it is said that Arahat monks re-assured him that most of those who had been killed were evil-doers, no better than animals, while Buddhism had been protected by his actions. Indeed verses 109-11 say that only 'one and a half humans' were among those kiled: the 'one' being someone who took the three refuges of a Buddhist, and the half being someone who followed the five precepts (the king neverthless went on to try to make amends for his actions by a life of good works and benefit to the community, and to have gone on to be reborn in a heaven).

As I see the above, it is a perverse twisting of the doctrine that it is less bad to kill an unvirtuous person than to kill a (truly) virtuous one. This doctrine is normally complemented by one which sees it as always worse to kill a human than to kill an animal (in the //Vinaya//, deliberate killing of a human -any human- leads to defeat; killing an animal is a lesser offence).

The //Mahaava.msa// passage was composed centuries after the events it purports to relate, and the idea that an Arahat would say such a thing is just absurd. It is just a shame that the later monastic compilers saw such a story as believable, and concurred in the sentiments. In the rest of the //Mahaava.msa//, though, there are, I think, no other such semi-justifications for killing certain people.

Such an idea resurfaced, though, in the ideas of the righ-wing Thai monk Kittivu.d.dho. During the 1970s, when Thailand was seen as in danger of being the next 'domino' to fall to communism in South-East Asia, this militantly anti-Communist monk taught that , while all killing is bad, killing Communists leads to very little bad karma, and to much good karma, if this is done with the intention of saving the country and its values. Moreover, he held that to do so was not killing people but killing Maara (the rough Buddhist equivalent of satan), who personified mental defilements and evil ideology, so that it was actually one's duty to kill Communists. //However// Kittivu.d.dho was strongly attacked in the Thai press for such sentiments, and the Supreme Patriarch denounced his 'justification' of killing.

SO: Yes, some Buddhists have sometimes twisted Buddhist ideas to bad effect, but that does not mean the ideas themselves are problematic.

Of course, a more contemporary situation is in Sri Lanka, where certain right wing monks seemingly urge the government to not 'give way' to the Tamils, and be hard on them. //If// they see this as a way of defending Sinhalese Buddhist culture, it is just stupid: how can one defend Buddhism by actions which include direct violation of the Buddhist precepts??

Peter Harvey

Rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 15:26:59 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 17:51:52 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

Peter Junger's paper argues that 'human rights' are a purely historical product and quotes Rorty (p.15) to the effect that: we should make our human rights culture more self-conscious and powerful, not try to show its superiority to other cultures by reference to something trans-cultural.

I don't think that is quite the way that I would put it, but fair enough.

But if there is no possibility of different cultures agreeing on some universal, shared values, and everything is culture relative, then all one can do to spread such things as human-rights values is indulge in cultural imperialism in various ways, to MAKE (not persuade) other cultures to take on board the historically particular values of one's own culture.

I certainly do not believe this, nor would I argue that this is true. I would, for example, try very hard to persuade everyone that freedom of speech and thought is desireable. (I am about as close to being a First Amendment (freedom of speech and religion) absolutist as anyone you are ever likely to come across.) And the only way that I can persuade them is by invoking our common cultural assumptions, not by invoking assumptions that they don't share and might repudiate--like God or a social contract or some other abstraction.

To put it another way, in a world of cultural relativism, might (economic, political, military, etc.) is right.

I just don't see how anyone can claim this. If we respect everyone's right to follow their own path we surely are not going to use ``might'' to coerce them to follow our path. In some way we must be at cross purposes. How can one believe that recognizing that other cultures are confronted with different causes and conditions means that we should force them to be like us, when our, or Rorty's, concept of human rights clearly prevents us from doing that?

I fear that I am confused--and that I must have inadvertently been causing a lot of confusion.

One can recognise that the current concept of 'human rights' arose within the historical context of western society without ruling out that it can make links with concepts of other societies, and, in the process, perhaps be broadened and refined. Moreover, there is the possibility of 'human rights with a Buddhist face': Buddhism need not take on all the historical baggage that the western history of the concept associates with it.

I certainly agree with this. (Except that I am doubtful that Buddhists ever will be comfortable with talking about "rights" rather than talking about, say, " good forms of government.")

Peter D. Junger

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 15:29:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: RE Junger on rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

In an earlier posting, in reponse to something in Peter Junger's paper, I argued that if values, such as 'human rights', are //totally// culture relative, then the only way one could spread such values would be be force, as there would be no bridges to other cultures that could be used in //persuading// them of the worth of one's values.

Peter Junger responded by reacting with dismay at the thought of forcing things on other cultures, and referring to persuasion as the best way, to be done by arguing by reference to 'our common cultural assumptions'. I think this shows that he does not agree with total cultural relativism, and thus that there are some common values cutting across all cultures. If so, cannot one see 'human rights' talk (at least in some of its modes) as an attempt to articulate these?

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 23:34:45 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

One can recognise that the current concept of 'human rights' arose within the historical context of western society without ruling out that it can make links with concepts of other societies, and, in the process, perhaps be broadened and refined. Moreover, there is the possibility of 'human rights with a Buddhist face': Buddhism need not take on all the historical baggage that the western history of the concept associates with it.

Although I'd a bit prefer looking upon it as using the common coin of "human rights" as skillfull means to further Buddhist goals, the notion of "human rights with a Buddhist face" is appealing. The Buddhist can point out that Buddhism seeks to save all beings from sorrow -- and only later and deeper in conversation point out all the ramifications.

In this context, I think the real questions then would become how to combine the notions of human rights with notions of responsibilities so as to further the objective. The danger in the notion of human rights is the notion of entitlement. How do we create rights along with obligations so that the totality is whole?

Sphere

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 00:48:53 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

I certainly agree with this. (Except that I am doubtful that Buddhists ever will be comfortable with talking about "rights" rather than talking about, say, "good forms of government.")

There is certainly a problem with "right" hanging out there waving in the breeze. I think the notion of "right" needs to be converted within Buddhist thinking into notions of mutual causes, and which mutual causes tend to free up "the system" so growth can occur. I think we need to match up rights with responsibilities, or study rights pressing against rights. A single "right" asserted without tieing it into the web of creation is a dangerous thing.

