Spiritual approach to Anarchism
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Thought you might want to read it...
Various elements of Buddhism correspond dramatically with Western
anarchist theories, both ontological and epistemological. The avoidance
of systems involving private property or hierarchical leadership evident
in the Pali Canon (the oldest known Buddhist scriptures) of Buddhism
bears a close resemblance to many of the themes present in anarchist
writings. In addition epistemological anarchist theory is reflected in
the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of “sabbe dhammaa anattaa,” “All
things are without self-existence.” [1] All of these Buddhist elements
are linked together in a cohesive system that proves quite accommodating
to the anarchist paradigm.
In a process that is similar to other world religions, the followers of
the Buddha up until the present time sometimes deviate from the way of
life he advocated. But it is this earliest incarnation of historical
Buddhist life that offers intriguing solutions to the complex issues of
property and ownership. If property itself is the axle upon which turns
the false dichotomy of the ruler and the ruled, according to early
anarchist philosophers like Proudhon, then the lifestyle of the early
Buddhist monk snaps the axle, thus revealing its own form of anarchism.
The linkage of issues of property and government has been long
recognized in the West. As early as the 1550’s, the French law student
Étienne de la Boétie had linked the two: “Tyrants would distribute
largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then
everybody would shamelessly cry, ‘Long live the King!’ The fools did not
realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own
property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were
receiving without having first taken it from them.” [2] Later, the 19th
century French anarchist Proudhon investigated the concept that
“property is theft.” [3] The Buddha also felt that issues surrounding a
sense of property or possession were entangled in a problematic web, as
is illustrated in the Mahaanidaana Sutta (The Great Discourse On
Origination):
‘And so, Ananda, feeling conditions craving, craving conditions seeking,
seeking conditions acquisition, acquisition conditions decision-making,
decision-making conditions lustful desire, lustful desire conditions
attachment, attachment conditions appropriation, appropriation
conditions avarice, avarice conditions guarding of possessions, and
because of the guarding of possessions then arise the taking up of stick
and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying and other
evil unskilled states.’
‘I have said: “All these evil unskilled states arise because of the
guarding of possessions.” For if there were absolutely no guarding of
possessions…would there be the taking up of stick or sword…?’ ‘No,
Buddha.’ ‘Therefore, Ananda, the guarding of possessions is the root,
the cause, the origin, the condition for all these evil unskilled
states.’ [4]
In this way the tensions of property and rule, ownership and theft, are
dismantled without the use of violence or legislative acts. A new “rule
by contract” is established after the concept of private property has
been relinquished by becoming a Buddhist monk. This contract consists of
the Vinaaya, the rules for monks and nuns, the first section of the Pali
Canon. These rules do not involve a life of private possession at all,
and so have little to do with government or politics. The early Buddhist
monk had a solution to a society controlled by a government that
confuses and conflates issues of property and rights of possession and
literally runs off the stolen possessions of its subjects. A total
withdrawal from this cycle, spurred on by insight into its roots,
renders such power useless and obsolete. The causal link of possession
and theft is seen not as a problem to be solved, but as a hopeless
quagmire that must be avoided or abandoned altogether. The rulers and
kings that came into contact with communities of Buddhist monks were
often shocked to find that this way of life dismantled their power
through not granting it as having substantial importance. Once lay life
is abandoned, there is essentially no one left to subjugate, as is
illustrated in the Saamattaphala Sutta (The Fruits of the Homeless Life):
And when King Ajaatasattu came near the mango-grove he felt fear and
terror, and his hair stood on end. And feeling this fear and the rising
of the hairs, the King said to Jiivaka ‘Friend Jiivaka, you are not
deceiving me? You are not tricking me? You are not delivering me up to
an enemy? How is it that from this great number of twelve hundred and
fifty monks not a sneeze, a cough or shout is to be heard?’
‘Have no fear, Your Majesty, I would not deceive you or trick you or
deliver you up to an enemy. Approach, Sire, approach. There are the
lights burning in the round pavilion.’
Then King Ajaatasattu went up to the Lord and stood to one side, and
standing there to one side the King observed how the order of monks
continued in silence like a clear lake, and he exclaimed: ‘If only the
Prince Udaayabhadda were possessed of such calm as this order of monks!’
