Ahimsa and Non-Agression (Part 1)

Thanks to Jacob for setting up a group blog based on two movements that have profoundly shaped my life and thinking. I’m much newer to libertarian thought than to Buddhism and I really haven’t had the opportunity to think through the connections and points of tension. So, I’m looking forward to thinking through these things in a group setting.

(NB: I’m using the “Buddhism” in a broad sense to refer to what I take to be widely shared Buddhist values, insights, and concerns. Buddhism is, of course, internally extremely diverse, so take generalizations with a few grains of salt.)

When thinking about the connections between Buddhism and libertarianism, the first thing that comes up for me is the shared commitment to refraining from harm to others. In the Buddhist tradition, this commitment is expressed through the practice and cultivation of the virtue of ahimsa—literally “non-injury” or “non-harm.” Ahimsa really has its roots in Jainism, but was taken up in different ways by both the Buddhist and the Hindu traditions. In Jainism the full practice of ahimsa is taken to entail absolute pacifism and a strong commitment not to harm any living thing (including insects, etc.). However, the strength and scope of ahimsa are not as great in Buddhism or Hinduism (and that is not a criticism—I think the Jain position is philosophically untenable).

In Buddhism, the practice of ahimsa entails an attempt to avoid or minimize harming others (often including non-human sentient beings) or oneself through body, speech, or mind. Thus ahimsa is definitely both a self-regarding and an other-regarding virtue. In the Yoga tradition, ahimsa is considered to first virtue, that without which no spiritual progress can be made. Of course, in all the Indian traditions (and Buddhism outside India) virtue is taken to be a matter of degree, rather than an all-or-nothing quality.

So, in Buddhism one of the absolutely central ethical teachings is to refrain, insofar as possible, from harming others. And clearly this includes using coercion or the threat of coercion against non-harmful others. And further, since in Buddhism ends and means must be consistent, it is not morally acceptable (generally speaking) to harm others in the promotion of otherwise good ends. Indeed, in some ways we can see Buddhism as being centrally about the cultivation of wisdom (prajna) and compassion (karuna). Yet, the point is not simply to promote those values—that is, to make sure, by any means necessary, that the world contains to greatest amount of both wisdom and compassion—but rather to exemplify and cultivate wisdom and compassion in one’s own life. Thus even if using harm against peaceful others would have good consequences, it would still be immoral from a Buddhist perspective because the harmful action would exemplify himsa (injury) rather than a-himsa (non-injury).

Furthermore, when it comes to Tantric traditions (such as Tibetan Buddhism and Japanese Shingon) there is a strong emphasis on a plurality of paths to enlightenment. One is to work with one's own particular dispositions, history, temperament, etc. (basically, one's karma) in order develop a particular practice. And since ultimately one's liberation is one's own responsibility--another person can't enlighten you any more than he or she can be creative for you--ahimsa is taken to entail a broader tolerance toward a diversity of spiritual paths.

What I think most “socially engaged” Buddhists fail to see is that government action always entails the use or threat of force against one’s fellow human beings and is therefore himsa, not ahimsa. The state, then, is that institution that claims a monopoly on the “legitimate” use of himsa within a given territory. As practitioners of ahimsa, then, Buddhists should be extremely skeptical of the state.

Thou Shalt Not

The Christian faith is full of wisdom for one who has the patience to listen to its teachings. Said the Christ:

"If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."

The clear, peaceful teachings of the Christ make the warmongering cries of those that raise his banner even harder to stomach. Mr. Pat Robertson, how can you say you are the spokesman of Christ? How does your speech follow his teachings? How can you stand in front of admiring crowds and read to them the words of Jesus above, when you advocate the execution of Hugo Chavez, saying:

"If he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it...It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war. And I don't think any oil shipments will stop."

Free Trade vs. Forced Charity

Tyler Cowen writes:

Total tsunami foreign aid from the U.S.: $908 million

U.S. tariff revenue from Sri Lanka, Thailand, India, and Indonesia: $1.87 billion

That is from Foreign Policy, September/October issue.

Which is true compassion, allowing people to trade freely or "gifts" of foreign aid? Let's examine two states of the world, one in which the US allows Southeast Asian countries to trade without tariffs but does not give foreign aid and the current state of the world.

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No-tariffs, no aid:

Winners: US taxpayers, US consumers, foreign business owners and wage earners.

Losers: US government, foreign governments

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Tariffs with Foreign Aid:

Winners: US government and friends, foreign governments and friends.

Losers: US taxpayers, US consumers, foreign business owners and wage earners.