Sphere

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 14:29:52 -0800
From: "Craig K. Ihara" CIHARA@CCVAX.FULLERTON.EDU
Subject: Re: RE Junger on rights, relativism and cultural imperialism

In response to a response to Junger that concludes "cannot one see HR talk as an attempt to articulate these (common values cutting across all cultures()? Certainly we can see rights this way, but we must be aware of what this way of articulating common values imports into the discussion. I maintain that conceptualizing common values in terms of human rights or even rights distorts classical Buddhist ethics. Craig Ihara

Rights/respect and Buddhist doctrine

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 15:28:34 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Rights/respect and Buddhist doctrine

Damien Kewon asks for a distinctive formulation of human rights in terms of Buddhist doctrine. How about this:

Those who have the good fortune to have a 'rare and precious human rebirth', with all its potential for awareness, sensitivity, and freedom, have a duty to not abuse the rights of other humans to partake of the possibilities of moral and spiritual flourishment offered by human existence. Such flourishing is only possible when certain conditions relating to physical existence and social freedom are maintained. Moreover, to repressas our basic quality of sympathy (//anukampaa//) by abusing other sentient beings, human or otherwise, cripples our own potential, and increases the amount of //dukkha// in the world- for both others and oneself. Conditioned Arising shows that the existence of any being, human or otherwise, is a conditioned one that is thus open to limitation and suffering. Abusing others can only be done when we are blind to this fact. As vulnerable beings in a conditioned world, the principle of solidarity indicates that whatever we can do to truly reduce the amount of //dukkha// in the world should be done. The principle of //anattaa// shows that //dukkha// does not really 'belong' to anyone. It arises, in the life-stream of various sentient beings. To try and reduce it in 'my' stream at the expense of increasing it in another life-stream is folly: both because this will in fact bring more suffering back to me (karma), and because it depends on the deluded notion that 'I' am an inviolable entity that is not dependent and can treat others as if only //they// are limited and conditioned.

Moreover, no government should pretend that it is; i) not impermanent, and subject to dissolution ii) not involving //dukkha//: so //dukkha// should not be unjustly imposed on citizens because they happen to be the occasion for some particular //dukkha// arising for government members. iii) Self-like, ie. some kind of sacred inviolable essence. Governments are conditioned by citizens compliance in their rule. The more willing, the happier all will be : citizens and government members.

No time for more today, unfortunately. have a good weekend; I'm tuning in again on Monday, as my computer is at work.

Peter Harvey

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 13:59:38 -0400
From: "Don Swearer" dsweare1@swarthmore.edu
Subject: Re: Rights/respect and Buddhist doctrine

Peter & Others,
I've only dipped in to the conversation but I was struck by the fact that Peter's remarks on rights/respect and Buddhist doctrine is thoroughly consistent with David Kaluphana's construction of Buddhist ethics in his new book, ETHICS IN EARLY BUDDHISM, which stresses the underlying principles of conditionality and mutuality.

Don Swearer

Roots of Right

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 08:55:54 -0400
From: "Steven D. Jamar" SJamar@aol.com
Subject: Roots of Right

I have been told that in Indian languages the word for 'right' has come in only very recently, and that from Islamic sources.

"reg-" is the indo-european language root. Its derivatives, including right, include regal and raja (king in Sanskrit). And as we all know, until very recent times the king could do no wrong. And all rights were the king's and folk were just subjects to do the king's bidding.

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:11:43 -0400
From: "Peter D. Junger" junger@pdj2-ra.F-REMOTE.CWRU.Edu
Subject: Re: Roots of Right

I do not think that this is generally correct. The claim that the king (or the prince) can do no wrong was asserted by the spokesmen for the late Roman Emperor and reasserted by the Stewart Kings of England, but in most ancient societies the rulers were very much subject to custom, or law, or //dharma//.

It is interesting to note that the power of the courts in the United States to review the rightfulness--the constitutionality--of the acts of the government is based on Lord Coke's reply to King James when that king claimed that he could do no wrong. Lord Coke agreed with that claim, and then pointed out that what the king wanted to do was wrong so the king could not do it. (So if some agent of the state tries to deprive me of my constitutional rights, the courts will enjoin him from acting outside the scope of his authority; and a suit seeking such an injunction is not treated as a suit against the United States, which, like its predecessor, the king, can do no wrong.)

This is a very important component of our Constitutional, and Civil, Rights here in the United States; but I fail to see how we could expect it to be exported to lands and cultures with radically different legal traditions. Unlike the common law, the //Buddhadharma// is supposed to be universal.

Peter D. Junger

Re: sangha & lay rights

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 08:55:26 -0700
From: "Eric Reinders" 6500rein@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
Subject: Re: sangha & lay rights

Later streams of Buddhism's development evolved beyond the earlier dualism separating monastics from laiety, instead stressing that we are all "neither monk nor layperson", just fellow seekers in quest of illumination.

Setting the monastics up as separate from others, it can be argued, has done Buddhist tradition a lot of damage by creating unnecessary hierarchies.

Before we become iconoclastic about the hierarchies which constitute the Buddhist traditions, I think we should pay attention to the social & political contexts of those moments in history when the distinction between cleric and laity was asserted as invalid or unreal. There is usually a heavy power trip going on which has nothing much to do with Nirvana (except in the strictly non-dual sense in which Nirvana is Samsara, but you know how it is with non-duality: all things are non-dual, but some things are more non-dual than others.)

So I contemplate the lay orientation of American Buddhism, the current anti-institutional zeal, and I wonder where "unneccessary hierarchies" comes from. Certainly not from the Vinaya! It reminds me of Jeremy Irons yelling at Robert DeNiro in "The Mission," about how the monastic order is not a democratic society.

In other words, I think the assumption of monastic vows places one is a separate category of "rights" (and certainly "duties"), so I would defend the relevance of the cleric/lay distinction in these discussions. As a layman, I suppose I have a right to get married, but does a Buddhist cleric have the right to get married (and still be a cleric)? (I'm aware of the Japanese innovation of married clerics, of course.)

Eric Reinders

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 18:52:24 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: sangha & lay rights

In other words, I think the assumption of monastic vows places one is a separate category of "rights" (and certainly "duties"), so I would defend the relevance of the cleric/lay distinction in these discussions. As a layman, I suppose I have a right to get married, but does a Buddhist cleric have the right to get married (and still be a cleric)? (I'm aware of the Japanese innovation of married clerics, of course.)

How does the assumption of monastic vows place one in a separate category of "rights" or "duties"? I've excerpted only your final paragraph because those preceding it did not agrue to what is either a conclusion or an opinion.

In Buddhist monasticism, one has neither the possibility of marriage nor of sexual congress with men, women, children, animals or material objects (the Dalai Lama has been attached as homophobic on this ground; rather stupidly, at that).

