Buddhism and Human Rights

Dr. Mattia is sitting to the left in a blue shirt. I am next to the very tall Russian underneath the "and". 

Yesterday I attended a seminar at Mahachula University on the topic of Buddhism and Human Rights. This is a subject of paramount importance to all Buddhists as we march further into this new age of modernity. Whether or not people agree with universal rights and Buddhism being compatible or not, this is a topic that needs to be discussed seriously. Many of my western readers who have not had an intimate relationship with orthodox Buddhism may find that former statement uncomfortable- Whether or not people agree with universal right and Buddhism being compatible or not. This is a crucial element of the conversation, human rights and Buddhism may not be consistent. Just brushing this possible dispute aside as nonsense is folly, a great folly; we need to examine this issue and we need to be prepared to intellectualize the relationship between the two. For me personally, this topic is very close to my heart. I teach Buddhism and Human Rights at my university, and I was surprised at how difficult it was to convey the real meaning of what rights is in relation to Buddhism. It also opened my eyes to how strongly the modern world attaches itself to this recent concept of universal equality, a concept that we did not begin to understand, if not outright create, until only a couple hundred years ago. It is as if many refuse to see that some cultures may not only be averse to the idea, but work much better under a different matrix of entitlement. 

Human rights in itself can be a difficult concept to explain, it is really quite abstract. Almost always, one points to the 30-point declaration by the United Nations to explain what they are exactly. This is a definition from the UN:

Human rights are rights inherent to all human beings, whatever our nationality, place of residence, sex, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, language, or any other status. We are all equally entitled to our human rights without discrimination. These rights are all interrelated, interdependent and indivisible.

This vague definition is then given 30 articles, found here: http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

Some main points from the United Nations United Declaration of Human Rights are as follows:

• All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.
• Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.
• No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
• No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
• Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
•  Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

Most everyone raised in Europe or a country with European roots, e.g. America or Australia, would be comfortable with this notion of rights. However, there is real contention when it is brought into the spectrum of Buddhism. Why is that? Some say that the UN Declaration of Human Rights is based in Christian thought. Some say it is too Eurocentric. Others will argue that the concept itself is flawed. These issues can not be ignored, and while some schools of Buddhism have embraced this notion of modern rights, such as Engaged Buddhism, others are less willing to bend to this modern ideal of universal equality.

There are many explanations for this, but first I would caution readers to understand that just because a culture may not recognize, or even understand, human rights, it does not necessarily mean they are abnormal or deficient in any way.

The Buddha does not appear to address anything like human rights directly in his teachings. He talks about duty, morality and uprightness of character in great detail, but seemingly not rights. This is an important distinction one should understand, duty is not human rights, and while some claim that they have a correlation, that correlation is debatable. Morality of action is not the same as rights. One having an ethical code to not kill is not a right, this is a moral duty. Another concept that seems to be confusing is that of equality. Equality does not mean similarity or sameness. Everyone having the quality of Anicca, or impermanence, is not equality in the sense of human rights, nor is everyone being infused with suffering, this is not what equality is referring to. Equality means that the entitlement to comfort and prosperity is equal amongst all humans, not that all humans share ontological qualities of existence. Again, I was surprised at how difficult it was to convey this exact meaning, which tells me just how much I have to learn on the subject.

Many scholars have addressed this perception that a distinct teaching on rights appears to be absent from the discourses of the Buddha.

Kenneth Inada states that:

Each individual is responsible for the actualization of an "extensive concern" for everything that lies in his or her path of experience. So, we may say that the sum total of the "extensive concerns" can be referred to as a mutually constituted existential realm, and it thereby becomes a fact that there will be mutual respect of fellow beings. It is on this basis that we can speak of the rights of individuals. These rights are actually extensions of human qualities such as security, liberty, and life.

This does not actually solve the problem for me, as it seems to still be focused on concern and duty. It appears to be saying that our respect for each other is the basis for human rights. This does not seem to follow what the UN says about universal rights being innate to all humans.

H.R. Perera states that: 

It is from the point of view of its goal that Buddhism evaluates all action. Hence, Buddhist thought is in accord with this and other Articles in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to the extent to which they facilitate the advancement of human beings towards the Buddhist goal.

