Issue

7th Issue (March, 2008)

'The Insubstantiality Emphasis' in Buddhism: Towards Establishment of an Harmonious ‘Human Culture’ in a World of Discriminations[1]

 Rev. Upali
University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka

Introduction

Due to globalization - along the introduction of new science and technologies and meeting together of East and West - an outcome of last few centuries, the world has become as complex as never before in the human history. The western colonizations, at different times of world history to enforce their culture to new societies are greatly responsible for that. One general outcome of such colonizations is that the subjected nations become concerned and develop patriotic literature to train the new generations to love and protect their nations and to hate the foreigners. This dual-role playing of human heart develops to such an extant that we often forget our true identity as human. As a result, we become Sri Lankan, Indians, Americans, and British and so on. The world history has, to point figure like Hitler and incidents of the world wars I and II, to show how pathetic and at the same time brutal the end of such patriotism and ethnocentrism could be.

Now, invasions by weapons have largely taken the form of intellectual preferences. Doors to nations are open and we either accept a culture (or part of it) in admiration or reject if their ways do not match our system. Such cultural incorporations too play a ‘dual role’ of love and hate. The italicized words might be replaced by like and dislike; but, emotions in them differ. Love is often related to strong admiration while hate has an aggressive outcome. There are ‘we’ and ‘our’ to like and love and ‘they’ and ‘their’ to hate. Such emotions often win over human hearts and aggravate to destroy what one hates.

The most recent incidents of the fall of American twin tower, and the Afghanistan and Iraq wars are most pathetic outcomes of that dual role playing of human heart ending in enormous destructions. In fact, almost all the countries are having conflicts regarding religious, ethnic or racial discriminations. Terrorism in addition is a great threat to world peace. What do they prove? How much civilized are we in reality and how much developed can we claim ourselves? Is there any difference from our ancestors who lived thousands of years before? Some might say that once sex was an indoor practice and now we are striving to break that convention to come down to streets and TV shows; our ancestors were brutal and fought beastly with swords but now we have atomic bombs; they were uncivilized and we are intelligent for we even venture to win planets. If we are really to be proud forwarding such views than I would say that such ‘material development’ is equal to the destruction of humanity.

For such examples, as preventive steps to future bloody wars and to make an end to all sorts of conflicts that arise in discriminations, ‘to think’ for an otherwise perspective in socializing human children, is expected. That is the broadest role that ‘Insubstantiality’ emphasis would play. Buddhism penetrates into ultimate actuality of the empirical world. It unveils the highest Truth of all esoteric religions – I, Mine, You or they do not exist at all in the ultimate sense. Discrimination or dual role play of the human heart in any form is a sheer illusion, perversion and ignorance. Even a uniform human personality is an illusion. The clash of civilizations is the clash of egoes which do not exist in the first place. The Insubstantiality emphasis would promote or foster the alliance of civilizations.

 Earning wealth is there but not neglecting the poor. There is no enforcement of a culture, religion or language to some other society claiming superiority over that. There is no hating or ridiculing others. The pride that you hold with regard to what belongs to you is the same with others in a different set up. In argument that you hate or mock at others, they too have rights to do so with regard to yours. Therefore, a mutual togetherness of all cultures has to be done in emphasizing the ultimate Truth of Insubstantiality among human beings and in all phenomena. Wherever there is a discrimination of power and wealth and superiority feeling to ridicule others, the Right Vision of Insubstantiality would eliminate attachment and aversion to construct harmony. The greatest Truth is that all human beings and all other phenomena are insubstantial. In seeking to fulfill that necessity, we use our thinking and find various answers. At the same time it has to be emphasized that the Insubstantiality Emphasis does not encourage inhumanity. That partly disagrees with the concept of ‘Cultural Relativism’ – an important concept in sociology, which maintains to respect other cultures. We may respect a culture as long as that makes no harm to humanity. But, if that does, for example, the human beings who encourage killing of human beings (or encourages inhumanity in any form) thinking as proper, we need to co-operate for establishing humanity among them. If we fail, that indeed has to be reckoned as the failure of humanity and hence an open declaration to the destruction of human race.

Applicability

If human children were taught to be patriots or ethnocentric, there is no certainty of existing peace among countries and different cultures as the long history of Mankind proves. It is the society that makes Hitler and Osama Bin Laden of innocent children who come to this world knowing nothing. It is also the society that gives birth to immortal personalities like Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi who dedicate their lives for non-violence. Anger or violent tendencies are biological characteristics that are common to all the living creatures. But, ‘causes’ for destructive emotions are conditioned by the external and internal conditions. Capacity to control our emotions is indeed a salient feature by which we distinguish ourselves from animals. Therefore, if the ‘Insubstantiality’ is emphasized, the world would most probably turn to be a ‘global family’ with much mutual understanding and co-operation. It is worthwhile to integrate the world as a global family rather than to regard it as a global village. Intimacy is much stronger among family members than in a village. Dedication and co-operation are primary in families while transactions and competitions maintain interpersonal relationships in village. All these interactions are important. More important is the unification of them as Insubtantiality connotes Dependent Co-arising, or Unity which connotes intrinsic interrelatedness or interdependence. Hence, transaction has to be done with a sense of co-operation not competition for myself being richer or the richest. A poor, for example, seeks financial aids from a rich neighbor (might be having nothing to eat or wear). The rich would give demanding a high rate of interest which would take a lifetime for the poor to repay. But, to my brother would I ever give loans – with the intention of getting back? This is just an indication of my many eye-witnessed incidents.

If the poor failed to repay, his rich neighbor would take legal actions and indeed the law is in his hands. However, not that he would starve even if the money is not repaid at all. What wins here is competition. The rich indicated here might be replaced by a rich country and the other a poor country.