The case of Japan is a little complicated. There are two basics:

One, Shinran declared himself "neither monk nor layman," issuing in a new concept of the buddhist way in the 13th century. His tradition has been pretty much the largest of Japan since the 16th century.

Two, the Meiji Restoration forced marriage of Buddhist priests. Centuries of girl friends, concubines, LTAs (living together arrangements) resulted in families, etc. For example, the village of Sakamoto at the foot of Mt Hiei had long been a center for sexual congress for monks and their ladies. With restoration of the Imperial government and introduction of the state Shinto cultus, political motivations underwrote persecution of Buddhism from 1868. Calling attention to the obvious laxity of precepts in a way virtually demanding priests to make their women honest wives was really intended to deal a powerful blow to buddhist credability.

Back to the main point? How do monks and nuns place them in a separate category of rights?

Gassho,
Ken

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 09:50:55 -0700
From: "Eric Reinders" 6500rein@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu
Subject: Re: sangha & lay rights

How does the assumption of monastic vows place one in a separate category of "rights" or "duties"?

In Buddhist monasticism, one has neither the possibility of marriage nor of sexual congress with men, women, children, animals or material objects (the Dalai Lama has been attached as homophobic on this ground; rather stupidly, at that).

The status of monkhood is contingent on obedience to the rules of the vinaya. There are certain offences which entitle (or give the right to) monastic authorities to disrobe the offender. Therefore, ordination draws a line between human beings: on one side of the line, marriage is more or less irrelevant to Buddhist doctrine; on the other, marriage (or perhaps more specifically, sex) is the object of an explicit prohibition. Obedience to these and other prohibitions constitute the Sangha as an institution. If you're not willing to obey these rules, you can't be a monk.

So, to use the terms "right & duties," in ordination you waive your right to marriage (unless you disrobe first), for example. You waive your right to do many things, as you subordinate your body, speech and mind to the institution of the Sangha. I sense in your posts a certain anti-institutionalism, e.g. in your remark to the effect that the sangha does not perpetuate Buddhism, enlightenment does.(You might find Robert Sharf's article in the new book "Curators of the Buddha" interesting, by the way.) OK, let me come clean--my research is on Daoxuan, the "founder" of the Chinese Vinaya school, so I find your dismissal of the Sangha a bit historically naive.

The case of Japan is a little complicated.

I agree, so let's drop substantial discussion of Shinran, 1868 etc. Still, the examples show that the institution of monasticism is always culturally contingent, no matter what the canonical Vinaya says.

Eric Reinders

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 14:38:07 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: sangha & lay rights

The status of monkhood is contingent on obedience to the rules of the vinaya. There are certain offences which entitle (or give the right to) monastic authorities to disrobe the offender. Therefore, ordination draws a line between human beings: on one side of the line, marriage is more or less irrelevant to Buddhist doctrine; on the other, marriage (or perhaps more specifically, sex) is the object of an explicit prohibition. Obedience to these and other prohibitions constitute the Sangha as an institution. If you're not willing to obey these rules, you can't be a monk.

So, to use the terms "right & duties," in ordination you waive your right to marriage (unless you disrobe first), for example. You waive your right to do many things, as you subordinate your body, speech and mind to the institution of the Sangha. I sense in your posts a certain anti-institutionalism, e.g. in your remark to the effect that the sangha does not perpetuate Buddhism, enlightenment does.(You might find Robert Sharf's article in the new book "Curators of the Buddha" interesting, by the way.) OK, let me come clean--my research is on Daoxuan, the "founder" of the Chinese Vinaya school, so I find your dismissal of the Sangha a bit historically naive.

I'm getting a bit confused by your use of Sangha at this point. Are you following the often used Chinese limiting case of Sangha meaning monastics?

The case of Japan is a little complicated.

I agree, so let's drop substantial discussion of Shinran, 1868 etc. Still, the examples show that the institution of monasticism is always culturally contingent, no matter what the canonical Vinaya says.

I don't know why we need to drop it. Limiting the discussion to Chinese usage implies the Chinese are the standard. Or Thais, Vietnamese, Koreans, Tibetans, or whoever depending on area of specialization, personal interest, ethnicity, whatever. One of the difficulties of talking about "Buddhism" lies in the question of precisely which interpretation is one speaking from or about. For example, the folks at the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas have maintained their Sangha is the only orthodox one in America, published a book attempting to show Milarepa was not a Buddhist, etc.; all that is fine if one is willing to engage in uberglauben (overbelief) and accept their view as the world standard.

The same goes with definitions of Sangha, monasticism as central to Buddhism, etc. It may be for some people in some places at some time; counterfactual instances, however, force us to seek broader standards.

Abstinence from sex is but one of many conditions distinquishing the monastic's life from that of the laypersons. As best I can tell, however, sexuality is more of an issue regarding female vinaya than male - particularly in Indian Buddhism. And focus on sexuality as singular in importance is very important to English speaking people whose own cultural baggage contains much Puritanism and squeemishness regarding sex. Abstinence from alcohol, lying and stealing would seem to be bigger real problems among monks than sex.

The point that monks have differing rights, however, has yet to be demonstrated. I would agree monks have greater obligations perforce of commitment to their "avoidances." That their shugyo results in greater rights does not seem logically connected. Do Catholic priests, conforming as they do to similar ancient notions of soteriology and praxis, gain greater rights? In common they occupy a position of respect, fear, and disdain among varying outlooks of the faithful. What specific rights have they gained?

Perhaps there's a bit of cultural confusion at work here. In Western European spirituality it is assumed a priest or cleric has answered a calling from God, that answering elevating spiritual status. Buddhadharma doesn't contain that ideal. Rather one seeks out the spiritual life in recognition of one of two things: (1) overcoming and seeking liberation from suffering and sorrow, or (2) imagination revealing potentialities for greater life through awakening. Neither, as far as I know, establishes greater rights.

In practice, when one becomes ordained as monk or priest in Buddhist tradition, one takes on a social role in a community. That means in large measure you live in a fish bowl. You're expected to abide by a higher standard. Since you've revealed a bit about yourself, I will too. Having been a Dharma teacher for twenty three years, I've never experience greater or different rights. Nor have my peers in other traditions - at least the one's I've spoken with about the matter. Are we missing out on a fringe benefit? I doubt it.