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If the policy is made by the US government you know the little guy has to get screwed.

Decentralize for Peace

The United States military is a ferocious beast. It has a budget of $441 billion each year, as much as the rest of the world combined, greater than the entire annual income of all but 15 countries.

Such a mighty force is not meant for defense. It is meant for eternal war.

There cannot be peace where such a beast exists. Many deluded people think that if we change who is in control then we can modify the beast's behavior. However the power to crush any other armed force in the world is a temptation that few men can resist.

The only way to eliminate the beast is to take away its sustenance. It dines upon the world's largest tax base and takes a firmly entrenched part of the US government's annual budget. If the United States were fragmented into smaller units, the taxing power of the US government would die and with it would go the great beast of war.

Centralization is the problem. The larger a share of global income that a government is allowed to tax, the more pressure it has to engage in bully tactics to achieve its foreign policy aims. Decentralization is the answer. Splitting the world's income among the nations in smaller slices criples any one country's ability to make war.

I'd rather see boys hitting each other with sticks than adults shooting each other with guns. The decentralization solution is analogous.

If supposed bastions of opposition to the current administration such as California, Massachusets, New York, and New Jersey left the union, that would take away %27 of the US government's ability to make war. If anti-war citizens want to make a real difference they can simply stop paying for causes they do not believe in.

There is another solution: eliminate the agressive instincts of mankind. This has been the position advocated by utopians such as the Marxists.

Libertarians, working with the world as it is and not as they wish it were, do not allow themselves such fanciful solutions.

A Meditation

My life is filled with activity. During the week I wake up before the sunrise. The pleasure of welcoming the light into the world each day only partially compensates for the weariness left in my body by too little sleep. I then drive to work where I remain for nine hours or so. In the early evening I return home. I exercise for an hour, make dinner, read or write, and then go to bed.

On the weekends I am trying to start a business. Recently telemarketers have called me on my cell phone to offer me small business products. This is a bittersweet sign. I resent the invasion of my time and my voicemail, but I believe this means my business license has been approved, as the process involves the public listing of my contact information.

Amidst this storm of activity, it is easy to lose sight of myself and my purpose. Therefore, every now and then I find it necessary to pause. I last did so a week and a half ago.

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I meditate. I let my consciousness dwindle down to a single point, focused solely on my breath. I forget my worries about the future and my embarrassments about the past. I let go.

I am. Simply. I exist only in the present moment. No more, no less.

In this moment of pause, this bardo, I become peace. I slowly widen my consciousness to embrace my surroundings with peace in my heart. My mind is filled with truth and light.

As my eyelids drift apart, I find myself in a small, chic coffee shop on Atlanta’s chic west side. Chic art hangs upon the chic brick walls of the converted warehouse (a chic thing to do). A man, who I have seen before, sits to my left staring at his laptop computer. I wonder what he is reading, and if he recognizes me. Behind me and to my right I hear the sound of two young ladies in a discussion about life, religion, and truth. I think they will fare well in this world; they know the right questions to ask. A few other patrons sit in front of computers, scattered around the seating area. I wonder what sort of persons they are. I wonder what they care about, if they have families, and what they are doing with their lives.

I cradle a warm mug of tea in both my hands. My eyes come to rest upon it. Slowly, I take a sip. I let the hot liquid sit on my tongue as I contemplate its flavors. With the beverage still in my mouth, my sight falls on the moistened bags of herbs from which the tea was produced. They sit upon a saucer on the arm of my chair.

Now that I have taken a sip, the herbs in those tea bags and I have become one. They are distinct from me, and I from them. I can see them sitting eight inches from my right arm. However, through the intermediate medium of hot water we have become interconnected in a real way. I have tasted of their essence.

My awareness lifs itself away from the tea, now coming to rest once again on my fellow patrons. We, too, are interconnected, like the tea bags and I. We do not have an connecting medium of water, but of air, light, and sounds. Through our senses we take the essence of others to be part of our experience and thus part of our lives, our very selves.

To them I am a young man sitting on the couch, meditating, reading, and drinking a cup of tea. To me, they are two young ladies pondering the meaning of the universe, men typing at their computers, and friends completing a homework assignment together. Each of us has touched the others’ world. We are interconnected in a very real way.

The whole of human society is a giant cup of tea from which we all drink. Each of us will become part of a countless number of people.

Earlier, I had been reading about the concept of interconnectedness in Thich Nhat Hanh's book "Anger". I did not understand his teaching and put the book down, puzzled. I only reached an understanding of interconnectedness when I experienced it directly. My meditation opened the way to insight.

