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Title: Buddhist Anarchism Author: Gary Snyder Date: 1961 Language: en Topics: religion, buddhism Source: Retrieved on December 19, 2009 from http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/garysnyder.htm Notes: “Buddhist Anarchism” was originally published in Journal for the Protection of All Beings #1 (City Lights, 1961). A slightly revised version appeared in Earth House Hold (New Directions, 1969) under the title “Buddhism and the Coming Revolution.” I have reproduced the latter version, but have kept the original title. Copyright 1969. Reproduced here with permission from Gary Snyder (who informs me that any nonprofit reproduction of it is fine with him). This little text is one of the first expressions of what later became known as “socially engaged Buddhism.” It meant a lot to me when I first read it in 1962, and it still seems pretty lucid 40 years later (within its carefully modest limits, which obviously leave room for considerable divergences of views regarding tactics and strategies). It is precisely because Snyder was so important for me at the time that one of my first “situationist” actions (1970) was a disruption of one of his poetry readings — my personal declaration of independence from heroes and leaders of any kind, even the most admirable. I went my own way from then on, but I still acknowledge Gary Snyder as one of the people who have contributed most richly to my awareness of life’s possibilities.
Buddhism holds that the universe and all creatures in it are
intrinsically in a state of complete wisdom, love and compassion; acting
in natural response and mutual interdependence. The personal realization
of this from-the-beginning state cannot be had for and by one-“self” —
because it is not fully realized unless one has given the self up; and
away.
In the Buddhist view, that which obstructs the effortless manifestation
of this is Ignorance, which projects into fear and needless craving.
Historically, Buddhist philosophers have failed to analyze out the
degree to which ignorance and suffering are caused or encouraged by
social factors, considering fear-and-desire to be given facts of the
human condition. Consequently the major concern of Buddhist philosophy
is epistemology and “psychology” with no attention paid to historical or
sociological problems. Although Mahayana Buddhism has a grand vision of
universal salvation, the actual achievement of Buddhism has been the
development of practical systems of meditation toward the end of
liberating a few dedicated individuals from psychological hangups and
cultural conditionings. Institutional Buddhism has been conspicuously
ready to accept or ignore the inequalities and tyrannies of whatever
political system it found itself under. This can be death to Buddhism,
because it is death to any meaningful function of compassion. Wisdom
without compassion feels no pain.
No one today can afford to be innocent, or indulge himself in ignorance
of the nature of contemporary governments, politics and social orders.
The national polities of the modern world maintain their existence by
deliberately fostered craving and fear: monstrous protection rackets.
The “free world” has become economically dependent on a fantastic system
of stimulation of greed which cannot be fulfilled, sexual desire which
cannot be satiated and hatred which has no outlet except against
oneself, the persons one is supposed to love, or the revolutionary
aspirations of pitiful, poverty-stricken marginal societies like Cuba or
Vietnam. The conditions of the Cold War have turned all modern societies
— Communist included — into vicious distorters of man’s true potential.
They create populations of “preta” — hungry ghosts, with giant appetites
and throats no bigger than needles. The soil, the forests and all animal
life are being consumed by these cancerous collectivities; the air and
water of the planet is being fouled by them.
There is nothing in human nature or the requirements of human social
organization which intrinsically requires that a culture be
contradictory, repressive and productive of violent and frustrated
personalities. Recent findings in anthropology and psychology make this
more and more evident. One can prove it for himself by taking a good
look at his own nature through meditation. Once a person has this much
faith and insight, he must be led to a deep concern with the need for
radical social change through a variety of hopefully non-violent means.
The joyous and voluntary poverty of Buddhism becomes a positive force.
The traditional harmlessness and refusal to take life in any form has
nation-shaking implications. The practice of meditation, for which one
needs only “the ground beneath one’s feet,” wipes out mountains of junk
being pumped into the mind by the mass media and supermarket
universities. The belief in a serene and generous fulfillment of natural
loving desires destroys ideologies which blind, maim and repress — and
points the way to a kind of community which would amaze “moralists” and
transform armies of men who are fighters because they cannot be lovers.
Avatamsaka (Kegon) Buddhist philosophy sees the world as a vast
interrelated network in which all objects and creatures are necessary
and illuminated. From one standpoint, governments, wars, or all that we
consider “evil” are uncompromisingly contained in this totalistic realm.
The hawk, the swoop and the hare are one. From the “human” standpoint we
cannot live in those terms unless all beings see with the same
enlightened eye. The Bodhisattva lives by the sufferer’s standard, and
he must be effective in aiding those who suffer.
The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East
has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both. They
are both contained in the traditional three aspects of the Dharma path:
wisdom (prajna), meditation (dhyana), and morality (sila). Wisdom is
intuitive knowledge of the mind of love and clarity that lies beneath
one’s ego-driven anxieties and aggressions. Meditation is going into the
mind to see this for yourself — over and over again, until it becomes
the mind you live in. Morality is bringing it back out in the way you
live, through personal example and responsible action, ultimately toward
the true community (sangha) of “all beings.”
This last aspect means, for me, supporting any cultural and economic
revolution that moves clearly toward a free, international, classless
world. It means using such means as civil disobedience, outspoken
criticism, protest, pacifism, voluntary poverty and even gentle violence
if it comes to a matter of restraining some impetuous redneck. It means
affirming the widest possible spectrum of non-harmful individual
behavior — defending the right of individuals to smoke hemp, eat peyote,
be polygynous, polyandrous or homosexual. Worlds of behavior and custom
long banned by the Judaeo-Capitalist-Christian-Marxist West. It means
respecting intelligence and learning, but not as greed or means to
personal power. Working on one’s own responsibility, but willing to work
with a group. “Forming the new society within the shell of the old” —
the IWW slogan of fifty years ago.
The traditional cultures are in any case doomed, and rather than cling
to their good aspects hopelessly it should be remembered that whatever
is or ever was in any other culture can be reconstructed from the
unconscious, through meditation. In fact, it is my own view that the
coming revolution will close the circle and link us in many ways with
the most creative aspects of our archaic past. If we are lucky we may
eventually arrive at a totally integrated world culture with matrilineal
descent, free-form marriage, natural-credit communist economy, less
industry, far less population and lots more national parks.