What Would Buddha Think?

There are certain varieties of New Age thought (especially in the West) which tell you something along these lines : 'Well, you know, what really matters is not what you believe but what you do.' There is another more wide-spread version of this statement which says that as long as you do whatever is accepted within some broadly agreed conventions, it does not matter what beliefs you may happen to hold. In one sense, such statements are, implicitly or explicitly, a full-scale assault on the ramparts of the Academy which, it is alleged, gives support to the activities of 'pure thought' and 'dispassionate rationality' which are not translated into action. How valid this accusation is, of course, a matter for another post; what I wish to examine here is the validity of the statement that it is only actions, which float freely from any mooring in beliefs, motives, desires, intentions, and inclinations, that count.

One of the simplest ways of challenging a specific view is to produce some counter-examples to it, and I shall provide three here.

(A) There are three men, John, Tom and David, each of who is asked this question, 'Have you ever been violent towards women?', and all of them unhesitatingly reply, 'No'. Since they have satisfied the condition that they behave in the appropriate (that is, non-violent) manner towards women, we might come to the conclusion that it does not matter why they behave in this way. But it does crucially matter that we also know the answer to this Why, and to appreciate this consider their three replies to this question.

John replies : 'I would not inflict harm on women because I believe that women too are individuals who are the bearers of certain rights and liberties guaranteed to all who are included within my nation, and more generally, within 'humanity', in whatever way you might define thi slippery term'. Tom says : 'I am an unrepentant misogynist. Far from actually harming a woman, I would not even go a few inches close to one. They are absolutely beneath my contempt'. Finally, David replies : 'Well, I don't think it is wrong to be violent towards women. But then you see there is the law, the police and all that nonsense, and I don't want to go to jail for that will disrupt my normal routine. So I choose to accept the social conventions of my country, and choose not to do what is forbidden by the law. But if I were to be living in a country where violence towards women is socially legitimised, I would surely not think twice before lashing out at a woman whenever it suited me.'

So in one specific context, say within the legal system of the UK where such violence is indeed illegal (but widespread nevertheless), the actual practices of John, Tom and David may not matter, but the divergences in their replies to the latter Why question can become of crucial significance in some cases. Say, for example, all three of them happen to be on a panel interviewing candidates for a job, among whom there are two women. Depending on their respective attitudes to this question, all three of them will have different views on whether these two women are capable to doing that job. Therefore, within that context, it is not enough to be able to determine how they have behaved towards the candidates (perhaps, all of them were outwardly polite and smiling), but it does really matter what they believe.

(B) Any social system that is based on brute demands for submission to some sort of a higher authority may be able to enforce on human beings modes of behaviour that are always within the established norms, but it will remain doubtful to what extent they wish to uphold that system. Consider, for example, the collapse of Communism in various parts of Europe (which is not to say that this is the reason, but one of the important reasons for this fall). Therefore, it is not sufficient to know what Czechs, Romanians, Ukrainians, and Muscovites do without finding out at the same time what they believe in, and trying to establish whether or not their actions are external manifestations of these inner beliefs and inclinations.

(C) An opposite example comes from the contemporary West, where a diluted form of atheism has become acceptable as the authoritarian norm. To confess that one is religious is tantamount to social suicide : 'What! You have become religious! Oh my gosh, whatever happened to you? You were normal until last night's party? Was it something in your vodka? I tell you what, you need to go out more often.' Therefore, the reason why some choose to call themselves atheists is not so much because they have seriously sat down with pen and paper and pondered over the relevant issues, but simply because they do not want to 'lose face' before their friends, spouses, colleagues, and peers (and the same applies to the latter who are pressurised by the dynamics of hidden and subtle social forces to exclude certain topics from 'polite conversation'). Therefore, once again we have people who are behaving in just the right way (that is, by acquiring the skill of religion-bashing which is necessary for climbing the 'intellectual' ladder), but the more fundamental question remains this Why : Why do they behave this way? Is it because they have carefully reflected on these matters in the process of mutual discussions with people of various religious/agnostic/atheist persuasions, or is it simply because of their emotional need for social acceptance by like-minded people around them?

Note, however, that I am not trying to settle the debate over 'God and atheism' by making these sociological observations, that is an entirely different debate which must be conducted at several levels, psychological, emotional, moral, and epistemological. My concern here is simply to show why it is never enough to know that people are behaving in the 'right' way without asking them why they are behaving that way. Just as many Russian Orthodox folk started behaving as atheists during Stalin's time not because they had become Marxists overnight but simply because they did not want to be sent to freezing concentration camps in Siberia, it is very much possible that many people who outwardly live as atheists have been pressurised to turn towards atheism because they are scared of social exclusion which is as nightmarish as a concentration camp for them. This becomes all the more clear when one considers the fact that in our private lives, far away from the discomforting public gaze, we are virtually deluged by stream after stream of New Age thought, transcendental meditation, yogic practices, astrology, Zen, horoscopes, wicca, relaxation therapy, aromatherapy, and crystal gazing.

A final note about Buddhism itself, especially concerning the manner in which it has been received in the West. Some Western Buddhists will give you the following litany : 'Islam, Judaism and Christianity require you to believe in things for which there is no evidence. In Buddhism, however, you are free to investigate and examine every precept and teaching, and find out for yourself whether these are true or false'. To this, two replies. Firstly, I shall here allow the former accusation to stand; to rebut it will carry me too far afield. Secondly, however, even a week spent in studying through Buddhist metaphysics will make you realise that things are not quite as simple as that. One of the foundational principles of Buddhist thought is the law of karma and rebirth, and if it were really that easy to verify the truth or falsity of this law, I guess everyone would have become a Buddhist by now. The fact that many people, even after having grappled with the complexities of Buddhism for a sufficiently long period of time, remain unsure about whether or not to accept this law as a 'description of reality' should cast at least some doubt on the claim that Buddhism is a Do-It-Yourself philosophy wide-open to all amateurs. In short, then, even in Buddhism it is not enough to know what to do unless you also know why you are doing so.