Paticca Samuppada as a universally applicable theory

(PART 1)

By Shelton A. Gunaratne, Ph.D., professor emeritus
Minnesota State University Moorhead

(May 14, Washington, Sri Lanka Guardian) In response to my views on the Buddhist doctrine of paticca samuppada (dependent co-arising) and the Westphalian concept of state sovereignty, several readers have expressed doubts on my assertion that abstractions such as “sovereignty,” “independence,” and “freedom” are incompatible with the complex process of mutual causality on which the entire structure of Buddhist philosophy rests.

One critic asserts, “To my knowledge, nowhere does ‘Paticca Samuppada’ relate to matters that are connected to governments or governance.” Just like a schoolmaster of the colonial era, he asserts, “It is a good thing if Gunaratne could read Dasa-raja Dharma before he advice his Buddhist politicians” (spelling corrected).

I was a student of the Ven. Kotagama Wachissara at Ananda College in the mid-1950s and consider myself fortunate to have acquired a better-than-average knowledge of Buddhism before I left the shores of Ceylon in 1965. If my critic is a product of the next generation, he has clearly violated the norms of “right speech” by insinuating that I should extricate myself from my “cultural mix-up.”

The critic’s attempt to separate paticca samuppada from dasa-raja-dharma is specious. The crux of Buddhism is the Four Noble Truths; and paticca samuppada explains the operational mechanics of bhavacakra (samsara) in relation to those truths.

The Ven. Maduluwave Sobhita (in an article titled “A solution to the ethnic problem can be found within the Buddhist tradition” published in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics, July 2003), explains the dasa-raja-dharma (10 rules of good governance):
Lord Buddha has enunciated 10 principles that a ruler must observe. They are called the dasa-raja-dharma. These are true for all time since truth has no time bar.

Sinhala kings followed these ten as taught by Lord Buddha. [The first] is dana or charity. The ruler must be charitable in his approach. The second is sila or virtue.

If one is not virtuous you cannot expect fair play from him. Another virtue is caga or self-sacrifice. This is the converse of being selfish and self-centered. The rules must sacrifice their comfort for the sake of providing basic comforts to the people. The fourth principle is ajjava or rectitude. It is important that leaders are honest and sincere. They must mete out justice to all irrespective of party, race, religion or caste. The next principle is majjava or gentleness. He must have a kind heart. The next is tapa or life of simplicity. This serves as an example to others. The seventh is akkodha or absence of enmity. Next comes [ahimsa] non-violence. The rulers must not oppress people. The ninth is [kanthi] or patience. The tenth and the last principle is avirodhata or absence of any obstruction.

It should be clear that dasa-raja-dharma is a set of principles derived from the Four Noble Truths. They are inseparable from the operational mechanism of paticca samuppada, the Buddhist theory of causality. K.N. Jayatilleke (1974) says that the term is used in four related senses:

1. To denote the two principles of causal determination as an abstract formula. (Whenever A, then B; and whenever not A, then not B.)

2. To denote the same two principles in a dynamic form as having application to the world of concrete reality. (This being, that becomes; from the arising of this, that arises; this not being, that becomes not; and from the ceasing of this, that ceases.)

3. To denote the causal laws that operate in nature; physical laws, biological laws, psychological laws, etc.

4. To denote the causal laws that operate in bringing about the continued genesis of the individual. The Buddha explained the operation of the Four Noble Truths, the crux of Buddhism that explains the bhavacakra (wheel of becoming), through the mechanism of paticca samuppada involving 12 basic factors (nidanas): ignorance (avijjā), impulse to action (sankhara), consciousness (vinnana), name and form (namarupa), six senses (sajayatana), sense impressions (phassa), perception (vedana), desire (tanha), entanglements (upadana), becoming (bhava), birth (jati), and old age and death (jaramarana).

My critic seems to believe that paticca samuppada is limited to the individual in the fourth sense only. He ignores that it is applicable to explain all natural phenomena, including international relations, domestic and international terrorism, etc.

Early Buddhism recognized its universal applicability to every phenomenon—physical, psychological, moral, and spiritual.

Methinks that the Buddha extended the principle of paticca samuppada in the fourth sense (the continued genesis of the individual) to explain the genesis of the universe:

There is no first cause [therefore, no Creator, no Divine Right, no Sovereignty, no Permanence, no extreme of any kind is compatible with Buddhist philosophy]. Interconnected and interdependent factors co-arise and interact with one another for the universe to operate as a giant network of various hierarchies of networks.
A human being has to attain nirvana (howsoever one defines it) to escape the bhavacakra, the domain of existence within which the interaction of ti-lakkhana—anatta, anicca and dukkha—engenders varying degrees of suffering among living beings. Human beings have collectively formed groups, communities, nations and international organizations to alleviate dukkha in the Buddhist sense although dukkha cannot be altogether eliminated within the bhavacakra, which encompasses the world/universe.

This is the logical extension of the paticca samuppada systems theory that Buddha taught (originally for the salvation of the individual from the bhavacakra) to the collective human construct of what we call the modern world system.

Modern systems theory asserts that the whole (say, the nation) is more than the sum of its parts (say, the individuals comprising the nation) because of emergence, an attribute defining the additional energy engendered by conjoined input. Thus, a nation’s standing in the world will reflect a few notches higher than each person’s individual input in any given field. Therefore, social inquiry must begin with the whole at any hierarchical level rather than with parts (say, samples of people in a nation) as erroneously practiced today by deploying the so-called Cartesian-Newtonian paradigm. (More on this later.)

In Buddhist thinking, no person or nation can achieve full-fledged sovereignty. Everyone or every nation-state is interdependent whether one looks at the world/universe from the perspective of ultimate reality (emptiness/energy) or material reality. Colonialism was one phase of the process of mutual causality analyzable through the operational mechanism of paticca samuppada. Humanity is now passing through the phase of neo-colonialism. Because everything is anicca, this too must change and give rise to another impermanent phase, and so on.

Constitutionally, each of the 31 states constituting Mexico is “free and sovereign.”
This is simply constitutional gobbledygook. States in Mexico are interconnected and interdependent just as those in the United States. Did Quebec have the sovereign right to leave Canada?

Wikipedia explains:

Sovereignty is the quality of having supreme, independent authority over a territory. It can be found in a power to rule and make law that rests on a political fact for which no purely legal explanation can be provided. The concept has been discussed, debated and questioned throughout history, from the time of the Romans through to the present day, although it has changed in its definition, concept, and application throughout, especially during the Age of Enlightenment. The current notion of state sovereignty was laid down in the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), which, in relation to states, codified the basic principles of territorial integrity, border inviolability, and supremacy of the state (rather than the Church). A sovereign is a supreme lawmaking authority.

Perhaps this is the time that Sri Lanka and other developing countries (I don’t believe that we should fall into the Western hegemonic trap by insulting ourselves as the Third World) to replace the term “sovereignty” with a term that conforms to the beliefs embedded in Buddhist/Eastern philosophy.

The answer does not lie in the fallacious and dubious argument that paticca samuppada applies only to individuals.

(To be continued)