Dharma As Socialism
By Adrian Chan-Wyles PhD
There are four social classes, Vasettha: nobles, brahmans, tradespeople and work-people. Occasionally a noble deprives a living being of life, or is a thief, or unchaste, speaks lies, slanders, uses rough words, is a gossip, or greedy, or malevolent, or holds wrong views. Thus we see that qualities which are immoral, and are considered to be so, which are blameworthy, and are considered to be so, which are unworthy of an Aryan and are so considered, sinister qualities, discountenanced by the wise, are to be found occasionally in a nobleman. We may say as much concerning brahmans, tradesfolk and work-people. (The Buddha: Agganna Sutta, Verse 5)
Marxist philosophy transcends the European tradition of philosophy, and therefore can be considered a method of trans-philosophy. It is a system of thought that is beyond the limitation of every type of thought that has ever existed. Marxist thinking is a special type of mind usage that transcends conventional psychological conditioning and frees the mind to operate in an unendingly progressive manner that continuously moves forward and never backs down. A truly Marxist attitude is nothing more than the advanced mentality of the future, manifested ‘here and now’. The Marxist viewpoint is extraordinary and may be considered ‘Dharma’ in the Buddhist Sanskrit sense of the word – namely referring to an expression of ‘innate truth’ non-reliant upon divine revelation for its justification. In this context, Karl Marx is not just another philosopher – as he completes the European experiment with thought – but is rather a thinker free of the limitation of thought. No other Western thinker has ever achieved this position throughout history, not even the great ancient Greek philosophers. Marx appears to have arrived at this naturally post-modern attitude by ‘thinking’ his way out of the historical contrivance of conventional academia. He studied Greek thought, and European thought, and was aware of Buddhist philosophy (through his friendship with Karl Koppen, the German expert on early and Tibetan Buddhism). He examined the different modes of organising the human mind through the use of thought, and developed the insight that perceived how the human mind works, and why. He used this awareness to transcend the functionality of his own mind which created the outpouring that is the 50 volumes of his collected works.
Greed and malice fuels the ruthless and uncaring, class ridden capitalist system. Greed makes fools of all citizens as they are forced, through exploitative circumstance, to fight one another for imaginary control of resources. The world belongs to the people and there is no need for the working class to fight amongst itself. Refusing to be motivated by profit is a conscious decision that through appropriate action alters and changes the socio-economic conditions of the outer, material world. During the time of the Buddha’s physical existence, that is during the life of the individual those ideas are now preserved as ‘Buddhism’, the dialectical or antagonistic historical forces operated through a multifaceted caste system, which although ostensibly appearing to consist of a hierarchy of four established social tiers, in fact comprised of many more social sub-divisions, all set in stone through the teaching of Brahmanic religious thought. Like its counter-part of ‘class’, the caste system saw a ruthless minority firmly established and maintained as both politically and religiously dominant, over the majority of the people, who were prevented from uniting together, by the prejudices and taboos that served the function of keeping the members of different castes permanently apart from one another. The differentiation of caste prevented a developmental psychology from forming in the minds of the masses. The physical substance of caste, that is its everyday manifestation, perpetuated and preserved a false consciousness in those living under its strictures. The principle of caste, being subordinate to the higher castes and dominant over lesser castes, creates a dualistic mindset, which on the one hand represents an empty power and on the other a total lack of power. Subordinate castes lording it over one another, is nothing other than rats fighting each other whilst trapped in a barrel. As long as the masses have their minds and bodies focused upon dominating the prison within which they are trapped, the upper castes rest assured in their fabricated economic, political, and psychological superiority.
The Buddha firmly rejected the notion of caste ‘here and now’. He did not compromise like so many bourgeois influenced causes, but openly declared the psychological, physical, political, and economic redundancy of the religiously inspired caste system. This rejection represents a radical departure from the conditioning of the past. It denotes a non-compromising attitude toward religiously inspired terror, prejudice, and social injustice. The early Buddhist Suttas (written in Pali), talk of at least 184 social divisions existing within ancient India, and the occasional practice of mass human sacrifice perpetuated by Brahmanic influenced kings that ruled independent countries scattered throughout various areas and regions. Like the ‘terror’ videos of brutal torture and murder used throughout the internet today to influence and control the masses through the inducement of fear, the mass human sacrifices of ancient India were exercises in maintaining social control, through religiously inspired and justified rituals involving murder of the already oppressed masses. The king of a country had the political and religious power to gather one representative from each of the 184 castes, and on a specific date and time, have a team of ‘executioners’ kill them in the most barbarous manner imaginable. The Brahmanic over-lords had decreed through scripture, that the more violent the human (and animal) sacrifices were in practice, the greater the gratitude expected from the god toward whom the sacrifice was intended.