Gassho,

Ken O'Neill, Kyoshi
White Lotus Society
Tucson, Arizona

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 21:38:44 -0400
From: "Emily Wolitzky" Edw1028@aol.com
Subject: Re: sangha & lay rights

I am extremely impressed with Ken O'Neill's discussions. Keep up the good work. (Do Zen students ever use bone malas?)

Smuggled Essence

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 12:00:01 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: smuggled essence

If Buddha nature is the reason, this illustrates the problem nicely, as Buddha nature is problematic in the extreme: most schools dismiss it as but an upaya, and others denounce it outright as a smuggled essence.

Oh yeah?

I have a koan for the group:
Does Jamie Hubbard have Buddha nature?

Come on, Jamie, MAKE MY DAY:

Sally Clay

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 17:29:51 -0400
From: "Jamie HUBBARD" JHUBBARD@ernestine.smith.edu
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

To paraphrase some Chinese fellow,

"MU, and neither do YU."

Seriously.

Jamie

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 14:43:23 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

Jamie's remark is interesting. I've been a teacher of one tradition of Buddhism for 23 years; in that time my friends have included teachers of Zen and Tibetan traditions. Every last one of them takes buddha-nature teachings seriously since those teachings are active parts of how we work with people. I'd like to know where Jamie got this idea. Are you in a teaching lineage, Jamie, or an academic? What experience leads you to this conclusion; I'm not interested in citations because we know well one can always find one then attempt to warrant a position on an exception to the rule. Do you disagree with Sally B. King's work?

Thanks,

Ken O'Neill

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 00:46:38 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

"MU, and neither do YU."

Well . . . you've got me there. I have studied the Dharma in the Tibetan tradition, so I really don't know much about koans, and I don't know what MU means. But I do agree with Ken O'Neill that, in every Buddhist tradition, recognizing Buddha nature is essential. So please allow me to smuggle some in, as an argument for human rights.

Since I do not practice zen, I can give you a straight answer to my koan. You, Jamie Hubbard, have buddha nature. How do I know this? I know this because I know that I have buddha nature. I have not yet (in this current discussion) recognized your buddha nature because I have not been able to cut through your academic nihilism.

That is why I sent you my address. I live in Northampton, MA, and I assume you do, too, since your email address is connected with Smith College. Not too far from where we sit, you and I, there are a bunch of rotting buildings that used to be Northampton State Mental Hospital. This institution was closed down a few years ago by legal advocates, who established that the rights of the patients were being violated. Human beings were incarcerated and forcibly treated in this place for years under conditions of filth and degradation.

Now housed in one of those buildings is the Department of Mental Health, Western Massachusetts Area. Only today I received a letter from Patrick Austin, Consumer Affairs Manager for DMH. Patrick wrote that an RFP has been sent out for managed care for all acute care services:

"We as consumer/survivors were not consulted as to what crisis services, hospital stays, crisis respite, day hospitals would look like. We don't know if the new acute services are going to be good or user friendly."

Some questions for you are: Should mental patients be consulted on such matters? Should mental patients be allowed the same consideration as medical patients--considerations such as informed consent for treatment? Should mental patients be given the same protections as criminals--protections under the law, such as due process? Should these considerations be guaranteed under the law, or are we to rely on the benevolence of bureaucrats who in this country created monstrosities such as Northampton State Hospital--and who in Nazi Germany used mental patients and other "useless eaters" as templates for genocide?

Is it dharmicly correct to regard the consideration of consent and the protection of legal process as rights? Can one believe that all citizens of Massachusetts are entitled to be treated with equal respect and dignity? Are mental patients citizens? Are women citizens? Are African Americans human beings? Do mental patients have buddha nature?

Government by the consent of the governed rests on the principle that all people are created equal. As a woman, I am suspicious of that principle when it refers only to white men. As a Buddhist, I have reservations about the "created" part. But, as a manic-depressive who attempts to practice equanimity, I understand the equal part very well. IMHO, buddha nature is, while not created, still inherent in all of us.

Patrick also wrote:

I'll update you on the Bill of Rights rally that will take place in Boston on Monday October 16th. If anyone is interested, there will be a free bus leaving from the Pittsfield Grayhound Bus Station...

Well, Jamie, how about YU:

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 17:35:22 -0400
From: "Jamie HUBBARD" JHUBBARD@ernestine.smith.edu
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

I'd like to know where Jamie got this idea. Are you in a teaching lineage, Jamie, or an academic?

Hmmmm-- from where I sit they look pretty much the same, Ken (do you remember asking me this once before, back in the days of the IndraNet BBS?)

What experience leads you to this conclusion; I'm not interested in citations because we know well one can always find one then attempt to warrant a position on an exception to the rule.

Good point; ok, then, over and beyond what the tradition itself has to say on the subject, the experience that leads me to say this is critical thinking about Buddhist truth. But in terms of the tradition, I perhaps was overstating the case a bit (wishful thinking, or perhaps limiting my definition of Buddhists :) to those that would reject it). Buddha-nature and tathaagatagarbha have always been controversial in the extreme, and among those that either dismissed these ideas or interpreted them away (as but upaaya) we can count the Gelugspa and Doogen. Much has been written on this topic of late.

Do you disagree with Sally B. King's work?

Sometimes (we went to school together), but for the most part I think that her exegesis of the Buddha-nature Treatise is accurate; her conclusions also illustrate the problem nicely, though, at least insofar as the question raised is one of bringing moral discussion into line with metaphysical principles, and hence rights, protection of those in need, and so forth, so permit to cite something I wrote on the topic a while back:

For example, in explicating the Buddha-nature Treatise, Sally King has written, "In sum, as presented in the BNT, the person (human being) in the deluded existential mode is not a person as we ordinarily use the term in the popular Western sense. There is no real historicality or individuality accruing to the person and precious little freedom. What we consider to be the basis of individual personhood is written off as unreal. What is real is the universal sameness of Buddha nature; in this sameness, individual personhood, as we ordinarily use the term, cannot be found. Thus, before `conversion' and while in the existential mode of delusion, a person is not a person." After enlightenment, however, "history and individuality, which were lacking in the deluded existential mode, enter the constitution of the person. . . The particular behaviors, mannerisms, and even the personality of the person now possess reality and value." Sally King, "Buddha nature and the concept of person" in Philosophy East and West, vol. 39, no. 2 (April, 1989), p. 164 [cf. her book pp. 146- 147]. In this reading, as true to the tradition as to the cross-cultural philosophy of Professor King, of what concern is the *unreal* behavior, mannerisms, and personality of the deluded *non*-person? This doctrinal attitude has recently been singled out by Professor Hakamaya in several articles as the basis for institutional and social discrimination and racism. See, for example, "Thoughts on the Intellectual Background of Discrimination" (Sabetsu Jish o Umidashita Shis teki Haikei ni Kansuru Shikenm1) in Komazawa Daigaku Bukkygakubu Kenkyuu Kiyoo, no. 44 (Showa 61). [from _Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota_, Reno: Buddhist Books International, 1990, pp. 76-77.]

