(Speech delivered
on 21st May 2016 on Buddha Purnima at Buddha Vihar, Mahaobodhi
Society of India, New Delhi)
Venerable Summithananda, Bikkhu-in-Charge, New Delhi Centre of Mahabodi Society of India and other venerable monks; High Commissioner for Sri Lanka in New Delhi, Mr Esala Weerakoon and Mrs Weerakoon; Mr. Tsering Shanoo, Member, National Commission for Minorities, Government of India; Swamy Shantamananda, Secretary, Ramakrishna Mission; Dr A.K. Merchant, National Trustee, Lotus Temple and Baha’i Community of India; colleagues and friends.
Coming from
Sri Lanka, and that too from a Buddhist background, the celebration of Buddha
Purnima, which we call Vesak, comes naturally to me. Even so, it would be
dishonest of me if I do not say that today I think of myself as a reluctant speaker for the following
reasons. Late last month, Rev
Summithananda met me in my office in Chanakyapuri and invited me to speak today, on the theme, ‘The Buddha’s Message to the Modern World
and the Contribution of Maha Bodhi Society of India in this Process.’
I explained
to him that I am not a scholar of Buddhism nor a historian of Buddhist institution-building.
As such, I was not the ideal person to speak on such an occasion. At the same
time, given my own upbringing, I was reluctant to turn down the invitation from
a member of the clergy made with good intentions, without a good reason. The reason for my reluctance of course was my
own self-accepted relative ignorance of both Buddhism and Buddhist history in
our part of the world.
But given
Venerable Summithananda’s gentle persuasion, I thought I would use my ignorance
as a point of departure and make a few simple observations, which in some way
would address the first part of today’s theme, which is ‘The Buddha’s Message to the Modern World’. But I would rephrase this
statement in the form of a question, and attempt to answer it briefly in a way it
makes sense to a sociologist such as myself interested in the worldly affairs
of contemporary existence and politics.
And this is my question:
How do the Buddha’s thoughts make intellectual sense to a person interested in society and politics in contemporary times?
The Buddha
as we know, did not speak to our world. He spoke to the world in which he
lived, and was inspired in his thinking by what he saw in his own world. Today,
we know of his world only in fragments through the incomplete picture painted
by archeology and history and often clouded by myth. The question of course is,
can his thinking transgress his world across time and make sense today not only
in our world, but more specifically in the practice of a thoroughly
contemporary discipline such as mine?
Let me try
and address this question. I am a sociologist, and I explore human conditions,
anxieties, contradictions and the incredible messiness which define our
existence in contemporary times. As a rule, my process of analysis is
thoroughly rational, theoretically-based, highly analytical and completely devoid
of emotion. Can such a seemingly clinical process of reading the world be
informed by what the Buddha taught?
It seems to
me that much of abhidhamma which constitutes
of the Buddha’s thoughts, works in much the same way. But when attempting to
make this association, we have to be mindful that we are talking of two
different systems of knowledge. As we
know, sociology emerged in the latter part of 19th century in Europe
in the context of industrialization and post-Enlightenment knowledge.
Comparatively, Buddhism came into existence over 2,500 years ago under very
different socio-political circumstances in the extended neighborhood which we
call South Asia today.
But if one
is careful and within limits, I can’t see any reason why Buddhist thought
cannot inform sociological analysis. But I emphasize my caution which comes
with the words, ‘careful and within
limits.’
Let me
clarify my position by referring to two important Buddhist concepts which
emerge in discourses on consciousness and reality. According to abhidhamma, there are two kinds of reality: these are conventional reality known as sammuti
and ultimate reality known as paramattha.
In this scheme of things, conventional realities describe ordinary and mundane conceptual
thought and conventional or taken for granted modes of expression. This is what all of us deal with, on a day to
day basis. They include everything which
meets our eyes, from men to women, animals, trees, things and many other seemingly
stable objects which demarcate the extent of our unanalyzed world. I emphasize the word unanalyzed here.
According to
abhidhamma, all these things are
devoid of any sense of ultimate reality because the objects they signify cannot
exist on their own as irreducible facts.