This approach seems to also take duty as the main basis for human rights. If the duty and morality of Buddhism is the basis for human rights, how does one come to that conclusion? What are exactly these rights that duty gives us?

Damian Keown seems to have the best answer for this:

The apparent differences between the moral teachings of Buddhism and human rights charters is one of form rather than substance. Human rights can be extrapolated from Buddhist moral teachings in the manner described above using the logic of moral relationships to illumine what is due under Dharma. A direct translation of the first four precepts yields a right to life, a right not to have one's property stolen, a right to fidelity in marriage, and a right not to be lied to. Many other human rights, such as the rights to liberty and security can either be deduced from or are extant within the general corpus of Buddhist moral teachings. A right not to be held in slavery, for example, is implicit in the canonical prohibition on trade in living beings. These rights are the extrapolation of what is due under Dharma; they have not been "imported" into Buddhism but were implicitly present.

All above quotes are from: Are there Human Rights in Buddhism- Damian Keown
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma/humanrights.html


This is a wonderful argument in favor of Buddhism and human rights, which appears to solve the problem between duty and entitlement. If I, as a Buddhist, have the duty to not steal, then others have the right to property. If I, as a Buddhist, have the duty to not kill, then others have the right to life.

One problem I have with this argument though, is that it is inferring a modern concept into an ancient context, one that may not have been implied, or even understood, at the time of the Buddha. 

I heard a wonderful response to this at the Buddhism and Human Rights Seminar yesterday,

Dr. Mattia Salvini, a presenter at the seminar, spoke about the possibility of Buddhism having something better than human rights. Buddhism can focus on lessening the suffering of each individual when addressing concerns, not a human rights agenda.

I really appreciate this approach, because it is more human-centric on an individual level. Not basing the worth of a human on some foggy, absolute construct that grants humans universal rights from some objective force, but on the human itself. I think this fits in with the teachings of the Buddha much better than the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights. A perspective of the individual from the basis of the individual, not the individual filtered through a colander that bunches humanity into one homogenous entity.  

I would actually like to take that individual focus a step further and apply a sense of deontology to it, and instead of focusing on suffering, Buddhism would focus on the individual as an END, and never a MEANS. Something more centered around the will and awareness of the individual, and not that individuals suffering; a concentration on what the individual IS as a whole not what the individual FEELS. Just to be clear, this idea of mine is in its infancy and will require much more thought and research, but I feel that this approach  will be a definitive part of future work from me.

It is amazing what we can learn from each other. I owe Dr. Mattia a great debt for expressing a complex view of such a convoluted concept in such a clear and apprehendable way. 

Philosophy is Alive and Well

“Philosophy is dead.” 

These words were uttered by the renowned physicist Professor Stephen Hawking at Google’s Zeitgeist Conference held in 2011, ”Why are we here? Where do we come from? Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead, Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.” Dr. Hawking went on to say, ”Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.” He added  that new theories ”lead us to a new and very different picture of the universe and our place in it”.

I have known of this quote for some time now and shrugged it off along with other colleges of mine. It is hardly new to encounter  a science-minded person who thinks in such way, though they are usually not well versed in philosophy at all, which often leads me to wonder why they have opinions about it in the first place. It was a bit shocking to hear  Prof Hawking decree this absolute and final demise of a field I have devoted my life to, as he is very well educated and surely has had at least some training in philosophy, but I never gave it much thought beyond attributing it to over zealousness of the scientific framework. However, a colleague of mine posted an article with this quote to Facebook recently and I thought I should give a quick statement as not only a student of philosophy, but as a teacher. 

First and foremost, science is a philosophical discipline, this is not some great secret of hidden knowledge, science itself is philosophical. Philosophy is a very broad field of study that deals with existence, asking questions of what reality is and how we know of it. Science takes a particular stance at describing reality, one that deals with explaining interpretations and predicting actualities of existence through the collection of evidence, induction of causality, theory-construction, valid inference, hypothesis testing, and so forth. Science also deals with speculative reasoning in developing ideas to test for in the first place. The framework of this field is very much philosophical, taking empirical judgments and reasoning out a possible reality. That being said, many people feel that science has diverged completely from the realm of philosophy in that its theories can be tested and verified. We can take this stance for the sake of argument, science is not philosophy, though it is not a stance I agree with.