Jamie

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 17:51:35 -0400
From: "Jamie HUBBARD" JHUBBARD@ernestine.smith.edu
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

Sally wrote all sorts of stuff about mental health patients in Northampton. I am not sure what to say to most of it (at least in terms of this thread); the only question I can answer is:

Do mental patients have buddha nature?

MU again. MU means NO!

IMHO, buddha nature is, while not created, still inherent in all of us.

I think that it was the Buddha's wisdom to realize that a moral life can only be had by banishing fantasies about inherent purity of any sort; IMNSHO this is the crux of both the logical force *and* the ethical imperative of the dharma.

Jamie

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 16:43:17 -0600
From: "Stephen Evans" tbm@usa.net
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

But I do agree with Ken O'Neill that, in every Buddhist tradition, recognizing Buddha nature is essential. So please allow me to smuggle some in, as an argument for human rights.

No it's not & smuggling it in, in this capacity, I'm afraid just confuses the issue.

Otherr concerns, esp. the "mentally ill" -- important, difficult issues here. To me the problem is that our society is ridiculously narrow with functional "slots" only for a narrow range of personalities. Still it can be a dangerous situation (I've grappled with this personally) and if any area points out that Human rights based on invariant principles is inadequate, this does. Each person & situation is unique...

Thanks for raising the issue.

Santipala

Date: Sun, 08 Oct 1995 23:48:31 +0000
From: "Christopher Fynn" cfynn@sahaja.demon.co.uk
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

Tathagatagarbha embraces and permeates all beings.
-Samadhirajasutra

Just as butter exists permeating milk, so does Tathagatagarbha permeate all beings.
-Mahaparinirvanasutra

All sentient beings are constantly endowed with Buddha-nature.
-Uttaratantra

Since The Buddha is essentially Dharmakaya and Dharmakaya Sunyata and since this Sunyata permeates all beings, the latter are endowed with Buddha-nature.
-Gampopa

Beings are endowed with Buddha-nature since in the Tathata of Buddhas and of sentient beings there is no differentiation into good or bad, great or small, high or low.
-Gampopa

As silver is found in and may be refined from its ore, sesame oil pressed from its seed and butter churned from milk, so in all beings may Buddhahood become a reality.
-Gampopa

(All quoted from Gampopa's "Jewel Ornament of Liberation" trans. H V Guenther )

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 11:55:48 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: smuggled essence

'Buddha nature', per se, is a concept found only in Mahaayaana Buddhism; even here, there are differences over what status to attribute to it: as at the ultimate or non-ultimate level of discourse. However, it seems that all Mahaayaana schools agree that the Buddha nature -in some sense- exists. Theravaada, while not talking of the 'Buddha nature', agrees that all are capable of enlightenment/awakening (as an //Arahat//, if not a perfectly and completely awakened one), and that this potential is repersented by the 'brightly shining' (Pali //pabhassara//, sanskrit //pravbhaasvara//) nature of mind. Can't we all simply agree on the statement that all beings are capable of awakening, and that human existence offers the best opportu ity for actualising this potential?

Peter Harvey

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 14:37:01 +0200
From: "M Clasquin" CLASQM@alpha.unisa.ac.za
Subject: smuggled essence -Reply

Date: Mon, 09 Oct 1995 19:14:36 -0400
From: "M. Jinavamsa" Jinavamsa@aol.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence in Massachusetts

Dear Sally & others,
Would you know, then, of LAMP (Legal Assistance to Mental Patients, I think is what that stood for), Bob Roth (its founder, later worked in NYC), or for that matter, the book on the issues that you raise called Mass Murderers in White Coats, by Lenny Lapon? or, given where you are, the Psychiatric Genocide Research Institute (once in Spingfield Massachusetts)??

I've lost track on Bob (sorry to say) .... in peace,
Jinavamsa

Date: Tue, 10 Oct 1995 07:05:19 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence in Massachusetts

I'm sorry to say that I have not heard of LAMP. The Psychiatric Genocide Research Institute is the rubric under which Lenny Lapon wrote "Mass Murderers in White Coats." I do know Lenny, and have his book.

Steven Schwartz, at the Center for Public Representation here in Northampton, was the principle player in closing down Northampton State Hospital. This agency is, I think, a branch of PAIMI (Protection and Advocacy for Individuals with Mental Illness). PAIMI (formally P & A) is the federal program initiated by then-senator Lowell Weicker in 1986.

Sally Clay
Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:11:28 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

Well . . . you've got me there. I have studied the Dharma in the Tibetan tradition, so I really don't know much about koans, and I don't know what MU means. But I do agree with Ken O'Neill that, in every Buddhist tradition, recognizing Buddha nature is essential. So please allow me to smuggle some in, as an argument for human rights.

Since I do not practice zen, I can give you a straight answer to my koan. You, Jamie Hubbard, have buddha nature. How do I know this? I know this because I know that I have buddha nature. I have not yet (in this current discussion) recognized your buddha nature because I have not been able to cut through your academic nihilism.

There's a philosophical problem here. Using "have" does not make good buddhadharma sense. Better one say "you are buddhanatur." In the gnosis of buddhadharma one, after all, comes to know who they really are!!! not what they really have.

"We as consumer/survivors were not consulted as to what crisis services, hospital stays, crisis respite, day hospitals would look like. We don't know if the new acute services are going to be good or user friendly."

Some questions for you are: Should mental patients be consulted on such matters? Should mental patients be allowed the same consideration as medical patients--considerations such as informed consent for treatment? Should mental patients be given the same protections as criminals--protections under the law, such as due process? Should these considerations be guaranteed under the law, or are we to rely on the benevolence of bureaucrats who in this country created monstrosities such as Northampton State Hospital-- and who in Nazi Germany used mental patients and other "useless eaters" as templates for genocide?