Where the thinkers of the world become entangled in the localised details of events, Karl Marx and the Buddha saw through the surface detail to the underlying causal conditions, and understood that it was only through understanding the broader historical conditioning, that local details could be fully analysed and correctly contextualised. Analysing surface detail is only assessing the outer veneer of historically conditioned material; it does nothing to change the underlying causal conditions, as such an attitude does not acknowledge the existence of this reality. Marx recovered his ‘true self’, or ‘true consciousness’, whilst the Buddha ‘became aware’ of the functioning of his own mind in relation to the physical world within which he inhabited. At source, the Buddha used the contemporary religiosity of his time, and stripped it down to its non-religious core. He made use of meditation as a means to recover his ‘true self’, and in so doing saw through the religious conditioning of his own culture. For the Buddha, the recovery of the true self coincided with the complete rejection of the religious, political and social manifestation of Brahmanic culture. Meditation stripped of magic spells, mystical states, and the manifestation of gods, became simply a method for creating and maintaining mental hygiene. This state of mental hygiene – termed ‘nirvana’ in Sanskrit – is the permanent state of being free of greed and desire for the accumulation of sensory experiences and physical wealth, corrupt political power, and possessions. Buddhist nirvana is the cessation in the mind of the conditioned psychology of greed that has implicit within it, hatred and delusion. This is inputted into the mind of the baby as it enters the world and grows into an adult. The pattern of thought processes in the mind is entirely conditioned by the existential environment. For the Buddha this involved the complex and diverse Brahmanic view of the universe, which developed over hundreds of years to keep a small minority in power over the masses. The Brahmanic system represents the genius of the deluded intellect as it egotistically searches for ever more sophisticated methods for maintaining the oppressive status quo. The Buddha’s example demonstrates that this system was essentially fragile, as it allowed him to break free of its conditioning elements by using its strictures in a specific and non-conformist manner. All political and social conditioning is exactly like this. The oppressed are kept firmly in their subordinate position by the sheer weight of historical conditioning, which is both psychological and physical in both nature and practice. Marx saw through this conditioning of his society and was automatically intellectually freed as a consequence. Of course, just as the Buddha continued to live within an essentially Brahmanic society, Marx continued to live within a capitalist, bourgeois system. The difference for both men is that after their respective experiences of enlightment, they lived within oppressive society free of its strictures, and on their own terms. It is also correct to state that both men believed that the outer world could be transformed and cleared of its oppressively conditioned, historical state, through the initiation of radical change.
