OCR Document€¦ · Web viewNagarjuna's reply in Chapter 24 of the Mula-madhyamaka-karika is...
Transcript of OCR Document€¦ · Web viewNagarjuna's reply in Chapter 24 of the Mula-madhyamaka-karika is...
Uniting Wisdom and CompassionSocially Engaged Buddhism
at the Alice Project School
By
Andrew Pond Davis
Senior Thesis
Religious Studies – Standford University
May 2001
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2
Table of Contents
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Preface and Acknowledgements
Chapter 1 : Socially Engaged Buddhism, an Introduction
Chapter 2 : The Universal Education Alice Project School, Tracing an Idea
Chapter 3 : Madhyamika Philosophy
Chapter 4 : Nagarjuna’s Presence : Madhyamika’s Influence on the Alice Project School.
Chapter 5 : Nagarjuna’s J ewel Garland
Chapter 6 : The “Buddhism” of Socially Engaged Buddhism
Source Cited.
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Chapter 2
The Universal Education Alice Project School: Tracing an Idea
The Alice Project School seeks to unite Buddhist wisdom and
education in an ecumenical style. In this introduction to the school I
will trace this idea from its origin to its development and current
manifestation in Sarnath, India. This description of one socially
engaged Buddhist movement will afford a detailed analysis of what
it can mean for a socially engaged movement to be Buddhist.
The Origin of the Idea
The history of the Alice Project School is inextricably linked to
the life of Valentino Giacomin, co-founder and director of the Alice
methodology. Valentino was born in 1944 and raised in Italy. After
graduating from university with a degree in psychology, Valentino
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worked as a journalist and a teacher in government primary schools
for ten years.
At the age of thirty he experience what he describes as a "mid-
life crisis" in which he began "to think about life and its meaning"
(8/30/00). At this point he became interested in yoga and other
eastern traditions. Coincidentally through his interest in yoga he
began to study Buddhism. Expecting a lecture on yoga, Valentino
attended the teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist Lama Songa
Rinpoche.
During Songa's teaching on the hell realms and a subsequent
conversation with a monk, Valentino was told to ignore the doctrine
itself and to "look at the nature of your mind." At this moment he
recalls seeing "a light" and realizing that the concepts of "heaven
and hell are creations of the mind" (8/30/00). Realizing the
importance of understanding the mind turned Valentino's interest
toward the teachings of the Buddha and soon dedicated himself to a
Buddhist practice. His commitment to Buddhism and desire to
spread the dharma were further solidified when he founded a
Buddhist center in Italy with two friends.
As in the case of many other Western Buddhists, Valentino's
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commitment to Buddhism did not entail a rejection of his Christian
heritage.
For several years he searched for ways to unify Christianity
with the Buddhist teachings that intrigued him so much.
His unwillingness to renounce Christianity nearly drove him to
give up Buddhism. During a conversation with Lama Zopa Rinpoche,
Valentino asked whether he could think that Jesus Christ is a
Buddha. Lama Zopa told him he could but that Christianity had lost
a lot of the teachings on subjects such as emptiness.
This reply satisfied Valentino who told me that if Lama Zopa
had said no, he would never be a Buddhist (8/30/00). Living as a
self-proclaimed "Christian-Buddhist," Valentino searched for
universal wisdom between Buddhism and Christianity.
When Valentino returned to teaching in the late 1970's he
began to consider how to "use the wisdom of Buddhism that I had
discovered in practical ways in an Italian school" (8130100). By
uniting his love of Buddhist wisdom, his Christian heritage, and his
profession of education, Valentino gave birth to the idea that would
become the Alice Project School. One of Valentino's teachers, Lama
Yeshe, was also very interested in the project of joining Buddhist
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insight and education in a universal or ecumenical manner-a project
Lama Yeshe called Universal Education.
With his partner Luigina DeBiasi, Valentino developed a
curriculum that would embody both his and Lama Yeshe's vision.
While Lama Yeshe shared the initial vision of Universal Education,
Valentino makes it clear that he and Luigina were the first "to
practically join Buddhist wisdom with traditional curriculum"
(8/30/00).
The Development
With the ambitious goal of uniting Buddhism wisdom with
education in a traditionally Christian Italian school environment
firmly in his mind, Valentino set out to make this idea a reality. The
curriculum was first tested informally in two government schools in
Treviso, Italy, for five years in the early 1980's. When parents
complained about the curriculum, Valentino followed the advice of a
famous Tibetan teacher, Gomo Tulku, and gave up teaching
Buddhist wisdom in the classroom.
This initial defeat did not stifle his project but rather forced him
to appeal to the Italian Government's law 219, which supports
experimental education projects, for permission to teach in this
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innovative way. In 1986 he received permission to experiment with
his curriculum in a classroom.
He and Luigina practiced the Alice methodology in Italian
5chools for six years. In 1989 Valentino turned much of the teaching
over to Luigina and gave conferences on the Alice Methodology
throughout Italy.
Following the Advice H.H. Dalai Lama, Valentino did not give up
his efforts as an educator. After the program in Italy closed in 1991,
Valentino spent three years further developing the curriculum and
making it applicable to cultures other than his own. In 1993
Valentino and Luigina sought a' place where they could not only
teach according to the Alice method but also test it in a more
scientific manner. Faced with high costs in Italy, Valentino
considered both Brazil and India.
The final site, Sarnath, India, was chosen with the advice of yet
another spiritual teacher. At the end of 1993 Valentino used his
pension to purchase land in Sarnath and began building the Alice
Project School.
The Current School
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The Place The Alice Project School is located in Sarnath, India, a
small town comprising five villages and around 8,000 people located
10 kilometers north of Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The
center of the town is Deer Park, an archeological preserve where the
Buddha gave his first teachings.
Because the Buddha met his first disciples in Deer Park and
taught the four noble truths, it has been one of the four major
Buddhist pilgrimage sites for over 2,000 years.3
The first physical monument in Sarnath was a stupa that the
great Buddhist ruler, Emperor Asoka, erected in 260 BCE (Singh,
236). Sarnath continued to thrive as a Buddhist pilgrimage site and
cultural center known for its artwork in the Gupta period (4th-6th
centuries BCE) until Buddhism was driven out of Northern India
during the 11th and 12th centuries and most of the physical
structures were destroyed (Singh, 236-237).
Dr. A.K. Jain, a prominent Sarnath resident and owner of two
bookstores and a guesthouse in Sarnath, told me that, while 150
years ago Sarnath was an area dominated by agriculture, the town
is now economically dependent on the tourist industry.
This transformation began when interest in Sarnath's history was
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revived in the early 19th century with the discovery of the
archeological remains of a stupa. Over 100 years of excavation by
numerous parties culminated in the opening of an archeological
museum in 1912. With the establishment of the museum and a
growing tourist industry in India, in the 1950's the government of
Uttar Pradesh began to dedicate a large amount of money to the
development of Sarnath as a tourist attraction (Jain, 8/30/00).
This financial support included millions rupees to beautify Deer
Park, the site or the Buddha's first teaching. This revived interest in
Sarnath, triggered by the government of UP, was shared by many
Buddhist countries that began to set up monasteries and temples in
Sarnath (Singh, 252-253).
Currently there are temples and monasteries erected by people
from Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea.
Since the opening of the Tibetan Institute in 1967, a university
dedicated to the preservation or Tibetan culture, there has been an
even larger Buddhist presence in Sarnath. As Singh's 1990 maps
reveal, the modern landscape of Sarnath is covered with tourist
attractions and the supporting infrastructure.
Sarnath residents have adapted to this shifting economy by
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trading the field for the tourist shop. 100 years ago a single man,
the Zamindar, owned all the land in the area.
The land was tilled by villagers who worked under him.
However, with India's independence, the system was abandoned
and the land was divided among the residents of the villages. For
about fifty years agriculture, now decentralized, remained the
primary industry.
The UP's investment in Sarnath's tourism, however, drove land
prices up resulting in many people selling their land and setting up
shops near the tourist sites. Currently agriculture is a very small
element of the economy with small farms that feed the local villages
(Jain, 8/30/00). The main industry is tourism with many shops,
restaurants and guesthouses.
The people of the villages work in these shops, as guides, as
sari makers (Sarnath and Varanasi are famous for their fine silk
saris) or as masons and other professions that sustain the tourist
infrastructure. Observing this large cultural and economic shift,
Valentino writes in his book The Philosophy of Alice Project about "a
loss of identity and values related to religion and tradition, due to
what here is called 'westernization': materialistic model of life" (13).
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The Alice Project School has responded to the changes brought
about by the tourist industry in three ways.
First, Valentino's curriculum directly addresses the perceived loss of
religious ideas and values through stories and religious texts rooted
in the students' Hindu traditions, as well as philosophical principles
based on Buddhist Madhyamika4. Second, he addresses the issues
of materialism through moral stories along with the school's ethos,
which promotes a notion of success that is not material but rather
spiritual. Last, the influx of tourists has brought increased religious
diversity in Sarnath.
While there are Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temple in Sarnath, tourists
bring the beliefs of all the world's religions. Valentino has seized this
diversity as an opportunity to teach comparative religion.
All of the students I interviewed were very much aware of religious
traditions other than their own and were skilled in pointing out the
similarities between differing belief systems. While the tourist
industry is rapidly changing the small town of Sarnath, the Project
Alice School is making the students marc aware of their own
culture's stories and traditional values as well as those of other
cultures.
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The school is situated 300 meters off the main road to Sarnath
on the border between the villages of Guroopur and Singhpour. A
dirt path lined with simple one-story brick and earth houses leads to
the school's blue gates. Within the gates, salmon red buildings with
bright blue interiors encircle a center courtyard.
The school's bright colors, in contrast to the earth tones of the
surrounding village, create a special atmosphere. While it initially
appears out of place, experience at the school reveals how
appropriate these vibrant colors are; for the students, Valentino's
school is a bright haven from the poverty and other difficulties of
their villages.
There are now three buildings, and with the recent purchase of
an adjacent plot of land there are plans for a fourth. Each or these
two and three story buildings houses nine to thirteen classrooms
that are set up in a traditional manner with students facing the
teacher. There are also spaces for meditation and karate, guest
rooms for visiting teachers, a library, and dormitories.
The roof of the largest building is utilized as the morning yoga
studio. In a school with growing numbers and such a diverse
curriculum, no space is wasted.
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The academic buildings surround a brick courtyard that is the
social center of the school. There, assemblies and singing take place
and students relax and play during their free time. In the middle of
this courtyard and at the center of the school is a twenty-foot high
Buddhist stupa which covers almost one tenth of the ground. In front
of the stupa are seven bowls that are filled every day with water as
an offering to the Buddha.
Despite the stupa's large size and white color it does not
dominate the community space. It is surrounded by low trees that
provide shade and relief from the often blistering heat. Mark
Singleton, a visiting teacher, says of the stupa, "you would have to
look to know that it was there" (8/25/00).
The stupa's large and yet non-dominating presence is an
appropriate symbol of Buddhism's role at the Alice School.
Buddhism is fundamental to the Alice School, but it has a subtle
presence. Buddhist inspired wisdom is offered to rather than forced
upon the children.
The Students
Every morning at around 5:30, 300 students ages six to fifteen
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walk or peddle through the gates of the Alice Project School wearing
dark blue shorts or skirts and sky blue shirts.
Most have traveled several kilometers from their homes in the
villages by foot or bicycle. Though the school started with only 80
students in five classes, it has expanded in its seven-year history to
over 300 students in classes one through eight. Each year a new
class will be added until the school serves students in classes one
through twelve. Approximately 30 new students are admitted each
year with preference given to girls.
All the students live in what many would consider poverty-level
conditions. Sarnath is a very disadvantaged part of the state of Uttar
Pradesh, the second poorest state in India. While in Sarnath I visited
two students' homes.
Both were single-story earthen buildings with dirt floors; they
had one main room and in one case a smaller adjoining room. In one
home the young boys of the family slept on cots outside the house.
Animals wander throughout the streets and human waste is a
common sight under trees and on the side of the roads. It did not
surprise me that the students spend over 12 hours a day at school.
Despite the shared level of poverty there is uncommon
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diversity among the students. With both boys and girls of all castes
enrolled, the Alice Project stands out from other Indian schools.
Beyond diversity there is equality.
Unlike many schools in India, there is no discrimination
according to caste or sex. In my first student interview, a 14-year-
old student who is a Brahmin pointed out that his friends are of all
castes. His assertion "I do not care about caste," is significant in a
part of India where discrimination according to caste is still present
(Shukla, 8/27/00).
In addition to caste equality, there is also gender equality at
the Alice Project School. The 1996 Public Report on Basic Education
(PROBE) in India revealed a vast discrepancy between the education
of males and females. While on average boys receive 2.9 years of
schooling, girls receive only 1.8 (PROBE, 9).
