A Buddhist Response to Global Development

SCHUMACHER COLLEGE
An International Centre for Ecological Studies

A Buddhist Response to Global Development

by Sulak Sivaraksa

Educated in the West, Sulak is a translator and Buddhist teacher
who brings Buddhist teachings to laypeople around the world.

In a time when inequality and exploitation dominate our society, there are now movements across the world for peace, social justice and ecology. There are inspiring stories of people applying their ingenuity to protecting nature. In Thailand, Buddhist monks preserve forests by ordaining individual trees into the priesthood. In Thai culture, ordained priests cannot be killed – so the trees are protected. Such creative resistance is also seen in the struggles of native peoples against deforestation and the damming of rivers; in the struggles of local farmers against biotechnology, and countless other examples of people making a stand – however small. These struggles are full of passion, and need to be better integrated. Their common agenda must be firmly placed on a non-violent and spiritual path. This is the only way they can overcome the violence and destructiveness of the dominant world order.

It is abundantly clear that the material benefits of modernisation and Westernisation are unfairly distributed to the people of the planet. Industrial capitalism has been built upon the violence of conquest, genocide, slavery, debt and bondage. Extermination continues today, especially that of indigenous and ethnic people.

Inequality and exploitation lead to tension and conflict. Although many conflicts are expressed in ethnic terms, the underlying issues are often class based and rooted in the social structures of the global economic system. As social disparities and resistance increase, people have to be managed more and more through violent repression. Thus we have a situation where the global economy is predominantly a military economy and the world’s leading nations are producing the weapons – perpetuating the situation.

To counteract these global forces, we need to walk a different path from the one offered by capitalism. The teaching we need in order to walk this path already exists. The challenge facing humanity is not the development of more and more technology, markets and bureaucracies but the spiritual development of wisdom and compassion. From the Buddhist viewpoint, all the suffering is directly or indirectly linked with greed, hatred and delusion.

Today, greed is clearly personified in capitalism and consumerism. Human beings are taught to worship money, worldly sciences and technological advance, at the expense of human development and the spiritual dimension of men and women.

Descartes said cogito ergo sum – ‘I think therefore I am’. I feel that he started the Western dilemma that has now come to the core concept of consumerism, which says ‘I buy therefore I am’. Without the power of purchasing, modern people become nobodies.

In Buddhism, we could say ‘I breathe therefore I am’. We breathe in for the first time as we enter the world from our mother’s womb, and we breathe out the last time when we expire from life. Yet we do not take care of our daily breathing, we breathe in suffering, anxiety, hatred and greed. You don’t have to believe in Buddhism. If you are a Christian, you can breathe Christ into you and be happy. Through breathing exercises we can be mindful and synchronise the head and the heart. We will then have understanding and compassion rather than arrogant intellectual knowledge. We can have a personal transformation, become less selfish and care more for others. We can also develop critical self awareness and awareness of social ills, in order to find our true potentiality to face suffering both mentally and socially.

The central teaching in Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths and the first Truth is the Truth of Suffering. If one avoids that, one cannot really practise Buddhism. Global development today seems to be a celebration of a way of life that not only leads away from this Truth, but also discourages people from even believing this Truth exists. Global development springs from a civilisation that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning – a civilisation that endlessly speaks of making people ‘happy’, but in fact blocks their way to the source of real peace and happiness.

From a Buddhist perspective, for human beings to live happily there must be freedom on three levels:

The first freedom is the freedom to live with nature and the environment. We could call this physical freedom. This is freedom from want and deprivation: an adequate supply of the four basic necessities of life – food, clothing, shelter and medicine. This also includes freedom from natural dangers and the ability to deal with such dangers when they arise.

The second freedom exists in our relationship with fellow humans. We must have social freedom so that we can live safely together without being exploited by others.

But these two kinds of freedom will not be truly effective if they are not connected to inner freedom – this is freedom on the personal level. Having physical and social freedom, people must learn how to live independently, to be happy and contented within themselves.

