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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
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