So, science, the field of explaining reality based on the induction of verified conclusions arrived at through testing hypotheses inferred from empirical judgments, is not the same as philosophy, the broad study of what reality is in itself and how we know of it. Even then, philosophy plays an intricate role in how we deal with science. Karl Popper has, in my opinion, the best way to verify scientific inquiries; that being a method wherein which constant attempts are made to falsify them. In this way, we should never think that we hold an absolute answer to what reality really is; rather, we hold answers  based on induction. This is a continuation of thought from David Hume, who said that assuming, or the induction of, empirical judgments of the senses as an exact correlation with what reality is in itself is always problematic; this is the famous problem of induction. This would include our perception of the continuity of reality itself, and cause and effect. The best scientific position is to assume that the best answer science has may, in fact, be wrong and attempts at a better answer should be made while trying to falsify the present claim, With this being said, how could we not look to philosophy with questions about reality itself? These are questions that concern our very perception of reality, questions that address the very problems that Popper and Hume were so worried about.

We do not know if our interpretation of reality is what reality is in itself, and good science would agree with that statement. However, let's say that we somehow knew that our perception of reality was an exact replica of what that actual reality is. Would philosophy then be dead? Absolutely not. We still have a quality of reality that is not being examined by our experiments upon actualities of existence, that being perception itself. Awareness of experience, i.e. consciousness, can not be fully explained by dissecting particulars of existence. No matter how much one studies the brain, or the eye, it will never fully explain the experience of seeing a tree. That experience of seeing a tree must be studied from within the perception of seeing the tree, there is no physical chunk of matter to study here. Even if consciousness was just a condition of electrical currents  in the brain, and I am not sure that is the case, but even if it was, that will not explain what the awareness of a tree is from within awareness. There is something that exists within reality that is beyond the cold, empty, material world, and that is one's knowledge of that world, that being, one's interpretation of that world. Even if an interpretation of the tree is pure and exact, and represents the real world perfectly, that interpretation is still a quality that is not being studied while looking at the particulars that the interpretation is intending. In other words, perception, not the object of perception, but perception itself, is a quality of reality that is not studied when one is only looking at the object of perception.

So, let's say that Prof Hawking does indeed find the answers to everything, and we are able to perceive the truth of reality and know all that can be known via scientific inquiry. Well, that sounds fantastic. That is wonderful. Except, what about knowledge itself? What about the perception of truth, not the truth as it is perceived, but the perception in its own right?

Even if we did find an equation to explain absolutely everything in the universe, what would explain the equation's existence? 

I have tried to be exact and precise with my statement, which is not meant to be taken as a detailed argument upon Prof Hawking's claim, more of an observation. In my precision, I left out the problem of ethics, especially in light of today's technological advancements, and other questions such as beauty and virtue of character, not to mention communication and language. These are also important problems, problems philosophy addresses. However, I kept my statement within the realm of what science attempts to answer and tried to show why philosophy is important in regards to those attempts.

 Philosophy is very much alive, and it is in no danger of dying anytime soon. 

Kamma and Vipāka- That Which is Life Itself

One of the most discussed concepts within the belief system of Buddhism is that of Kamma (or Karma in Sanskrit), it is also one of the most misunderstood. Most people think of Kamma (I will use the Pali spelling of the concept, as that is where my focus lies) as the consequence of one's actions, but this is a misleading and reductionist view of the process of act and consequence within Buddhism. This process of Kamma, the act, and Vipāka, the consequence, is a vital quality of the Dhamma, which should be understood for anyone who is serious about the Buddha's teachings. This process is actually quite complex in regards to its mechanics and is not simply Kamma waiting to punish people who have done wrong. In fact, a view of Kamma as some contraption of  comeuppance is a wrong view, often times with qualities of revenge, and it itself is an act of unwholesome Kamma. To fully understand the process of Kamma and Vipāka, the process that actualizes our very being within existence, would take years, dare I say decades, of study and meditation. However, by grasping a few important characteristics of this process, one can understand that Kamma itself is not the consequence of action and have a clearer notion of what is happening within this paramount and intricate quality of the Dhamma.