The Buddha rejected Brahmanism as religiosity. This is to say that he rejected the religiously generated society of his day as being the product of an inverse consciousness. The Buddha taught, like Marx, that the notion of gods and castes based upon theological teachings, are the product of the human mind. Gods do not create humanity (or society), but are rather only the outpourings of the human imagination unrestrained by logic. In other words, if humanity creates gods and religion, it also creates its own society. Humanity creates and sustains the psychological and physical world it inhabits. Untamed nature is transformed by human industry into societies and cultures. All of human existence is the product of historical thought and action. This being the case, the Buddha taught that gods and religiosity exist only as long as the human mind believes in their existence. Once the mind is freed of its conditioned delusion, its sees clearly the chain of cause and effect that dominates human existence. As thought and action are of one continuum, the correct controlling of one aspect is the correct controlling of the other aspect. Human history is the sum total of class-wide thought and action, manifest through the mind and body of the individual. The individual, as a member of a class (or caste in the case of ancient India), has the capacity to ‘see through’ the bourgeois conditioning and become mentally free of it, whilst still existing within its social confines. Mental freedom leads to progressive and advanced action that initiates revolutionary transformation on the social level. Many developed minds acting together are open to the dialectic forces of history in the most effective, efficient and progressive manner. For both Marx and the Buddha, this process entails the complete and total break with the religiosity of the past. Early Buddhists from India, historically speaking, were required to fully abandon the religiosity of Brahmanism, whilst for modern Europeans, Marx (and Engels) demanded that the Westerner break completely with the theology of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this context, both Brahmanism and Christianity can be equated with exactly the same inverted psychological process that creates the illusion that a divine entity has created humanity and the world it inhabits. This is why Marx and Buddha viewed ‘religion’ as mistaken and the root of all suffering on earth. Functioning as complete epistemological breaks from the history of religion, both Marxism and Buddhism can not be referred to as ‘religions’, or as perpetuating ‘religious teachings’. Just as Marx completed and transcended the bourgeois limitation the European tradition of philosophy, the Buddha completed and transcended the brahmanically inspired theology and philosophy of his time. The psycho-physical space revealed through Marxism and Buddhism is identical. The problem that Marxism and Buddhism often encounter, (and which is probably more pronounced in the latter), is that of religious influence and regression to a primitive state of mental being. For Marxism it has primarily been the historical threat from the Judeo-Christian tradition, whilst for Buddhism is has been the threat from Brahmanism (i.e. Hinduism). The power of religion to hold beings captive in a primitive mind-set, also has the power to pull otherwise progressive individuals back into its influence through the allure associated with the supernatural. This demonstrates the power of historical conditioning. As the mind thinks, the body will act; and as the body experiences, the mind will think.
Today, the situation is that Marxism and Buddhism have spread outside of the cultural milieu that produced them. Marxism has spread from the West to the East, and Buddhism as spread from the East to the West. Buddhism has encountered Western materialism and religion, whilst Marxism has made contact with the thinking and religions associated with the East. When encountering differences of this nature, the revolutionary deconstructive capacity of the Marxian dialectic, together with Buddhist psycho-physical analysis, must be maintained so that the emphasis is placed upon the continuous transformation of mind and society through the dismissing of the delusionary and oppressive. As Buddhism is not a religion, it can not be rejected by the Marxian method, and as Marxist analysis is not delusionary, Buddhism can not free it of greed, hatred, and delusion. Instead, both methods reveal exactly the same free space but from similar but slightly different trajectories. The Buddhist monk shaves his head to renounce society predicated upon greed, hatred and delusion; whilst the oppressed worker shaves his head to clear it of lice. The Buddhist wears a simple robe made of rags gathered from the rubbish tip; whilst the exploited worker wears rags made from the discarded clothing of his oppressor. The Buddhist monk eats one simple meal a day; the oppressed worker eats one meal a day because that is all he can afford or find. The Buddhist monk renounces money; whilst the oppressed worker is paid less money than his work is worth. Buddhist monks live in simple huts or shacks; the oppressed and neglected working class lives in hovels and slums. The Buddhist monk is celibate; whilst the oppressed worker is encouraged to procreate to produce new exploitable workers. The Buddhist monk does not partake in alcohol or other intoxicants; whilst the oppressed worker is encouraged to get drunk, smoke tobacco and imbue drugs. A Buddhist monk often lives in tranquil and quiet rural settings; whilst the oppressed working class are forced to live in high density, urban housing. The Buddhist monk, pursuing a tranquil but simple lifestyle, often lives a long life; whereas the psychologically and physically oppressed worker experiences a relatively short life expectancy. The Buddhist monk controls his mind through meditation guided by a master; the oppressed worker suffers psychological and psychiatric illnesses that go undiagnosed and untreated by a bourgeois system that does not care. The Buddhist monk quiets his mind and lives in peace; whilst the oppressed worker lives and dies in abject misery.