In my reading of what this means, men, women, animals and other things
do not make sense or exist by independently by themselves. Instead, they exist in
relation to each other as well as in the context of a larger field of meaning, which requires explanation, analysis
and knowing.
That larger field of meaning is what abhidhamma refers to as ultimate realities. They exist on the
basis of their own intrinsic nature. Abhidhamma
calls these the dhammas, or final
components of existence which cannot be reduced further. In other words, they become possible only on
the basis of a properly and consciously undertaken process of analyzing experience;
an analysis of what is seen, heard and felt. This becomes possible by crossing
from the unanalyzed to the analyzed; from taken for granted knowledge to realms of actual knowing. In terms of abhidhamma,
these realities cannot be reduced any further.
What I have
just described comes from the core of abhidhamma,
and therefore from the realm of Buddhism.
So technically, these explanations are from a specific religion and therefore
cannot be part of science such as sociology if we go by the logic of
post-enlightenment rationality, which drives most contemporary academic
disciplines.
But at the
same time, it is also possible to perceive what I have outlined within a
paradigm that has nothing to with religion.
More realistically, this is simply a highly rational and unemotional method
of analysis which can well be employed to read society and its multiple complexities.
In fact, one of Buddhism’s main intellectual combustions is its ability to deal
with highly emotional issues such as desire and suffering within a highly
rational and non-emotional system of analysis. It seems to me that many
theoretical approaches or ideas I have used
in my own thinking over the last two decades and which have influenced many others in
humanities and social sciences such as
Ferdinand de Saussure’s semiotics
and Jean Baudrillard’s ideas on simulation
and simulacrum in certain ways work
as ideas in making sense of our social world in much the same way as do sammuti
or conventional reality and paramattha
or ultimate reality. All these, from the words of the Buddha to more recent
theorization attempt make sense of the world.
I am not making
a simplistic argument for the replacement of social sciences with abhidhamma. For me, as a person for whom
Buddhism offers intellectual inspiration, without emotional entanglements, this
makes no sense. Clearly, Buddhism is a vast system of knowledge for living as
well as for knowing the social world. Comparatively,
contemporary academic disciplines are merely limited tools for making sense of
the social world. They certainly cannot offer
an ideal for living. So one cannot and should not attempt to replace one with the
other. My suggestion is some careful and self-reflective thinking might well
allow us to formulate very contemporary approaches to reading society and
theorize social action which might be sensibly informed by a corpus of
knowledge such as abhidhamma. As far
as I can see, possibilities of such an attempt have not been seriously explored
yet.
Of course,
this is also journey which might entail considerable dangers at a time when
unmitigated violence in the name of Buddhism has become possible in many predominantly
Buddhist societies. As we know, violence
in any form cannot be formulated in terms of Buddhism. It can however be explained via Buddhism. Unfortunately,
Sri Lanka and Burma are both examples of this sad and anti-intellectual and
decidedly un-Buddhist turn of events.
This has become possible as a result of people who claim allegiance to
the ideas once propagated by the Buddha having opted to drift further and
further away from the core of his ideas, and seek solace in ignorance or moha.
I flagged
this danger of our times to conclude with a warning. Today, we see many systems of faith around
the world, despite their robust intellectual moorings and ideals of compassion being
reduced to discourses of division. This becomes possible when core ideals of a
system of knowledge and faith are misunderstood or deliberately misinterpreted
in order to suite contemporary exigencies and ill-defined circumstances.
In this
context, when we are thinking of Buddhism’s relevance to contemporary world and
to contemporary practices, it would make sense to also keep in mind that
disruptions to such thought will mostly come from within, from amongst moral communities who have lost touch
with their own ideals and are lost in a world of ignorance.
Abhidhmma might have described this
unfortunate contemporary dilemma as our inability to transgress from the emotional
shackles that bind us to the day to day realities of sammuti and cross over successfully to paramattha which might have explained the nature of our predicaments,
and hopefully point the way out.
Thank you
for your time and may this Buddha Purnima bring you and others in your respective
worlds much enlightenment.
Sasanka Perera
South Asian University 