Even more telling is the fact that over 40% more women are
illiterate than men (PROBE, 9). Valentino is very much aware of
gender discrimination in traditional Indian schools and for this
reason gives priority to girls who apply. In observations, both the
boys and girls were treated equally, both participating in class and
working on the board. These differences do not go unnoticed by the
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students.
When I asked two girls, ages 14 and 15, about the differences
between the Alice Project School and other schools they had
attended, they both commented that at most schools the boys
segregated themselves from the girls.
One said, "Here we are like brother and sister" (Patel, 9/71.00).
With caste and gender discrimination virtually non-existent, a space
of open interaction is created, a space unique to this part of India.
One of the major problems with the current Indian school
system, according to the PROBE report, is the cost of schooling a
child. Though free education is a constitutional right in India, the
average North Indian parent spends 366 rupees on fees, textbooks,
uniforms and other expenses. For an agricultural family with two
children this amounts to 30 to 40 days' wages (Primary Education,
70).
These costs greatly affect the education of girls who, because
they arc married away from the family, are not seen as worthy of
the investment in education. Valentino directly counters these two
problems by charging a minimal fee according to what each student
can pay. He also provides a uniform, daily food, and basic
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healthcare to keep these hidden costs to a minimum. He is
particularly sensitive to the status of women's education and for this
reason does not charge any fee to poor girls (8/29/00).
Because Valentino collects minimal fees, the school is largely
dependent on outside funding. While Valentino and Luigina's
personal money primarily support the school, there are also several
private donors including one large group from Belgium.
Interestingly, this funding does not come from Buddhist groups but
rather from Christian donors who believe in the universal nature of
the Alice Project teaching.
The Faculty
Watching over and educating these 300 students are around
20 teachers and several foreign volunteers. The teachers, about
fifteen men and five women, range in age from their mid twenties
through their fifties.
All of the teachers have completed high school and some
higher education. While several of the younger teachers have
university degrees from self-study programs, one female teacher
has completed her Ph.D. in sociology. The entire faculty either lives
in the nearby villages or at the school. Beyond these full time faculty
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there are many foreign volunteers teaching at any given time.
When I was researching there were up to five other volunteers
teaching English, comparative religion, a special class on the atomic
bomb, kindergarten, yoga, and games. Most of these foreign
teachers stay for at least one month and some for much longer. The
volunteers quickly become attached to the school and the students,
often making repeated visits. During my month at the school Mark
Singleton, a teacher from England, was visiting the school for a
second multi-month stay in which he both teaches and helps with
administration.
Beyond their academic training all teachers receive extensive
training in the mission and methodology of the school. In 1994
Valentino selected 50 teachers from the Sarnath and Varanasi area
for six months of training. Every Sunday for eight hours, Valentino
and Luigina taught the prospective teachers about the spiritual and
philosophical goals of the school.
In these six months the faculty reviewed the basic
philosophical and psychological underpinnings of the school
including Madhyamika philosophy and meditation. While many
teachers had heard of meditation, a practice at the heart of the Alice
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pedagogy, one young teacher guessed that 90% of those teachers
had never practiced (Misra, 9/7/00).
A second important aspect of the training is an emphasis on
innovative teaching methods.
The teachers were all educated in settings where copying and
memorization were the method, and fear of physical punishment the
motivation. The teachers I interviewed emphasized the violence in
their childhood classrooms. The PROBE study suggests that this is
still the norm, citing several students who "have been frightened
away from the school by violent teachers" (Primary Education, 72).
In their six months of training the teachers learned to replace
memorization with creativity and the stick with love. One teacher
said, "They [Valentino and Luigina] have ideas about Western
schools and they know about Indian teaching. They explained that
we have to teach not with force but with songs and games-to play
with children and love children" (Misra, 9/7/00).
This development of classroom creativity was the hardest part
of the training for Valentino and Luigina as the teachers had all been
raised in classrooms where an essay was graded according to the
number of lines it had rather than its creativity and content
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(Giacomin, 9/1/00).
After the six months of training, all the teachers wrote several
essays about what they had learned. From these essays and the
training time experiences Valentino and Luigina selected 25
teachers. Valentino is proud that after six years more than 80% of
the original teachers are still working at the school (9/1/00).
These teachers continue to receive training in the Alice
Methodology both formally and informally as they sit in on classes
that Valentino or Luigina teach. Other teachers receive special
training for particular subjects. Arun Shukla, a young faculty
member who teaches. yoga, Sanskrit, Hindi, and English, has been
sent to several vipassana meditation retreats and has done a four
month yoga class (9/5/00). Clearly Valentino recognizes the
importance of not only teaching students but teaching teachers.
Valentino spends the majority of the year watching over the
faculty, students, and every other aspect of the school.
He is a teacher, administrator, healthcare provider, and father
to all his students. Between classes and meetings Valentino spends
countless hours developing the Alice Project curriculum and writing
new books of moral stories. His year round dedication to the school
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and love of his students is the glue that binds the Alice Project
School together.
While Valentino is clearly essential to the running of the school,
he is training young faculty members to take over his role and
carryon the Alice Project mission
The Curriculum
The academic program at the Alice Project has both traditional and
non-traditional components. As a state-recognized school it is
required to teach math, science, Hindi, English, social studies, and
history. The primary medium of these classes is Hindi, though some
upper level classes and all English classes are taught in English.
Even these "traditional" subjects are taught in a somewhat non-
traditional way. In math classes, I observed a remarkable amount of
student-teacher interaction. In a class for 13 to 15 year olds the
teacher, Vinit Misra, explained the concept of a triangle's three
internal angles equaling 180 degrees and then had students at the
board working out problems.
He welcomed questions and worked out answers on the board with
student participation. In a math class for the youngest students
22
another teacher used diagrams of mangoes being put into baskets
to explain the concepts of subtraction and division.
Throughout both classes students expressed great interest in what
they were learning. While the oldest students eagerly asked
questions, the youngest would hold up their workbooks to show off
their successful work. Thus the traditional curriculum is taught,
devoid of the traditional pedagogical practices of memorization and
punishment.
What makes the Alice Project curriculum so innovative and sets
it apart from every other school is its incorporation of non-traditional
studies. Each day students are taught yoga, meditation, karate, and
flute.
The day begins at 6:00 with a half hour of "karma yoga."
During this practice that is framed in traditional Hindu religious
notions of selfless action, students clean and prepare the school for
the day. After this the student body is divided into three groups for
an hour of yoga, meditation and prayer.
After the day's classes all the students practice Vipassana
meditation, a form of Buddhist insight meditation, for a half hour
and then spend one hour in karate and flute lessons.
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Finally, there is another half hour of karma yoga in which all the
classrooms are cleaned. In total the students spend three and a
half hours engaged in these non-traditional subjects of
meditation, yoga and prayer.
Non-traditional subjects are also taught in the classroom.
Valentino, Luigina, and two of the younger teachers regularly
give lessons in psychology, philosophy and religion. During
these classes students are challenged to think about concepts
such as perception, relativity, and self from a Buddhist inspired
perspective.
Valentino has produced several books of "moral stories"
that encourage discussion of subjects such as anger, friendship,
and relationships and give the students examples of Buddhist
responses to difficult situations (more on this in Chapter 4).
The traditional and non-traditional curricula are not
completely separate. The most obvious manifestation of their
union is the five-minute period of meditation that ends every
class. During this time the teacher guides the students in some
sort of focus or insight practice such as listening to the ring of a
hell or simply observing the breath.
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In the classes that I observed the teachers were very
skilled at using meditation to steer the direction of a given
class. During a math class for seven and eight-year-olds, the
teacher calmed boisterous students by drawing a large dot on
the board and having the students concentrate on that dot for
two or three minutes. I was amazed at how this simple
meditation drastically altered the atmosphere of the classroom.
The non-traditional curriculum is very well received by the
students. Every student I interviewed spoke enthusiastically
about the yoga and meditation practices. Beyond enthusiasm
the students have a good grasp of the significance of these
practices. When asked to define meditation one student wrote,
"Meditation is to look with insight, to know our self, to know
who I am. To be aware, to concentrate, to know mind, body,
thoughts, emotions etc" (Kumar. 8/31/00). The students also
realize the benefits of meditation and yoga. A 14-year-old boy
who has been at the school since it was founded believes that
yoga and meditation allow him to be "peaceful and healthy"
and to "concentrate well" (Naress, 9/4/00).
Like many other students, this same boy felt that he is
negatively affected when he does not practice: "On days I do
25
not do yoga I feel very boring and painful in my body. Yoga
gives me more energy" (Naress, 9/4/00). I attended a vipassana
meditation class in which a student lead us through a half hour
meditation with ease.
This experience solidified my belief that the students of
the Alice Project School are not just hearing these non-
traditional teachings, but absorbing them and living by them.
Other Programs
After tire school day another group of around 80 students who
work during the day and are therefore unable to attend the day
school come for three hours of class at night.
The students in this program have extremely busy lives,
working around ten hours a day and then spending three hours
at school. For these students, however, the time commitment is
a small price to pay for the education that they would otherwise
be without.
Valentino has also recently opened a new school outside of
Bodh Gaya, India, the place of the Buddha's enlightenment.
While intra-Buddhist politics have left the building mostly
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unused for the past year, when I was leaving in September,
Valentino was preparing to send his first group of students to
this new campus. He hopes to use the Bodh Gaya campus as a
school for either street children of Varanasi or children who are
currently in the harsh Indian prison system.
Valentino is also developing a program to work with young
Tibetan Buddhist monks, supplementing their traditional
monastic education finally, Valentino has submitted a grant
proposal to the Indian government to establish an educational
research institute at the school in order to bring in research
scholars to test and document the Alice Project theories and
methods.
The constant now of traffic in and out of Valentino's office
cum bedroom is the best evidence of the energy and time that
he and others put into keeping the Alice Project School not only
running but also expanding. From a local Tibetan doctor to a
university psychology professor, scores of Indians and
foreigners are dedicated to the success of Alice Project School.
Daily, both in the classroom and in development
27
meetings, Valentino and others are uniting Buddhist ideals and
education in ways that they envision as universal-continually
transforming ideas and ideals into practical and effective
realities.
28
Chapter 3
Madhyamika Philosophy
Though influenced by diverse sources, pedagogy of the Project
Alice School claims to he grounded in Madhyamika Buddhist
philosophy. While it is impossible in the span of this paper to
fully elucidate Madhyamika philosophy, it is imperative to both
locate Madhyamika in its historical context and to give a
concise introduction to it. After briefly considering the
development or the Mahayana and its philosophical sub-school
Madhyamika, I will describe the philosophy in a negative mode,
as a reaction against
Abhidharmic thought.
Next I will paint a broad four-stroke picture of the positive
philosophical stances that Madhyamika philosophers such as
Nagarjuna held : 1. All phenomena and matter are dependently
arising and lack any independently existent matter. 2. The
source or our misperception about existents is found in our
misuse of language. 3. There are both the conventional reality
of language and the ultimate reality of voidness.
29
4. All teaching happens according to skillful means. While such
an introduction can hardly do justice to the brilliant and
intriguing complexities of Madhyamika philosophy, these four
broad principles give a general introduction to the philosophy
and represent the working understanding of Madhyamika that I
observed while teaching and researching at the Project Alice
School.
The Historical and Cultural Background
The history of Madhyamika begins with the development of the
Mahayana or "great vehicle" tradition between 150 BCE and
100 CEO. In his chapter on the rise of Mahayana, Peter Harvey
claims that there were three main catalysts that contributed to
its development and separation from the "Hinayana": 1) The
emergence of the ideal of the Bodhisattva path; 2) A new
cosmology that incorporated a transcendent and glorified
Buddha; and 3) new understanding of Abhidharma and the
emptiness of phenomena (Harvey 89-90). Hinayana Buddhist
soteriology included three goals of the Buddhist path: the
sravaka arhant, the pratyeka Buddha, and the fully awakened
Buddha.
30
While early Buddhists aimed at the level of the sravaka arhant,
the Mahayana accepted only the fully awakened Buddha as the
goal of their practice.
According to Mahayana belief, one should sacrifice
enlightenment in the present as a sravoka and dedicate all
one's future lives to helping others and developing virtue in
order that they become fully awakened Buddhas in the far
future (Robinson and Johnson, 83-84). It is this eternal
dedication to the salvation of all sentient beings and attainment
of fully awakened Buddhahood, the Bodhisattva Path, that
became a highlighted ideal in the Mahayana period and is the
first major division between the Hinayana and Mahayana.
The second major historical influence on the development
of the Mahayana was the encounter with other cultures' theistic
beliefs. From the cult of Vishnu to Hellenistic and Zoroastrian
savior cults, Buddhists were exposed to many religions that
held up a lively and glorified deity.
While it is unclear how exactly Buddhists picked up these
cultic elements, the emergence of a transcendent Buddha and
many other colorful and cuhic Buddhist deities reflects this
31
cross cultural influence (Robinson and Johnson, 82-83)
The final catalyst of the Mahayana's rise and the focus of
this introduction is the reaction against the Abhidharmic
thought that had become a part of the established corpus of
Buddhist teaching and became further entrenched with the
establishment of written canons.
