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{\plain \f1 BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS\par
}{\plain \f1 A belated entry to the 1988 ASR(SA) conference\par
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{\plain \f1 \par
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{\plain \f1 Michel Clasquin\par
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{\plain \f1 ABSTRACT\par
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{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 This article follows on certain thoughts about the compatibility of human 
rights theory and traditional theistic religion by Martin Prozesky. The 
problem of reconciling human rights theory with the Buddhist doctrine of 
anatta\'bf is discussed. Buddhists have supported human rights campaigns 
apparently unaware of the secularist and legal\_political presuppositions 
underlying this concept and the logical contradictions that it introduces 
when it is used within the Buddhist paradigm. The author concludes that one 
possible solution to this problem may be found in the Buddhist teaching of 
"skillful means".\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}\pard\page {\plain \b\f1 BUDDHISM AND HUMAN RIGHTS\par
}{\plain \b\f1 \par
}{\plain \b\f1 A belated entry to the 1988 ASR(SA) conference\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 The question of what the fundamental rights of human beings are is quite 
pertinent in the current South African situation, as well as in the wider 
global context. In the last few decades, it has become accepted practice to 
use the term `human rights abuses' to describe the most varied forms of 
man's inhumanity to man, ranging from such appalling practices as murder and 
torture to lesser acts such as the banning of literature.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 However, before we can ask just what specific human rights are, or should 
be, the logic of academic discourse demands that we clarify just what we 
mean by this concept `human rights'. Furthermore, is the concept compatible 
with the major systems of thought that have shaped human experience throughout history? One manifestation of these worldviews is the phenomenon of 
religion, and the compatibility of the human rights concept with the various 
religious traditions has only recently been considered in any depth, as in 
the case of the 1988 annual conference of the Association for the Study of 
Religion (Southern Africa). Here I should especially like to refer to the 
work of Martin Prozesky, who at that conference pointed out that a fundamental discontinuity can be observed between the theistic worldview and the 
western liberal one which is presupposed by human rights theorists. He has 
since repeated his position in print at least twice (Prozesky 1989, 1990 \_ 
cf the criticism by Manley 1992: 59\_60). I do not intend to repeat 
Prozesky's theory here in any great detail, but at the risk of 
oversimplifying his position, his argument can be summarised as a 
contradiction between religious dogma and the way human beings experience 
the world, that is, as a variation of the dilemma underlying the age\_old 
theological problem of evil and its attempted answer by means of theodicy.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 In this short article, I shall attempt to complement Prozesky's work by 
extending the discussion into a different experiential realm, namely that of 
the non\_theistic religion known as Buddhism, a realm which he has not yet 
added to his analysis of the logical and religious implications of human 
rights theory. Like him, I address a logical and conceptual, rather than an 
empirical, issue: that Buddhists have actively supported human rights 
campaigns is empirically undeniable. Later on in this paper, I shall examine 
a possible way in which they could do so in consonance with the fundamental 
tenets of their faith.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 The human rights question, naturally, centers on the definitions of the two 
terms which are combined to create the concept; "human" and "rights". The 
combination of these two words carries two implications. First, they are 
human rights. The rights which we refer to with this term are in the first 
place restricted to humans (as opposed to the newer development of "animal 
rights"). Secondly they are human rights (often further qualified as 
"universal") and are therefore extended to all humans irrespective of their 
legal status or any other conventional measure of worth. To establish a 
Buddhist response to this issue we should therefore take a close look at how 
this tradition approaches and understands these terms.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Let us start with "human". Buddhism regards the human being as a 
conglomeration of five skandha\'bf or factors, these being body, perception, 
cognition, volition and consciousness. This classification may initially 
remind one of the body\_mind\_soul schema familiar to us from early Western 
thinking, but in fact it denotes an entirely different pattern of thought. 
As is continually stressed in the anatta\'bf doctrine, none of the skandha\'bf 
have any ultimate superiority over the others \_ all need to be present for a 
human being to exist and none of them is considered to be an enduring, 
permanent entity. The system is also somewhat arbitrary insofar as the 
factors themselves are infinitely subdivisible (Sangharakshita 1966:96), and 
may well have served primarily as objects of meditation rather than as 
objectively existing constituents of the human being. In the Maha\'bfya\'bfna this 
interdependency of the various aspects of personhood was expressed more 
succinctly by the term "emptiness". The tendency in Buddhism was always to 
stress the way in which a person is causally related to internal processes 
as well as the rest of the world.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 "Rights" are not something the Buddhist scriptures discuss at any great 
length; as Abe (1986a:191) has pointed out, "Buddhism emphasises wisdom and 
compassion rather than justice and charity". This should not entirely 
surprise us, since the human rights concept as we know it simply was not 
around at the time. Perhaps we should take Trevor Ling's admonitions to 
heart when we discuss such matters as human rights and religious traditions:\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
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{\plain \f1 To attempt to relate the teaching of the Buddha to that of (a modern 
thinker) purely in terms of propositions is likely to be an unprofitable 
exercise; it is like trying to get a telephone conversation going 
between two men who speak different languages, and one of whom cannot 
hear the other. (1973:21)\par
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{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Kenneth Inada, one of the few contemporary writers on Buddhism who have 
addressed this topic, attempts to present the self\_denying renunciation of 
nirva\'bfna by the Bodhisattva (saviour\_saint) as an instance of human rights. 
