Response: Visions and
Revisions in Buddhist Ethics
Christopher Ives
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University of Puget Sound
Complementing his creation of the new electronic
journal, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Charles Prebish has assembled on this
panel prominent scholars in the newly-emergent field of Buddhist ethics.
In their papers they investigate several strands of Theravaada and
Mahaayaana ethical reflection. By bringing philological tools to bear on
key texts and analyzing modes of ethical argumentation, they extend their
inquiry beyond descriptive ethics to the level of meta-ethics, and thereby
provide fertile ground for the work of other Buddhologists and ethicists
in general.
Dan Cozort's paper, "Cutting the Roots of
Virtue": Tsongkhapa on the Results of Anger," examines
Tsongkhapa's writings on anger in relation to earlier Mahaayaana Buddhist
texts. Cozort broaches the possibility that Buddhist views of anger as a
"root affliction" (kle"sa) that "cuts the roots of
virtue" force the conclusion that angry people may be unable to
achieve liberation. To Tsongkhapa, one of the main problems with the
emotion of anger is the ascription of autonomy to the object of anger.
This reification or hypostatisation of the object of anger entangles the
angry one in his or her own mental constructs and resultant suffering.
However, when the notion that a mere moment of anger can cause the loss of
aeons of virtue is juxtaposed with the doctrine of "suunyataa,
certain questions arise. For example, might Tsongkhapa's tradition itself
be succumbing to reification-- of an emotion, rather than the object
thereof-- in its attempt to critique anger?
One might also wonder whether the negative valuation of
anger is only in response to the unenlightened substantialization of the
object of one's anger. Cozort outlines how the consequences of anger are
disastrous if the object of the anger is a bodhisattva. Presumably, a
bodhisattva is an individual who has stayed in the realm of sa.msaara in
order to take on the suffering of sentient beings and kindly lead them to
liberation. Though generally Tsongkhapa does not concern himself with the
effects of anger on its object, if there is any individual who would not
be expected to react to anger with further anger or any other kind of
emotional entanglement, one would expect this to be the bodhisattva (all
past kindnesses aside). In other words, if concerned compassionately about
the relative exacerbation of suffering in the world, a Mahaayaana Buddhist
could argue that along the spectrum of individuals with whom one might be
angry, the best person to be angry with would be a bodhisattva, for the
net effect in terms of increased entanglement and suffering presumably
would be less in that case.
Granted, given the status of bodhisattvas in Mahaayaana
Buddhism, anger toward them might be seen as contrary, for example, to
precepts against defaming the Three Jewels. However, even allowing for
textual and philosophical bases for this construal of anger toward a
bodhisattva, data about the institutional and historical contexts of the
formulation of Mahaayaana prohibitions against anger might prove
illuminating. Perhaps the issue of anger toward high-ranking Buddhist
figures such as bodhisattvas says more about the political organization of
and conflict in the Sangha than about the religious status of these
figures.
Cozort also cites a contemporary Gelugpa scholar
who maintains that anger will indeed have a disastrous effect on the roots
of virtue, as argued 600 years earlier by Tsongkhapa. Although this claim
may make sense in terms of a leading scholar remaining faithful to
traditional, orthodox sources, one might wonder whether Tibetan leaders of
a less scholarly bent-- with a more pastoral orientation, as it were--
might be expressing different stances in response to possible anger
harbored by their Tibetan lay followers. Specifically, how have Tibetan
lamas responded to the kind of anger one might expect to have emerged from
the Tibetan community? To what extent might there be room in Tibetan
Buddhist doctrine for an "upaayic" accommodation of anger in a
specific historical state of oppression? Though this line of questioning
may be based on a culturally biased ascription of emotions to this Asian
community (perhaps most Tibetans have not responded to events in 1949 and
1959 with anger), it is interesting to wonder how Tibetans are handling
the anger, if any, they might be experiencing in response to the Chinese
government. Here, too, a linkage between classical texts or scholastic
exegesis and concrete ethnographic data would shed important light on the
formulation and application of Tibetan ethical systems in actual
communities, monastic or lay.
