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At his blog Hardcore Zen<\/i>, Zen teacher Brad Warner recently wrote about the idea of obeying rules as an ethical precept<\/a>:<\/p>\n In Nishijima Roshi\u2019s version of the Universal Precepts, the very first one is, \u201cI vow to observe the rules of society.\u201d (FYI, the other two are vows to observe the moral law of the universe, and to work for the salvation of all living beings.)<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n Nishijima Roshi\u2019s version of the Universal Precepts is based on Dogen\u2019s essay \u201cJukai\u201d or \u201cReceiving the Precepts.\u201d In the translation Nishijima did with Mike Cross, he calls these the Pure Precepts rather than Universal Precepts. The first of these is given in that translation as, \u201cThe precept of observing rules.\u201d\u2026<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n When Nishijima was asked what we should do if the rules of society were clearly morally wrong, he said that our duty as Buddhists was to work to change those rules. But he believed it was always best to try to change the rules by working within the rules themselves. If you\u2019re living in North Korea or someplace like that this might not be possible. But you can\u2019t read this blog in places like North Korea, so I\u2019m gonna go ahead and assume that most of my readership is living in places where this is still possible. And, yes, that goes for my readers in the United States too. [Brad Warner, \u201cI Vow Not to Destabilize Society\u201d]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, Brad goes on to say \u201cOne of the dangers that occurs when one works for social progress is that, in trying to make positive changes you risk destabilizing society as a whole\u2026.And chaotic societies are much more vulnerable to being taken over by power hungry dictators.\u201d<\/p>\n That\u2019s a point I agree with and that history bears out. When social structures completely fail, that sets the stage for authoritarians to take power. The title of Brad\u2019s post is \u201cI Vow Not to Destabilize Society\u201d; I agree that not destabilizing society is a good rule of thumb. Though if your society is, say, Nazi Germany, or the so-called \u201cConfederate States of America\u201d, maybe you ought to do all you can to hasten its fall, so I\u2019m not comfortable with making that a vow.<\/p>\n But even short of that extreme, the idea that if the rules are bad we are still constrained to work within them is problematic. Most authoritarian societies are not as obvious as North Korea about making change impossible. They often feature some fake political process, which serves to placate the people with an illusion of control but is disconnected from the levers of power \u2014 the political equivalent of a nothing button<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sure, we still have elections here in the US, with much pomp and ceremony \u2014 but as political scientists Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page reported in 2014<\/a>,\u201dThe central point that emerges from our research is that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on U.S. government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.\u201d [Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, \u201cTesting Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens\u201d]<\/p>\n The ruling class is well isolated. You and I can\u2019t change the rules by acting within them. That\u2019s not a call for violent revolution (not yet, at least), but we need to get outside the box in order to remake the box.<\/p>\n To some extent, \u201cstability\u201d means \u201cresistance to change\u201d. To change an unjust system you may need to create some instability \u2014 some holy chaos<\/a>.<\/p>\n Strict adherence to society\u2019s rules is an odd idea for a Buddhist to advance, as the Buddha broke many important rules of his society.<\/p>\n According to the mythology the Buddha was a prince who abandoned his station \u2014 and his wife and child \u2014 to go off on a spiritual quest. Sexism being what it is perhaps lighting out on his wife and son was permitted in his society; but abandoning his parents and his station, sneaking out of the palace, and cutting off his hair (the equivalent, relative to his society, of a man rebelliously growing his hair long in 1950s America), not so much.<\/p>\n When he started his own spiritual community he violated one of the prime rules of his society: he welcomed people of all castes. This is such a basic premise of Indian society that caste-fueled violence has continued into the 21st century.<\/a> He also violated his culture\u2019s rules about gender by allowing women to study his teachings and join his community.<\/p>\n The Big B did not beat his head against his society\u2019s rules about caste or about sexism. He did not try to convince priests and kings to change the rules. He ignored them, bypassed them, and went about setting up his own social system.<\/p>\n Zen, according to its mythology, was founded by a guy who failed to pay proper subservience to the Emperor of China. And its history is marked with a number of radicals and reformers who violated rules, both of their surrounding societies and of Buddhist, even Zen Buddhist, institutions. Indeed, a recent book about them, Zen Radicals, Rebels, and Reformers<\/a><\/i>, bears on its cover praise from Brad: \u201cThese guys are my heroes\u2026I really like this book.