He describes this as follows:\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
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{\plain \f1 The Bodhisattva personifies the ideality of existence, not only on a 
personal basis, but also in the larger social or world context. . . . 
The Bodhisattva ideal speaks to us of equality, liberty and security 
from the total perspective. (Inada 1982:75)\par
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{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Apparently he sees a need for human rights to be guaranteed by a higher 
power, which makes his position vulnerable to Prozesky's argument. Apart 
from this, there is an absolutist element in the "rights" concept which 
contradicts this vision of the Bodhisattva as guardian of human rights. I 
believe this to be a legacy of the legal origin of the concept. For 
instance, when we say that a person has a right to a fair trial, what we are 
trying to express is our conviction that no matter how repulsive the 
misdeeds we believe him to have committed, he must have the opportunity to 
explain his actions or to prove that he is not in fact the one who performed 
them. No explicit religious basis is required for such an understanding of 
"rights" \_ all it takes is an awareness of the fallibility of our own 
judgment and a "social contract" type of social theory.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 The Buddhist would have few quarrels with this, except perhaps to point out 
that the treatment to which we may or may not be entitled is largely 
conditioned by karma, or actions committed either by us or by our previous 
incarnations, which would imply that we are merely fortunate to have 
inherited such good karma from our previous incarnations that we have been 
reborn in a society which holds such a high opinion of individuals and their 
rights.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 The next step in the development of the concept is that the right is no 
longer thought of as merely an agreed upon principle of law, but is now 
regarded as part of the very structure of existence. In other words, the 
concept has become reified. The important feature here is that the right 
inheres in the accused purely as a result of being human \_ it is not 
something that can be earned in the way a worker can earn a bonus for hard 
work or a student earn a degree as a result of passing an examination. Human 
rights, it is asserted, apply to us all, regardless of what we have or have 
not done. Considering that we treat every other part of our world with due 
consideration for the circumstances which created them, there must be 
something irreducibly worthy inherent in the human condition to warrant such 
special treatment. That is to say, the hidden premiss of this argument is 
that people must exist as autonomous entities. Prozesky (1989, 1990) uses 
the term "sovereignty" to express this thought.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 As we have seen, Buddhism has little to say about the human rights concept 
in its original legal and political context, although it would be forced by 
its own logic to point out the arbitrariness of these systems of social 
engineering. In the Buddhist perspective, law and politics are fully human 
creations, and therefore have no intrinsic reality of their own, no 
ontological "being" that is independent of prior conditions. However, within 
the logic of the legal/political paradigm, this entitlement view of human 
rights can be seen to function efficiently. Thus, human rights can serve us 
perfectly well, provided that the concept remains within its original 
concept.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 But when the human rights concept was then extended to a "right" such as the 
right to own property, and especially when this right was then declared to 
be universal and inalienable, the Buddhist would by reason of his faith be 
forced to ask such questions as "who is it that owns property?". In his 
autobiography (quoted in Schmidt 1980: 201), Mahatma Gandhi describes his 
personal struggle with the concept of property. The conclusion at which he 
finally arrived was that one should treat property like a trustee: taking 
the best possible care of it, but not regarding any of it as one's own. 
True, despite Gandhi's ecumenical spirit he always remained a Hindu, not a 
Buddhist, but this idea of his admirably reflects the ideal Buddhist stance 
as well.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Considering the anatta\'bf theory briefly sketched above, it becomes clear that 
in the final analysis there is no "owner". The person to whom these rights 
are intrinsically allotted by human rights theory has been dissolved by 
Buddhist philosophy into an ever changing flow of factors, none of them 
enduring or unchangeable or capable of possessing or being possessed. True, 
each particular human collection of skandha\'bf is unique, but the same is true 
of those collections of skandha\'bf which we normally refer to as non\_human. 