Many religious virtuosos and philosophers wrote new
pseudepigraphic Sutras to counter the tenets of the
Abhidharmic philosophy and the belief that the Abhidharma
was the final teaching of the Buddha (Robinson and Johnson,
82). It is in this philosophical critique and debate that the new
schools of Mahayana philosophy, including Madhyamika,
developed.
Before I turn to the details of this philosophical
development, it is important to note that the split between the
Mahayana and Hinayana occurred over several hundred years
and was not a sudden or violent schism.
Abhidharma and the Philosophical Context
As the Mahayana drew away from the Hinayana, specific
schools such as Madhyamika developed their anti-Abhidharma
32
views.
Abhidharma is defined by Robinson and Johnson as the
“systematic analysis of component factors of experience, based
on teachings in the Sutras, explaining physical and mental
events without reference to an abiding self" (320). Wanting to
destroy self-centered attachment, Abhidharmists faced the
difficult task of describing how matter and phenomena exist in
the world without being independently existent. They did so by
positing the existence of basic building blocks, dharmas, that
constitute each phenomenon.
There is no independently existent matter, a critical
Buddhist belief, because all matter depends on the dynamic
and constantly changing interactions of these dharmas. For a
later comparison with Madhyamika philosophy, it is helpful to
understand Abdhidharma in the language of physics: no matter
exists in itself, but rather matter is an aggregate or product of
particles and forces that are interacting and depending on one
another.
The Mahayana critique of Abhidharmic thought centered
on these elemental dharmas. Mahayana philosophers wanted
33
to deny the existence of even these 'Dharmac' particles that
compose matter.
Because Abhidharmists posited the existence of essential
dharmic building blocks, Mahayana philosophers argued that
there was still a subtle sense of self and independent existence.
According to the Mahayana, whether building blocks or
not, Abhidharmic dharmas qualified as independently existing
phenomena and therefore did not conform to the fundamental
Buddhist teaching against independently existing matter.
This analytical breakdown, they also argued, promoted a
subtle form of intellectual grasping because the philosopher
believed that he "had 'grasped' the true nature of reality in a
neat set of concepts" (Harvey, 96).
Therefore Abhidharmic "dharma-analysis, developed as a
means to undercut self-centered attachment, was seen as
having fallen short of its mark" (Harvey, 97).
Before moving to the positive philosophical system that
anti-Abhidharmist Mahayana philosophers offered we must note
that the Hinayana Abhidharmist positions described above are
depicted as Mahayana philosophers envisioned them.
34
There was much debate between the two schools and by
no means did the Mahayana completely undermine the
positions held by the Hinayana. Rather, it is the case that the
Mahayana, influenced by new cultural forces, offered a new set
of philosophical tenets. To this day both Hinayana Abhidharma
and Mahayana philosophy still thrive in different parts of the
Buddhist world.
The Positive Philosophy: Nagarjuna's Madhyamika
Accompanying and incorporated into the anti-Abhidharmic
writings, new schools of Mahayana philosophy developed a
positive philosophy to replace the Abhidharma. One of the most
prominent of these schools was the Madhyamika school
founded by the Indian monk and mystic, Nagarjuna, circa 150-
250 CE (Harvey, 95). While Nagarjuna did not refer to himself
as part of the Mahayana tradition, his students and followers
including Aryadeva did so (Harvey, 96).
At the heart of Nagarjuna's philosophy is a belief in the
voidness or emptiness of all matter and all phenomena. This
belief that is also at the heart of the Project Alice School's
pedagogy, and thus I will attempt to sketch the principal tenets
35
of the Madhyamika in four broad strokes.
Each of these strokes will later be analyzed as a source of
educational philosophy and innovative pedagogy at the Project
Alice School.
The First Stroke: Dependent Arising and Matter as
Voidness
Like the Abhidharmist philosophers before him, Nagarjuna
desired to prove that all matter and phenomena (the two will
be used interchangeably) are void of a substantially existent
nature. Nagarjuna does so through an argument of dependent
arising. In Chapter 15 of the Madhyamika school's foundational
text, the Mula-madhyamika-karika (Verses on the
Fundamentals of the Middle Way) Nagarjuna offers a proof that
all matter is void of independent existence.
Harvey summarizes Nagarjuna's complicated philosophy
into a three-step argument (97). The first step is a proof that
phenomena lack their own nature.
Nagarjuna starts with the claim that all phenomena arise
according to conditions that Abhidharmists, who understood all
matter as conditioned by the dharmas, would agree with. It
36
follows from this premise that what a phenomenon is depends
on what conditions it—what an object appears to be is a
product of the components that constitute it, an aggregate of
interacting elements. From this Nagarjuna concludes that we
have no own-nature. This first step of Nagarjuna's reasoning
closely follows that of the Abhidharmists.
Where Nagarjuna departs from his Abhidharmic
predecessors is in the assertion that because nothing has its
own-nature, there can be no other-nature. This second step of
his logic is best understood as follows: there cannot be some
phenomenon X that depends on some other phenomenon Y
where Y has its own-nature. This is a logical argument because,
according to the conclusion of the first step, Y cannot have its
own nature.
This second step is Nagarjuna's main attack on
Abhidharmic philosophy. By denying other-nature he is denying
the substantial existence of the dharmic building blocks at the
heart of the Abhidharmic philosophy.
The third and final step in Nagarjuna's proof is the claim
that if matter cannot have its own-nature and there is no other-
37
nature, then no matter can have an independent and
substantially existent nature (Harvey, 97).
At the root of steps one and two, and thus also at the root
of Nagarjuna's conclusion, is the view that all phenomena
depend 011 other phenomena for both their arising and
existence. For this reason Nagarjuna's argument is termed an
argument of dependent arising.
Robert Thurman of Tel's a second way to understand this
first principle of Madhyamika thought.
Explaining Madhyamika philosophy in the introduction to
the Vimalakirti Sutra, Thurman emphasizes the term "relativity"
in his translation of the same word that means dependent
arising, pratityasamutpada.
He claims that the centrality of this term in Madhyamika
philosophy "means that all finite things are interdependent,
relative, and mutually conditioned and implies that there is no
possibility of any independent, self-sufficient, permanent thing
or entity" (Thurman 1976, 1).
The existence of the words on these pages depends on
the ink, my thoughts, the reader's eye and mind and hundreds
38
of other causes that have brought the page to look as it does.
Thunnan goes on to argue that this relativity and
interdependence are fundamental to our perception of the
world (1976,1-2). When one views an orange she enters into a
relation with that orange. There is a dependence between the
orange and the eyes that brings the orange into the existence
that is perceived. Such an example makes it clear that
dependent arising is at the root of our human understanding.
This relativity and the claim that there is no enduring
entity quickly elicits objections of nihilism.
The Madhyamika response to this charge is that relativity
and dependence do not rid us of existence but rather explain
how matter and phenomena exist in the relative world of our
perception (a distinction between the relative and ultimate
world will be drawn in the third stroke).
In his famous work "Wisdom," Nagarjuna quotes such an
objector: "If all this were void, then there would be no creation
and no destruction..." and to this he replies, "If all this were not
void, then there would be no creation and no destruction..." (in
Thurman 1976,2). In this passage the term "void" means "void
39
of a substantial independent existence."
Nagarjuna's response is that if things did have an
independent nature then they would be eternal, immutable and
therefore not subject to creation or destruction. However,
because phenomena are subject to dependent arising, they arc
created and are destroyed and hence function as we know
them in the world of our perception.
This response and defense against nihilism is made even
clearer in a second classic objection and response.
Nagarjuna's critics argued that if all phenomena were void
of inherent existence, then the Four Noble Truths, the essence
of the Buddha's teaching, was also void—a clear undermining
of the Buddha's teaching. Nagarjuna's reply in Chapter 24 of
the Mula-madhyamaka-karika is that if phenomena were not
void then suffering would be eternal and impossible to alleviate
(Harvey, 100). Thus the goal of the Buddhist path, the
cessation of suffering, depends upon the fact that phenomena
such as suffering are void of inherent independent existence.
Ultimately, while the teaching of dependent arising and
the voidness of matter appear to be nihilistic, they accurately
40
describe the world as we perceive it and as it is.
The Second Stroke:
Language as the Source of Our Mistaken Understanding
At the heart of the Buddha's teaching is the assumption
that we are all suffering and the source of our suffering is the
grasping belief that phenomena, including the self, are
independent and permanent entities. What is the source of this
wrongful grasping?
Even though Nagarjuna proved that our understanding of
the world is deluded, the vast majority of unenlightened beings
continue to believe in such self-sufficient and independent
entities.
Madhyamika philosophers were aware of this confusion
and explained that it is linked to and perpetuated by our
misuse of language.
Language properly functions to describe the world as we
perceive it. When we see an orange sitting on a table we call it
"an orange" and tell our friend that it is a good source of
vitamin C. Language lets us describe something that we
41
recognize as an orange.
Above, however, we proved that according to Madhyamika
philosophy there is not an independently existing orange. There
is, rather, dependently arising and existing matter that we eat.
Nagarjuna docs not deny that we should call that matter an
orange and eat it, but he warns us that our use of language has
the potential to delude us. This delusion occurs when we forget
that a name is only a name and attribute independent reality to
that which we name.
When we use the word "orange" or "self' out of deluded
habit we think not of the interdependent matter but rather
posit an' independently existent phenomena. It is this mistake,
the confusion of name with reality, that is the source of human
delusion.
One important element of this explanation is that our
perception of the world is incomplete. As I stressed above,
language is properly used to name things in the world as we
perceive them. Our perception, however, is limited. When we
say "orange" we think not of all the infinite causes that provide
its dependent arising, but only of a few characteristics that are
42
apparent to us.
When we think of an orange we consider its color, shape,
texture, smell, and maybe a few other components, but never
its composite makeup, the water that fed the tree, the hand
that picked the fruit and endless other factors which
contributed to the dependent existence that we see before us.
Thus language confused as reality not only causes our
delusion and subsequent suffering, but also blinds us to the
total interdependent reality of all existence.
The Third Stroke: Ultimate and Conventional Reality
While Madhyamika philosophy does criticize such misuse
of language, Nagarjuna believes that language has its place.
The proper role for language is in describing the world as we
know it, the world of conventional reality that we, as
unenlightened beings, perceive. This reality or truth can be
understood as the non-nihilistic reality.
Though all matter is void, there are still people, there is
still food to eat, and being hit by a train will actually kill us. For
this reason conventional reality allows us to explain the way we
act. Because I have a conventional sense of self and other, I
43
can interact in the world and do not see everything as void of
existence. In order to navigate the world, I name things and live
according to conventional truth.
The world of conventional truth does not exist in an
absolute sense but exists rather "only in a relative way, as a
passing phenomenon" (Harvey, 98). The ultimate reality is
completely devoid of name and grasping. This is the world in
which all matter is recognized as being void of inherent
existence, where matter truly is voidness.
Very little can be said about the ultimate reality as no
word's can describe it and it resists all attempts at reification,
for once named it is no longer ultimate. Perhaps it is best to say
that ultimate reality is the reality known in the experience of
enlightenment.
The Madhyamika Buddhist teaching of two worlds or two
truths appears dualistic, which is a problem for a philosophy
that tries to destroy all dualism. This is resolved by the doctrine
that both the ultimate and conventional reality exist in the
same place at the same time in every moment. When one
comes to realize this, she can experience both the ultimate and
44
conventional reality simultaneously.
The Bodhisattva who has realized ultimate truth yet
remains in the world of conventional truth in order to liberate
sentient beings reveals that one can act in both the
conventional and ultimate realities simultaneously.
The division of ultimate and conventional realities yields
an important distinction in the Madhyamika and other
Mahayana teachings of wisdom and compassion.
Describing the unenlightened human situation of living
within conventional reality while seeking the ultimate reality,
Robert Thurman writes, "We are left with the seemingly
contradictory tasks of becoming conscious of its ultimacy on
the one hand and, on the other hand, of devoting our energies
to the improvement of the unavoidable relative situation as
best we can" (1976,3). The Buddhist solution to this dual task is
wisdom (prajna) and sell1ess or great compassion
(mahakaruna). Through wisdom we go beyond the experience
of naming and beyond conventional experience, thus gaining
"direct awareness of the ultimate reality of all things" (Thurman
1976,3). While we live in the world of conventional reality we
45
are to live with a selfless great compassion.
Through this mahakaruna we can allay the physical and
mental suffering that pervade the conventional world. Thurman
writes that prajna and mahakaruna "are the essence of the
Great Vehicle, and of the Middle Way," and we will later see
that they are inseparable, like two sides of the same coin, and
also the essence of the Project Alice School (1976,3).