In his examination of the issue of suicide in early
Buddhism, Damien Keown probes the multivalency of Pali terms in a
canonical account of an (apparent) arhat's suicide and formulates a
provocative interpretation of the traditional Buddhist approach to
suicide. Keown concludes that the tradition "neatly avoids" the
dilemma of an arhat breaking precepts by arguing that the individual in
question achieved enlightenment only after cutting his throat, and hence
was not technically an arhat at the beginning of the suicidal act. One
might wonder how, exactly, the act of slitting one's throat causes an
enlightenment experience. Though the text mentions a recognition of
unenlightenment that somehow led to an arousal of insight concurrent with
the act of cutting the throat, and though it may be difficult to argue
that, in principle, the act of slitting the throat could never be
accompanied by enlightenment, without further explanation one is tempted
to conclude that the tradition has advanced an ad hoc resolution to a
difficult religious (and institutional?) problem.
The idea that suicide can somehow enlighten the person
echoes certain articulations of the connection between Zen and samurai,
where Japanese thinkers have argued that the sword is not for taking life
but for "giving life," apparently in the sense of triggering
some sort of realization in people who cut with or are cut by the blade.
Further, the apparently ad hoc solution to the issue of
an arhat's suicide seems to parallel an issue that many in the Zen
tradition are currently facing: behavior by ostensibly enlightened rooshi
("Zen masters") that is ethically problematical and hence
unexpected from someone of purportedly advanced realization. Similar to
the response to an apparent arhat's suicide, some have argued that the
rooshi involved in unethical behavior are actually not enlightened, but
this resolution of the issue of the apparent lack of connection between
the rooshi and ethical behavior strikes at the heart of the tradition's
claim of a supposedly unbroken lineage of enlightened Zen teachers
stretching back to the Buddha himself. Others have argued that one should
not expect an enlightened person to demonstrate moral rectitude or
perfection, but this response to the issue of unethical rooshi undermines
the Zen and broader Mahaayaana Buddhist claim that enlightened individuals
are equipped with wisdom (praj~naa) and compassion (karu.naa).
Perhaps there are other Theravaadan texts that could
provide a persuasive response to question of whether the Theravaadan
tradition is splitting hairs with the arhat's razor. And perhaps some
members of the audience listening to this panel might wish that the
Theravaadan tradition had been blessed with Occam, for in this case his
razor might prove useful.
In bringing "ethical particularism" to
our attention, Charles Hallisey provides an intriguing angle on Theravaada
Buddhist ethics. A first question that one might pose to his paper is that
of the degree to which "ethical particularism" characterizes not
only the Ma"ngalasutta but Buddhism in general. A second query is
that of whether a community's lack of agreement on a criterion or a single
meta-ethical principle through which one can determine whether specific
things are instances of a duty or virtue such as
"auspiciousness" (ma"ngala) leads us only to the conclusion
that there is simply a particular consensus about which actions are
instances of that specific duty or virtue.
One possibility that must be entertained here is that
there is something common to the particular cases that individuals agree
constitute "auspiciousness," but people at that time in South
Asia could not agree on what it was or give the commonality an adequate
articulation (through an inductive process of reasoning). In his paper,
Hallisey seems to allow for the possibility of commonality (and perhaps
principles or criteria), when he states that in the context of ethical
particularism "we develop a sense of judgment" and "some
general truths are evident." In short, what we may be encountering
here is not ethical particularism but a historical situation in which
other issues-- whether social, political, linguistic, or semantic--
precluded explicit consensus or definitional statements about what
constitutes"auspiciousness." Perhaps further textual analysis
would indicate that in fact there are certain principles operative in such
moral categories as "auspiciousness."
But if in fact "auspiciousness" does simply
refer to an agreed-upon cluster of actions without any demonstrable
commonality or principles linking them, one must ask whether we are
dealing with "ethics" per se or simply with convention. In other
words, at what point does ethical particularism become something other
than ethics? Or is a definition of "ethics" that excludes
convention overly narrow?