The idea of the person as an independent, fully autonomous entity unaffected 
by circumstances is anathema to the Buddhist tradition. As we are all 
dependent on previous and extraneous conditions, there can be no question of 
us being "sovereign".\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 According to Buddhism, there is indeed something special about the human 
condition: it is only from this state that one can become enlightened. But 
we have no right to become enlightened, any more than a diamond in a deep 
rock bed has a right to become part of the British crown jewels. Like the 
diamond, our fortune is partly determined by the causes and conditions 
surrounding us. Unlike it, we have at least some power over our own destiny: 
as conscious beings, we can decide to swim against the stream towards 
nirva\'bfna.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Thus, to return to Inada's attempt to ground a Buddhist view of human rights 
in the self\_abnegation of the Bodhisattva, the Bodhisattvas' compassionate 
actions have nothing to do with "human rights". It was by choice that they 
decided to refrain from entering nirva\'bfna while suffering still existed. 
They could have decided otherwise and become a Pratyekabuddhas (silent 
Buddhas) or arhats (saints) instead. That we live in an age in which the 
Bodhisattvas' compassion and wisdom are available is our good fortune, or 
more technically, the result of our good karma: we are in no way entitled to 
it, in the sense that there is no higher tribunal to which we might appeal 
if it were not the case.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 This does not imply that Buddhism is blind to the distress caused by such 
actions as murder and violence. How could it be? After all, the first Noble 
Truth of Buddhism is the omnipresence of suffering, and the system as a 
whole is intimately concerned with the eradication of suffering. Ultimately, 
this can only be done by attaining nirva\'bfna, the Buddhist Summum Bonum, but 
on a more immediate level, the Buddhist is encouraged to do everything in 
his power to decrease the amount of suffering in his immediate environment. 
Still, this is a matter of compassion and personal choice: it has nothing to 
do with "human rights".\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Let us take the example of caring for the sick. The story goes that the 
Buddha once discovered that one of his monks was seriously ill and was not 
being cared for by his fellow monks. He then went to his sick disciple and 
bathed this man's sores with his own hands. Afterwards, he admonished his 
monks with the words "He who would tend me, let him tend the sick" (Vin. Mv. 
Kh. 8).\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Can we deduce from this tale that the sick have a right to be treated? 
Indeed not: this would be an irresponsible hermeneutic excess. Note how the 
Buddha's injunction to the monks is presented as an "if \_ then" statement. 
If we desire to attend to the Buddha, then we should tend the sick. The 
choice is left open: the sick have no intrinsic right to be treated, nor do 
we have the correspondingly universal duty to treat them. But if we desire 
to take the Buddha's teaching seriously, we should develop the compassion 
that allows us to see the sick person's suffering as if it were our own, and 
take the necessary steps to eliminate it or at least soften its impact. In 
this context, one could mention the recent development at several American 
Zen centres of having a clinic for terminally ill AIDS patients attached to 
the meditation centre, in which the patients are cared for by the staff and 
visiting meditators (H Downey \_ personal communication).\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 This explains why Buddhism would not argue dogmatically for or against free 
medical care on grounds of principles contained in the text quoted above. 
The Buddhist approach to this issue would be simply to consider the 
pragmatic effects of different systems of health care and then advocate the 
one which would best serve the interests of those who are suffering. 
Different social structures will produce different answers, as will 
different degrees of compassion. Thus, a higher principle can be served than 
the immediate one offered in the text.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 The voluntaristic nature of Buddhist ethics is shown even more clearly when 
one considers the difference between the Judeo\_Christian ten commandments 
and the Buddhist five precepts (cf. Abe 1986b:205). On the one hand "Thou 
shalt not kill": on the other "I undertake the rule of training to refrain 
from doing injury to living beings" (Pa\'bfna\'bftipa\'bfta\'bf veramani\'bf sikkha\'bfpadam 
sama\'bfdiya\'bfmi). The contrast could hardly be clearer: a command which brooks 
no excuses as opposed to a personal commitment to a goal.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Furthermore, Buddhists might argue that the human rights concept is subtly 
demeaning to those who uphold it. If I treat a person with dignity and 
respect simply because he has a right to be so treated, I am merely doing my 
duty. But if I so treat him because I compassionately understand the 
suffering in his own life and consciously decide not to retaliate blindly 
for any imagined slight which I feel has been inflicted upon me, this 
ennobles not only me, but, indirectly, my society. It elevates me slightly 
above what I was and brings me just that little bit closer to nirva\'bfna. Or, 
to put it in more Buddhist terminology, it is wholesome karma. A whole range 
of Kantian arguments could of course be leveled against this: my intention 
here being to discuss the Buddhist understanding of human rights, I shall 
not enter into these.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 The outcome of all this is that the Buddhist cannot logically use the term 
"human rights" without involving himself in a contradiction in terms of his 
own religo\_philosophical system. Not that this has stopped them from doing 
so. Just as Prozesky has pointed out that Christians tend to be unaware of 
the logical contradiction between their beliefs and the human rights theory 
(Prozesky 1989:17), so has Robert Traer (1988) been able to find Buddhists, 
some of them as highly placed as U Thant, the former secretary general of 
the United Nations, using the term.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 It is true that some of the topics addressed by the Buddha coincide with 
issues that are still relevant to the contemporary hum,an rights debate. His 
opposition to slavery, abuses of the caste system, and the oppression of 
women is often cited in the context of human rights. That he did speak out 
against these things is undeniable. But this was not unusual among the world 
renouncers of ancient India, since social distinctions were meaningless 
within the ranks of the "homeless ones" in any case (Carrithers 1983:20, 
Ling 1973:76). In any case, the project was eventually to fail. Social 
stratification survives to this day in Buddhist countries, and has in some 
cases even spread to the monastic order. In Thailand, for instance, there 
are now two distinct monastic orders, both in the Therava\'bfda tradition. 
