Should Buddhists Be Social Activists? #235 (P)

Guest article by Ian James Kidd

Buddhism is widely admired in the West for its commitments to progressive social activism. But is this really in the spirit of true Buddhism?

Dear friends of Daily Philosophy,

Welcome back to another fascinating guest article, this time about Buddhism and its perceived proximity to social activism. One almost expects today Buddhists to be vocal defenders of environmental and human rights causes, to champion social justice and pacifism, and to promote meditative ways to happiness. The contemporary Buddhist sage is expected to teach the masses, to attend demonstrations and public talks and to write books that combine Tibetan vistas of cloudy mountaintops with wholesome aphorisms about the magic of stillness. But is this kind of engagement really in line with Buddhist tradition and scripture? Ian James Kidd, lecturer in philosophy at the University of Nottingham and Buddhism expert, will explore this fascinating topic in a three-part series on Daily Philosophy. Today, I bring you here the early preview of the first part for our premium subscribers. You will find all three parts on the Daily Philosophy website on three successive Mondays, beginning on the 28th of November.

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Should Buddhists Be Social Activists?

By Ian James Kidd

Buddhism is widely admired in the West for its commitments to progressive social activism. Saffron-clad monks march to promote peace or condemn repressive governments. The Dalai Lama lauds human rights and assures packed audiences that ‘the Buddha would be green’. When the Vietnamese Zen monk, Thích Nhất Hạnh, died this January, he was mourned by high-profile political activists as well as members of the Buddhist monastic community. Buddhists are common sights at marches, protests, sit-ins, and occupations. Magazines like Tricycle and The Lion’s Roar regularly feature articles on capitalism and social injustice as well as mindfulness and meditation. In my local bookstore, the Buddhism section has many books with titles like The Dharma of Social Justice.

The perception of alliances between the teachings of the Buddha and modern social and environmental activism is one of the main reasons for the positive perception of Buddhism in many Western countries. The Buddha’s teachings on suffering and compassion turn out to be allied to the concerns of many feminist and environmental movements. Equality, tolerance, and social justice get confidently related to the discourses that the Buddha preached one and a half thousand years ago. From his criticisms of the caste system to the emphasis on liberating beings from suffering, the Buddha — a man born a prince only to abandon his inherited wealth and power — thus emerges as an acceptable and attractive spiritual teacher.

‘Engaged Buddhism’

Is this image of the Buddha as a social activist ahead of his time accurate? It wasn’t always the case that perceptions were so favourable. Late-nineteenth century American, French and English writers saw Buddhism as a pessimistic doctrine encouraging passivity and retreat from life. Life, love, and hope – it was thought – are absent from the life of the monk. For one poetic critic, Buddhists are ‘living under a sky from which no sunlight ever streams’, their world all ‘sadness and hopelessness’. Many of the critics were Christians contrasting the good works, hope, and energy of their own faith with what an early scholar called the ’deep and miserable melancholy’ of Buddhism. Not all, though. Nietzsche was a harsh critic of Christianity but also condemned Buddhism as a ‘life-denying’ creed. There were also admirers of Buddhism – like the Indophile English Theosophists or the enthusiastic readers of Edwin Arnold’s epic poem The Light of Asia (which sold a million copies and was later made into a Broadway play).

What changed to change the image of Buddhism from one passivity and pessimism to one of energetic social activism? It is a long story. Historians and Buddhist scholars all emphasise that ‘Buddhism’ is many things, not a single tradition, and that politics, culture, trade, colonialism all played their parts. I will not pretend to survey all of that work. Many scholars seem to endorse the ‘activist’ image – which is usually called ‘engaged Buddhism’ – even if there are also exceptions. I suspect what most people think of as ‘Buddhism’ is really shaped by some kind of engaged Buddhist image. I think that’s a problem: the fidelity of those images to the teachings of the Buddha is very questionable.

By ‘the teachings’, I mean the suttas or discourses that are taken to be the earliest statement of the Buddha’s teachings. It is often hard work to read and interpret these suttas. Many are extremely repetitive and need careful scholarly handling. Most admirers of Buddhism therefore understandly rely on the huge popular literature on Buddhism. Endless books, blogs, and podcasts offer explainers about compassion and mindfulness, or ‘advice for living’. Such resources are useful, but do not always faithfully report what’s in the suttas. True, much of the content of the suttas will seem odd, obscure, or even unacceptable to modern minds. In those cases, offending content often gets airbrushed-out, explained away, or just ignored. In other cases, Buddhist concepts are left strategically vague – their original meanings are omitted, so that one can project onto them whatever other meanings one likes.

I think a lot of engaged Buddhism relies on strategic vagary about the content of the Buddha’s teachings. Two good places to look are claims typically made about compassion and the ‘overcoming of suffering’.