Chapter 05
Freedom the Buddhist Perspective
Four freedoms elegantly expressed by former US President F.D.Roosvelt are the freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom from want and freedom from fear. These freedoms are abused to a variable degree worldwide.
What is the reason for this trend?
Is it an important question?
The fear factor (both physical and psychological) is utilized to gain undesirable motives. The psychological fear is the deadliest of all. It seems that from terrorist to teachers (fear of examination) to all beings (in day to day life husbands and wives) are using fear as a method of conduct. The politicians are no exception to this general phenomenon and the use of this lethal weapon by doctors in the form of lightening strikes is unpardonable professionally. The use of this methodology to gain undesirable objectives both locally and globally seems to be the norm whether it is President Bush or Prime Minister Blair. There is mass scale intolerance and the fear factor (the first of the triple of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) is operative in economic, political and social spheres.
If one look at the history of mankind the starting point of faith and religion is the fear the man had perceived for the suffering and the unknown. In latter years of history when religion was challenged by the heretics and pagans the church itself used the fear factor for its own subsistence. Ever since the fear factor had spread to all the fields including economic. It has become a vehicle to perpetuate endless cycle of misery and violence on mankind.
The leaders are conveniently forgetting the other issues from which the poverty originates. Multinational companies are exploiting the third world to the tune of billions of dollars and the dual approach of carrot (Aid) and the FUD (fear) seem to me are the two basic elements in operation worldwide.
Why the social scientists of the west and east are silent on these issues?
It is inexplicable?
The abuse of these freedoms, whether by state controlled media or private media with vested interests (freedom of speech and expression), the willful desecration of religions (freedom of worship), increase of poverty (freedom from want) in the world including the West and the spread of terrorism worldwide (freedom from fear) have engulfed us dangerously.
One has to ponder and ask the vital question what is the price for freedom and what is the meaning of liberty?
Poor man in the street does not understand all the jargon. He will never be freed from poverty as long as the corporate mind set makes the profits the target vision. Without sharing the wealth of information with the competitors to improve the quality and availability at an affordable price the gap between the rich and poor are widening. Free market philosophy is not for liberating the masses. They are there to increase the profits. The belief that profits would filter to the masses is a myth. There is no community involvement as seen in the Linux community. Linux community feels that they are liberated from the corporate giants. Until and unless we are free from both local and foreign corporate giants who are all hell bent on making profits an exercise, the monopoly a bounden right, the freedom of choice is an illusion.
Only the minority will have the freedom to enjoy and exploit. The corporate mind set should change to community mind set with community involvement. There is a limit that the free market philosophy can stretch but beyond that point there are diminishing returns. Like in the Linux community somewhat similar orientation has to take place in the business community in Sri-Lanka and worldwide for the true meaning of freedom to be enjoyed by everybody. Freedom should not be exclusive to a particular class, creed, race, religion or descent. It should be of universal nature that enhances the cooperation rather than segregation. Selfish gains but no devotion to the need of the poor as preached by all the religions is not relevant to the corporate mind set. Wholesome benefits of the many technical advances of the last century want accrue to all unless the trends of the last century in economic fields are reversed.
Freedom that costs is not meaningful whether it in social, economic or human.
What then is the Buddhist perspective of freedom?
In Buddhist perspective there are three main hindrances to freedom. The greed, hate and ignorance are the root causes that tie the mankind in bondage to evil. The three positive aspects are generosity, compassion and wisdom.
Wisdom
The wisdom is evidently lacking as far as the pollution of the planet earth is concerned. The pollution of the water resources especially the ocean where the first life began its long evolutionary journey is beyond imagination. It has become dumping ground for industrial waste including surreptitious dumping of nuclear waste. The exploitation of the non renewable resources goes unabated as if the resources are unlimited. Long term vision is lacking and short term economic growth is the norm whether they are capitalistic countries or socialist countries.
Greed
The generosity (sharing of wealth) has a fundamental thrust in Buddhist way of thinking. Buddhist way of life does not exclude trade but it is toned with sustainable income instead of expansive earning. Sustainable economy without going for limitless free market policy is the need of the moment and should be the theme for the current century. Unless we overcome greed with generosity the ever expansive nature of the economic activity cannot be arrested whether it is in the East or West. The generosity should be of global nature and the rich countries while keeping their economic activities sustainable in their own scope, they should allow the exchange of excess wealth to help the poor countries. This is very important in sphere of education. Bringing the global village equitable in the capacity to acquire knowledge base, if not economic base is of vital important. The field of education has become a money spinner globally.
