Heroes of Progressive Buddhism: Myawaddy Sayadaw of Burma/Myanmar

Last year I started a series on "Heroes of Progressive Buddhism" as a way to help build a portfolio of sorts of Buddhists around the world doing great, progressive work.

The first in this series was Sebene Selassie, Executive Director of New York Insight. Selassie is a woman of color and as I noted last year, "What comes out in particular is Selassie’s commitment to Inclusion and Diversity outreach."

This time we have an example of inclusion and diversity outreach from Burma/Myanmar.

Myanmar’s Military Seeks to Jail Buddhist Monk over Criticism

 As Myanmar has seen a resurgence of Islamophobic, violent fundamentalist monks, it has also seen numerous leaders like Myawaddy seeking to build bridges and end violence. Now he and his work are under threat. From the article:

" ... renowned for his work with peace and interfaith groups,* the abbot has been accused of defamation by Myanmar’s politically powerful military following an interview he gave to the local Yangon Khit Thit news website in June. During the conversation, he questioned the propriety of a more than 30 million kyat (US$20,000) donation by an army commander to the ultra-nationalist Buddhist organization the Buddha-Dhamma Parahita Foundation." 

“I will contest whatever lawsuit they use. Suing us shows there are no rights, but it will not stop me from speaking the truth,” said Myawaddy Sayadaw. “I will keep saying what should not be done and what should be avoided. I’m a Buddhist monk and this is my duty to show the right path for everyone.”

Standing up to repressive ideas (as the Buddha did with aspects of the caste system and entrenched gender inequality) and governments is central to a decidedly progressive Buddhism, as it follows the right understanding of our social and political context and puts it into right action. Not all Buddhists will do this, and that's okay.

For some, Buddhism will be primarily a path of devotion or merit accumulation, chanting, prostrating, reading texts, etc. But this active, engaged, progressive stance is every bit a part of Buddhism today as any other path.

This is the first  second in a planned series on the topic of “Progressive Buddhism.” That term is admittedly vague, despite a blog being devoted to the topic since 2007 and a facebook group since 2015 (both administered by yours truly at present). I hope in the coming months to develop a set of principles and ideals to guide thinking around and discussion of Progressive Buddhism, and to point out “heroes,” or people who embody some of those principles and ideals in their life and work. Sometimes these will be in depth, sometimes brief vignettes.

A Buddhism and Pali scholar's journey into and out of the academic tradition

For those of you interested in a career in academia, be forewarned. It's not a very welcoming place at the moment. The people are pretty decent imho, but there are currently far too many PhDs for what "the market" needs. Or, put another way, massive governmental cuts (in most if not all English-speaking countries) on education spending over the last 20 or so years have led many departments to freeze hiring, let great professors go, and/or replace retiring teachers with adjunct labor.

These days whenever an undergraduate asks me for a recommendation letter for graduate school I send him/her here: http://100rsns.blogspot.com/ (I do write letters of course, but I've taken it on as a duty to warn any/all prospective graduate students of the perils ahead of them). It's not glamorous. And it's not easy. And many who start PhDs don't even finish (up to 50% in the humanities, according to some estimates).

It's a broken system. But it's still the best one for some of us. I'm reminded of the Churchill quote:

“It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.”

Academia is the route to follow only when you've realized there is nothing else you can do with yourself and be happy.

~

In any case, I continue to lumber through the "thicket of views" which is modern-day academia while Eisel Mazard, as you'll see below, does not. In my lumbering I came across some writing by Eisel, who I would describe as an autodidactic solitary scholar. In 2011 I drew from one of his writings when I wrote "Imagining the Buddha as bald... and black?" Since then I've read several of his works and we've conversed now and again and I respect his scholarship in a number of areas that I'm interested in. 

Below, Eisel describes his journey into and out of early Buddhism / Pali scholarship and some of the joys and perils that came with it. Every experience will be different, the interests and expertise brought into the study, the influences and advisors, and goals of each student will be different. So, while Eisel's journey may be completely unlike that of any other scholar, it does provide a perspective not often seen or discussed in academia today. As he says:

…there were a lot of wonderful things about it. With nothing but a backpack, a bicycle, and a lot of hard work, I went everywhere, I did everything, I lived my dream.

When that dream was over, I had to look at the reality of the tradition as it exists today and say, "I can't be a part of it".

Crying at a Buddhist Funeral, by Adam Goldberg

In the following guest-post, Adam Goldberg reflects on the meaning of equanimity in the face of one of life's most difficult moments. Adam is spending one year in Asia, exploring how Buddhism is interpreted and understood in the face of conflict and violence and, ultimately, how it is used as a vehicle for building peace. Follow his blog at asolutionwithin.wordpress.com.