The Sanskrit term ‘Dharma’ implies a correct course of action that achieves a clearly defined objective. For the Buddha, this is his teachings concerning mind, its functioning nature, and how to change or alter this functionality. For the Buddha, however, mind can not be changed without considering the body and physical environment. The mind is controlled by focusing it upon the body, whether it is standing, sitting, walking, or lying down, and upon the process of breathing. The activities of the body in the environment are regulated by rules or vows that are designed to moderate behaviour. The human mind understands the reason for the need of vows, how to practice the vows, and the benefit expected from following the vows correctly. Just as the vow is applied to the activities of the body, it is also applied to the functionality of the mind – simultaneously. A body that does not partake in dangerous or excitable activity creates the outer conditions (through life style), that allow the mind to function in a tranquil and calm state. When the body is calmed through behaviour modification, the mind experiences no excitable stimuli; when the mind is calm and not generating greed, hatred, or delusion, it is easier for the body to be controlled in a world full of distractions and temptations. For the Buddha, his teachings, or ‘Dharma’are a means to generate a calm and tranquil mind and body by eradicating the psychological generation of greed, hatred, and delusion, and the physical acts of habitual responses premised upon their presence. Through the use of concentration in the correct way, the concentration capacity of the mind is strengthened. The world experienced as historical conditionality, is referred to by Marx as a ‘false consciousness’, and by the Buddha as the ‘deluded’ state. Human will is moderated through the capacity of meditational training to rationally perceive the inner and outer world as a single continuum that is neither ‘material’ nor ‘ideal’, but which incorporates both of these states of analysis. The Buddhist notion of duality is demonstrated (even in the modern West) by the tendency within secular culture to still pursue the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ dichotomy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Within this distorted perspective, the world is either made only of ‘matter’, or only of ‘mind’, neither of which premise is correct. The Buddha rejected metaphysical materialism, and also rejected notions that defined reality in an idealistic manner. This mirrors exactly the approach developed within Scientific Socialism by Marx (and Engels). Interpreting Marxism as being a metaphysical materialist theory is as incorrect as defining Buddhism as an idealistic religion.
Through following the method of Buddhist meditation and behaviour modification, an individual can psychologically and physically break free of the tyranny of historical conditioning here and now. This state then allows for the efficient development of class activity in the direction of the establishment of Socialism. As the Buddhist eradicates all psychological traits of greed associated with bourgeois capitalism, he or she occupies a psycho-physical space free of historical conditioning, whilst simultaneously appearing to exist within a bourgeois system. This post-modern state of apparent paradox is exactly the same as the state that is occupied by great thinkers who still physically live within a bourgeois system but whose insight has allowed them to see through the conditionality of their predicament, and thus free themselves mentally from it. Marx and Engels, amongst many others, occupied the same reality. Such a positioning in the face of the bourgeois state (and its self-serving religiosity), is significant as it is the future of Socialism experienced here and now.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2014.
Marxist philosophy transcends the European tradition of philosophy, and therefore can be considered a method of trans-philosophy. It is a system of thought that is beyond the limitation of every type of thought that has ever existed. Marxist thinking is a special type of mind usage that transcends conventional psychological conditioning and frees the mind to operate in an unendingly progressive manner that continuously moves forward and never backs down. A truly Marxist attitude is nothing more than the advanced mentality of the future, manifested ‘here and now’. The Marxist viewpoint is extraordinary and may be considered ‘Dharma’ in the Buddhist Sanskrit sense of the word – namely referring to an expression of ‘innate truth’ non-reliant upon divine revelation for its justification. In this context, Karl Marx is not just another philosopher – as he completes the European experiment with thought – but is rather a thinker free of the limitation of thought. No other Western thinker has ever achieved this position throughout history, not even the great ancient Greek philosophers. Marx appears to have arrived at this naturally post-modern attitude by ‘thinking’ his way out of the historical contrivance of conventional academia. He studied Greek thought, and European thought, and was aware of Buddhist philosophy (through his friendship with Karl Koppen, the German expert on early and Tibetan Buddhism). He examined the different modes of organising the human mind through the use of thought, and developed the insight that perceived how the human mind works, and why. He used this awareness to transcend the functionality of his own mind which created the outpouring that is the 50 volumes of his collected works.
