"As if it should be necessary either to offend or to be offended"

And thus the desire of defending liberty caused each to prevail [raise itself] in proportion as they oppressed the other. And the course of such incidents is, that while men sought not to fear, they begun to make others fear, and that injury which they ward off from themselves, they inflict on another, as if it should be necessary either to offend or to be offended.

Niccolò Machiavelli.[1]

Machiavelli identified this problem in the sixteenth century. His solution was that states ought to limit the power of individuals. As we will see the Buddha looked at this same problem very differently.

I'm writing these words in the middle of a UK election campaign which is characterised by character assassination attempts by members of all three parties on each other. Media pundits happily join in this schadenfreude-fest. It's not enough to shine, one has to tarnish one's opponents. Of course our elections are a zero-sum game, i.e. win-lose is the only possible solution (hung parliaments not withstanding). During the second live leader's debate I watched the live blog comments on The Times website for a while. It was almost as if the comments were being randomly generated. "Love politician X; hate him. He makes sense; he doesn't make sense. He is sincere, he is insincere." People watching the same debate, and hearing the same speeches, were coming out with radically polarised views - and given that The Times is famously right-wing the reader/viewer comments were surprisingly evenly spread across the spectrum of possible reactions. In effect the comments were incoherent and irrational. And this is how we choose our government! (One can only hope that Winston Church was right and this is less worse than other forms).

Note that Machiavelli's observation is of people concerned with "defending liberty". We so often make war for peace, don't we? The US and UK take out Saddam Hussein (unerringly referred to by politicians and the media by his first name 'Saddam' which I think reflects a kind of ongoing ritual humiliation and infantilisation) because his of (fictitious, as it turns out) weapons of mass destruction and failure to abide by UN resolutions made him a danger to world peace (meanwhile other states with nuclear weapons have become untouchable!). In our long history of defending liberty our governments have invaded countries, toppled legitimate governments and installed puppet dictators whenever it suited them and they thought they could get away with it; and ignored atrocities and injustices when that suits them; and more recently they have even knowingly tortured prisoners. Having read about history of interference by UK/USA governments in Iran recently I found myself sympathising with their pursuit of the one weapon that they see as preventing them being at the mercy of the cynical West ever again! [2] Isn't it funny that the media never seek to contextualise the hostility of Iran towards the west by pointing out why the Iranians legitimately distrust our governments?

Machiavelli observed "that injury which they ward off from themselves, they inflict on another, as if it should be necessary either to offend or to be offended". "AS IF IT SHOULD BE NECESSARY" Why do we think like this? I've pondered this question over many years. Scholarly debates tend to reduce this question to one of "nurture or nature". I suspect that something in our make-up as humans (especially as humans living the way we do - see Why do we Suffer?) makes us tend towards a zero-sum approach. On the other hand, whatever our make-up it is clear that conditioning plays a part in the person we become. When all of our role models behave a certain way we are apt to ape them. When they say one thing and do another we learn not to trust them (incidentally this theme is addressed brilliantly in the BBC TV sit-com Outnumbered).

So. Some combination of nature and nurture instils in us the idea that life is a zero-sum game. Or at least that in defence of ourselves it is permissible to injure another. One of the great ironies of our age is that the USA puts "in God we trust" on their money when they patently do not trust in God, but are constantly second guessing him and meting out what they think is his will (to the point where George Bush appeared to say that God spoke directly to him). So as Buddhists how can we operate in this kind of world? Human nature/nurture being what it is, nothing much has changed since the Buddha's day and he did leave some comments behind to contemplate. Compare for instance Machiavelli to this verse from the Dhammapada (v.201):

jayaṃ veraṃ pasavati dukkhaṃ seti parājito
upasanto sukhaṃ seti hitvā jaya-parājayam

Conquering gives rise to hatred, the defeated dwells in misery;
Abandoning victory and defeat, the peace-lover dwells in bliss.

The Buddha sees the same behaviour around him, but rather than seeking to limit individual power the Buddha's radical solution to the zero-sum game is simply not playing the game of conquest and defeat at all. I would venture that few of us give serious consideration to not playing. Most Buddhists, including me, flirt with it, or take it on partially. This is not intended as a criticism - the Buddha lived a lifestyle almost unimaginably different from anything we see around us now - having no family ties, no home, no possessions, no safety net other than what his good reputation provided (and we need to be clear that the Buddha and his followers were a minority and not universally admired despite what the Buddhist texts tell us). We stay in the game, I think, because we see not playing as a kind of loss, or letting other people win. As I've said before [Martyrs Maketh the Religion] being homeless, for instance, is seen as a very low fate indeed.