The most important kind of development is human development on the personal level leading to inner freedom. This is a happiness that is independent of externals; with it we are no longer dependent on exploiting nature or our fellow beings. We become more and more capable of finding contentment within our own minds and through our own wisdom. The ability to be content without exploiting nature or our fellow humans can also be called the ability to be content independent of natural or social conditions. With a more independent kind of happiness, social and physical freedom will be preserved and strengthened. Human beings will then have the best possible relationship with both the natural environment and human society.

From the Buddhist standpoint after the Truth of Suffering, one must go on to the Second Truth: the Cause of Suffering, which is greed, hatred and delusion. If we could overcome these, through the Noble Eightfold Path, or other non-violent means, we can really achieve the other two Noble Truths: the cessation of suffering and the way to achieve the cessation of suffering.

In Siam, we are currently working on two projects to help confront the difficulties of global development.

“Alternatives to Consumerism” is a project in which the Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute are collaborating with fellow Buddhists, Christians and Muslims, in order to pinpoint consumerism as a new demonic religion in global development. We work together using our spiritual traditions as well as scientific approaches in order to have alternatives to consumerism.

If we do not have an alternative to consumerism, our traditional religions will remain at the periphery of the new dominant value system that reduces human beings to be at the mercy of greed. In today’s world, the desire to earn more and more money and consume more and more unnecessary goods is a dominant force at the expense of spiritual growth and contentment. Through the clever use of advertisements and media the multinational corporations strongly influence and in many cases mercilessly exploit people around the world. Nightly news programmes project violence into our homes. Television advertisements lull us away from this violence and delude us, using greed and lust as a means to stir our thirst to possess more and more.

The Alternatives to Consumerism project will record the inspiring stories of sustainable alternatives to the Western consumer model from different spiritual motivations. An inter-religious, non-violent approach is advocated and initiatives chosen for recording will generally have strong spiritual values from one of the world’s religions or indigenous peoples underpinning their activities. Coordinators will work closely with a diverse selection of movements, communities and projects whose common aim is working for a sustainable society. From these liaisons, it is hoped, the communities will be empowered by seeing the value placed on their unique tales.

The ancient art of story telling transcends many cultures and will be a core medium for recording vivid images of the difficulties and successes of different approaches to living sustainably (about 90 different stories will be recorded). Story-telling will be aided by traditional song, music and drama. Books, videos, photography and report, much younger relatives of the ancient arts, will be used to record and pass on the wisdom. The resulting material will become a well of information from which people may draw the water of inspiration for existing and potential projects – to be used in education and research. It is hoped that the project will help to facilitate a movement with a variety of sustainable value systems to counteract the present threat of a consumer monoculture.

The second project is the ‘Spirit in Education Movement’ (SEM). In this desolute world in which spiritual and environmental diversity are being worn away, there is little time and thought for education fo the heart and soul. Mainstream education in the West concentrates on the intellect and is becoming more and more business-like and competitive. As the Eastern countries jump gaily onto the consumer bandwagon, their education systems are beginning to emulate the narrow, unconnected fields of Western education.

The Spirit in Education Movement was founded by several prominant alternative thinkers to counteract the negative trends of Western education. From humble beginnings in Siam, working in rural communities, it is founded on the philosophy that education must be spiritually based, ecologically sound and must offer a holistic view of life. The philosophy is underpinned by Buddhist wisdom and green principles, but also welcomes and associates with other spiritual and ecological wisdom. We aspire to create an environment to awaken Buddha nature and cultivate wisdom as well as the intellect. We aspire to benefit people by increasing individual and collective confidence in their traditional wisdom, skills and heritage. We hope to move individuals from selfishness to compassion, from a lack of meaning inlife to fulfillment, and from negativity to positive thinking. We link together action, meditation, art and intellectual learning, within a friendly, nurturing, happy learning environment in spiritually rich places close to nature.

It is time for human beings to learn from each other, relax and cross barriers. Only by these means can we hope to see people taking away skills and creativity for a more balanced self; hope for a better society and innovative ideas for new beginnings for personal growth, social equity and ecological balance.

In January 1998, Sulak Sivaraksa taught on a three-week residential course entitled BUDDHIST ECONOMICS, with A. T. Ariyaratne, president of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement. The course took place at Schumacher College, an international centre for ecological studies based in southwest England, which welcomes course participants from all over the world.

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