Greed and malice fuels the ruthless and uncaring, class ridden capitalist system. Greed makes fools of all citizens as they are forced, through exploitative circumstance, to fight one another for imaginary control of resources. The world belongs to the people and there is no need for the working class to fight amongst itself. Refusing to be motivated by profit is a conscious decision that through appropriate action alters and changes the socio-economic conditions of the outer, material world. During the time of the Buddha’s physical existence, that is during the life of the individual those ideas are now preserved as ‘Buddhism’, the dialectical or antagonistic historical forces operated through a multifaceted caste system, which although ostensibly appearing to consist of a hierarchy of four established social tiers, in fact comprised of many more social sub-divisions, all set in stone through the teaching of Brahmanic religious thought. Like its counter-part of ‘class’, the caste system saw a ruthless minority firmly established and maintained as both politically and religiously dominant, over the majority of the people, who were prevented from uniting together, by the prejudices and taboos that served the function of keeping the members of different castes permanently apart from one another. The differentiation of caste prevented a developmental psychology from forming in the minds of the masses. The physical substance of caste, that is its everyday manifestation, perpetuated and preserved a false consciousness in those living under its strictures. The principle of caste, being subordinate to the higher castes and dominant over lesser castes, creates a dualistic mindset, which on the one hand represents an empty power and on the other a total lack of power. Subordinate castes lording it over one another, is nothing other than rats fighting each other whilst trapped in a barrel. As long as the masses have their minds and bodies focused upon dominating the prison within which they are trapped, the upper castes rest assured in their fabricated economic, political, and psychological superiority.
The Buddha firmly rejected the notion of caste ‘here and now’. He did not compromise like so many bourgeois influenced causes, but openly declared the psychological, physical, political, and economic redundancy of the religiously inspired caste system. This rejection represents a radical departure from the conditioning of the past. It denotes a non-compromising attitude toward religiously inspired terror, prejudice, and social injustice. The early Buddhist Suttas (written in Pali), talk of at least 184 social divisions existing within ancient India, and the occasional practice of mass human sacrifice perpetuated by Brahmanic influenced kings that ruled independent countries scattered throughout various areas and regions. Like the ‘terror’ videos of brutal torture and murder used throughout the internet today to influence and control the masses through the inducement of fear, the mass human sacrifices of ancient India were exercises in maintaining social control, through religiously inspired and justified rituals involving murder of the already oppressed masses. The king of a country had the political and religious power to gather one representative from each of the 184 castes, and on a specific date and time, have a team of ‘executioners’ kill them in the most barbarous manner imaginable. The Brahmanic over-lords had decreed through scripture, that the more violent the human (and animal) sacrifices were in practice, the greater the gratitude expected from the god toward whom the sacrifice was intended.
Where the thinkers of the world become entangled in the localised details of events, Karl Marx and the Buddha saw through the surface detail to the underlying causal conditions, and understood that it was only through understanding the broader historical conditioning, that local details could be fully analysed and correctly contextualised. Analysing surface detail is only assessing the outer veneer of historically conditioned material; it does nothing to change the underlying causal conditions, as such an attitude does not acknowledge the existence of this reality. Marx recovered his ‘true self’, or ‘true consciousness’, whilst the Buddha ‘became aware’ of the functioning of his own mind in relation to the physical world within which he inhabited. At source, the Buddha used the contemporary religiosity of his time, and stripped it down to its non-religious core. He made use of meditation as a means to recover his ‘true self’, and in so doing saw through the religious conditioning of his own culture. For the Buddha, the recovery of the true self coincided with the complete rejection of the religious, political and social manifestation of Brahmanic culture. Meditation stripped of magic spells, mystical states, and the manifestation of gods, became simply a method for creating and maintaining mental hygiene. This state of mental hygiene – termed ‘nirvana’ in Sanskrit – is the permanent state of being free of greed and desire for the accumulation of sensory experiences and physical wealth, corrupt political power, and possessions. Buddhist nirvana is the cessation in the mind of the conditioned psychology of greed that has implicit within it, hatred and delusion. This is inputted into the mind of the baby as it enters the world and grows into an adult. The pattern of thought processes in the mind is entirely conditioned by the existential environment. For the Buddha this involved the complex and diverse Brahmanic view of the universe, which developed over hundreds of years to keep a small minority in power over the masses. The Brahmanic system represents the genius of the deluded intellect as it egotistically searches for ever more sophisticated methods for maintaining the oppressive status quo. The Buddha’s example demonstrates that this system was essentially fragile, as it allowed him to break free of its conditioning elements by using its strictures in a specific and non-conformist manner. All political and social conditioning is exactly like this. The oppressed are kept firmly in their subordinate position by the sheer weight of historical conditioning, which is both psychological and physical in both nature and practice. Marx saw through this conditioning of his society and was automatically intellectually freed as a consequence. Of course, just as the Buddha continued to live within an essentially Brahmanic society, Marx continued to live within a capitalist, bourgeois system. The difference for both men is that after their respective experiences of enlightment, they lived within oppressive society free of its strictures, and on their own terms. It is also correct to state that both men believed that the outer world could be transformed and cleared of its oppressively conditioned, historical state, through the initiation of radical change.