Kamma itself is the act. It is reaction. It is what is wholesome or unwholesome. Kamma is actions of thought, speech, and body, these actions are reactions to the environment, either physical or mental, and are not consequences of acts in themselves. Within the framework of the Buddha's teachings, one has the freedom to choose their actions, this is Kamma. No matter what assails us, we have the freedom to either act wholesomely or unwholesomely. At the most intimate level with one's self, nothing can influence that decision, we have control of our reaction to the environment. This freedom is an extraordinary difficult task to achieve, yet there it is, freedom to choose our actions. This Kamma, or action, is based upon intention, what we intend to do when we act. In the Upali Sutta, the Buddha discusses the difference between an act that produces unsatisfactory results without intention and an act that produces the same unsatisfactory results with intention: 

“What do you think, householder? Here some Nigantha might be restrained with four checks - curbed by all curbs, clamped by all curbs, cleansed by all curbs, and claimed by all curbs - and yet when going forward and returning he brings about the destruction of many small living beings. What result does the Nigantha Nataputta describe for him?”

“Venerable sir, the Nigantha Nataputta does not describe what is not willed as greatly reprehensible.” 

“But if one wills it, householder?” 

“Then it is greatly reprehensible, venerable sir.”

This passage is discussing a situation where someone would kill a beetle while walking without intending to kill that beetle compared to the same man killing the beetle with intention. The Buddha stresses that the act where the beetle is killed intentionally is more reprehensible. The intention of the act is what produces Kamma, one could say that Kamma is the intention of an act, or simply, Kamma is intention. These intentions will either be wholesome or unwholesome, in the intention, in the act, in the moment. Each intention makes wholesome or unwholesome Kamma, which will then be later experienced as results of Kamma, or Vipāka. The Vipaka, the results of Kamma, is not Kamma itself. This can not be stressed enough, Vipāka is not Kamma. When someone reaps the consequences of what they have sown, that is Vipāka, which are results of past Kamma being experienced. Vipāka is past Kamma coming into contact with an individual, the individual then reacts to that Vipāka with an intended reaction, this would be new Kamma. Vipāka comes in as an experience, Kamma is the intentional act towards that experience. This cycle continues for eternity until one escapes rebirth, like a wheel. 

The most natural reaction one can have is that of hate or desire. If an experience is painful, one naturally hates it (in Buddhism, hate is a catch-all concept for fear, wrath, revenge, envy or any negative emotion). If an experience is pleasurable, one naturally has desire for it, or greed. These are intended reactions to experience that are unwholesome, in other words, unwholesome Kamma. These acts of unwholesome Kamma will produce unwholesome Vipāka. This unwholesome Vipāka will then create a painful experience, which will naturally lead one to react with hate, this reaction being one with unwholesome intentions, which will create more unwholesome Kamma, which will lead to more unwholesome Vipāka. This is the cycle of suffering, or samsara.  

One does have the freedom to react wholesomely to any experience, but it takes great effort to take control of that freedom. One must find the control, which means finding one's initial reactions, this is a process done through meditation. According to the Buddha's teachings, it is in this way, that we gradually become a being that reacts more and more wholesomely, eventually becoming enlightened and escaping the cycle of suffering that is known as life. 

When one says Karma will catch up to another being, they are misunderstanding the teachings, and the quality of what Karma is itself. Kamma was their choice, their implementation of their free will upon the world, they have already sown the seeds that will come to fruition, What one should say is, the results of their Kamma, or Vipāka, will catch up to them. However, that is also a misinterpretation of the teachings, as the results of Kamma are not a punishment, rather it is the shackles to existence. The very leash that keeps us tied to the state of being. Vipāka is that which thrusts us into existence through never ending rebirth. It is not a punishment, it is life itself. When one wishes another to be punished, they do nothing but tighten the leash of suffering upon themselves, intending unwholesome Kamma and creating that very same Vipāka they wish upon someone else.