Co-operation is equally important for maintaining world-wide harmony. Imagine, for example, three children born to a mother brought up in three different nations: Arabia, America, and India. The first brought up in an Islamic environment is a well-known terrorist. The second becomes the president of U.S. accused for being responsible for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The third brought up in a Hindu family becomes a fundamentalist of his religion.
These children, in whom living under the same roof and being intimate was more probable, have been subjected to the dual-role of human heart. If they lived in same country, their religious, national, cultural and ethnic identity would have been the same. Having been nurtured and trained in three different countries, the three children have been conditioned dissimilarly and consequently have emerged as dissimilar personalities. It is because of the insubstantiality of the Five Aggregates that they have emerged as different personalities due to differing environmental conditions. In the process of transformation of personal development, there are no permanent individualities called selves or egoes involved. What are to be condemned are not individuals which do not exist in the ultimate sense. What are to be blamed or condemned are the total environmental conditions in which the worldlings are subject to. As worldlings are not liberated saints, they have no control over their environment and thus have no control over the future outcomes. The actual cause of problem of any nation or the world is sum total of living conditions in which people live. According to Buddhist fundamental doctrine of Insubstantiality (Anattā) and Dependent Co-arising (Paṭissasamuppāda), no one individual is responsible for the problem of a nation or the world. All contigent conditions from countless related individuals are responsible for the world problem today. A president or a terrorist is not solely responsible for the world crisis or chaos today. Buddhism even transcends an individual human identity which is an illusion. Geographical boundaries and cultures are all illusions and insubstantial. The clash of civilizations is the clash of illusions and egoes. All esoteric religions advocate the common Truth that the multiplicity of geographical boundaries, cultures, races, religions, politics, nations and so forth are cosmic illusions like dreams, mirages, echoes, magics and so forth.

The saddest aspect of human-mind is that as much as it has been attempting to control the natural world, so much it has been neglecting that control of dual-role. Conflict and destruction too has been taking greater forms (world wars I, II and waiting for the third). Physically Man set foot on Moon but in control of the dual role it is the millions of years old. When the most important and biggest ‘human-culture’ is in crisis, what is the use of holding onto geographical boundaries and cultures to be proud?

We tend not to understand the simplest fact that we are born to different nations, cultures and religions not with our preferences (distressed Utopians would never wish to come to this world if they knew the country they would get.). We are sentient beings subjected to conditioning and being conditioned. The countries could be regarded as different rooms, say, divided for the three brothers to live conveniently. The religions and culture could be considered as environmental conditions which shape individuals beyond their controls as long as they are sentient beings vulnerable to external influences. Only the enlightened Arahants are unconditioned by the environmental stimuli. But Arahants are extremely rare in the modern world today.

Unfortunately since time immemorial, human beings are born with ontological commitment to individualities and multiplicity which obsess their minds. In this way, human children are taught to utter ‘I am a human being born to such and such country, religion, culture. There are many like me in the world. Despite the cultural differences, we are all the same in the sense that we feel hungry, and do not like to be hurt, we live on food,….’I believe that the bloody wars that world history witnessed would have been much less than half. That did not happen. We seek pleasure in discriminating pointing to all the minor differences just to dislike, hate and fight. Our tendency is to belong to nations, religions and cultures while the world - our ‘big home’ is open to belong and be proud of. The ‘conflict theorists’ would say conflicts are necessary and unavoidable for the promotion of society. The Insubstantiality emphasis would not agree, but claims that solutions to problems could be made in co-operation. A poor dying in dearth of food could be rescued by the one who has in abundance. The workers might form a unified body to fight against the Industry owners. But a large number of people have not the mental strength to do so. They just accept the harsh experiences as the world’s nature. Indeed more than half the world population is surviving with less than one dollar income. And poverty is a crucial factor responsible for the birth of many terrorists. The pathetic aspect of humans is that we are blinded by our selfish desires. Hence, we fail to bring peaceful solutions to problems. This failure could be made a success in developing a concept of oneness in the ‘Insubstantiality’ emphasis. There is nothing to applaud claiming or proving the that truth of conflict is unavoidable. The world was never as close as today. We have better possibilities to co-operate and delete vocabularies like, fights, conflict, blood-wars from practical usages and experiences. To control the ‘dual role playing’ is to control our emotions of love and hate and to establish the truth – not to be overanxious on what we love and also not to be aggressive to what we dislike. This is the Truth - the Truth of humanity that Buddha unveiled 2550 years ago. We see the practical importance of it every moment in our life. The ‘Insubstantiality’ emphasis could be applied to establish togetherness of nations in the broadest and among rival individuals (and rich and poor to be more specific) in the simplest.

Editor’s Note 

We welcome Dhamma articles pertaining to solution to the cessation of clash of civilization. In actuality, the clash of civilizations does not occur only between two conflicting blocs as we witness in our currently imperilled world. Collisions of civilizations also take place within an internally troubled nation or within a seemingly peacefully nation or between two or more nations of glaring conflicting political and economical ideologies. The common underlying cause is the deficiency or absence of religious wisdom to discern rightly the relationship between human beings and human beings and between human beings and the absolute Truth designatedly either as Buddha or God.

 The Buddhist universal Truth of Insubstantiality (Anattā) is synonymous with the absolute Truth of Unity or Non-duality identically expounded by all other esoteric religions. This is the converging point of Identity of eternal Truth by which we can avert the clash of civilizations and foster the alliance of civilizations. Conflicts between people of different nations or races are tantamount to conflicts between bothers and brothers if the absolute Truth is perceived by the Certainty’s Eye of a saved monotheist or the Dhamma Eye of a liberated Buddhist. Both discern the same Truth – whoever knows himself sees the Buddha or God (Truth).