Osmond Humphreys in the early 1950s had a novel approach to such concerns. In those days, pukey institutional green was the color of interior design for mental institution walls. With a proposed new ward up for architectural planning, he walked the designing architect through a current ward - an hour or two after administering via intermuscular inject several hundred micrograms of Sandoz brand lysergic acid dimethylamide (lsd). The architect develop a sensitivity for habitation based on altered state learning. The only problem I can see in clients voicing opinions and needs is that of "will they be heard, will they be understood, will they be accepted" by decision makers. Aside from bigotted listeners, we have the immense problem of unenlightened communication in hearings, decision making, etc.

Is it dharmicly correct to regard the consideration of consent and the protection of legal process as rights? Can one believe that all citizens of Massachusetts are entitled to be treated with equal respect and dignity? Are mental patients citizens? Are women citizens? Are African Americans human beings? Do mental patients have buddha nature?

Government by the consent of the governed rests on the principle that all people are created equal. As a woman, I am suspicious of that principle when it refers only to white men. As a Buddhist, I have reservations about the "created" part. But, as a manic-depressive who attempts to practice equanimity, I understand the equal part very well. IMHO, buddha nature is, while not created, still inherent in all of us.

I'd be particularly careful here. The word Buddhism and the dominant paradigm of interpretation is an artifact of white European and American males of the Victorian era.

Gassho gracias amigos:

Ken O'Neill

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:11:50 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

For example, in explicating the Buddha-nature Treatise, Sally King has written, "In sum, as presented in the BNT, the person (human being) in the deluded existential mode is not a person as we ordinarily use the term in the popular Western sense. There is no real historicality or individuality accruing to the person and precious little freedom. What we consider to be the basis of individual personhood is written off as unreal. What is real is the universal sameness of Buddha nature; in this sameness, individual personhood, as we ordinarily use the term, cannot be found. Thus, before `conversion' and while in the existential mode of delusion, a person is not a person." After enlightenment, however, "history and individuality, which were lacking in the deluded existential mode, enter the constitution of the person. . . The particular behaviors, mannerisms, and even the personality of the person now possess reality and value." Sally King, "Buddha nature and the concept of person" in Philosophy East and West, vol. 39, no. 2 (April, 1989), p. 164 [cf. her book pp. 146- 147]. In this reading, as true to the tradition as to the cross-cultural philosophy of Professor King, of what concern is the *unreal* behavior, mannerisms, and personality of the deluded *non*-person? This doctrinal attitude has recently been singled out by Professor Hakamaya in several articles as the basis for institutional and social discrimination and racism. See, for example, "Thoughts on the Intellectual Background of Discrimination" (Sabetsu Jish o Umidashita Shis teki Haikei ni Kansuru Shikenm1) in Komazawa Daigaku Bukkygakubu Kenkyuu Kiyoo, no. 44 (Showa 61). [from _Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota_, Reno: Buddhist Books International, 1990, pp. 76-77.]

Good point. In fact, excellent. The Shin tradition is no stranger to problems resulting from claims of awakening as rationales for antinomian behavior. As you may know, Rennyo's inscription to Tannisho as a potentially dangerous book in the wrong hands accounts for its suppression down to the beginnings of this century. Dobbins' Jodoshinshu talks of the problem under the rubric of "licensed evil."

On the other side of the coin, I feel we must be very careful in attempts to impose "human rights" on buddhadharma rather than discovering how and where human rights fits in a buddhadharma outlook and soteriological discussion.

Gassho,

Ken

Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 20:11:57 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

MU again. MU means NO!

May I suggest MU means NOT - a hearty NOT to Yes and/or NO.

IMHO, buddha nature is, while not created, still inherent in all of us.

I think that it was the Buddha's wisdom to realize that a moral life can only be had by banishing fantasies about inherent purity of any sort; IMNSHO this is the crux of both the logical force *and* the ethical imperative of the dharma.

Jamie has said it all with an economy of words. A person of Ikkyu's zen no doubt!

Ken O'Neill

Date: Fri, 13 Oct 1995 15:47:27 -0400
From: "Sally Clay" SallyClay@aol.com
Subject: Re: smuggled essence

Since I do not practice zen, I can give you a straight answer to my koan. You, Jamie Hubbard, have buddha nature. How do I know this? I know this because I know that I have buddha nature. I have not yet (in this current discussion) recognized your buddha nature because I have not been able to cut through your academic nihilism.

There's a philosophical problem here. Using "have" does not make good buddhadharma sense. Better one say "you are buddhanatur." In the gnosis of buddhadharma one, after all, comes to know who they really are!!! not what they really have.

I stand corrected. You, Ken O'Neill, are buddhanatur.

The architect develop a sensitivity for habitation based on altered state learning. The only problem I can see in clients voicing opinions and needs is that of "will they be heard, will they be understood, will they be accepted" by decision makers. Aside from bigotted listeners, we have the immense problem of unenlightened communication in hearings, decision making, etc.

Alas, this is only too true.

But, as a manic-depressive who attempts to practice equanimity, I understand the equal part very well. IMHO, buddha nature is, while not created, still inherent in all of us. I'd be particularly careful here. The word Buddhism and the dominant paradigm of interpretation is an artifact of white European and American males of the Victorian era.

I am not a Buddhist. I am a recovering Episcopalian practicing the buddhadharma.

"We will convince them that they can never be free because they are weak, vicious, worthless and rebellious....In the end they will lay their freedom at our feet and say we don't mind being your slaves as long as you feed us." -- Dostoevsky, "The Grand Inquisitor"

Very truly yours,

Sally Clay
Zangmo Blue Thundercloud

Social contract

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:11:00 -0700
From: "HARVEY Peter" OS0PHR@sisstaff1.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Social contract

Several people, eg. Junger pp.29-30 have attacked the notion of society as being based on a social contract between individuals, saying that it is in tension with Buddhism. I have pointed to the //Agga~n~na Sutta// as evidencing a possible Buddhist social contract theory of government. On reflection, what may clear up this difference is the following distinction:

i) The Hobbesian social contract is seen as between selfish individuals seeking to minimise the bad results of their self-seeking., It is moreover, seen as the basis of both society and government (entialing the problem that it itself presupposes the social contract of truth telling).

ii) The Buddhist social contract is seen as being between basically moral individuals, who wish to arrest the decline of the natural moral-social order by agreeing to instate a ruler to protect this. This is a social contract theory of government, but not of society.

Given that 'human rights' abuses are generally by governments against their subjects, such acts can be seen to break the contract which is the basis of government legitimacy.