[5]
The King’s wish for his son would never come to fruition, because as
royalty they were caught up in the entanglements of ruler and ruled, and
the ongoing cycle of possession that serves as the string holding the
tangled mass. Likewise, his power as a ruler was only secondary to the
power of a voluntary community’s non-reaction, a lack of response that
undermined the very structure of power itself. The King was nervous and
afraid precisely because of the calmness of the monks; these men who
lacked property, and who were therefore not subjects of anything except
the mutual contract of Vinaaya that they observed.
The anarchist writings of Emma Goldman and Michael Bakunin also bear an
important link with that of Buddhist doctrine. Both of these authors
attempted to link religious and political authority, saying that these
served to support one another. For example, Emma Goldman in her essay
“The Place of the Individual in Society” claims that monotheism was used
to justify rule itself: “In former days religious authority fashioned
political life in the image of the Church. The authority of the State,
the “rights” of rulers came from on high; power, like faith, was
divine.” [6] Likewise, Bakunin in God and the State designated belief in
a powerful God the “safety valve” of government.
This is yet another causal chain that Buddhism uproots. For although
unfamiliar with any sort of Judeo-Christian God, Buddhism arose against
the backdrop of Hinduism. Despite the surface appearance of Hinduism as
exclusively polytheistic, there are many Hindu elements that bear close
resemblance to Judeo-Christianity, not the least of which being a belief
in an All-Powerful Creator God, in this case called Brahmaa. It was
Brahmaa’s wisdom which created the caste system that Buddhism rejected
wholeheartedly. In addition, many Suttas speak of Brahmaa as a celestial
being with a very long life who out of arrogance and a need to be
worshipped conjured up the notion that the universe was created in the
first place. Like all other beings in the Buddhist cosmology, he is
subject to change, to death and decay, and no amount of arrogance or
power can grant him omniscience. He has only tricked himself, and his
followers, into believing otherwise. This empty lie is addressed in the
Kevaddha Sutta:
Then that monk, by the appropriate concentration, made the way to the
Brahmaa world appear before him. He went to the devas of Brahmaa’s
retinue and asked them. They said: ‘We don’t know. But there is Brahmaa.
Great Brahmaa, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing,
All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and
Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be. He is loftier and
wiser than we are. He would know where the four great elements cease
without remainder.’
Then it was not long before the Great Brahmaa appeared. And that monk
went up to him and said: ‘Friend, where do the four great elements -
earth, water, fire, air - cease without remainder?’ to which the Great
Brahmaa replied: ‘Monk, I am Brahmaa, Great Brahmaa, the Conqueror, the
Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, The Maker and
Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been
and Shall Be.’
A second time the monk said: ‘Friend, I did not ask if you are Brahmaa,
Great Brahmaa …I asked you where the four great elements cease without
remainder.’ And a second time the Great Brahmaa replied as before.
‘And a third time the monk said: ‘Friend, I did not ask you that, I
asked where the four great elements - earth, water, fire, air - cease
without remainder.’ Then, Kevaddha, the Great Brahmaa took the monk by
the arm, led him aside and said: ‘Monk, these devas believe there is
nothing Brahmaa does not see, there is nothing he does not know, there
is nothing he is unaware of. That is why I did not speak in front of
them. But, monk, I don’t know where the four great elements cease
without remainder. And therefore, monk, you have acted wrongly, you have
acted incorrectly by going beyond the Buddha and going in search of an
answer to this question elsewhere. Now, monk, you just go to the Buddha
and put this question to him, and whatever answer he gives, accept it.’ [7]
Thus the Creator God of early Buddhism was not omniscient, and his power
utterly depended on the blind and mistaken faith of his followers. Even
the God himself knew it was a sham, but maintained the façade to retain
his power. The impact of such a theology, or perhaps of the conspicuous
Buddhist absence of theology, is huge when considering systems of
governance that fashioned themselves on patterns of celestial
governance, or Judeo-Christian monotheism. If absolute rule is regarded
not only as unnecessary but impossible, then a projected fixation of
authority from a separate, eternal, or independent source is immediately
negated. The dominant paradigm of modern government, the ruling hand of
a separate metaphysical entity, is swallowed whole by the assertion of
“sabbe dhammaa anattaa”: it no longer exists.
At this point the Buddhist ontological freedom of a life without the
need to guard possession is combined with a more significant,
epistemological freedom. The mind of a monk is freed from the craving to
attribute metaphysical reality to any entity whatsoever, whether it be
divine nature, human nature or the nature of the State. For if all
things lack self-essence, this inevitably extends to the power relations
that inform members of a given State. This fundamental sense of
emptiness and impermanence changes the focus of experienced reality in
which the only experience left is the contract, the actualization of the
doctrine itself.