\u201d<\/p>\n (Contradiction, too, is part of Zen.)<\/p>\n Zen also has a root in Taoism, a philosophy that often speaks about the limitations of moral rules (often contrasting itself with the Confucian emphasis on moral and ritual rules). The Tao Te Ching says<\/a> \u201cThe more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be\u2026.Therefore the Master says: I let go of the law, and people become honest.\u201d [S. Mitchell translation]<\/p>\n And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s a coincidence that Thoreau, the man who gave us the concept of civil disobedience, is also regarded by many as the first American Buddhist.<\/p>\n Brad claims that \u201cIn broad terms, honesty, integrity, reliability and so forth are the rules of society.\u201d But a hard look at any actual society makes this a dubious claim. Much of any society\u2019s rulebase, both its institutionalized laws and its less formal mores and folkways, is devoted to preserving the status quo power structure.<\/p>\n Institutional Zen is not innocent here. It played a role in the militant nationalism that lead to Japanese imperialism and World War II, from promoting a perverted version of bushido<\/i> as a national value to helping raise money to build bombers. The rebel Buddha and Zen lunatic rule-breakers like Ikkyu would have been appalled.<\/p>\n In post-war Japan, formal Zen training has been part of orientation for new hires in some companies \u2014 not because they want enlightened compassionate bodhisattvas on the payroll, but because institutional Japanese Zen is good at instilling obedience and conformity. As Soto Zen priest Brain Daizen Victoria notes, \u201cSenior monks act much like drill sergeants, and novice monks are their recruits.\u201d<\/a> [Daizen Victoria, \u201cJapanese Corporate Zen\u201d]<\/p>\n In response to this dichotomy between a vision of obedience to social rules as a reliable ethical guide and the disappointing reality, people often invoke some notion of \u201chigher law\u201d. The classic example is Sophocles\u2019s Antigone<\/i>, where the heroine appeals to a heavenly law to justify acting against the rules to give her criminal brother Polynices a decent burial.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s noteworthy that this appeal to heavenly law can also be used by those defending authoritarianism. Years ago I was in an on-line debate with a cop who justified jailing cannabis users because, regardless of any other factors, it was Against The Law. When I brought up the example of Martin Luther King and other civil rights protesters doing things that were Against The Law, my interlocutor claimed that those fine people were following God\u2019s Law, so it was okay. In his mind, dirty pot-smoking hippies couldn\u2019t make that claim \u2014 an idea which Rastafarians, Coptic Christians, and many mystery cults over the centuries might dispute.<\/p>\n In other words, while social rules and laws can easily be distinguished, the existence and nature of any \u201chigher\u201d or \u201cheavenly\u201d laws is a matter for debate.<\/p>\n Such \u201chigher\u201d laws as may be cited are either found externally, in which case they are just social laws attributed to a divine author to lend them extra weight; or they emerge from the inside, from the individual\u2019s own moral sense.<\/p>\n So when we realize that the moral authority of our politicians and priests and preachers of politesse \u2014 including the rules about how to change the rules \u2014 is an unreliable guide to ethical behavior and we cannot pledge allegiance to it, we are left with only our own ethical sense to guide us.<\/p>\n And so it behooves us to ask, what can we do to develop that sense? An excellent question which I shall save for another post.<\/p>\n You can keep up with \u201cThe Zen Pagan\u201d by subscribing via RSS<\/a> or e-mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n You can help send me to Japan this spring<\/a> for a once in a lifetime event!<\/p>\n Details TBD, but I will be at the Free Spirit Gathering<\/a> and the Starwood Festival<\/a> this summer.<\/p>\n If you do Facebook, you might choose to join a group on \u201cZen Paganism\u201d<\/a> I\u2019ve set up there. And don\u2019t forget to \u201clike\u201d Patheos Pagan<\/a> and\/or The Zen Pagan<\/a> over there, too.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To some extent, \u201cstability\u201d means \u201cresistance to change”. To change an unjust system you may need to create some instability — some holy chaos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1860,"featured_media":1377,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[647,15,23,3],"tags":[662,771,823,822,642,821,643,663],"class_list":["post-1370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-ethics","category-religion-politics","category-zen","tag-anarchy","tag-brad-warner","tag-chaos","tag-laws","tag-politics","tag-rules","tag-zen","tag-zenarchy"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Rule-Breaking Buddha<\/h2>\n
Rules for Preserving Power<\/h2>\n
Higher Rules?<\/h2>\n
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