What, though, of abuses against ethnic minorities that are already unwilling subjects of a state (where the social contract has broken down or never existed in the first place), or or belong to other (or no) states? Here, I guess, one must say that a ruler -any ruler- has the job of ensuring the integrity of the moral-social order: that his/her 'contract', while notionally with the particular group of people who acquiesce in or support his rule, is actually with the whole of humanity, or, one might say, with the moral norms of Dhamma.

Peter Harvey

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 23:33:26 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Social contract

Given that 'human rights' abuses are generally by governments against their subjects, such acts can be seen to break the contract which is the basis of government legitimacy.

This argument seems to assume some sort of special "unconditioned" status to government within the social realm. Governments are simply actors on the social scene, conditioned by and conditioning other actors. I can see no generalized meaning to this notion of "legitimacy."

A government may rise by contract, but it is just as likely to rise by other causes. A contract is normative, not necessarily descriptive.

What, though, of abuses against ethnic minorities that are already unwilling subjects of a state (where the social contract has broken down or never existed in the first place), or or belong to other (or no) states? Here, I guess, one must say that a ruler -any ruler- has the job of ensuring the integrity of the moral-social order: that his/her 'contract', while notionally with the particular group of people who acquiesce in or support his rule, is actually with the whole of humanity, or, one might say, with the moral norms of Dhamma.

It seems to me that a ruler has the job of maintaining the social being of which the ruler is a member -- this is not necessarily the same being as the state being ruled.

It seems to me that the entire issue of human rights has arisen from the difference between the society of the rulers and the society of the ruled. If the ruler is a member of the same being as the ruled then the need to specify protections for the ruled vanishes. Of course, getting a complete identification of rulers and ruled might be a bit difficult.

Social entities sentient

Date: Fri, 06 Oct 1995 18:30:37 -0600
From: "Stephen Evans" tbm@usa.net
Subject: Social entities sentient

Are social beings sensient? First we need a good def'n of sencient. I think I could make a case for this from an Abhidhamma perspective but I don't think this is a particularly usefull idea, and it would be pretty speculative & perhaps sophestry, and would remain controversial. Ditto for the notion of social karma. Maybe, but not convincing. If society is bad will it be reborn as a dog? Is the new Russia my dead cat?

Santipala

Date: Sat, 07 Oct 1995 15:54:55 -0400
From: "williams" williams@tiac.net
Subject: Re: Social entities sentient

Then perhaps you should expand your view beyond the Buddhist perspective. The viewing of social units as beings is becoming fairly standard in scientific circles, and this notion is beginning to flow into common usage.

These beings exist, and the world is beginning to recognixe they exist. Where do you think the notion of human rights comes from anyway? Buddhism has 2500 years of thought which can be used to bring the nature of these beings to light, but not by turning inward. As for the question of these social beings being sentient, that is a question they can only answer for themselves and to themselves -- the question and its' answer is not up to the constituents of the beings.

I don't happen to view karma the same way as you. Societies flow from mind, and to mind they return.

Sphere

Soraj Hongladarom's clarification

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 14:06:44 +0100
From: "peter.harvey" os0pha@orac.sunderland.ac.uk
Subject: Soraj Hongladarom's clarification

I'm not sure that the Buddha's parable of the arrow and the simile of the many leaves in the forest neceassarily mean that talk on the nature of human rights is a side-track from the Buddhist path. The above parable and simile were applied, specifically, to the asking the ten undetermined questions (is the world eternal?, or not? etc). In contrast, the Buddha said he focussed on whatever would help understand and overcome //dukkha//. Part of the path to overcoming //dukkha// is //siila//, and talk of human rights is surely consonant with this, even though not a traditional phrase for Buddhists.

The fact that Buddhism has thrived under a variety of modes of government need not show that it has not cared about human rights- only that a list of fundamental human rights drawn up by Buddhists might not insist on including the right to having democratic rule. One //could// see democracy as quite a godd way, but not necessarily the only way, of helping to protect truly fundamental right. That it, democratic rights might be seen as //instrumental// rather than fundamental.

Peter Harvey

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 15:24:02 +0700
From: "Soraj Hongladarom" soraj@chulkn.car.chula.ac.th
Subject: Re: Soraj Hongladarom's clarification

A short note on this. If anything, human rights seem to be drawn up just for the purpose of *protecting* individuals from abuse of power by those having authority or power. Some mechanism has to be in place for such protection to be realized, e.g., court of law having jurisdiction over all parties involved in the conflict. All parties need to respect the court and the law; otherwise the system just collapses. OK, one can argue that rights are inherent in human nature, but that seems to me rationalizations, and in order for such talks to have bite, actual institutions have to be in place. However, in an autocratic regime, the autocrat himself is both the wielder of state power and the chief judge of the land. It is as if he is the President, the Congress and the Supreme Court rolled into one. So how could the protection of individuals be effective in such a regime? Buddhists might draw up a list of human rights, but without effective rule of law how could the list be something other than words or a piece of paper? The most they seem to be able to do is to try to 'teach' the autocrat the value of compassion, and the like, and this has been the Buddhist strategy in Asian Buddhists states for as long as there is Buddhism. But the state whose autocrat remains on the path of compassion and selflessness does not seem to possess any institutionalized protection of individuals the concept of human rights requires.

When I said that Buddhism does not care for any particular type of government, so long as it remains righteous, I meant that Buddhism, in the Theravaada tradition at least, tries not to involve itself too much in politics; that is, it does not compete for power with all the feuding parties in a state. Its purpose is the opposite--to turn away from the hurly burly of mundate life and seeks individual perfection. What it does for the outside community is to teach, and only that. (Which by no means implies that by teaching it does not itself wield another kind of "power," i.e., moral power, the source of legitimacy, etc.)

Soraj Hongladarom
Department of Philosophy
Chulalongkorn University
Thailand

Splicing Traditions

Date: Wed, 04 Oct 1995 12:26:22 -0600
From: "Charles Strain" cstrain@wppost.depaul.edu
Subject: Splicing Traditions

I am having difficulty keeping up with the many thoughtful clarifications that are being made about the definition of human rights and about the relationship of the concept to Buddhism. So, at the risk of being redundant let me add four contributions.

1. Human rights language like other forms of moral discourse is a mixed discourse. A number of commentators, notably Steve Jamar, have argued against viewing rights narrowly as so-called negative rights or civil liberties. Instead Jamar's interventions have shown that a human rights tradition has been constituted by multiple sources which have contributed decidedly different perspectives on just what are human rights. The U.N. declaration represents an amalgamation of multiple perspectives. So, I would refer to human rights language as representing a complex tradition rather than a self-contained discourse with rigorous standards of coherence.