This issue came to light clearly on the Buddha’s deathbed. Ananda, his
cousin and one of his closest disciples, was perplexed as to what would
happen after the Buddha was gone. The dichotomy of teacher and student,
guide and guided, was still in place while the Buddha lived. But in the
Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta, this dichotomy is denied and the practice of
the doctrine itself is stressed:
And the Buddha said to Ananda, “Ananda, it may be that you will think:
‘The Teacher’s instruction has ceased, now we have no teacher!’ It
should not be seen like this, Ananda, for what I have taught and
explained to you as doctrine and discipline will, at my passing, be your
teacher.” [8]
Thus the role of guidance from without is rendered obsolete. Buddhism,
unlike revelatory Abrahamic religions, focuses not on the appeasement of
the powerful but on the mutual consensus of practitioners who govern
themselves: “‘Therefore, Ananda, you should live as islands unto
yourselves, being your own refuge, with no one else as your refuge.’” [9]
Over the long centuries after the death of the historical Buddha,
hierarchical concepts were manifested in the later Mahaayaana schools.
Monasteries came to be governed by “masters,” and direct political
involvement became common practice, especially in the competitive and
highly sectarian nature of the later Japanese schools. How closely these
examples bear resemblance to the original doctrines of the Buddha is
highly debatable.
Regardless, it is within the context of these original doctrines
themselves where the Buddhist implication for anarchist theory comes to
light. From the Buddhist viewpoint, both “government” and “the governed”
are constructed illusions that are maintained through causal links,
links that are ultimately breachable. The two primary links, involving
issues of private property or hierarchical leadership, are addressed in
the Pali Canon. Though later manifestations of Buddhism canonized their
own writings, these writings exemplify the closest possible
representation of the life of the historical Buddha. Through this
representation we are given a glimpse of a society with no property and
no leadership, but an agreed-upon code, akin to a contract. Though
Buddhist tradition was destined to diverge from this source, these
ancient teachings provide an example of a 2,500-year-old system that
shares commonalities with modern anarchist theory.
Thought you might want to read it...
Various elements of Buddhism correspond dramatically with Western
anarchist theories, both ontological and epistemological. The avoidance
of systems involving private property or hierarchical leadership evident
in the Pali Canon (the oldest known Buddhist scriptures) of Buddhism
bears a close resemblance to many of the themes present in anarchist
writings. In addition epistemological anarchist theory is reflected in
the fundamental Buddhist doctrine of “sabbe dhammaa anattaa,” “All
things are without self-existence.” [1] All of these Buddhist elements
are linked together in a cohesive system that proves quite accommodating
to the anarchist paradigm.
In a process that is similar to other world religions, the followers of
the Buddha up until the present time sometimes deviate from the way of
life he advocated. But it is this earliest incarnation of historical
Buddhist life that offers intriguing solutions to the complex issues of
property and ownership. If property itself is the axle upon which turns
the false dichotomy of the ruler and the ruled, according to early
anarchist philosophers like Proudhon, then the lifestyle of the early
Buddhist monk snaps the axle, thus revealing its own form of anarchism.
The linkage of issues of property and government has been long
recognized in the West. As early as the 1550’s, the French law student
Étienne de la Boétie had linked the two: “Tyrants would distribute
largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine, and a sesterce: and then
everybody would shamelessly cry, ‘Long live the King!’ The fools did not
realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own
property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were
receiving without having first taken it from them.” [2] Later, the 19th
century French anarchist Proudhon investigated the concept that
“property is theft.” [3] The Buddha also felt that issues surrounding a
sense of property or possession were entangled in a problematic web, as
is illustrated in the Mahaanidaana Sutta (The Great Discourse On
Origination):
‘And so, Ananda, feeling conditions craving, craving conditions seeking,
seeking conditions acquisition, acquisition conditions decision-making,
decision-making conditions lustful desire, lustful desire conditions
attachment, attachment conditions appropriation, appropriation
conditions avarice, avarice conditions guarding of possessions, and
because of the guarding of possessions then arise the taking up of stick
and sword, quarrels, disputes, arguments, strife, abuse, lying and other
evil unskilled states.’