With that, a spirit of peace came over me. That spirit would last for the rest of the night, eventually carrying me off into a gentle rest.

Beginner's Buddhism

Anonymous asked in a comment to my "Dharma and Freedom" post:

"...could you provide some links pertaining to Buddhism that one could learn more about the religion from? Maybe a primer to Buddhism type post?..."

This is a question that I hear a lot. I have written a short note addressing this very question, which you can access at my blog:
http://zenwind.blogspot.com

I thought that, rather than take up a lot of space here and rather than burying it in the comments section, I would post the blog link instead. If anyone else has additional suggestions on intros to Buddhism, I know that I would welcome them, for I have so much to learn yet.

-Zenwind.

Follow Up

Yesterday (August 6th) was the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima.

Ralph Raico revisits the tragedy, arguing against the official government interpretation with clear moral reasoning and cold hard facts.

The Guardian shows that the atrocity at Hiroshima was but one of many.

Lawrence Wittner ponders the future of nuclear weapons.

Dharma and Freedom

Thanks, Jacob, for inviting me to share my thoughts on Enlightened Liberty. I have considered myself to be both a Buddhist and a libertarian for over three decades, so I know that this unconventional mix can indeed work within an individual’s psyche.

Yet, for most of those three decades, I knew of no one else with anything remotely similar to this type of perspective. The internet is so wonderful because it can connect people with common bonds. Thus, I run into you guys.

I have always known many Buddhists who scorn the making of money, who distrust any unhampered free market activity among consenting adults or who disdain libertarian defenses of extreme life-style choices and personal liberty. Many often gravitate toward fascism or other brands of socialism, seduced by an image of a benevolent state (Big Mommy). They imagine that government officials will become benign rulers like the Buddha’s friend, King Bimbisara. Dream on. I think that Lord Acton’s axiom – "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" – fits very well within the Buddha’s teachings.

I have also always known many libertarians (especially in the post-Objectivist circles I traveled in) who loathe Buddhism because they do not understand it and deem it "mystical," negativist, anti-life, irrational, and other such nonsense. The libertarian movement today also has some pathetic wannabe side-kicks who are more truly social conservatives who pick out a couple of libertarian issues they agree with (mostly involving economics) but reject social freedoms for individuals. Many of these conservatives are fundamentalist Christians who think Buddhists are idol worshipers.

Libertarian ideas fit Buddhism well because they promote peace and prosperity to a vastly higher degree than any other social order. People trampled by war, oppressed by the welfare/warfare state and crushed by poverty certainly can benefit from hearing the Dharma, but people living at ease in a peaceful environment and in a high standard of living will be more able to cultivate it within their lives. Notice the increasingly high interest in Buddhism today in the relatively free and capitalist West.

Anti-libertarian systems (e.g., socialism in its various forms, conservativism, etc.) obstruct the Dharma, because, by establishing authoritative control over various spheres of an individual’s life, the state suffocates the growth of self-responsibility -- that self-control needed to aspire upward on a spiritual path.

-Zenwind.

Some enlightened thoughts about liberty and government

Hello to all of the Enlightened Liberty readers out there.

I'd like to thank Jacob for inviting me to hop aboard this blog for the time being to share my thoughts on libertarianism as it relates to Buddhist thought. This blog is a great idea and a synthesis of such similar philosophies seems long overdue to me.

My first contribution may not directly relate to Buddhism, although it should be easy for y'all to see it's relevance nonetheless. Though not a Buddhist, Mohandas Gandhi and his life philosophy share much in common with those who take the teachings of Buddha to heart. While many people seem to think that Gandhi was a socialist of the statist variety, there is a website out there that provides words of wisdom of Gandhi that seem to challenge that notion. The site is called What Would Gandhi Do?, and it's main page contains quotes dealing with many different topics.

Here are a few of his comments worth noting from the section called "Gandhi on Freedom":

No action which is not voluntary can be called moral.

Any action that is dictated by fear or by coercion of any kind ceases to be moral

Freedom of the individual is at the root of all progress.

Then there's a section called "Gandhi on Government". I'll just go right ahead and paste the entire section here since it is full of good insight.

Government control gives rise to fraud, suppression of Truth, intensification of the black market and artificial scarcity. Above all, it unmans the people and deprives them of initiative, it undoes the teaching of self-help...I look upon an increase in the power of the State with the greatest fear because, although while apparently doing good by minimizing exploitation, it does the greatest harm to mankind by destroying individuality which lies at the heart of all progress...Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms as the blackest....We find the general work of mankind is being carried on from day to day be the mass of people acting as if by instinct....If they were instinctively violent the world would end in no time...It is when the mass mind is unnaturally influenced by wicked men that the mass of mankind commit violence. But they forget it as they commit it because they return to their peaceful nature immediately the evil influence of the directing mind has been removed....A government that is evil has no room for good men and women except in its prisons.