Crying at a Buddhist Funeral

The room is a blurry haze; the bright orange of monastic robes saturate her vision and her feet seem to hover as she moves to an open chair. Her mind is distant and she can’t feel a thing but for a sensation of cold emptiness that presses against her chest, growing and growing, threatening to freeze her. She raises her eyes – they are heavy and wet with tears – but the faces of those around her are tranquil; at ease, as if someone has not just died.

*****

Having just finished a two week Vipassana meditation retreat in Burma, I was impressed by the calm, serene and balanced composure of the Sayadaws (teachers). I couldn’t help but wonder, would they cry at a funeral? What keeps equanimity from becoming indifference, or rather, isn’t equanimity indifference?

The mental state of upekkha, equanimity, is essential to attain enlightenment. It enables us to maintain mindfulness (sati) in every situation. We could be eating good food or tasteless food, experiencing immense pain or pleasure, cursed or praised, and upekkha will protect us from being carried away by these experiences. Nonattachment is unbroken in its presence, and Right View is affirmed as we recall that everything breaks down to nama-rupa, or mind-matter phenomena which arises and ceases in each moment. One technique I have come across to generate equanimity is to think of someone’s misfortune or fortune as the reaping of his or her kamma.

Wait. What does that really mean? If a bus is out of control and unable to steer itself away from an oblivious man, should we warn him? If we don’t, is it not because of his kamma that he will be killed and his own fault? This is simplistic, I know, but it gets to the point – if bad fortune is due to that person’s bad kamma, should we feel responsible to help those who are vulnerable? If so, where does that sense of responsibility come from?

In Sayadaw U Pandita’s book, “In This Very Life”, he writes “equanimity is not insensitivity, indifference or apathy. It is simply nonpreferential. Under its influence, one does not push aside the things one dislikes nor grasps at things one prefers. The mind rests in an attitude of balance and acceptance of things as they are.” If not insensitivity, then is equanimity sensitivity? If not indifference and apathy, is it caring? And finally, how can we be “nonpreferential” while exercising another of the sublime mental states (Brahmin Vihara) – compassion? To me, compassion (karuna) necessarily implies a preference, namely that I am unpleased with the current situation and wish to improve it.

In U Pandita’s discourse, he emphasizes the importance of cultivating compassion alongside wisdom, so action is be guided with precise aim to effectuate positive change. Compassion without wisdom can be extremely dangerous; we act with a desire to do good, but in fact cause more harm! We may justify the impact of our actions by proudly standing behind our intentions. But as the saying goes, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Clearly, compassion isn’t enough.

Wisdom (panna) and equanimity go hand-in-hand. One of the three characteristics of existence (tilakkhana) is anatta, or non-self. Anatta is a profound concept and definitions like “devoid of an inherent existence” can be misleadingly vague. I will not elaborate on anatta here, but I encourage you to see link below for an in-depth description. Instead, I’d like to point out the implication of anatta: we are not truly in control of ourselves or the world around us; we cannot stop aging, nor can we control the choices our loved ones make. Some things will not go as planned no matter how hard we try; inevitably yielding results that can be disappointing. And it is undeniable that the more we invest ourselves in effort, the more attached we can become to the result. Anatta reminds us the folly of such investment.

Understanding this aspect of anatta, equanimity is steadfast and strong. Actions are not influenced by attachments but guided by the clarity of wisdom. Neither “success” nor “failure” distracts us from our goal, allowing us to reassess and invest ourselves in the situation free from emotional antagonisms. Fortified by equanimity, compassion takes its noblest form: accurate, effective, and unquestionably selfless.

“What the Buddha Taught” by Walpola Rahula, online & free: https://sites.google.com/site/rahulawhatthebuddha/the-doctrine-of-no-soul

Buddhist Economics: Then and Today

Picture of Schumacher from the 1973 edition of Small is Beautiful.

Economist E. F. “Fritz” Schumacher wrote a book that became a sensation in 1973, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered, most of which is a compilation of lectures and articles he’d written in the 60s. The book was not only a fresh breeze in its day, its insights about where the world was quickly headed are prophetic, predicting the waste of resources and the drudgery modern society imposes on people with its view of the meaning of labor and the headlong rush to 'bigger, more, mightier.'  Of inspiration to Schumacher was society in the nation of Burma in the 1950s.

The book is also important as insight into what has been lost in Burma for the last 45 years. We have learned in the last few years of the Orwellian horror that is the life imposed on average Burmese citizens, but, truly a harsh existence has been endured there by average citizens for four-and-a-half decades, since a military junta took control. Soon the dimming light on Burma may move elsewhere and the Burmese will, again, be forgotten, to languish in misery for further decades under the thumb of a cruel regime. [See Bertil Lintner's "The Burmese Way to Fascism," an essay from 2007 on how things have been and pretty much now are in Burma.]