The Fourth Stroke:Teaching Ultimacy through Skillful
Means
The Buddha and subsequent great teachers do not teach a
single doctrine to all students but rather tailor their teaching to
the level of understanding of their students. This ability to
reach and challenge every student, no matter what their
mental disposition is termed upaya or skillful means. While
Madhyamika is a powerful and important philosophy, it is a
difficult teaching. Robert Thurman summarizes the pedagogical
paradox that Madhyamika presents: "It is clear that this subtle,
profound, yet simple teaching can be inaccessible or even
frightening to those either intellectually or emotionally
unprepared, while the gem-like being properly prepared need
46
only hear it and all mental blocks are instantly shattered"
(1976,4).
Because Madhyamika is not suited to all students, the
Buddha and other great teachers taught according to the level
of their students' understanding. It is here that Madhyamika
recognized the importance of the Hinayana and Yogacara
schools. The more limited goal of arhantship was prescribed for
the student who could not comprehend the Bodhisattva ideal
and sought liberation as escape from the relative world.
The Yogacara teaching, which posits the existence of pure
mind, was taught to students who could not conceive of the
emptiness of absolutely all things. These teachings, however,
were not considered complete and were thought to bring a
student only up to a certain level of understanding.
The belief that Hinayana and Yogacara are true, but non-
comprehensive and lesser teachings is common among modern
Madhyamika teachers.The doctrine of skillful means suggests
more than just reaching out to all students. Upaya also
suggests that all teachings are just that, a skillful means to
drive the student to a new understanding. The arhant ideal is
47
the means by which people begin to comprehend the Buddha's
teaching. Ultimately even Madhyamika is considered a means
to an end, a provisional device. Upon realization of
inexpressible truths, the teaching, that which catapults you
towards those truths, loses its meaning and is no longer
necessary. Thus, according to the Buddha' s doctrine of upaya:
1. A true Buddhist teacher tailors his teaching to the level of
understanding of his student, and 2.
A true Buddhist teaching is one that only temporarily aids
you and prepares you to make the leap to the insight of
inexpressible truths (Harvey, 100).
48
Chapter 4
Nagarjuna's Presence:
Madhyamika's Influence on the Alice Project
School
Having given a description of the Alice Project School in
Chapter 2 and laid the groundwork of Madhyamika philosophy
in Chapter 3, this chapter will explore the main question of this
paper: how does the Alice Project School conceptualize the
Buddhist nature of its social engagement?
By studying how Buddhist philosophy and social activism
are united at the Alice Project School, we will see how Valentino
grounds his social activism in the Madhyamika Buddhist
thought that he claims is the primary influence on his
educational project.
This chapter, besides examining how Buddhist philosophy
influences the school, will describe how Buddhist ideals are
translated into social theory and action. We will see that
Madhyamika informs both theory and action through an
49
analysis of the four most apparent ways that Madhyamika
influences the school:
1. The overt Madhyamika curriculum
2. The claim that Madhyamika philosophy is a universal and
ecumenical teaching
3. The interpretation of Madhyamika as supporting a critique of
modern education
4. The Alice Project's unique theory of social change.
In each of these sections I will explore those elements of
Madhyamika that are at work, making reference to the four-
part picture offered in the previous chapter, and explaining how
the philosophy is manifested daily in the classroom.
The Curriculum
In the overt Madhyamika curriculum that Valentino and
Luigina have developed, students are slowly introduced to
Madhyamika teaching in the form of classroom exercises,
stories, and informal interaction with Valentino; they are also
given daily mediation time to internalize this wisdom.
50
Valentino, Luigina and two other young faculty members,
Arun and Awanesh, following the Buddhist practice of upaya or
skillful means, work the students through a slow progression
from one basic concept to the next.
Rather than trace each step in this involved path I will
highlight how dependent arising and the problem of language,
two key Buddhist concepts, are taught to Alice Project students.
Examples are taken from both classroom and informal
interaction that I observed and from one of Valentino's
instruction manuals and they represent the three ways that he
teaches: didactic teaching, stories, and informal interaction.
Throughout the Alice Project methodology there arc
lessons to teach the concept of voidness and dependent
arising.
One of the greatest challenges that Valentino faces is
translating the concept of voidness into a lesson that a child
can understand. How does one teach Robert Thurman's
definition of pratityasamutpada, "all finite things are
interdependent, relative, and mutually conditioned and... there
is no possibility of any independent, self sufficient, permanent
51
thing or entity," to a 10 year old child (Thurman 1976, I)?
In his The Philosophy of Alice Project, Valentino uses a
drawing of a tree to introduce the concept. Starting with a
sketch of a tree, he asks students if it is a complete drawing of
a living tree and makes them realize that the tree needs the
earth.
Then he asks what else the tree needs. Students reply
that the tree needs air, the sun, soil and other elements.
Valentino leads them to the realization that these cannot exist
without the universe and everything it contains.
Thus the student begins to see that something that
appears to be independently existent relies upon the entire
universe (Giacomin 1997,31-34). The tree is clearly relative and
all its components arc mutually conditioned. This simple lesson
is taught to a class by drawing the tree on the board and
guiding students through a series of questions.
I watched Valentino teach several of these lessons and
was impressed with his ability to get all the students involved
with the thought experiment and to reach even those who
seemed most confused.
52
Valentino also teaches about language and the mistaken
understanding that results from our use of language. According
to Madhyamika philosophy, language describes the world as we
perceive it, not as it actually is.
Language is beneficial in that it allows us to communicate
and exist in the conventional world. However, when we believe
that the thing that we call an orange is an independently
existent phenomenon, then we begin to be deluded.
In order to counter this delusion the Alice Project
methodology must teach the students that names are just that,
n_D1es and not realities-that when we call that thing on the
table an orange and distinguish it from the apple we arc not
drawing an ontological distinction but rather one of
convenience suitable for the world we inhabit.
Several times I watched Valentino explain this concept to
his students in an informal setting.
One day a boy came into Valentino's kitchen that serves
as a living room and office for the volunteers, looking for a
snack. As the boy ate some curd Valentino asked him what his
name was and then asked the boy to point to where his name
53
was. The boy looked shy so Valentino pressed on with yes and
no questions. "Is your name in your foot?" "Is your name in your
arm'?" "Where is your name?" The boy pointed to his chest.
Valentino put his ear up against the boy's chest and proclaimed
"I do not hear your name!" The boy laughed. "So where is your
name?”,6 One of the older students and a friend of the boy
being questioned replied, "In his mind!" "Oh! So he does not
really have a name that we can point to, it is just something we
call him! It just helps us distinguish one person from another!"
(9/l/00).
Throughout the day Valentino capitalizes upon these
"teachable" moments, slowly imbuing his students with
Madhyamika wisdom. Beyond such informal teaching Valentino
also has lessons that help students understand that even the
notion of "self' or "I" is just a name that one gives to
phenomena that truly are interdependent and void of
independent existence. One of the best lessons directed at this
point is the story of the ocean and the wave. This story is
presented to the Alice Project students as follows:
54
55
The story focuses on the problems that stem from naming and
language. When the wave questions what she is, she is forced
to "discover a name which would distinguish her from all other
forms around her" (Giacomin 1999, 68).
Naming and the implicit process of distinction force the wave to
conclude, "I exist separately independent from the Ocean"
(Giacomin 1999,69). This conclusion leads not only to conflict
with the ocean and other waves, but also to a fear of death.
Thus, in this story we see that the process of naming implicitly
draws borders, fosters a belief in independent existence, and is
the root of suffering.
The power of this story is that it points to the most problematic
case of naming, the reification of the self. Because, like the
wave, we name ourselves and distinguish ourselves from
others, we suffer and fear death.
Through this simple story the students of the Alice Project are
introduced in a comprehensible fashion to the complex
Buddhist notion of reification and the subsequent problems of
such naming and distinction.
Through stories, formal teaching, and informal interactions, the
56
students of the Alice Project begin to view the world through a
Buddhist-inspired lens.
When asked whether his students understand what they are
taught Valentino told me that it is through informal dialogue
that he ascertains the success of the teaching: "Laughing and
conversation are very important because I can test [their
understanding]. They have no fear because it is friendly"
(Giacomin, 9/3/00).
From my interviews and informal interactions with students I
can attest that the .students have a firm grasp on the language
and concepts of interdependence, language, and thought
awareness. With such a handle on the terms and theories and
daily meditation practice to bolster the philosophy, it is
probable that the Madhyamika philosophy is affecting the
students' lives in some manner.
"Universal Education": Madhyamika’s Ecumenicalism
The second way that Madhyamika influences Valentino's
social activism is reflected in his belief that Buddhist wisdom is
beneficial for all people regardless of religious background—
that Buddhist wisdom is "universal."
57
Even when teaching Madhyamika concepts, Valentino
rarely speaks in Buddhist terms. While stories like the ocean
and the wave appear to make no specific religious reference,
other stories are couched in the mythology and religious
discourse of his students.
In a conversation on August 25, Valentino told me that he
was considering teaching in New Mexico and wanted to know
about Native American mythology. He stresses the importance
of creating a "link to ancestors" and respecting his students'
culture.
This shift from one religious discourse to another,
substituting one term of art for another, is not haphazard.
Valentino argues that such shifts not only better engage
students but are also warranted by the "universal" quality
implicit in Madhyamika philosophy.
While the term "universal" has recently become suspect in
academia, Valentino uses the term to suggest applicability to
all people. Thus the "universal education school" is a school
whose teaching is applicable to all people.
Perhaps the reader will find it helpful to read "universal"
58
as "ecumenical."
It could be argued that Valentino's claims of universalism
are a means of disguising Buddhist doctrine in the dogma of
another religion.
He counters this argument with the claim that all religious
traditions point to the same conclusions, the same wisdom that
Madhyamika does: "If we go very deep, to the heart of
religions, you can find this [Madhyamika] wisdom there"
(9/5/00). Valentino used the image of a ladder to a summit to
explain this: the realization of all religions, the summit, is the
same, but the path that each religion offers to the believer, the
ladder, is different.
Of course many dispute the validity of this metaphor-they
say the "summit" is not the same in different religions.
While Valentino does make strong ecumenical claims, he
also suggests that not all ladders arc created equal. He
describes the Madhyamika ladder as logical and easy to climb
while claiming that "in other traditions we really have to make
an effort" to arrive a realization of emptiness.
When asked about the path offered by Christianity, he
59
criticized the tradition for having suppressed the mystical
elements that meet the needs of "introverted" believers. He
specifically objected to the decrees of Vatican II, which he said
expunged the esoteric, thereby obfuscating the higher rungs of
the Christian spiritual ladder.
Through his "universal" teaching Valentino hopes to help
Christians discover the wisdom that is latent in their own
tradition: "I am not saying that in the Church there is not
wisdom. My goal is to help Christians to discover the wisdom
they have" (9/5/00).
Valentino claims that universal wisdom manifests itself in
all religions as selflessness and a meditative "silence of the
mind" (Giacomin 1999, 79). He cites passages from the Bible in
which Jesus tells his followers to "renounce the self and follow
me," and Hindu statements about the dissolving of ego
grasping along with the Madhyamika philosophy of destroying
the notion of self to support this claim.
According to Valentino, at the pinnacle of any religious
experience are a destruction of any dualism or division and the
resultant "silence" of the non-distinguishing and non-reifying
60
mind. While Valentino's claim to universality is not grounded in
a rigorous study of comparative religion, it is supported by
Madhyamika, specifically by its philosophy of language.
Inherent in the philosophy of the Madhyamika is the belief
that its wisdom is universal. According to the teachings of
dependent arising and voidness, there are no independently
existing phenomena and hence there is no independently
existing Madhyamika philosophy.
Thus, ultimately any attempt to draw a boundary between
Madhyamika wisdom and other religious wisdom would be self-
contradictory. At this point we can identify one of the most
interesting aspects of Buddhism's philosophy, its self-
deconstruction.
When the Madhyamika philosophy is fully realized, then
even the distinction of 'Buddhism' is lost, the religion destroys
itself. This self-deconstruction of boundaries found in
Buddhism, and particularly in Madhyamika, allows Valentino to
ground his claims of universality in a religious philosophy that
at its moment of realization sees everything in a universal, non-
divided manner.
61
The introduction to Abhidharma and the philosophical
context of Madhyamika in the previous chapter make it clear
that, despite this inherent universalism, Madhyamika
philosophers were very concerned with differentiating their
philosophy from that of their Abhidharmic counterparts. Their
apparently self-contradictory desire to hold Madhyamika
teachings above other philosophies can be explained by the
third point, the distinction between ultimate and conventional
reality. The belief that 'Madhyamika' is a false distinction and
that all wisdom is universal is true in ultimate reality.
However, in the conventional world that we inhabit,
distinctions between Madhyamika and Yogacara or some other
philosophical school help us to discern the most beneficial
spiritual path. Nagarjuna would claim that while eventually
"Madhyamika" disappears, for our life in conventional reality,
for our spiritual path to a realization of ultimate reality, we
need the teachings that it provides.