Some interesting stuff to digest, especially if you thought that someone like Gandhi would have praised the modern welfare state.

Jacob vs. The Government, Round II

Being out in the real world for the first time I am directly exposed to harm caused by government. My antipathy towards political power has evolved from a theoretical construct to personal experience. I am witnessing how government often provides a tripping foot but seldom a helping hand.

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I had another tangle with City Hall yesterday. I got up at 7 AM and waded my way through Atlanta traffic in hopes of getting a license to do business.

Walking across the marble floor of City Hall, I wondered how much tax money was spent on the spectacular building. The elevator also had a marble floor, trimmed with shiny brass. As the door slid shut, I turned arround and saw a sign that read, "The City of Atlanta, committed to serving YOU."

It was during normal business hours, so the line in the licensing office was short. I filled out the license application form and handed it to the receptionist. "You need to get zoning to sign off on this.", she said and directed me to the zoning office.

I wondered why a man needed to get permission to do business in his own home.

Behind the desks in the zoning office sat grocery carts filled with paper work. Looking at the thick, three-foot long rolls of triplicate forms I was simultaneously happy that I wasn't one of the poor schmucks applying for a building license and filled with pity for those who were.

My adventure in line-waiting ended up being a waste of time. I live across the city line, so I have to go to another City Hall on Thursday and reapply.

There was another guy in line who had it worse than me. He simply wanted permission to build two buildings for himself; he didn't want to sell anything at all. But the city still wanted him to get a business license. He had to sit through all the lines and fill out all the same paperwork that I did simply for permission to use his own land.

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I moved in to a new apartment on Saturday. One of my roomates was a day late returning from a weekend trip to a music festival in Asheville, NC. The reason? He was in prison.

While at a music festival he and his friends were caught doing drugs by undercover police officers. They were hauled away in a paddy wagon filled with other non-violent offenders and kept for the weekend in a prison cell. Now he faces hefty penalties, including jail time, unless his attourney can work some legal magic. If he does go to jail he'll certainly lose his job.

More than 80% of drug offenders in the North Carolina penal system were arrested for simple possession.

I wondered why the penalties for drug use should be more harmful than the drugs themselves.

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I interviewed at Bear Sterns today for a position providing sales support to their highest volume fixed-income broker. The woman interviewing me mentioned how hard new laws and regulations have made it for them to do business. In her words, the brokerage business "is a lot less fun than it used to be".

For example, the SEC is now limiting the number of accounts a single person is allowed to day-trade on the stock market. Bear Sterns' day-traders will either have to quit their jobs or stop trading their own personal accounts. Their livelihoods have been severely affected, a hidden cost of SEC regulation.

New brokers joining Bear Sterns have to hand over much more information about their clients than they used to, including copies of their driver's licenses. All of the information the brokers collect is carefully scrutinized by the government. Customers, mostly older individuals who are used to having things done their way, are understandably upset.

A Georgia accent, heretofore dormant, suddenly manifested itself in my interviewer, "Big Brotha is heeya", she said.

Most of these new rules come from the infamous Sarbanes-Oxley act. The cost of being a public company rose 45% from 2003 to 2004 for companies with revenue over $1 billion a year as a result of the phase in of Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.

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The Buddha taught people about conditioned arrising, a long chain of casuality that shows all suffering is eventually caused by ignorance. In the democratic process, the ignorance and fear of the populace is exploited for political ends.

Following the genuine crimes of the executives at Enron, politicians found out that being "tough on white-collar crime" was good for winning votes. Thus they passed laws that punished thousands of innocent financial workers. In the process, they won praise from media pundits and scored points with constituents ignorant of the financial world.

Citizens, miseducated in government schools from an early age, overestimate the harm and severity of drug use. When a politician promises to levy insanely disproportional penalties on drug offenders they win votes and acclaim. Thus prisons are filled with non-violent "criminals".

7.5% of Georgia's adult population is supervised by the penal system.

And lastly, ignorance of the workings of the free market causes city authorities and residents to think licenses and careful supervision of firms is necessary. They do not see the true cost of the mountains of red tape: businesses not opened, jobs not created, and value not added. Opportunity costs are ignored.

Ignorance lies at the heart of the government beast.

New Author

I'd like to welcome Freeman, our first co-blogger.