In his analysis of key Mahaayaana Buddhist texts,
David Chappell highlights for us the fact that the ways Buddhologists
classify and group texts do not necessarily correspond with how actual
Buddhists and their religious communities draw from those texts to meet
various ethical and philosophical needs. Chappell also highlights
different notions of skillful means (upaaya) and compassion (karu.naa).
His discussion causes me to wonder about the basis, if any, on which one
might be compelled to see skillful means or compassion as ethical. One
might wonder whether upaaya and karu.naa are primarily religious (in the
more existential sense), not ethical, and may function in ways that seem
contrary to ordinary ethics. In Mahaayaana Buddhism, might there not be an
element of what Kierkegaard referred to as a "teleological suspension
of the ethical," especially when upaaya takes the form of actions
that violate certain precepts or Buddhist values. (One extreme example of
this is the Ch'an teacher Chu-ji (J. Gutei) supposedly inducing
enlightenment by cutting off the finger of an acolyte who had imitated
him.)
Of course, enlightenment may be held up as the ultimate
telos, and in this sense could be regarded as a kind of "good"
or summum bonum, which would grant a certain ethical status to compassion
and skillful means. But though those who expound enlightenment in this way
may still face questions about the usage of the term "good"
(both nominally and adjectivally) in relation to the notion of
enlightenment, i.e., about the degree to which we can justifiably stretch
ethical categories.
At one point in his paper Chappell writes that the
Confucian system in Japan prohibited social involvement on the part of
Buddhists. Strictly speaking, this was not the case, though Chappell may
be thinking of social involvement in terms of certain modern types of
social action entered into voluntarily by Buddhist institutions. During
the Tokugawa period (1600-1868), Buddhists were highly involved in the
largely Confucian political system. At that time Buddhist institutions
served as an arm of the Tokugawa government, with priests serving as de
facto officials, disseminating Confucian learning in temple schools (tera-koya),
and performing rituals for the protection of the realm and its rulers.
Following an anti-Buddhist campaign in the early years of the Meiji Period
(1868-1912), Buddhists participated actively in the socio-political arena
in order to justify themselves as socially useful in a rapidly
industrializing and militarizing Japan, and this attempt to be of social
utility led to active involvement in the unfolding of Japanese imperialism
prior to and during the Pacific War. In short, Buddhist social involvement
is not necessarily a post-war phenomenon. Perhaps the issue to consider
here is the exact circumstances and motivations behind social involvement
by Buddhists, and the forms that involvement took, rather than the issue
of whether they were or were not involved. Simply put, Buddhists have
always been involved in Japanese society and politics, though this
involvement has taken different forms at different points in time, some of
which may run contrary to the modern and in large part western values
operating in social activist circles in postwar Japan.
These brief remarks are intended simply to
highlight certain questions that emerged out of my reading of these four
excellent papers and do not do justice to the scholarooship done by these
scholars of Buddhism and ethics. It is clear that Charles Prebish and
Damien Keown, the two main editors of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, as
well as the other three panelists, have made a major contribution to the
study of Buddhism and ethics. These Buddhologists offer rich material for
those whose interests gravitate toward descriptive ethics or meta-ethics,
and they highlight ways in which prominent Buddhists have engaged in
normative ethical reflection as part of their tradition.
Importantly for all scholars of Buddhism and
ethics, the papers have also highlighted a key set of questions: What are
the central ethical values, if any, in and across various strands of
Buddhism? What are the main ethical theories and modes of argumentation
that characterize Buddhism? To what extent are Buddhist thinkers and
communities bound to earlier canonical sources? On what bases can
Buddhists provide ethical insight into contemporary issues? To what extent
might a Buddhological focus on texts obscure the actual ethical reflection
of Buddhist communities? By implicitly raising these questions and
offering some initial responses to them, these four papers constitute an
important milestone in the new field of Buddhist ethics and point to
numerous avenues of further inquiry.
Source : www.buddhismtoday.com
Update : 01-12-2001