While the 'names of conventional reality do help one to
navigate the conventional world, they are also the source of our
misunderstanding. As suggested in the second stroke of
Madhyamika philosophy above, too often people forget that a
62
name is just that, and they attribute independent reality to that
which is named. Valentino perceives this problem of language
as the heart of religious conflict and as the major roadblock to
religious pluralism.
Using the famous Buddhist metaphor of a finger pointing
at the moon, the teaching pointing at the realization, he argues
that religions too often argue over what the finger looks like:
"for more than one thousand years we have been arguing over
the shape and color of the finger." The result of this is not only
religious conflict but more importantly, "We have lost the
beauty of the moon" (9/5/00).
Valentino believes that because people are overly
concerned with the form of teaching, they are unable to attain
the realization of wisdom. The image of the finger and the
moon allows a summary of Valentino's claims to universalism.
He believes that the moon, the wisdom, is the same in all
religions because ultimately all distinctions and divisions
disappear. The finger, the teaching, is beneficial in that it points
the student to the wisdom: "I do not care what kind of finger is
pointing, if it is black or white or Hindu or Muslim..." (9/5/00)
63
Valentino believes that problems arise when people argue
over the finger, lose themselves in technical language trying to
describe the finger, and hence forget to look at the moon.
Ultimately the moon is the same; we follow any finger that
points to it, and even the moon disappears in the moment of
realization.
A Critique of Education
Beyond the overt curriculum and claims to universalism,
Valentino interprets Madhyamika as providing the grounds for a
critique of modem education and inspiration for the Alice
Project School.
At the heart of Madhyamika wisdom, stemming from the
doctrine of voidness and dependent arising is a destruction of
all division and separation. Whether they are as apparently
trivial as distinctions between an orange and an apple or as
fundamental as a division between self and other, the act of
drawing boundaries leads to conflict and suffering.
Quoting transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilbur, Valentino
argues that education is a major contributor to this habit of
division: "To receive an education is to learn where and how to
64
draw boundaries and then what to do with the bounded
aspects" (Giacomin 1997, 16).
When considering a typical school curriculum this
statement rings true. One of the first lessons that students
learn in an elementary science class is taxonomy, the process
of categorizing organisms. Even in the humanities a student is
trained to have a strong thesis statement which tells the reader
that Shakespeare's poetry is one thing and not another.
While classes at the Alice Project School are divided into
subjects, a necessary part of an education in the conventional
world, the philosophy and meditation teachings help the
students to problematize such boundaries. Valentino argues
that the greatest separation we create is between the inner and
outer world:
"The first separation starts within ourselves, in our
intelligence" (Giacomin 1997, 16). In conventional education
the student is taught to value the world outside her. If she can
distinguish between poetry and prose, if she can do long
division, if she can write a strong paper, she is seen as a
successful student. She is never asked to look inside her mind,
65
to see how her mind works, to calm her mind or watch her
thoughts. Because of this emphasis on the external and
disregard of the internal, the student is left divided, her
external knowledge valued and internal realization ignored.
Following the educational critiques of the Indian spiritual
leader, J. Krisnamurti, Valentino posits that a student's divided
mind results in, "competition, ambition, conflicts, violence, fear,
and comparison" (Giacomin 1997, 17).
Seeking an education free of these corrupting forces,
Valentino argues for a new definition of intelligence in which
the whole mind, in both external and internal aspects, is
valued. Valentino's assessment of modern education includes a
critique of teaching methods. Though this springs largely from
his experience with modern European styles of education, his
critiques of educational philosophy and pedagogy are not
unrelated.
As described in Chapter Two, many Indian teachers rely
heavily on memorization and copying, which are seen as the
best way for a student to learn the facts necessary for an
"education." At Valentino's school, however, the whole student
66
is educated. Traditional subjects meet the needs for external
education while the daily meditation and classes on Buddhist
philosophy meet the need for inner development. The two
aspects of education are united through the use of meditation
in a math or Hindi classroom.
Valentino's criticism also reaches to the aims of education.
When asked about the education of monks in Tibetan Buddhist
monasteries, the home of Madhyamika philosophy for the last
1000 years, he quickly criticized their methods.
Drawing parallels between the educational methods of a
typical Indian school and a monastery, he targeted the Tibetan
heavy reliance on memorization, saying that young monks
should "use all the faculties of the mind.
Memorization is only one!" (9/12/00). Valentino also
criticized (some people from) Tibetan government for being
overly concerned with exam scores and the jobs that students
take after schooling.
When a Tibetan education inspector assessed the Alice
Project School by a simple twenty-question test and showed
overwhelming concern with the jobs that students received
67
after graduation, Valentino concluded that "they are completely
bound to this material way of thinking and are focused on
results" (9/12/00).
This points to a greater problem that Valentino has with
current education reforms.
He argues that if we judge a school by its test scores and
the jobs its students get, then we are judging only the external
part of a student, not the whole student.
According to Valentino, these tests and standards reflect
an inherent bias that favors external education over a unified
education in which external and internal knowledge are equally
important.
This critical assessment of educational testing and
standards points to a different notion of success held by
Valentino and the Alice Project School.
In many conversations Valentino stressed that his
definition of success does not revolve around the test scores or
the jobs that his students take after graduation: "My target is to
create free persons, not professionals."
68
His desire to create a "high official of the mind" rather
than a political "high official," reflect this dedication to spiritual
achievement rather than traditional manifestations of "success"
(8/29/00).
After espousing the importance of mental training he
assured me that "the students will get the high post [in
society], but they will not strive for it," suggesting that he
believes that such inner "success" will produce worldly success
as well (9/13/00).
Valentino is confident, however, that the successful Alice
School student who achieves wealth and political power will not
forget his upbringing and will repay and change society
(8/25/00). This connection between inner wisdom and social
change is the subject of the next section.
Before moving on it must be noted that Valentino's
critique of modern education, which he grounds in Buddhist
philosophy, is also a source of inspiration for his school.
Valentino does not just criticize education from a Buddhist
perspective but also implements these Buddhist changes in his
own school.
69
Where a traditional school separates the inner and outer
worlds and values material success over personal realization,
Valentino, through the use of meditation and the non-
traditional curriculum, strives to foster a unified student and a
notion of success that places little value on material wealth and
test scores. Thus we see that Buddhist philosophy and the
critique of modern education that are thought to spring from
Madhyamika are the main inspirations for Valentino's social
engagement.
A Theory of Social Change
Finally, the Alice Project School's social engagement is
grounded in a particular theory of social change that develops
from Madhyamika's view of enlightenment and the unity of
wisdom and compassion.
Central to Valentino's plan for social action is the belief
that giving students "wisdom"—a Madhyamika-inspired
understanding of existence—is of the greatest importance. This
emphasis on wisdom is reflected in various statements of
educational goals: "to drive students beyond the dualistic
70
mind" (9/12/00) or to create "non-self-centered people with an
open mind both to themselves and others" (9/13/00).
Valentino's emphasis m(inner more than outer success is
further evidence that developing students' "wisdom" is the
primary goal of his teaching.
With "wisdom" or a change of mind, Valentino argues that
one can change the world. In a conversation about Dalit
Buddhists and Dr. Ambedkar, Valentino disapproved of
Ambedkar's stress on legal and political activism claiming that
the "only tool that can change their oppressed peoples'
situation is wisdom. If you look inside, you have the power to
change yourself" (9/12/00).
In that same conversation he stressed that when one
gains wisdom the things that previously were oppressive or
negative are no longer a problem.
It took me a long time to come to grips with what
Valentino meant by changing the world by developing wisdom
or changing one's mind.
Studying Thomas Kasulis' article "Nirvana" and several
Mahayana descriptions of the world from an enlightened
71
perspective helped me to understand Valentino's point. Within
the Mahayana, when one achieves enlightenment, they do not
escape from the world as we know it but view it in a new way
(Kasulis, 397).
For the student who has fully realized the Madhyamika
"wisdom," the categories and distinctions that characterize our
understanding of the world disappear and one is able to exist in
the world free from the suffering that is a product of our
grasping. For this reason, that which was oppressive or
negative is no longer given any label and is seen in a new non-
judgmental perspective. This understanding is ret1ected in
Buddhist texts in which the world that we live in is described as
a jewel laden shining palace.
While wisdom allows a person to experience the world in
this non-judgmental way, to experience ultimate reality, it also
gives the enlightened person the tools to affect the
conventional reality through the greatest compassion for all
sentient beings. In our very first conversation about the
philosophy of the Alice Project School, Valentino stressed that
wisdom and compassion are inextricably linked.
72
Madhyamika wisdom destroys all distinctions including
that between self and other (8/25/00). With no delineation
between self and other, an enlightened person treats others as
she would treat herself-she treats others with mahakaruna,
selfless or great compassion.
Thus, wisdom allows us to achieve the realization of the
ultimate reality while reducing the mental and physical
suffering that pervade the conventional world. These two
elements, wisdom and compassion, should not be understood
as cause and effect, but rather as two sides of the same coin,
for it is impossible to develop wisdom without great
compassion and vice versa.
This development of compassion that is inextricably linked
to the development of wisdom is what makes Valentino so sure
that, while social change is not the goal of the Alice Project
education, it is the result.
As suggested above students who develop the
Madhyamika wisdom will also necessarily develop a
compassion that Valentino argues will make them socially
responsible citizens (8/25/00). Though Valentino rarely talked
73
about the social effects of his teaching, preferring to talk about
the motivation and "wisdom" behind the teaching, on a few
occasions he stated that the "result would be kindness and less
competition" that would manifest in such ways as "respect for
the environment" (9/13/00).
Valentino explained this relationship between compassion
and social change using a metaphor of making roads safer to
drive on. The best way to change the situation is to teach
people how to drive well, rather than drive for them. While the
goal is to teach people how to drive, the result will be safer
travel. Likewise, instead of changing social conditions for
people, Valentino strives to give people the tools of wisdom and
compassion that will necessarily result in better material and
social conditions (9/12/00).
Thus far my description of Valentino's social change
theory sounds linear: develop wisdom and social change will
follow. Political activists would argue vehemently against such
a view claiming that any change in our world requires political
and economic skillful means. Valentino, however, understands
this: "If you know cases of injustice, as a human, you react. If a
house is on fire put it out with water, not philosophy!"
74
(9/13/00). Because the Alice Project School is located in a part
of the world where conventional reality is filled with poverty,
Valentino is developing social service projects alongside the
teaching of wisdom.
Though his philosophy of social action emphasizes
wisdom, hl: recognizes that "if you open your eyes you will see
children starving and dying and you cannot turn your eyes
away" (9/13/00). For the students he provides food, clothing,
health care, and shelter if needed. He is also interested in
opening a health clinic and other means of reaching the
Sarnath community.
Even in these cases of material aid, Valentino stresses
that proper social action should include wisdom: "only charity is
nonsense!" (9/13/00). Clearly Valentino's vision of a proper
socially engaged movement is one that is motivated by
wisdom, that teaches wisdom, and whose primary aim is
wisdom. Valentino goes so far as to say that a social movement
that does not have wisdom as its goal is harmful. Dr.
Ambdekar's Dalit Buddhism is a good example of one such
movement.
75
The Dalit movement, motivated by a desire for class
power and recognition, uses Buddhist ideas to attain such
political ends. Valentino vehemently argues that Ambedkarites,
"do not understand the fundamental teaching of the Buddha,
that we are the cause of samsara. It is not the BJP the Brahmin
or some other political power" (9/12/00).
He fears that because the Dalits have political power
rather than wisdom as their goal they will create a Buddhist
fundamentalism where Buddhism provides the grounds for
"fighting, the opposite of compassion" (9/12/00). While it is
impossible to assess the legitimacy of the Dalit movement in
this paper, Valentino's strong reaction against what he sees as
Dalit tactics further reveals his emphasis on Madhyamika
wisdom at the heart of any social engagement.
Thus Madhyamika philosophy appears throughout the
Alice Project School pedagogy and philosophy. While at times
Madhyamika is clearly the explicit inspiration, most often the
philosophy is intertwined with other ideals of education that are
not exclusively Buddhist.
One of the most prominent non-Buddhist influences is J.
76
Krishnamurti, an Indian spiritual guru of the 20th century.
Though Krishnamurti was not Buddhist, Valentino claims,
"Through him I understand many Buddhist teachings"
(9/13/00). In our discussions Valentino regularly explained
Buddhist concepts through Krishnamurti's work. For example, in
my very first interview with Valentino, he referred to
Krishnamurti in his explanation of how compassion follows from
wisdom (8/25/00).
He also quotes Krishnamurti directly when providing his
Buddhist critique of modern education. Tints we see that even
when Valentino attempts to ground his social activism in
sources other than' Buddhism, he cannot help but to return to
the Buddhist qualities of their teachings. Clearly, whether
explicitly stated or not, Buddhism is at the heart of Valentino's
social activism, providing both the motivation for education and
the subject of that education.
77
Chapter 5
Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland
While Valentino has successfully translated Buddhist
philosophy into social action, many of his claims about Buddhist
social activism may appear questionable on historical and.
scholarly grounds.