If we take Nietzsche's metaphor of man being a tightrope stretched between animal and übermensch (over-man) then, stretching the metaphor, most of us don't believe we can operate without a safety net. Which brings to mind the recent movie "Man on a Wire" - it's possible to operate without a safety net only with dedication, excellent preparation, intense self-awareness and focus. Which is not far from what the Buddha said about life.

It's interesting to note the declining interest in our Order for the more radical forms of living and working arrangements pursued in the 70's and 80's; and the rise of having families, developing careers and saving for pensions. I suspect that playing the win-lose game is a bit like casino gambling. The house always wins. By playing the game at all, one tends to lose to the establishment.

So if we play this game we generate hatred which will eventually come back to bite us. We cause other people to live in misery, or we ourselves live in misery. As I've already observed there is no shortage of food in the world - it's just that some of us are greedy! The Buddha's solution is to go beyond just saying it isn't necessary. He calls 'time' on the game itself. He simply does not play any more. His advice was to not get entangled in the world, in families, in careers, in politics. Focus on what's important (Dhp 183):

Sabbapāpassa akaranaṃ kusalassa upasampadā
sacitta-pariyodapanaṃ etaṃ buddhānaṃ sāsaṇaṃ

not doing any evil, doing the right thing
purifying your own mind, this is the edict of the Buddhas.

1. Niccolò Machiavelli. The Discourses on the first Ten (Books) of Titus Livius. 1.46. www.intratext.com.
2. See for example: Wheen, Francis. How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World: A Short History of Modern Delusions. HarperPerennial, 2004.

image: Machiavelli, detail of an oil painting by Santi di Tito; in the Palazzo Vecchio, Florence Alinari.

What is Buddhism?

Mahāpajāpatī (right) assists at the birth of the Buddha, seen emerging from his mothers side. Gandhāra sculpture.

This post is my response to something posted on Smiling Buddha Cabaret, which has become one of my favourite Buddhist blogs since I stumbled on it late last year. In "an open letter to the owner of Buddhism", NellaLou seeks permission to be the kind of Buddhist she wants to be, since it seems she has been criticised by other Buddhists about it (reading between the lines). The internet world is full of well-read censorious one-track fundamentalists who seem more interested in what Buddhism is not, and like nothing better to denounce ideas and attitudes as not Buddhism, and those putting forward these ideas as not Buddhist. It has always struck me as a tedious thing to do. Having fallen foul of these twits I'm in sympathy with NellaLou and thought I'd contribute to the cause in my own way.

Once when the Buddha was living in the gabled hall in the large grove outside Vaiśālī his maternal aunt and foster mother Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī came to visit him. [1] She was about to set off on a solitary retreat and asked the Buddha for something pithy to reflect on. The Buddha gave her eight pairs of antonyms which he told her define what the Dhamma is and is not. These were:

1. sarāga/virāga - passion/dispassion
2. saṃyoga/visaṃyoga - attachment/detachment
3. ācaya/apacaya - accumulation/divestment
4. mahicchatā/appicchatā - ambition/satisfaction
5. asantuṭṭhi/santuṭṭhi - discontentment/contentment
6. saṇgaṇika/paviveka - society/solitude
7. kosajja/vīriyārambha - idleness/invigoration
8. dubbharatā/subbharatā - burdensomeness/helpfulness

Then he said. Gotamī: if a teaching causes you to move towards (saṃvattati; lit 'converges') the former then you can be sure that this is not the teaching, not the discipline, not the instruction of the instructor; but if the teaching causes you to move towards the latter then you can be confident that this is the teaching, it is the discipline, it is the instruction of the instructor.

While I do understand the nature of irony, allow me to give a slightly earnest answer to NellaLou. I think this kind of text shows that as well as trying to pin things down, there is a trend in Buddhism which holds the doctrines and practices loosely. Here we have the Buddha saying basically "anything that works is the Dharma". I would qualify 'works' here with the caveat that it has to definitely lead to the positive side of the equations given.

We could also see the fundamentalist cant in the light of the obvious borrowings throughout the history of Buddhism - from Vedism, from Jainism, from Hinduism, from Śaivism, from Taoism, from Shamanism, etc. We have historically been able to reform, innovate and incorporate because conservatives and fundamentalists have not always held sway. However I think it's easy to overstate the influence of online fundamentalists - I find the real Buddhists and Buddhologists I meet tend to be friendly and open. It's probably worth pointing out that our central doctrine in Buddhism is that EVERYTHING CHANGES! I think conservatives and fundamentalists lose sight of this, and perhaps even fear change.

Now although there are eight terms a number of them are synonyms - it can be quite difficult to see whether an entirely different concept is intended, or if a synonym is being used for reinforcement (a very common Pāli rhetorical strategy). Although I've gone for a single word in each case, it should not be assumed that the English precisely conveys the Pāli - far from it. Take the word rāga in sarāga/virāga 'with/without passion'. What's intended here is something like 'uncontrollable excitement'. It is not passion in the contemporary sense of 'positive enthusiasm' for something, but in the archaic sense of a strong emotion or event which overtakes us against our will - the Passion of Christ refers to his torture and horrible death on the cross for instance; and the passion of various saints refers to their martyrdom. So rāga is passion in this negative sense.