The Buddha rejected Brahmanism as religiosity. This is to say that he rejected the religiously generated society of his day as being the product of an inverse consciousness. The Buddha taught, like Marx, that the notion of gods and castes based upon theological teachings, are the product of the human mind. Gods do not create humanity (or society), but are rather only the outpourings of the human imagination unrestrained by logic. In other words, if humanity creates gods and religion, it also creates its own society. Humanity creates and sustains the psychological and physical world it inhabits. Untamed nature is transformed by human industry into societies and cultures. All of human existence is the product of historical thought and action. This being the case, the Buddha taught that gods and religiosity exist only as long as the human mind believes in their existence. Once the mind is freed of its conditioned delusion, its sees clearly the chain of cause and effect that dominates human existence. As thought and action are of one continuum, the correct controlling of one aspect is the correct controlling of the other aspect. Human history is the sum total of class-wide thought and action, manifest through the mind and body of the individual. The individual, as a member of a class (or caste in the case of ancient India), has the capacity to ‘see through’ the bourgeois conditioning and become mentally free of it, whilst still existing within its social confines. Mental freedom leads to progressive and advanced action that initiates revolutionary transformation on the social level. Many developed minds acting together are open to the dialectic forces of history in the most effective, efficient and progressive manner. For both Marx and the Buddha, this process entails the complete and total break with the religiosity of the past. Early Buddhists from India, historically speaking, were required to fully abandon the religiosity of Brahmanism, whilst for modern Europeans, Marx (and Engels) demanded that the Westerner break completely with the theology of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In this context, both Brahmanism and Christianity can be equated with exactly the same inverted psychological process that creates the illusion that a divine entity has created humanity and the world it inhabits. This is why Marx and Buddha viewed ‘religion’ as mistaken and the root of all suffering on earth. Functioning as complete epistemological breaks from the history of religion, both Marxism and Buddhism can not be referred to as ‘religions’, or as perpetuating ‘religious teachings’. Just as Marx completed and transcended the bourgeois limitation the European tradition of philosophy, the Buddha completed and transcended the brahmanically inspired theology and philosophy of his time. The psycho-physical space revealed through Marxism and Buddhism is identical. The problem that Marxism and Buddhism often encounter, (and which is probably more pronounced in the latter), is that of religious influence and regression to a primitive state of mental being. For Marxism it has primarily been the historical threat from the Judeo-Christian tradition, whilst for Buddhism is has been the threat from Brahmanism (i.e. Hinduism). The power of religion to hold beings captive in a primitive mind-set, also has the power to pull otherwise progressive individuals back into its influence through the allure associated with the supernatural. This demonstrates the power of historical conditioning. As the mind thinks, the body will act; and as the body experiences, the mind will think.
