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Uniting Wisdom and Compassion Socially Engaged Buddhism at the Alice Project School By Andrew Pond Davis Senior Thesis Religious Studies – Standford University May 2001 1 2 Table of Contents ------- ---------------------- ------- -------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 Jewel Garland Chapter 6 : The “Buddhism” of Socially Engaged Buddhism Source Cited. 3 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 4 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 5 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 selfproclaimed "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 6 also very interested in the project of joining Buddhist 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 7 to appeal to the Italian Government's law 219, which supports experimental education projects, for permission to teach in this 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. 8 The Current School 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 (4 th-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 9 now economically dependent on the tourist industry. This transformation began when interest in Sarnath's history was 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 10 attractions and the supporting infrastructure. Sarnath residents have adapted to this shifting economy by 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 11 loss of identity and values related to religion and tradition, due to what here is called 'westernization': materialistic model of life" (13). 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 12 is making the students marc aware of their own culture's stories and traditional values as well as those of other cultures. 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 13 studio. In a school with growing numbers and such a diverse curriculum, no space is wasted. 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. 14 The Students Every morning at around 5:30, 300 students ages six to fifteen 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 15 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 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 16 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 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 17 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 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. 18 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 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 multimonth 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. 19 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 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). 20 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 (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. 21 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 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 nontraditional 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 22 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 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 23 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. 24 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. 25 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 26 negatively affected when he does not practice: "On days I do 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. 27 While intra-Buddhist politics have left the building mostly 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. 28 Daily, both in the classroom and in development 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. 29 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. 30 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. 31 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 cross 32 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 33 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 to 34 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 antiAbhidharmist Mahayana philosophers offered we must note that the Hinayana Abhidharmist positions described above are 35 depicted as Mahayana philosophers envisioned them. 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 36 pedagogy, and thus I will attempt to sketch the principal tenets 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 37 matter as conditioned by the dharmas, would agree with. It 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 ownnature. 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 38 that if matter cannot have its own-nature and there is no othernature, 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). 39 The existence of the words on these pages depends on the ink, my thoughts, the reader's eye and mind and hundreds 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 40 void, then there would be no creation and no destruction..." (in Thurman 1976,2). In this passage the term "void" means "void 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 Mulamadhyamaka-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. 41 Ultimately, while the teaching of dependent arising and the voidness of matter appear to be nihilistic, they accurately 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 42 orange" and tell our friend that it is a good source of vitamin C. Language lets us describe something that we 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 43 "orange" we think not of all the infinite causes that provide its dependent arising, but only of a few characteristics that are 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 44 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 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 45 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 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 46 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 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 47 either intellectually or emotionally unprepared, while the gemlike being properly prepared need 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 noncomprehensive 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 48 student to a new understanding. The arhant ideal is 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). 49 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 analysis of the four most apparent ways that Madhyamika influences the 50 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. Valentino, Luigina and two other young faculty members, 51 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 interaction are that taken I from observed both classroom and and from of one informal 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 thing or entity," to a 10 year old child (Thurman 1976, I)? In his The Philosophy of Alice Project, Valentino uses a 52 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. 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 53 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 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 54 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: 55 56 57 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. 58 Through stories, formal teaching, and informal interactions, the 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 59 Buddhist wisdom is "universal." 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. 60 Perhaps the reader will find it helpful to read "universal" 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. 61 When asked about the path offered by Christianity, he 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 62 resultant "silence" of the non-distinguishing and non-reifying 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 selfcontradictory. 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. 63 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 64 Madhyamika philosophy above, too often people forget that a 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 65 black or white or Hindu or Muslim..." (9/5/00) 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 66 division: "To receive an education is to learn where and how to 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 67 student. She is never asked to look inside her mind, 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." 68 At Valentino's school, however, the whole student 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 69 overwhelming concern with the jobs that students received 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 70 free persons, not professionals." 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. 71 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 mind" (9/12/00) or to create "non-self-centered people with an open 72 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 73 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. 74 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 about the social effects of his teaching, preferring to talk about the motivation and "wisdom" 75 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!" (9/13/00). Because the Alice Project School is located in a part of the world 76 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. The Dalit movement, motivated by a desire for class power and recognition, uses Buddhist ideas to attain such political 77 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. Krishnamurti, an Indian spiritual guru of the 20th century. Though Krishnamurti was not Buddhist, Valentino claims, 78 "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. 79 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 could be realized in our modern world. 80 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. Thurman's article, the subject of this chapter, is based on Nagarjuna's Ratnavali or Jewel Garland. Scholars suggest that 81 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 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 82 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). 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 83 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 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 84 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. 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 85 (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 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 86 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 forget about the needs of people in conventional reality. In verses 201265 of the Precious Garland, Nagarjuna outlines an aggressive plan to meet the needs of everyone in society. "Always care compassionately/ For the sick, the 87 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 sociallysupported 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 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). 88 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. 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 89 Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Buddhists who have reinterpreted basic Buddhist principles to support their campaign for sociopolitical 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 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 90 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 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 91 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 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 92 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 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" 93 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 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 94 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). Having surveyed Thurman's account of the four elements of Nagarjuna's philosophy of social activism-individualist transcendentalism, compassionate socialism, universalism it is important to note education, and 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 95 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 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. 96 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 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 97 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 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). 98 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 "Traditionally to Buddhism Nelson has foster," David emphasized Loy our writes: 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 99 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 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. 100 ?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 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 101 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 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 102 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 nondualism. Referring to Nagarjuna, Thurman places individual 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 103 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 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 104 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 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 105 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, 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 106 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 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." 107 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 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. 108 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 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 109 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 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 110 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 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 worldtransformation." He clearly understands the equality and nondualism 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 111 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. 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 112 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 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 113 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 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 114 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. 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. 115 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 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). 116 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 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 117 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 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 118 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. 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 Valentino's we cannot understanding extrapolate of their from Thurman's own engagement and to a 119 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 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 120 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, more importantly, a model for making Buddhism socially engaged and social engagement Buddhist. 121 122 123