Valentino has been a practicing Tibetan Buddhist for over 25
years, but he lacks scholarly training and thorough textual
knowledge to support his radical ideas about education and
social change. In this chapter I will provide scholarly support
through an analysis of Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland of Royal
Counsels and Robert Thurman's article "Guidelines for Buddhist
Social Activism Based on Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland of Royal
Counsels."
Thurman offers an excellent distillation of Nagarjuna's lengthy
Jewel Garland and a vision of how Nagarjuna's plans for society
78
could be realized in our modern world.
While Thurman's interpretation does go beyond what is literally
written in the text, the fact that he is both a well recognized
Tibetan Buddhist scholar and student of Madhyamika
philosophy, studying with such figures as H.H. Dalai Lama,
lends substantial credibility to his extrapolation from
Nagarjuna's words to modern plans for social change.
The striking similarities between Thurman's and
Valentino's independent constructions of a social activism
theory from Madhyamika philosophy lend academic support not
only to Valentino's focus on education as the medium for social
change, but also to two of his most contentious positions:
1. Social change is achieved through personal,
transcendent change and
2. Buddhist wisdom is universal in nature.
Finally, underlying Nagarjuna's text is the assumption that
wisdom and compassion arc incxtricably linked and that
all positive social action is inspired and guided by wisdom.
79
Thurman's article, the subject of this chapter, is based on
Nagarjuna's Ratnavali or Jewel Garland. Scholars suggest that
the text, a book of advice on living and ruling, was written for a
King with whom Nagarjuna had a close relationship, in the late
first to mid-second centuries C.E. (Hopkins, 22).
According to Jeffrey Hopkins the text is an integral part of
Nagarjuna's work, included in either his "Collections of Advice"
or "Six Collections of Reasoning" (22). Though it is not nearly as
well recognized as his Wisdom Verses, the Ratnavali and
Santideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of Life are
considered the foundational texts describing the Bodhisattva
way of life.
While some scholars have questioned the authenticity of
the text, I will assume that the Ratnavali is an authentic work of
Nagarjuna, as Gregory Schopen does in hi_ "The Mahayana
Through a Chinese Looking Glass," published in 2000. Thurman
summarizes Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland in terms of four
principles which Thuman relates to Buddhist social activism.
The first, "individualist transcendentalism," emphasizes
the importance of each person's cultivating wisdom, dissolving
80
the processes of grasping and reification, and ultimately
transcending notions of "I" and "mine" (1983, 31-35).
The second principle is "self-restraint, unpacked as
detachment and pacifism," in which the enlightened person no
longer seeks to fulfill his passions (1983,35-37).
Though Nagarjuna does address this principle, it is the
least applicable to the Alice Project School and therefore I will
not give it a thorough treatment in this chapter.
"Transformative universalism," a dedication to
"enlightenment-oriented" education for all people, is thc third
principle of a Buddhist social activism (1983, 38). The final
principle is a "compassionate socialism"-which Thurman
suggests is perhaps the earliest description of the welfare state
(1983, 37-38).
"Individualist transcendentalism," the individual's
realization of non-grasping and selflessness, is obviously
central to the Jewel Garland. Thurman notes that two thirds of
the text, "contain personal instructions on the core insight of
individualism, namely subjective and objective sell1essness"
(1983, 32).
81
Furthermore, the format of the text as a whole and the
prominent position given to individual transcendence highlights
the importance of personal realization. The work opens not with
instructions as to how the king should act, as we might expect
in a text formatted as counsels for a king, but rather with a
description of the path to transcendence (verses 25-147).- A
major part of this path to transcendence is the destruction of
egoistic grasping and the concept of 'I' introduced to the king in
verses 28-30:
"I am," and "It is mine,"
These are false as absolutes.
For neither stands existent
Under exact knowledge of reality.
The "I"-habit creates the heaps,
Which "I"-habit is false in fact.
I low can what grows from a false seed
Itself be truly existent?
Having seen the heaps as unreal,
The "I"-habit is abandoned.
"I"-habit abandoned, the heaps do not arise again
(Thurman, 983,33). Thurman argues that Nagarjuna places
82
such great emphasis on personal realization because he wants
to cultivate a king who acts not according to rules, but rather is
capable of enlightened decision-making: "A liberated and
compassionate king will himself choose the right path of action
and be more effective. than' a merely obedient, unliberated
king who must depend slavishly on Nagarjuna's or someone
else's ideas" (1983,35).
As we will see -in Nagarjuna's focus on education, this
emphasis on personal liberation is indeed egalitarian and not
restricted to the leaders of a society as it is with Plato's
philosopher-king.
Thurman concludes on this point: "In sum, the fact that
the majority of the Garland is devoted to the transcendent
selflessness, the door of the liberation and enlightenment of
the individual, is clear evidence that the heart of Buddhist
social activism is individualistic transcendentalism" (1983, 35).
Implicit within the importance given to individual
transcendence is a theory of both suffering and social change.
At the heart of Madhyamika philosophy is the belief that
suffering is a mental creation.
83
Santideva, an important Madhyamika philosopher, wrote
in his Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, "The suffering that I
experience does not cause any harm to others. But that
suffering (is mine) because of my conceiving of (myself as) “I”
(in Thurman 1983, 24). Santideva tells us that suffering is not
correlated with any objective fact, but is rather a product of our
deluded reification and ego grasping. Thus, if a person is able
to transcend this notion of the ego and the process of
reification, she will no longer suffer-no matter what the
circumstances. With such a conception of suffering, the
cessation of suffering can only be achieved through a
transformation of people's minds.
For this reason, Thurman argues, "The root of good, of
positive social action, is the individual's realization of this
subjective selflessness" (1983, 34). Because the individual is
the focus of social change, "the necessities and will of the
collective, the 'business of society' is just not that important"
(Thurman 1983, 32).
Valentino's understanding of suffering and social change is
similar to that of Nagarjuna as painted by Thurman. The goal of
Valentino's social engagement, to "drive students beyond the
84
dualistic mind" (9/2/00), or to create "non-self-centered people
with an open mind both to themselves and others" (9/13/00), is
obviously congruent with Thurman's understanding of
Nagarjuna's aim to achieve an "individual's realization of this
subjective selflessness" (1983,22).
Using the word "wisdom" where Thurman uses
"transcendence," Valentino aligns himself with Thurman and
Nagarjuna: "the only tool that can change their [an oppressed
person's] situation is wisdom. If you look inside you have the
power to change yourself." Thus, Nagarjuna's Precious Garland
supports Valentino's unconventional notion that social change
is only achieved through individual change.
While Valentino's social change theory might appear
ignorant of political and economic forces, Thurman explicitly
acknowledges this unconventional approach: "Such advice flies
in the face of all worldly political wisdom, ancient or modern,
but it is at the heart of Buddhist politics and ethics" (1983,
31).8
While personal transcendence is of the utmost importance
in Nagarjuna's social activism, he, like Valentino, does not
85
forget about the needs of people in conventional reality. In
verses 201-265 of the Precious Garland, Nagarjuna outlines an
aggressive plan to meet the needs of everyone in society.
"Always care compassionately/ For the sick, the
unprotected, those stricken! With suffering, the lowly, and the
poor/ And take special care to nourish them" (Nagarjuna, 126)
—such verses make it clear that Nagarjuna is concerned with
even the most powerless members of society. In order to
facilitate such care Thurman notes that Nagmjuna prescribes "a
socially-supported universal health care delivery system" in
verse 240: "To dispel the sufferings of children, the elderly, and
the sick, please fix farm revenues for doctors and barbers
throughout the land" (Thurman 1983, 37-38).
Nagarjuna also advises economic policies that protect the
small farmer and specific plans for the care of guests traveling
through the kingdom (Thurman 1983, 38). Even more
remarkable is the ecological implication in verse 250, which
includes "dogs, ants, birds, and so forth" within the community
that receives care (Nagarjuna, 250).
Summarizing Nagarjuna's plans for social uplift, Thurman
86
describes compassionate socialism as "generous compassion
dedicated to providing everyone with everything they need to
satisfy their basic needs so that they may have leisure to
consider their own higher needs and aims" (italics mine,
1983,38-39).
This statement underlines the purpose of Nagarjuna's call
for social equality—to allow individual self-cultivation and
transcendence. Thus, social change, as we traditionally
understand it (health care, economic equality, etc.), appears to
be merely a tool that allows the fundamental personal change
to occur.
Though such comprehensive social plans are only a means
to foster enlightenment, the attention Nagarjuna gives to them
suggests that they should not be undervalued.
The Alice Project School is a great example of such a
philosophy in practice. Beyond giving the students teachings
that foster self-cultivation, Valentino meets his students' basic
needs in order that they can be dedicated to their studies.
Every day I and other teachers provided food and health
care while students with need received clothing and shelter.
87
Meeting material needs in order to support each student's
study and self-realization clearly applies the principle of
compassionate socialism that Thurman attributes to Nagarjuna.
One might wonder how Valentino can be so supportive of
the material uplift of poor people and still object to the work of
Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Buddhists who have reinterpreted
basic Buddhist principles to support their campaign for socio-
political structural changes.
The source of Valentino's opposition to Ambedkarites rests
not in their provision of basic material needs; he recognizes
that untouchables are treated very poorly in Indian society and
material change needs to occur.
Valentino opposes what he understands the primary goal
of Dalit Buddhism to be, namely political change. For Valentino,
and arguably Nagmjuna, the aim of any social or political
change should be the advancement of every individual's path
towards enlightenment, not the new political system.
If a Dalit Buddhist proposed political changes in order that
each person would have a better opportunity to achieve
enlightenment, Valentino would fully support such a
88
campaign.9 Clearly, within both Nagarjuna's and Valentino's
theories of social change, the only material aid that makes a
difference is that which facilitates personal, transcendent
change: "The foremost type of giving is, interestingly, not just
giving of material needs, although that is a natural part of
generosity. That of greatest value to beings is freedom and
transcendence and enlightenment" (Thurman 1983,41) and
Valentino's "Students need wisdom. Only charity is nonsense!"
(9/13/00).
In the final section of his essay Thurman translates
Nagarjuna's Counsels into a plan for social activism in the
modern day. Throughout this section there are striking parallels
between Thurman-cum-Nagarjuna's social plans and the
philosophy behind Valentino's Alice Project School. This last
section of Thurman's article not only provides support for the
notion of a Buddhist education as a whole but also for the
notion that there can be a "universal" Buddhist teaching
couched in ecumenical terms.
Within a social activism theory that stresses transcendent
change over material giving there is no better institution for
activism than education. The students receive the skills they
89
need to provide for their material needs while, more
importantly, developing the spiritual skills to attain freedom,
transcendence, and enlightenment.
Nagarjuna recognized the importance of education and
wrote explicitly about it in the Jewel Garland: "Create
foundations of doctrine, abodes/Of the Three Jewels-fraught
with glory and fame/That lowly kings have not even/ Conceived
in their minds" (Nagarjuna, 135) and "Hence while in good
health create foundations of doctrine/Immediately with all your
wealth, for you are living amidst the causes of death! Like a
lamp standing in a breeze" (Nagarjuna, 136).
Nagarjuna's sense of urgency in the latter quotation
reveals the importance of establishing a Buddhist inspired
educational program. Like Valentino, who says, "My target is to
create free persons, not professionals" (8/29/00), Thurman is
interested in a system of education that leads students to
enlightenment: "Therefore, the educational system of a society
is not there to 'service' the society, to produce its
drone-'professionals,' its worker, its servants.
The educational system is the individual's doorway to
90
liberation, to enlightenment" (Thurman 1983,41). Once again
we note the remarkable parallels between Valentino's
educational aims and those of Nagarjuna as interpreted by
Robert Thurman (1983, 41).
Finally, Thurman describes the education that Nagarjuna
would offer as, "universal, total, unlimited education of all
individuals" (1983,42).
I hope that the previous three chapters have made clear
that the Alice Project School is exactly that-a pedagogy that
aims to teach in a "universal, total, unlimited" way to all
students.
The close connection between Thurman's vision of
Nagmjuna's education and the Alice Project School lends
credibility to Valentino's philosophy or education.
Beyond the support or his educational project as a whole,
Thurman's final section also gives further weight to one of
Valentino's most controversial claims, the universal nature of
the Buddhist philosophy he teaches.
Thurman arrives at his claim of universal education in a
brilliant analysis of the word "Dharma" in verse 310. Leaving
91
Dharma untranslated the verse reads, "Create centers of
Dharma." Thurman argues that if Dharma is translated as
Religion or Doctrine (following Hopkins) then the advice "would
have a religious missionary flavor" or "dogmatic scholastic
flavor" (1983,42). He then discusses eleven possible meanings
of Dharma including "thing," "Truth," "practice," or even
"nirvana" concluding that the best possible translation is
"Teachings" because the Dharma "teach[es] the Truth, path,
and practice leading to Nirvana" (1983, 42-43).