George McRobie, who worked with Schumacher for twenty years, and with him founded Intermediate Technology Group and in the 80s taught Appropriate Technology at the University of Pennsylvania, writes this of Schumacher’s experience in Burma:

Fritz spent all his free time in Burma studying Buddhism. He spent his weekends in a monastery and studied under Buddhist scholars. “I then began to ask myself,” he said, “What would a Buddhist economics look like? And I concluded that it would be the exact opposite of our Western economics.”

First, he argued, a Buddhist approach to economics would distinguish between misery, sufficiency and surfeit. Economic growth would be good only to the point of sufficiency. Limitless growth and consumption would be disastrous. Secondly, a Buddhist economics would be based squarely on renewable resources: an economics of permanence In contrast, Western economics is based on the ruthless exploitation of nonrenewable resources, and recognizes no limits to production and consumption -- a nonsustainable system.

Schumacher had been enchanted by Burma and the happy society he’d witnessed there on visits in the 50s. In 1955, he wrote about how its society functioned in a paper, published in Rangoon, Burma, “The Economics of Buddhists.” In 1966, four years after the military took control of the country, he wrote a paper called “Buddhist Economics” that was published as part of Schumacher’s first book, A Handbook of Asia. It also appears as the fourth chapter in Small is Beautiful and can now be found many places online, including here [at the E.F. Schumacher Society].

It’s only about six pages long. Go read it!

Truly, the whole of Schumacher’s work as an economist, from the mid-50s until his death at age 66 in 1977 is his “Buddhist Economics,” a sustainable system to support happy lives. It is sad that Schumacher’s enduring message made it to the world stage when he was already 62 and so shortly before his death. But his message ― so clarion now with climate change and economic retreat in the offing ― is still disregarded by our gutless leaders who pander to corporations that survive wholly on ‘growth, more, bigger.’

While it is true that Schumacher did not anticipate the rush of technologies that have promised to make work increasingly interesting and challenging and life less wasteful ["might have promise," I should say. Who knows where technological advancement might take us?], he did recognize the rat race that modern life has become. Instead of making life less stressful, it has become more competative with the price of messing up more severe. Instead of bringing more economic balance to societies, it has ushered in a new Gilded Age of wide disparities.

This from Manas Journal [which is associated with the EF Schumacher Society] in a piece titled "Limitation is Liberation" [Nov 1985]:

What, Schumacher asked, is wrong with Western economics? Thinking about how to make a living cannot be a mistake, but Western economics, he held, is founded on a mistake—the failure to establish limits. As he said:

Because Economics, up to a point, can rightly claim universal validity, it has been accepted as possessing universal validity throughout. What do I mean by up to a point? The essence of materialism is not its concern with material wants, but the total absence of any idea of Limit or Measure. The materialist's idea of progress is an idea of progress without limit. . . .

Is this compatible with Buddhism or Christianity or with anything the Great Teachers of mankind have proclaimed? Of course not. It is compatible only with the most naked form of Materialism.

As I write this the Democrats [with Obama being the leading voice] and the Republicans [with the Tea Party holding sway] are locking horns. But, truly, both sides want the same thing to 'cure' America's economic woes: A surge of consumerism! A pox on both their houses, I say. It is exactly what Schumacher inveighed against: Materialism run amok. The cure to all our ills becomes more work, more stuff, bigger houses to hold it all. Our judgments become one of how much stuff we have in comparison to how much stuff the neighbors -- the Joneses -- have. More, more, more, unsustainably till everything bursts.

I don't know that Schumacher would approve, but we need to do something other than what both the Democrats and Republicans are contemplating as fixes for our economy.

My suggestions:  Let us remove ALL payroll taxes, and tax in other ways to cover workers' benefits.  Why?  To make things such that having an employee is as cheap as possible in the US.  That way, workers here can compete against labor elsewhere in the world and against technologies that replace humans as workers.

Let us shorten the workweek from 40 hours to 30 hours before overtime kicks in.  Thus, businesses will be encouraged to enlarge their workforce.

Let us forestall foreclosures on homeowners by allowing homeowners to keep their house if they make mortgage payments that are 40% or more of their income.  That way, we might be able to stabilize the housing market more quickly.  And, we take the intense stress that has descended on as many as 30% of the people in the US.

We need a more compassionate economics in the West.  And, most importantly, one that is sustainable and allows us to escape the pointless, life-robbing circumstance where we all become chasing-our-own-tail Consumerists.

Fantastic blogposts that, from their content, relate to this one:  "Buddhist Economics." from The Buddhist Blog. James Ure bemoans the lost interconnectivity in society in light of the worldwide economic plunge. And, from Integral Options Cafe, there's "Adbusters - E.F. Schumacher (Thought Control in Economics)" wherein PB's William Harryman writes about a more-compassionate economics, based on Schumacher's insights, and then presents a piece from Adbusters that gives some background to Schumacher's life and thoughts.