While most of the Thai monks belong to the Mahanikaya order, the 
Dhammayuttinikaya order was founded in 1833 by King Mongkut (Rama IV) before 
his ascension to the throne, with the express purpose of constituting an 
"elite order of monks" (Lester 1973: 95). Moreover, these are empirical 
contingencies, and as was said at the outset of this article, my interest 
here is in the logical relationship between Buddhist philosophy and human 
rights theory.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Does all of this imply that Buddhists have excluded themselves from taking 
part in the human rights debate? Perhaps not: they can always rely on the 
concept of "skillful means" (Skt: upa\'bfyakaus\'a1alya) to solve this problem. 
This concept holds that any teaching is valuable and therefore `true', if it 
brings beings a little closer to enlightenment and the eradication of 
suffering. Thus, even if my partners in the debate use concepts widely 
different from my own, as a Buddhist I can still join them if their goals 
are broadly speaking the same as mine. To let semantic differences interfere 
in the joint creation of a more humane, compassionate society would be a 
grievous error for a Buddhist, especially since the Buddhist understanding 
of the meaning of terms tends towards the nominalist in any case. Such 
pragmatic actions may be seen, for instance, in the cases of 
Buddhist/Christian cooperation in Sri Lanka (Traer 1988:17). But the logical 
problems remain; and look set to continue doing so until an authentically 
Buddhist human rights theory, or an equivalent which manages to avoid such 
value\_loaded terms, has been worked out.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 \pard\page REFERENCES\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Abe, Masao. 1986a. A Buddhist response to Mohammed Talbi. in Swidler, 
Leonard 1986. Religious liberty and human rights. Philadelphia: Ecumenical 
Press.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Abe, Masao. 1986b. Religious tolerance and human rights: a Buddhist 
perspective. in Swidler, Leonard 1986. Religious liberty and human rights. 
Philadelphia: Ecumenical Press.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Carrithers, Michael. 1983. The Buddha. Oxford: Oxford University Press.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Inada, Kenneth. 1982. The Buddhist perspective on human rights. Journal of 
ecumenical studies. 19:3 Summer 1982. pp 66\_76.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Lester, Robert C. 1973. Theravada Buddhism in South\_East Asia. Ann Arbor: 
Michigan University Press.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Ling, Trevor 1973. The Buddha. London: Temple Smith.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Manley, Marcelle. 1992. Religion as ground for belief in human rights with 
special reference to Christianity and Islam. Theologia Evangelica. 25:1 
March 1992. pp 56\_66.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Prozesky, Martin. 1989. Is the concept of Human rights logically permissible 
in theistic religion? Journal for the study of religion. 2:2 September 1989. 
pp 17\_26.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Prozesky, Martin. 1990. Human rights and concepts of human nature. Theoria. 
75. May 1990. pp 1\_6.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Sangharakshita (bhikshu). 1966. A survey of Buddhism. Bangalore: Indian 
institute of world culture.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Schmidt, Roger. 1980. Exploring religion. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Traer, Robert. 1988. Buddhist affirmations of human rights. 
Buddhist\_Christian studies. 8. 1988. pp 13\_19.\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\par
}{\plain \f1 \par
}{\plain \f1 Michel Clasquin is research assistant at the Institute for Theological 
Research, University of South Africa, PO Box 392, Pretoria 0001, RSA.}}