The education is wealth.
The gift of Dhamma is the best gift of all.
In other terms the gift of knowledge is the best gift of all.
Looking around the number of private educational institutions coming up in Sri-Lanka the gift of knowledge seemed to be alien to us. The World Bank and IMF seem to believe that the knowledge is an economic activity. I am in no way a believer that the government giving free books (often outdated by a quarter century) would uplift the system of education. In fact it is detrimental on the long run as shown in Sri-Lanka. I would in fact promote authors outside the closed education system writing the school books. But these books should compete with the international publications. For writers of high quality to emerge in Sri-Lanka the free books scheme should be phased out except some standard books. India is noted for the advances they have made in this field. But what I am advocating is that these books should be priced at an affordable prices and the Education Department should buy them from the publishers and distribute them freely to students. An alternative is for the business community in the locality to buy them and donate them to the schools of their choice and grant them tax concessions to promote the business ventures. Furthermore, they should promote the system of education in such a way that their labour force is trained in the schools in the locality and a certain number of school leavers are absorbed into their industries. This way their economic activity can be expanded and community involvement is actively encouraged. We have to come out of the rigid and monotonous system that we have inherited. Innovative schemes can be planned and implemented. If need arises where local expertise are not available foreign participation should be actively encouraged. JICA is an institute which has this experience in the universities (the university is the dead end structure of our education system) and diverting their resources to Secondary Education would yield better results overall. The rebuilding of schools of tsunami devastated land and making a new working model would be a project the new rulers should venture into. We are not lacking in ideas but our politicians are more obsessed with grabbing the power and they are surrounded by mediocre experts.
There are many ways of toning our greed but I have only chosen education as a model which I consider needs rejuvenating with new ideas but not experimentation or privatization. What ever said and done what ever achievements we have made in the last century were because of our Buddhist attitudes in education. Of course the Swabhasa panacea was the biggest blunder of the last century. It is not possible to kill a mother tongue by introducing working languages (English and Computer) and the contrary is shown in India, our closest neighbour. However the print, electronic and TV channels are doing the destruction to our mother tongue /s (Tamil included) on daily basis.
Hate
The greed and competitiveness breed hate. It is quite evident with the election propaganda live. Even though the street violent is absent to a significant degree the breeding ground is vested with the TV channels. The advertisements are disgrace to our intellectual voter who is economically poor but not spiritually. Only after the election we can have a proper assessment of the impact they have made in the minds of the confused voter. My belief is that it would not. I am a believer that our voters are not stupid. We have inherited the hate for over two decades and the LTTE is the beneficiary.
When we learn to behave?
The number of animals killed for various reasons is another expression of hate.
Ignorance
Ignorance is the biggest evil. Dhamma apart our ignorance of sustainability is evident if we only look at the loss of forest reserve and with it the biodiversity. Ignorance of the economic principles governing a small island nation of ours is evident by its lack. We open our big mouths to support the rich nations who are sending the spoils of the last season when the current harvest is on. Come Christmas we may be eating the foods that were destined for animal food in the West packaged with the expiry date changed cunningly. The other major ignorance is our food habits. The changing from a healthy vegetarian diet to a western diet which the westerners are dropping by each day with the advance of the current medical knowledge is the manifestation of our poor health education (coupled with greed).
Unless we overcome greed (generosity), hate (compassion) and ignorance (wisdom) the meaning of the technical evolution in the last century would not be as meaningful as it would be in the current century. A Buddhist country like ours should emulate these virtues. Economic principles should be toned not by merely stating a Dharmista Society. The worst of our modern history followed after the open economy and Dharmista Society. When history is rewritten this anomaly would be pointed out without grace. It has to be rectified now, not a century later.
In Buddhist perspective the freedom we aspire is the freedom from greed, hate and ignorance. Path to freedom is laid on the virtues of Metta (compassion), Karuna (kindness), Muditha (sympathetic joy) and Upeksa (equanimity).
Buddhism and Dhamma 