‘I have said: “All these evil unskilled states arise because of the
guarding of possessions.” For if there were absolutely no guarding of
possessions…would there be the taking up of stick or sword…?’ ‘No,
Buddha.’ ‘Therefore, Ananda, the guarding of possessions is the root,
the cause, the origin, the condition for all these evil unskilled
states.’ [4]
In this way the tensions of property and rule, ownership and theft, are
dismantled without the use of violence or legislative acts. A new “rule
by contract” is established after the concept of private property has
been relinquished by becoming a Buddhist monk. This contract consists of
the Vinaaya, the rules for monks and nuns, the first section of the Pali
Canon. These rules do not involve a life of private possession at all,
and so have little to do with government or politics. The early Buddhist
monk had a solution to a society controlled by a government that
confuses and conflates issues of property and rights of possession and
literally runs off the stolen possessions of its subjects. A total
withdrawal from this cycle, spurred on by insight into its roots,
renders such power useless and obsolete. The causal link of possession
and theft is seen not as a problem to be solved, but as a hopeless
quagmire that must be avoided or abandoned altogether. The rulers and
kings that came into contact with communities of Buddhist monks were
often shocked to find that this way of life dismantled their power
through not granting it as having substantial importance. Once lay life
is abandoned, there is essentially no one left to subjugate, as is
illustrated in the Saamattaphala Sutta (The Fruits of the Homeless Life):
And when King Ajaatasattu came near the mango-grove he felt fear and
terror, and his hair stood on end. And feeling this fear and the rising
of the hairs, the King said to Jiivaka ‘Friend Jiivaka, you are not
deceiving me? You are not tricking me? You are not delivering me up to
an enemy? How is it that from this great number of twelve hundred and
fifty monks not a sneeze, a cough or shout is to be heard?’
‘Have no fear, Your Majesty, I would not deceive you or trick you or
deliver you up to an enemy. Approach, Sire, approach. There are the
lights burning in the round pavilion.’
Then King Ajaatasattu went up to the Lord and stood to one side, and
standing there to one side the King observed how the order of monks
continued in silence like a clear lake, and he exclaimed: ‘If only the
Prince Udaayabhadda were possessed of such calm as this order of monks!’
[5]
The King’s wish for his son would never come to fruition, because as
royalty they were caught up in the entanglements of ruler and ruled, and
the ongoing cycle of possession that serves as the string holding the
tangled mass. Likewise, his power as a ruler was only secondary to the
power of a voluntary community’s non-reaction, a lack of response that
undermined the very structure of power itself. The King was nervous and
afraid precisely because of the calmness of the monks; these men who
lacked property, and who were therefore not subjects of anything except
the mutual contract of Vinaaya that they observed.
The anarchist writings of Emma Goldman and Michael Bakunin also bear an
important link with that of Buddhist doctrine. Both of these authors
attempted to link religious and political authority, saying that these
served to support one another. For example, Emma Goldman in her essay
“The Place of the Individual in Society” claims that monotheism was used
to justify rule itself: “In former days religious authority fashioned
political life in the image of the Church. The authority of the State,
the “rights” of rulers came from on high; power, like faith, was
divine.” [6] Likewise, Bakunin in God and the State designated belief in
a powerful God the “safety valve” of government.
This is yet another causal chain that Buddhism uproots. For although
unfamiliar with any sort of Judeo-Christian God, Buddhism arose against
the backdrop of Hinduism. Despite the surface appearance of Hinduism as
exclusively polytheistic, there are many Hindu elements that bear close
resemblance to Judeo-Christianity, not the least of which being a belief
in an All-Powerful Creator God, in this case called Brahmaa. It was
Brahmaa’s wisdom which created the caste system that Buddhism rejected
wholeheartedly. In addition, many Suttas speak of Brahmaa as a celestial
being with a very long life who out of arrogance and a need to be
worshipped conjured up the notion that the universe was created in the
first place. Like all other beings in the Buddhist cosmology, he is
subject to change, to death and decay, and no amount of arrogance or
power can grant him omniscience. He has only tricked himself, and his
followers, into believing otherwise. This empty lie is addressed in the
Kevaddha Sutta:
Then that monk, by the appropriate concentration, made the way to the
Brahmaa world appear before him. He went to the devas of Brahmaa’s
retinue and asked them. They said: ‘We don’t know. But there is Brahmaa.
Great Brahmaa, the Conqueror, the Unconquered, the All-Seeing,
All-Powerful, the Lord, the Maker and Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and
Orderer, Father of All That Have Been and Shall Be. He is loftier and
wiser than we are. He would know where the four great elements cease
without remainder.’