Because Nagarjuna is calling for any education that leads
its students to Nirvana, Thurman argues, "lie is not even talking
about creating 'Buddhist centers,' 'Buddhism' understood in its
usual sense as one of a number of world religions" (1983, 43).
Thurman further resonates with Valentino saying, "It does not
matter what symbols or ideologies provide the umbrella, as
long as the function is liberation and enlightenment" (1983,
43).
Thurman provides further evidence from Nagarjuna's
philosophy for his belief in the universal nature of a Buddhist
education. Citing the Madhyamika opposition to division and
reification Thurman argues, "Clearly Nagarjuna, who proclaims
92
repeatedly that 'belief-systems" 'dogmatic views,' 'closed
conviction,' 'fanatic ideologies,' etc. are sicknesses to be cured
by the medicine of emptiness, is not a missionary for any
particular 'belief-system,' even if it is labeled Buddhism"
(1983,43).
The fact that Nagarjuna did not call himself a Mahayana
Buddhist, avoiding any sort of categorization, is further
evidence of how seriously he took his stance against "belief
systems" (Harvey, 96). With such a strong position against
dogma, Nagarjuna's philosophy embodies the essence of
universalism—any path that is able to lead its followers to
transcendence and nirvana is a valid path. Not only does
Thurman's work on Nagarjuna's educational plans lend support
to Valentino' s claims of universalism, but his comparison of
Christianity and Buddhism also supports Valentino's
"nonacademic" comparisons of religious teachings: "Jesus
Christ's' Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as
thyself,' and Augustine's “Love God and do what you will”—
these two great ‘pivotal phrases’ are very much in the same
vein, using of course the theistic term for emptiness" (Thurman
1983,50).
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Having surveyed Thurman's account of the four elements
of Nagarjuna's philosophy of social activism-individualist
transcendentalism, compassionate socialism, education, and
universalism it is important to note one of the key
philosophical concepts behind his program f()r social change,
the perfect union of wisdom and compassion.
Thurman opens his article on Nagarjuna's social activism
with a thorough presentation of Buddhist relative and absolute
realities. In this section he explains how a person who has fully
realized selflessness and has ceased all grasping, a person with
“wisdom”, will necessarily be compassionate: “the ground, or
even womb, of compassion is emptiness, defined as the
absolute selflessness of personal subjects and impersonal
object” (1983, 21). Having transcended any sense of self as
distinct from other, the enlightened person is able to
emphasize with the suffering of other sentient being, feeling
then suffering as if ……were his own. Thurman and others
stress the connection between wisdom and compassion is not
arbitrary but rather ontological—wisdom and compassion
necessarily become—or are—each other. Knowing the suffering
of others, the liberated person is able to use upaya (skillful
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means) to alleviate their suffering by helping them to
transcend.
It is also important to note that the compassion of a
Buddha is unlike that of any unrealized person because it
springs from the infinitely deep wealth of compassion, fully
realized wisdom. Understood as such, wisdom or emptiness
becomes both the motivation and the aim, the impetus and the
goal of Buddhist social activism, a theme that will be explored
in the next chapter.
Chapter 6
Buddhism Of Socially Engaged Buddhism
The previous tow chapters have shown how hath Valentino
and Robert Thurman emphasize personal transcendence over
“outer” or material change in their visions of socially engaged
Buddhism. This concluding chapter will offer a critique of the
apparent dualism ill this approach to social engagement; this
critique is based on the Mahayana Heart Sutra's famous maxim
"form is emptiness, emptiness is form." I will show, however,
that
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Thurman's writings and Valentino's practice of social
action are not in fact vulnerable to this critique, as they are
proposing a non-dualistic union of form and emptiness, social
change and personal realization. Finally, I will return to the
original question of this paper- what is Buddhist about socially
engaged Buddhism? I will suggest that it is this union of social
change and personal realization aimed at the cessation of
suffering that ground both Valentino's and Thurman's social
engagement in Buddhism. While this essay has discussed how
two socially engaged Buddhists—Valentino Giacomin and
Robert Thurman—have defined the Buddhist nature of their
social engagement ill these terms, I will propose that the union
of wisdom and compassion is a starting point for further study
and progress towards a broader definition of socially engaged
Buddhism. Even if this formula does not prove to be a useful
general definition of socially engaged Buddhism, Valentino's
Alice Project School is a potent example of what makes a social
engagement Buddhist, and how Buddhism is translated into
social activism. Ultimately, it is this latter issue, the how, that
every engaged Buddhist must encounter on a daily basis as
they strive to make their social activism Buddhist and their
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Buddhism socially active.
Questioning the Social Activism of Valentino and Thurman
In his interpretation of Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland,
Thurman writes, "The root of good, of positive social action, is
the individual's realization of this subjective selflessness," a
clear statement about the importance of personal
transcendence in the cessation of suffering (1983, 34).
Thurman not only emphasizes personal transcendence, but
puts it above the needs of society: because the individual is the
focus of social change, "the necessities and will of the
collective, the 'business of society' is not that important" (1983,
22).
As shown in the previous chapter, Valentino similarly argues for
personal change over social change: "the only tool that can
change their I an oppressed person's] situation is wisdom. If
you look inside you have the power to change yourself”
(9/12/00).
Many people, however, object to such an emphasis on personal
over social change. In his recent essay "Can Buddhism Save the
World? A response to Nelson foster," David Loy writes:
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"Traditionally Buddhism has emphasized our personal
responsibility for our own dukkha [suffering] and awakening,
Today it has been important for Buddhists to realize how
conditioning by social structures also fosters widespread
dakkha” (Loy, 3). Lay's emphasis on dukkha due to social
structures gets to the heart of the objection to Valentino and
Thurman's traditional Buddhist stance on suffering.
Most social activists today would probably concur with Lay's
assertion that social constructions such as class, race, gender,
and caste cause suffering and, to mitigate this suffering, we
must change the structures.
One possible response from Valentino's and Thurman's camp is
that Lay and other social activists are reading their own cultural
understandings of liberation into Buddhism.
Though neither Valentino nor Thurman make this
argument, Ken Jones in his "Emptiness and Form: Engaged
Buddhism Struggles to Respond to Modernity," argues that
Buddhism is distorted to meet the needs of American activists'
modern assumptions.
Jones paints the culture of the Buddha as one "in which
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there could be virtually no expectation of change in the harsh
conditions of life (even for the rich)" and therefore one
demanding a form of "release" that does not depend on the
alteration of these physical conditions (4). He goes on to claim,
"Modernity totally reverses these assumptions.
For the young American radicals of the 1960s, 1970s, and
1980s who became interested in Buddhism, emancipatory
modernity was simply the absolute taken-for-granted truth, to
which Dharma had to be accommodated" (4), Jones suggests
that the modern American activists, who would dispute the
claims of Valentino and Thurman, have read their own cultural
notion's of freedom and emancipation into Buddhism.
?Jones goes so far as to say: "to imply that the above
injunction 'to save all sentient beings'] of the Buddha to his
Sangha is a manifesto for social revolution, or even some kind
of welfare agenda, is to wrench it from its soteriological context
and secularize it" (4), Jones is not alone in this position.
Nelson roster, all original BPF member, reflecting on the
founding of the BPF, writes:
Naivete played a part in BPF's creation, I now see, at least on my
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part, naivete about Buddhism itself and the bodhisattva way of
saving beings.." As I reflect on the developments of the past twenty
years, it seems to me that BPF and other Buddhist projects of a
similar nature have suffered from a failure to resolve crucial
differences between the world view implicit in Buddhism and the
world view that we absorb unintentionally as children of this culture
(Foster, 1).
Both Jones' and Foster's arguments could be enlisted in
support of Valentino's and Thurman's vision of social activism.
Thurman and Valentino could also argue that their
emphasis on personal transcendence rather than social
transformation checks the excessively social-change focused
modern American social activism. Dr. Masao Abe, a Zen layman
and scholar, hopes that an emphasis on personal change will
balance out the American focus on social change.
Abe's image of underground water destroying the roots of
social evil rather than a constant pruning of the branches of
such evil suggests that we need to transform the heart of
suffering rather than resolve social issue after social issue.
Referring to this image, he told Nelson Foster that he
appreciates "the American form of social change," but "I just
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hope that American Buddhists realize the importance of the
work of underground water" (in Foster, 6-7).
While Valentino did stress the importance of personal
transcendence during my visit, Mark Singleton, a long time
volunteer at the school, told me that at other times Valentino
has placed an emphasis on the social transformation necessary
in India. This leads me to believe that Valentino emphasized
personal transcendence in his conversations with me because
he saw me as a young American social activist, likely to be
skeptical about a theory that valorizes inner over outer
transformation.
By stressing the inner aspect of social activism he,
perhaps, hoped that we would med at a middle ground that
united both personal and social transformation.
Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form
There remains more serious objection to the social
activism theories of Valentino and Thurman, which is that they
appear dualistic—a clear contradiction of the Mahayana
teaching of non-dualism.
Referring to Nagarjuna, Thurman places individual
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realization above the transformation of social structures: "The
root of good, of positive social action, is the individual's
realization of this subjective selflessness" (1983, 34); "the
necessities and will of the collective, the' business of society,' is
just not that important" (Thurman 1983, 32). This seems to
reflect a dualistic viewpoint in which the realization of ultimate
reality is valued over the improvement of conventional reality.
Likewise, Valentino seems to give personal liberation priority
over social change.
Further, Thurman describes Nagarjuna's "compassionate
socialism" as "generous compassion dedicated to providing
everyone with everything they need to satisfy their basic needs
so that they may have leisure to consider their own higher
needs and aims" (1983, 38-39).
Though Thurman acknowledges the importance of social
uplift, this social change is merely a means to the individual's
realization. This linear cause and effect relationship,
compassion causes wisdom, is another example or the dualism
inherent in Thurman's social activism theory.
The material aid given at the Alice Project School could be
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seen as an example of this dualism in practice. The students
receive food, shelter and health care so that they can fully
dedicate themselves to personal liberation. Stated as such, it
seems that the heart of Buddhist social activism is dualistic,
with the personal valued above the social.
In Chapter Three, I introduced the Buddhist notion of two
worlds or two truths, the ultimate and the conventional. Despite
an apparent dualism, the ultimate and conventional realities
exist in the same place at the same time; they are two sides of
the same coin, two views of the same world. The bodhisattva,
who has realized the ultimate reality yet remains in the world of
conventional reality in order to free all sentient beings,
exemplifies how the two worlds can be navigated and are truly
one. This doctrine is captured in the Heart Sutra's words "Form
is emptiness, emptiness is form," in which form stands for the
conventional reality and emptiness for the ultimate.
In Chapter 4. I explained how for Madhyamika and other
Mahayana philosophers this same union of form and emptiness
is applied to wisdom and compassion. In our first conversation
about the philosophy of the Alice Project School, Valentino
stressed the point that wisdom and compassion are inextricably
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linked (8/25/00). The realization of interdependence achieved
with wisdom breeds a great compassion (mahakaruna) and
likewise great compassion fosters wisdom. Aligning
compassion, the ethic of conventional reality, with form, and
wisdom, the realization of the ultimate reality, with emptiness,
we could rewrite the Heart Sutra to say, "Compassion is
wisdom, wisdom is compassion." Neither Valentino nor
Thurman, who writes that wisdom and compassion "are the
essence of the Great Vehicle, and of the Middle Way," would
disagree with this alignment (Thurman 1976,3).
In the formulas "form and emptiness" and "wisdom and
compassion," neither element is deemed more important than
the other. Such a distinction would create a dualism between
two apparent entities that are inherently one. The connection
between these elements is not causal but rather ontological.
Emptiness does not cause form, nor does form cause
emptiness. Likewise, wisdom does not cause compassion, nor
does compassion cause wisdom. Such a linear causal
relationship would also betray the inherent unity of form and
emptiness, wisdom and compassion.
Having math: the transition from "form is emptiness,
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emptiness is form" to "compassion is wisdom, wisdom is
compassion," I would go one step further to suggest: "social
change is personal transcendence, personal transcendence is
social change." Thurman and Valentino independently argue for
the ontological and non-causal union of form and emptiness,
wisdom and compassion. They also both call for social change
and personal transcendence. They do not, however, treat the
pairing of "social change and personal transcendence" in the
same way that they do that of "form and emptiness," or
"wisdom and compassion." While wisdom and compassion are
deemed to be equal, with one not greater than the other,
throughout this and the previous two chapters I have shown
that Valentino and Thurman place a greater emphasis on
personal transcendence than on social change. Similarly, the
ontological relationship between the two is ignored as social
change is-seen as causally connected to personal realization-
social change seen either as a means of fostering inner
transcendence or as a product thereof. Thus the alignment of
three equal and onto logically connected pairs-form and
emptiness, compassion and wisdom, social change and
personal transcendence—yields a critique of the social activism
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theories presented in the previous chapters. Social change and
personal realization are inextricably linked, equally valid places
for work towards liberation, and should both be addressed
simultaneously.