2. Splicing Traditions. If this first distinction is helpful, I would suggest further that when any tradition encounters another tradition full compatibility is not something one can hope for. Rather traditions can be spliced. In this process Catholics or Buddhists, for example, will necessarily criticize some elements of the human rights tradition, appropriate others, and modify key elements. The resulting combination offers the possibility of pushing the other tradition (in this case the human rights tradition) in some new directions. I look forward, for example to how Buddhist notions of interdependence and "interbeing" will enable the human rights tradition itself to evolve. As something of an outsider to the debates of this conference, I am a bit disappointed that the discussion, mainly, has focused upon whether or not Buddhists can appropriate this other tradition and not upon the more challenging issue of how Buddhists distinctively (perhaps in league with other religious traditions) might push the human rights tradition to a new stage of its evolution.

3. Defining Human Rights. With these distinctions in mind I would suggest that there is an evolving _field_ of human rights and we can clarify the boundaries of this field with _three_ conceptual distinctions. a) Rights can be thought of as immunities and as supports. (I prefer this language to the more frequent usage of "negative" and "positive" rights. b) Rights can be thought of as applying to the maintenance of or the actualization of "person- in-community," in David Hollenbach's apt phrase.

Think of these two distinctions as creating two intersecting axes with four quadrants defining the field. So, we have the right not to be tortured as an immunity right refering to the maintenance of p in c. Freedom of religion would be an immunity right pertaining to the actualization of p in c. Basic rights to food, shelter etc. would be a claim to support the maintenance of p in c. While the right to an education would be a claim to support the actualization of p in c.

c) I made another distinction, following David Hollenbach, in my paper. Rights are intrinsic or instrumental. The former are in some sense "absolute" the latter are historically relative. The right to education would be an intrinsic right; the right to, say, educational vouchers would be an instrumental right applicable to a particular social circumstance.

4. Finally, it is obvious that in this expanded understanding rights are more than claims upon governments. Governments will not in all cases be the social institutions which are obligated to meet right claims. Here too we break with defining rights in excluvisely legalistic terms. There is a pragmatic reason lurking behind this last distinction. As I argued in my paper, I am convinced that the agents for expanding and securing rights are not now and will not be primarily governments. The latter will be pushed and dragged into a more just future if they move at all. They will respond to the efforts of NGO's primarily out of utilitarian considerations. So, I would ask my Buddhist colleagues, as I did in my paper, to consider how we build bridges to work together toward shared ends.

None of these comments changes my and many others' convictions that rights language alone insufficiently represents the full moral implications of any of our religious traditions.

Charles R. Strain
DePaul University

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 13:00:25 -0400
From: "Damien Keown" 100012.3212@compuserve.com
Subject: Splicing Traditions

As something of an outsider to the debates of this conference, I am a bit disappointed that the discussion, mainly, has focused upon whether or not Buddhists can appropriate this other tradition and not upon the more challenging issue of how Buddhists distinctively (perhaps in league with other religious traditions) might push the human rights tradition to a new stage of its evolution.

I share this concern and would like to see the debate move forwards in this direction. However, I think Buddhism is not really in a position to offer very much in this connection just yet, as it is still struggling to digest the concept of human rights rather than being able to suggest new ways it might evolve.

In my position paper I outlined four questions:

1) Is the concept of "rights" appropriate in a Buddhist context?
2) Even if Buddhism CAN invoke the language of rights, should it do so?
3) How is a doctrine of human rights to be grounded in Buddhist doctrine?
4) What is the appropriate Buddhist response in the face of human rights abuses?

The first two questions seem to have been aired fairly thoroughly, and it seems, at least, that the main positions are out in the open. I think that is very useful, and perhaps as much as can be hoped for in terms of this conference. The third question has been touched upon, but not explored in detail. As this seems to be the source from which a distinctive Buddhist contribution to the human rights tradition must come, perhaps to conclude the first week of the conference it might be appropriate to give some attention to this issue. (The final question 4) can be discussed next week.)

Distinctive Buddhist approach to human rights might be formulated in terms of the doctrine of dependent-origination or by reference to compassion. Would anyone like to speak in favour of either of these?

Damien Keown

Date: Thu, 05 Oct 1995 21:28:50 -0700
From: "Ken O'Neill" koneill@AZStarNet.com
Subject: Re: Splicing Traditions

I agree with the tone of your post. We of the West have learned to look on buddhisms through the rear view mirror; too often, our Asian buddhist leadership has led us to such outlooks. We either look for dividing lines (Tibetan v Japanese, for example) or sweeping generalizations (Buddhist compassion means xyz), all formulated in terms of what buddhism was. Have you noticed that throughout these postings Nishitani's A Study of the Good, along with others of the Kyoto School movement, haven't been referred to; in my opinion, that's sad because the Kyoto School has been the leading edge of twentieth century buddhadharma. The notions of rights is exactly the kind of issue the Kyoto School would relish doing high level synthesis with, thereby creating A next step in buddhist development.

In practice, engi (dependent origination) is a technique for deconstructing one's habitual experience of reality. I'm frankly at a loss to guess how to apply it.

Karuna, on the other hand, seems a natural meeting place for interreligious dialogue and development of a global spiritual outlook on rights. An excellent one at that. Why? You just can't get preachy nor sanctimonious with buddhist compassion (excepting some japanese buddhist fundamentalist movements). The art of bodhisattva/persons of awakening living depends on this one sole awakening - the by seeing through the social illusion, compassion may natural emerge. In that regard, an emergent global spiritual sense can transcend imposed notions of doing-good in favor of a natural heart of life affirming values (karuna). And practical methods supporting its emergence.

That symptom of modernity and post-industrialism we know as existential despair, the dukha of Western civilization comes close to Buddhist emptiness. Close. But rooted in the "meaning and guilt" syndrome of Western European religiousity, existential emptiness in an absurd world (God is dead and dethroned, the world meaningless, and humans masses of protoplasm devoid of spirit) plunges one into real time despair and alienation. No small wonder the number one ailment of Americans as reported in poll after poll is loneliness. We don't know how to savor emptiness, much less how to discover the roots of intensely passionate compassion in the relief of emptiness.

My point, and that of buddhadharma as I understand it, is that compassion awa