Then it was not long before the Great Brahmaa appeared. And that monk
went up to him and said: ‘Friend, where do the four great elements -
earth, water, fire, air - cease without remainder?’ to which the Great
Brahmaa replied: ‘Monk, I am Brahmaa, Great Brahmaa, the Conqueror, the
Unconquered, the All-Seeing, All-Powerful, the Lord, The Maker and
Creator, the Ruler, Appointer and Orderer, Father of All That Have Been
and Shall Be.’
A second time the monk said: ‘Friend, I did not ask if you are Brahmaa,
Great Brahmaa …I asked you where the four great elements cease without
remainder.’ And a second time the Great Brahmaa replied as before.
‘And a third time the monk said: ‘Friend, I did not ask you that, I
asked where the four great elements - earth, water, fire, air - cease
without remainder.’ Then, Kevaddha, the Great Brahmaa took the monk by
the arm, led him aside and said: ‘Monk, these devas believe there is
nothing Brahmaa does not see, there is nothing he does not know, there
is nothing he is unaware of. That is why I did not speak in front of
them. But, monk, I don’t know where the four great elements cease
without remainder. And therefore, monk, you have acted wrongly, you have
acted incorrectly by going beyond the Buddha and going in search of an
answer to this question elsewhere. Now, monk, you just go to the Buddha
and put this question to him, and whatever answer he gives, accept it.’ [7]
Thus the Creator God of early Buddhism was not omniscient, and his power
utterly depended on the blind and mistaken faith of his followers. Even
the God himself knew it was a sham, but maintained the façade to retain
his power. The impact of such a theology, or perhaps of the conspicuous
Buddhist absence of theology, is huge when considering systems of
governance that fashioned themselves on patterns of celestial
governance, or Judeo-Christian monotheism. If absolute rule is regarded
not only as unnecessary but impossible, then a projected fixation of
authority from a separate, eternal, or independent source is immediately
negated. The dominant paradigm of modern government, the ruling hand of
a separate metaphysical entity, is swallowed whole by the assertion of
“sabbe dhammaa anattaa”: it no longer exists.
At this point the Buddhist ontological freedom of a life without the
need to guard possession is combined with a more significant,
epistemological freedom. The mind of a monk is freed from the craving to
attribute metaphysical reality to any entity whatsoever, whether it be
divine nature, human nature or the nature of the State. For if all
things lack self-essence, this inevitably extends to the power relations
that inform members of a given State. This fundamental sense of
emptiness and impermanence changes the focus of experienced reality in
which the only experience left is the contract, the actualization of the
doctrine itself.
This issue came to light clearly on the Buddha’s deathbed. Ananda, his
cousin and one of his closest disciples, was perplexed as to what would
happen after the Buddha was gone. The dichotomy of teacher and student,
guide and guided, was still in place while the Buddha lived. But in the
Mahaaparinibbaana Sutta, this dichotomy is denied and the practice of
the doctrine itself is stressed:
And the Buddha said to Ananda, “Ananda, it may be that you will think:
‘The Teacher’s instruction has ceased, now we have no teacher!’ It
should not be seen like this, Ananda, for what I have taught and
explained to you as doctrine and discipline will, at my passing, be your
teacher.” [8]
Thus the role of guidance from without is rendered obsolete. Buddhism,
unlike revelatory Abrahamic religions, focuses not on the appeasement of
the powerful but on the mutual consensus of practitioners who govern
themselves: “‘Therefore, Ananda, you should live as islands unto
yourselves, being your own refuge, with no one else as your refuge.’” [9]
Over the long centuries after the death of the historical Buddha,
hierarchical concepts were manifested in the later Mahaayaana schools.
Monasteries came to be governed by “masters,” and direct political
involvement became common practice, especially in the competitive and
highly sectarian nature of the later Japanese schools. How closely these
examples bear resemblance to the original doctrines of the Buddha is
highly debatable.
Regardless, it is within the context of these original doctrines
themselves where the Buddhist implication for anarchist theory comes to
light. From the Buddhist viewpoint, both “government” and “the governed”
are constructed illusions that are maintained through causal links,
links that are ultimately breachable. The two primary links, involving
issues of private property or hierarchical leadership, are addressed in
the Pali Canon. Though later manifestations of Buddhism canonized their
own writings, these writings exemplify the closest possible
representation of the life of the historical Buddha. Through this
representation we are given a glimpse of a society with no property and
no leadership, but an agreed-upon code, akin to a contract. Though
Buddhist tradition was destined to diverge from this source, these
ancient teachings provide an example of a 2,500-year-old system that
shares commonalities with modern anarchist theory.