Other socially engaged Buddhist scholars share this belief
in the union of social change and personal liberation. In his
article "Emptiness and Form," Ken Jones suggests that we need
to find a "Middle Way between contemplation and activism" (5).
Jones divides the positions we see above into two models. The
first model emphasizes personal realization over social service
and warns, in the great Tibetan yogin Milarepa's words, against
"setting out to serve others before one has oneself realized
Truth in its fullness; to be so would be like the blind leading the
blind." Jones calls this the soteriological model (5).
The other camp, in which "Buddhism reduces to mindful
social service and mindful radicalism—a spiritual lubricant for
justice, freedom and welfare" he gives the moniker "social
emancipation model" (5).
Faced with these two extremes, the emphasis sharply on
personal transcendence in the one case and on social change
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on the other, Jones writes, "There is a middle way to be found
in personal practice, whether contemplative or active. And
there is also a middle way to be discerned in the
appropriateness of our response to a range of different
personal and social predicaments" (5).
The union of form and emptiness suggests that this
"middle way" can be discovered, and that neither has to be
compromised for the full realization of the other. We can find a
middle way that allows both personal realization and social
change.
A Response
Both Valentino and Thurman would strongly object to
accusations of dualistic social engagement.
The problem with discussing any two concepts that are joined
in the way that form and emptiness or wisdom and compassion
are, is that in promoting one you appear to be demoting the
other.
For example, if I were to tell you that the there is no
independently existent self in the world (a statement about the
ultimate reality), that would appear to contradict the
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conventional reality truth that we are all individuals living in
this world. Within the confines of language, an inherently
objectifying and dualistic medium, it is impossible to
simultaneously do justice to both ultimate and conventional
realities.
Thus, when Valentino and Thurman emphasize the
importance of personal transcendence over social change this
does not necessarily mean that they are opposing the
importance of a simultaneous social change and uplift.
Valentino's actions and Thurman's other writings on Buddhist
social activism reveal that they both believe in the equal
importance of simultaneous social change and personal
realization.
While Valentino continually told mc of the importance of
spiritual transcendence, on occasion he stressed the
importance of compassionate social change: "If you know cases
of injustice, as a human, you react. If a house is on fire put it
out with water, not philosophy!" (9/13/00).
Mark Singleton, a long time volunteer at the school and friend
or Valentino suggested that Valentino's emphasis on material
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change is not uncommon. Furthermore, the school's very
presence in Sarnath along with his daily actions reflects his
commitment to social change. The Alice Project provides an
outstanding education to the disadvantaged children from the
villages around Sarnath.
This alone gives them the tools to create social change. His
desire to work with children in Indian prisons also demonstrates
his commitment to altering the social structures by
representing and educating the unrepresented and
uneducated. Furthermore, his dream of having an Alice Project
School in every village across India, a place force of caste and
sex discrimination, reveals a commitment to large-scale social
change.
On the personal level, Valentino is constantly on the lookout for
students who are unhappy or ill. He is always willing to help his
students confront abuse and resolve financial and social
problems.
Any person who spends time at the Alice Project School would
agree that Valentino is committed to social change while also
providing the tools for personal realization to his students. The
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opening paragraph of Thurman's article shows that he, like
Valentino, recognizes the importance of both wisdom and
compassion within social activism: "The primary Buddhist
position on social action is one of total activism, an unswerving
commitment to complete self-transformation and complete
world-transformation." He clearly understands the equality and
non-dualism between social change and personal realization
(1983, 19). In his "Introduction" to the Vimalakirti Sutra
Thurman writes eloquently on the same point:
We are left with the seemingly contradictory tasks of
becoming conscious of its [our reality's] ultimacy on the
one hand and, on the other hand, of devoting our energies
to the improvement of the unavoidable relative situation
as best we can. For the successful accomplishment of this
dual task we need, respectively, wisdom (prajna) and
great compassion (mahakaruna), and these two functions
are the essence of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana), and of
the Middle Way (Thurman 1976, 3)
Here we see no prioritization of personal transformation
over social transformation or causal relationship between
wisdom and compassion.
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While Valentino and Thurman sometimes stress the
importance of personal realization, they both acknowledge the
equal importance of social change. They both realize that
wisdom and compassion in the forms of personal
transcendence and social change are needed to deal with the
problems of ultimate and conventional realities. Thus, the point
of the critique in this chapter is not to disprove their theories
but to point the reader toward a more careful consideration of
the Buddhist union of wisdom and compassion.
What Makes Socially Engaged Buddhism
"Buddhist"?
In the above response we see a fuller picture how
Valentino and Thurman ground their social engagement in
Buddhism. Throughout chapters four and five we see that for
Valentino and Thurman social engagement is Buddhist if it
teaches Buddhist wisdom aimed at personal transcendence.
The critique and subsequent response offered above reveals
that this dedication to personal realization is a necessary
condition for socially engaged Buddhism but not a sufficient
condition for it meets only the criterion of "ultimate" reality. For
a socially engaged movement to be Buddhist it must also strive
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to allay the suffering of conventional reality through social
change. Thus for Valentino Giacomin and Robert Thurman we
see that what makes a socially engaged movement Buddhist is
its aim of ending suffering (dukkha) through the simultaneous
and equal means of wisdom in the form of personal
transcendence and compassion in the form of social change.
This answer is very different from what I initially expected
in my research on socially engaged Buddhism. At the outset? I
looked not at the motivation of each movement but at the
projects they conducted in the world. When I read about the
BPF teaching meditation to prisoners, or Thich Nhat Hanh
leading meditation retreats for Vietnamese refugees, I was
easily able to see what was Buddhist about their social
engagement. In both cases the Dharma (Buddha's teaching)
was in the foreground, plainly visible to both the givers and
receivers of such aid. However, in the planting of garden and
building of preschools by the Sarvodaya movement in Sri
Lanka, I had greater difficulty seeing the Buddhism in their
actions-such work appears no different than that done by a
non-Buddhist social activist group. Despite the lack of explicit
Dharma in Sarvodaya's work, Ariyaratne and the greater
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Buddhist community still consider it "engaged Buddhism".
At that stage in my research I might have also objected to
the claim that it is the motivation rather than the action that
makes social activism Buddhist, citing the apparently limitless
forms that such social activism could take including violent
forms. While it is true that there are infinite ways to manifest
wisdom and compassion in the struggle to end suffering,
Buddhist movements that are inspired by a desire to end
suffering through wisdom and compassion will necessarily
avoid certain activities. Any movement that supports
oppressive structures or violence to other humans or life-
systems violates the notion of compassionate activism.
Likewise, any movement that preaches a doctrine that keeps
people from realizing the emptiness of self and the importance
of non-grasping conflicts with the call for a socially engaged
Buddhism that ends suffering through the wisdom of emptiness
realized in personal transcendence. Thus my fears of a
Buddhist fundamentalism that supports violent means (a fear
shared by Valentino) could not be realized within a socially
engaged Buddhist movement committed to the cessation of
suffering through wisdom and compassion.
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Unable to locate the Buddhism of socially engaged
Buddhism in the actions of such movements alone, I also
considered the importance of Buddhist textual support for
social work. Whether it is Sarvodaya's use of the Four Divine
Abiding or Fred Eppsteiner's compilation of traditional
Therevada, Tibetan, Zen and Pure Land texts to support the
work of the BPF, it seemed that all socially engaged
movements ground their social activism in some part of the
Buddhist canon. Working from this textual standpoint, I began
to judge negatively the work of Dr. Ambedkar and others who
drastically alter Buddhist principles such' as the Four Noble
Truths to support their social work. Influenced by Valentino, I
saw these people as straying from the "fundamentals" of
Buddhism and therefore judged their work as non-Buddhist or a
misconceived Buddhism. I would grant that Ambedkar is
socially engaged but not that he is a socially engaged Buddhist.
Many heated conversations with my good friend and
fellow student of socially engaged Buddhism, Ginger Hancock,
made me question my adamant belief in such "fundamentals"
of Buddhism. She argues that throughout Buddhism's 2,500
years the teachings of the Buddha, the "fundamentals," have
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been reinterpreted by countless people to support their own
beliefs. Santikaro Bhikkhu supports Ginger's position, arguing
that the "orthodox" Buddhism that we rely on for socially
engaged Buddhism's legitimacy is the product of an elite group
of Buddhists with their own agenda and does not consider the
beliefs of the majority of Buddhist practitioners (5). He cites
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, one of the most inl1uential thinkers on
engaged Buddhism saying, "Who cares'?" when asked about
the scriptural basis for his claims (Santikaro, 5). For
Buddhadasa, textual evidence is only necessary to convince
"the conservative monks [who] had vested interests and
emotional attachments to the orthodox line" (6). Finally,
Santikaro argues that the obsession with textual authority,
manifested in my own desire to judge engaged Buddhist
movements according to their textual support, might be related
to modern and Western approaches. (5).
Thurman's article on Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland shows how
the social activism of Thurman and Valentino can be grounded
in a Buddhist text. Despite this textual support, Thurman does
not claim that such grounding is what makes the social activism
Buddhist. Thurman concludes that the social activism described
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in his essay is Buddhist not because the text was written by
Nagarjuna, but because it proposes activism that strives to end
suffering through both wisdom and compassion.
While occasionally - Valentino made reference to Buddhist
texts, he never depended on them to support his belief that his
social activism is Buddhist.
Like Thurman, for Valentino socially engaged Buddhism is
not Buddhist because it follows the words of an ancient text but
because it embodies the Buddhist philosophy of non-dualism
and the cessation of suffering in both conventional and ultimate
realities. It must be noted that this non-dependence on texts is
not so clean cut, as it is almost impossible to talk about
"Buddhist philosophy of non dualism," without reference to
respected texts.
This paper demonstrates how Valentino Giacomin and, in
the last two chapters, Robert Thurman, define socially engaged
Buddhism as Buddhist. I would also suggest, in conclusion, that
their understanding of Buddhist social activism-a "total"
activism that strives to end suffering through both personal
transcendence and social change—might be used as a model
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for further study of socially engaged Buddhism.
Looking at two of the most prominent socially engaged
Buddhists in the world, Thich Nhat Hanh and H.H. Dalai Lama,
we see that their social engagement shares this dual dedication
to wisdom and compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh's protests against
the Vietnam War, his aid to Vietnamese refugees, and many
other activities reflect his dedication to social change.
Concurrently he is involved with meditation retreats for people
all over the world, helping Vietnamese refugees and war
veterans alike achieve personal transcendence.
Though at times Nhat Hanh is more focused on one aspect
or another, both social change and personal realization are
always involved in his work and both are given equal
importance.
H.H. Dalai Lama is another world-recognized figure whose
life epitomizes the union of wisdom and compassion. Through
his teachings and books on Buddhist wisdom, he is continually
introducing people to both the basics of Tibetan Buddhism and
esoteric points of the highest Tantras, helping people of all
levels and all religions to achieve personal realization.
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Concurrently with this spiritual leadership, the Dalai Lama is
the primary opponent of the Chinese occupancy of Tibet.
Working from the headquarter of the Tibetan Government
in Exile in Dharamsala, India, he, along with thousands of
others, are working to restore the Tibetan people to their nation
through non-violent means Beyond seeking such political
change, the Dalai Lama is also concerned with changing the
economic structures of the world including the Western
obsession with endless economic growth (H.H. Dalai Lama, 10).
Books such as his Imagine All the People, in which he addresses
the issues of economics, globalization, and sexism alongside
meditation, death and miracles, reflect his ability to
simultaneously address issues of personal transcendence and
social change, wisdom and compassion, form and emptiness.
Though we cannot extrapolate from Thurman's and
Valentino's understanding of their own engagement to a
definition of a movement called "socially engaged Buddhism,"
the above descriptions of Thich Nhat Hanh and H.H. Dalai Lama
support the claim that socially engaged Buddhists work to end
suffering through wisdom and compassion. With further study
perhaps we will find that all people who call themselves socially
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engaged Buddhists are dedicated to the cessation of suffering
through a simultaneous commitment to both personal
transcendence and social change.
Even if this paper does not yield a widely accepted
definition of socially engaged Buddhism, its description of how
Valentino translates Buddhism into social engagement should
prove useful to the field of socially engaged Buddhist discourse.
While there are many books and essays describing various
movements, they deal largely with what occurs in each
movement. Few address how each socially engaged Buddhist
translates Buddhism into social activism-how one takes the
idea of non-dualism and puts it into practice. This process, the
how, has been the focus of both the case study of the Alice
Project School offered in Chapters 2 through 4 and the
description of Thurman's article in Chapter 5. While it is
important to have a definition of socially engaged Buddhism, it
is arguably more important to have models of this praxis, as
every day social activists throughout the world are struggling
with the issue of putting Buddhist theory into practice in their
social activism. Thus, this paper contributes both the
beginnings of a definition of socially engaged Buddhism and,
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more importantly, a model for making Buddhism socially
engaged and social engagement Buddhist.
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