The pairs saṃyoga/visaṃyoga and saṇgaṇikā/paviveka are related: they value independence and individuality over dependence and groups. Following Sangharakshita we tend to use this word 'group' pejoratively in the Triratna Buddhist Order - it represents the lower evolution, the herd, the mob, the submerging of the individual will rather than it's sublimation. "The group is always wrong"... "the couple is a group of two" etc. The Buddha certainly valued individuality and emancipation from the herd mentality. He often encouraged his followers to leave behind family, status, career and social groups and to pursue enlightenment alone in the wilderness. There is only misery in those kinds of attachments (cf From the beloved). We can of course take this too far because the spiritual community can come together on a different basis, which I discussed in my post on the Russian term sobornost.

Similarly there are some pairs dealing with our hedonic response to sense data: mahicchatā/appicchatā; asantuṭṭhi/santuṭṭhi. The first two revolve around the word iccha 'wish, desire' as an abstract noun icchatā 'wishfulness'. The negative side has much (mahā) of this, while the positive has little (appa). Similarly the second pair revolve around the word tuṭṭha 'pleased, content'. The negative is dissatisfaction, the positive is satisfaction - both appicchatā and santuṭṭhi could be rendered as 'contentment'.

Lastly we have kosajja/vīriyārambha and dubbharatā/subbharatā. These relate to how we contribute to society. The pair of idleness (kosajja) or invigoration (vīriya-ārambha) is fairly obvious. The last pair are more difficult. The base is bharatā from the root √bhṛ 'to bear' (and related to English words ending in -fer/-pher e.g. aquifer 'water bearer'; Lucifer 'light bearer'). The word is an abstract noun that only seems to occur in these two compounds. In this context it refers to being easy (su) or difficult (du) to support, probably with reference to bhikkhus who may require little or much from their supporters. In The Life of the Buddha Ñāṇamoli renders the pair as 'luxury' and 'frugality', [2] while Thanissaro opts for 'burdensome/unburdensome'. [3] I've gone for helpful as the opposite of burdensome because it coveys an active rather than a passive value: why stop at just not being a burden and when one can do something helpful? One who is idle is a burden so these terms are to some extent synonymous.

A small point of interest about satthusāsana which I have rendered as 'the instruction of the instructor'. Both parts of the compound (satthu and sāsana) derive from √śās which has a range of senses from 'chastise, punish'; through 'control, rule, order, command'; to the more benign 'instruct, teach'. From it we also get the word śāstra 'a text for instruction' (as distinct from śruti 'what is heard, a sacred text'). So we could have rendered it 'the command of the commander', or the 'teaching of the teacher'. In the case of Aśoka's edicts (i.e. sāsanā) we might go for 'the dictates of the dictator'.

This is a strange text in some ways. It is unusual that there is no response to the teaching from Mahāpajāpatī. We would expect her to have something to say, and it would not be unusual for her to disappear for a week or two and come back and report that she had 'done what had to be done' (i.e. become an arahant), though she does later become an arahant. Indeed this is a strange meditation practice and it feels like we're missing some important piece of the story. Mahāpajāpatī asks for something concise that she might dwell on alone, secluded, vigilant, ardent and resolute (ekā vūpakaṭṭhā appamattā ātāpinī pahitattā vihareyyaṃ). And the Buddha responds in a very abstract way. It's hard to see this would be helpful unless she had a problem of being too narrow in defining the Dharma, or was struggling to interpret conflicting interpretations (and as NellaLou has pointed out these issues are endemic in Buddhism). According to the Dictionary of Pāli Names this story occurs after her ordination (and the creation of the bhikkhunī saṅgha) when she is already a stream-entrant (sotāpanna).

What ever we make of the context, the attitude displayed in the sutta is a useful antidote to narrowness, conservatism and fundamentalism. 'Buddhism' is anything that genuinely leads to positive results as defined by the Buddha, i.e. anything that leads to: dispassion, detachment, divestment, satisfaction, contentment, solitude, invigoration, helpfulness. Of course we don't really need a text to tell us this, or to justify our practice to others if we feel we are genuinely practising, but I find it useful to show that even the conservative Theravādins preserved a tradition of openness and innovation.


Notes

1. I'm working from the Saṃkhitta Sutta, AN 8.53, PTS A iv.280. Pāli Text from www.tipitaka.org.
   
2. Ñāṇamoli. The Life of the Buddha. Buddhist Publication Society, 1984. p.107-108.
3. Access to Insight. Gotami Sutta.