Today, the situation is that Marxism and Buddhism have spread outside of the cultural milieu that produced them. Marxism has spread from the West to the East, and Buddhism as spread from the East to the West. Buddhism has encountered Western materialism and religion, whilst Marxism has made contact with the thinking and religions associated with the East. When encountering differences of this nature, the revolutionary deconstructive capacity of the Marxian dialectic, together with Buddhist psycho-physical analysis, must be maintained so that the emphasis is placed upon the continuous transformation of mind and society through the dismissing of the delusionary and oppressive. As Buddhism is not a religion, it can not be rejected by the Marxian method, and as Marxist analysis is not delusionary, Buddhism can not free it of greed, hatred, and delusion. Instead, both methods reveal exactly the same free space but from similar but slightly different trajectories. The Buddhist monk shaves his head to renounce society predicated upon greed, hatred and delusion; whilst the oppressed worker shaves his head to clear it of lice. The Buddhist wears a simple robe made of rags gathered from the rubbish tip; whilst the exploited worker wears rags made from the discarded clothing of his oppressor. The Buddhist monk eats one simple meal a day; the oppressed worker eats one meal a day because that is all he can afford or find. The Buddhist monk renounces money; whilst the oppressed worker is paid less money than his work is worth. Buddhist monks live in simple huts or shacks; the oppressed and neglected working class lives in hovels and slums. The Buddhist monk is celibate; whilst the oppressed worker is encouraged to procreate to produce new exploitable workers. The Buddhist monk does not partake in alcohol or other intoxicants; whilst the oppressed worker is encouraged to get drunk, smoke tobacco and imbue drugs. A Buddhist monk often lives in tranquil and quiet rural settings; whilst the oppressed working class are forced to live in high density, urban housing. The Buddhist monk, pursuing a tranquil but simple lifestyle, often lives a long life; whereas the psychologically and physically oppressed worker experiences a relatively short life expectancy. The Buddhist monk controls his mind through meditation guided by a master; the oppressed worker suffers psychological and psychiatric illnesses that go undiagnosed and untreated by a bourgeois system that does not care. The Buddhist monk quiets his mind and lives in peace; whilst the oppressed worker lives and dies in abject misery.
The Sanskrit term ‘Dharma’ implies a correct course of action that achieves a clearly defined objective. For the Buddha, this is his teachings concerning mind, its functioning nature, and how to change or alter this functionality. For the Buddha, however, mind can not be changed without considering the body and physical environment. The mind is controlled by focusing it upon the body, whether it is standing, sitting, walking, or lying down, and upon the process of breathing. The activities of the body in the environment are regulated by rules or vows that are designed to moderate behaviour. The human mind understands the reason for the need of vows, how to practice the vows, and the benefit expected from following the vows correctly. Just as the vow is applied to the activities of the body, it is also applied to the functionality of the mind – simultaneously. A body that does not partake in dangerous or excitable activity creates the outer conditions (through life style), that allow the mind to function in a tranquil and calm state. When the body is calmed through behaviour modification, the mind experiences no excitable stimuli; when the mind is calm and not generating greed, hatred, or delusion, it is easier for the body to be controlled in a world full of distractions and temptations. For the Buddha, his teachings, or ‘Dharma’are a means to generate a calm and tranquil mind and body by eradicating the psychological generation of greed, hatred, and delusion, and the physical acts of habitual responses premised upon their presence. Through the use of concentration in the correct way, the concentration capacity of the mind is strengthened. The world experienced as historical conditionality, is referred to by Marx as a ‘false consciousness’, and by the Buddha as the ‘deluded’ state. Human will is moderated through the capacity of meditational training to rationally perceive the inner and outer world as a single continuum that is neither ‘material’ nor ‘ideal’, but which incorporates both of these states of analysis. The Buddhist notion of duality is demonstrated (even in the modern West) by the tendency within secular culture to still pursue the ‘good’ and ‘evil’ dichotomy of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Within this distorted perspective, the world is either made only of ‘matter’, or only of ‘mind’, neither of which premise is correct. The Buddha rejected metaphysical materialism, and also rejected notions that defined reality in an idealistic manner. This mirrors exactly the approach developed within Scientific Socialism by Marx (and Engels). Interpreting Marxism as being a metaphysical materialist theory is as incorrect as defining Buddhism as an idealistic religion.
Through following the method of Buddhist meditation and behaviour modification, an individual can psychologically and physically break free of the tyranny of historical conditioning here and now. This state then allows for the efficient development of class activity in the direction of the establishment of Socialism. As the Buddhist eradicates all psychological traits of greed associated with bourgeois capitalism, he or she occupies a psycho-physical space free of historical conditioning, whilst simultaneously appearing to exist within a bourgeois system. This post-modern state of apparent paradox is exactly the same as the state that is occupied by great thinkers who still physically live within a bourgeois system but whose insight has allowed them to see through the conditionality of their predicament, and thus free themselves mentally from it. Marx and Engels, amongst many others, occupied the same reality. Such a positioning in the face of the bourgeois state (and its self-serving religiosity), is significant as it is the future of Socialism experienced here and now.
©opyright: Adrian Chan-Wyles (ShiDaDao) 2014.