IGE's first principle of engagement urges: "Know your faith at its deepest and richest best, and enough about your neighbor's faith in order to respect it." While IGE maintains this principle as vital to engagement, we have begun to consider whether we might carry it a step further. Can we move beyond simple respect and begin to partner with our neighbors when we have common goals? IGE maintains that "for religious freedom to have a face, a person and an organization must have a faith." While we hold fast to the Christian faith, we recognize that ours is not the only "face" of religious freedom. The persecuted Church is not the only "face" of the oppressed. Open dialogue and cooperation among different religious traditions will inevitably hasten the pursuit of religious freedom as once-hostile groups begin to deepen their understandings of one another and move, as a result, toward respect for one another. At the same time, the subject of religious freedom — a concern that each world religion seems to share — may serve as a foundation for dialogue and cooperation. As a first step in this process, we listen to what other religious traditions have to say about religious freedom. Here we consider the Buddhist perspective.

Religious Freedom in the Context of Human Rights

The West understands religious freedom in the context of human rights. Religious freedom is the first freedom in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." If we want to understand Buddhist ideas about religious freedom, we should first consider Buddhist perspectives on the broader concept of human rights.

This, however, requires considerable qualification. First, some Buddhists note that the Western notion of "rights" was foreign to the Eastern societies in which Buddhism developed. For example, Shin Buddhist priest and scholar Taitetsu Unno explains that East Asia has traditionally been characterized by a consensual model of society, "ruling out any assertions of self against recognized forms of authority, whether secular or religious." This, he holds, is a model in great contrast to any concept of rights understood as "demanding one's due." In the case of societies originally shaped by Confucian ethics, he notes, the principle of duty prevailed, not the principle of rights.1

Other Buddhists also object to speaking merely of "human" rights. Zen Buddhist sensei Masao Abe explains:

Strictly speaking, the exact equivalent of the phrase 'human rights' in the Western sense cannot be found anywhere in Buddhist literature. In the Western notion of 'human rights,' 'rights' are understood as pertaining only to humans; nonhuman creatures are either excluded or at most regarded as peripheral and secondary…. By marked contrast, in Buddhism a human being is not grasped only from the human point of view, that is, not simply on an anthropocentric basis, but on a much broader trans-homocentric, cosmological basis. More concretely, in Buddhism human beings are grasped as a part of all sentient beings or even as a part of all beings, sentient and nonsentient, because both human and nonhuman beings are equally subject to transiency or impermanency.2

None of this is to say, however, that Buddhists have nothing to add to the conversation on human rights and religious freedom. Rather, it is precisely in Buddhist beliefs about human nature that we find the inherent dignity, respect, and compassion for humanity (and, ultimately, for the whole Earth) that provide the foundation for the Buddhist contribution to the concept of human rights. Unno notes:

The fact that the Buddhist tradition in its past history has had little to say about personal rights in the current sense of the term does not mean that Buddhists were not concerned with human well-being, with the dignity and autonomy of the spirit. In fact, throughout its long history, in spite of some dark and unsavory moments, Buddhism has taught the path whereby all forms of existence, animate or inanimate, would be able to radiate and shine in their own natural light.3

Buddhists understand human nature according to two basic principles. The first is the doctrine of no-soul or no-self. Walpola Rahula, world-renowned author of What the Buddha Taught, explains that when we think of a soul or a self, we generally think of "a permanent, everlasting entity in man", but Buddhism is unique, he insists, because it denies the existence of such a soul. To the Buddhist, the notion of the self is an imaginary belief.4 Rahula explains this phenomenon as the result of the interaction of the Five Aggregates that Buddhists believe compose an individual:

One thing disappears, conditioning the appearance of the next in a series of cause and effect. There is no unchanging substance in them. There is nothing behind them that can be called a permanent Self (Atman), individuality, or anything that can in reality be called 'I'. Every one will agree that neither matter, nor sensation, nor perception, nor any one of these mental activities, nor consciousness can really be called 'I.' But when these five physical and mental aggregates which are interdependent are working together in combination as a physio-psychological machine, we get the idea of 'I.' But this is only a false idea.5

The idea of self consists only of the perception of a series of causes and effects. Moreover, this series of causes and effects is part of a larger circle of causes and effects in an existence that is completely relative, conditioned, and interdependent. The Buddhist doctrine of no-self is part of the larger Buddhist view of a world that is completely interconnected. This second view, essential to the Buddhist understanding of human nature, may be referred to as conditioned genesis, co-origination, or as Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls it, Interbeing. Nhat Hanh elaborates:

When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It 'inter-is' with everything else in the universe.6

How then do these doctrines of no-self and Interbeing contribute to Buddhist concepts of human rights? Unno explains that when we understand ourselves as part of the interdependence of all life, we gain a respect for the rights of other people as well as the rights of all other sentient beings:

[R]espect for the individual and the recognition of rights is not a static but a dynamic fact which makes it imperative that as we affirm our own individual rights we must also be willing to give up ourselves in order to affirm the rights of others. When, however, we affirm only our own rights at the expense of the rights of others-including the rights of humanity over nature, one nation or race over another, one belief or view over others-we become tyrannical and oppressive. The proper understanding of interdependence, as the elemental form of relationship, would exclude such self-righteousness and would create a truly global society of equals.7

Unno further notes that the ideal of the bodhisattva ("Buddha-in-the-making") is to put the needs of others above one's own. He helps us to grasp the notion of Interbeing and its relation to human rights, however, as he explains that "in essence there is no one who is placed above the other, for as found in the classical formulation, there exists absolute equality of self and other…and interchangeability of self and other."8 Similarly, Abe explains the doctrines of no-self and Interbeing: On a relative level, we can speak of selfhood. We can say, "I am I and not you; you are you and not me." But on the absolute level, we cannot speak of any substantial self. We become capable of saying, "I am not I, and you are not you; thereby, I am you, and you are me."9 Perhaps we can best understand the implications of the Buddhist ideas of no-self and Interbeing by considering Christ's command to love our neighbors as ourselves. If the Buddha had made a similar statement, he might have said, "Love your neighbor because he is yourself." To the Buddhist, whether we speak of "rights" or "duty," when the illusion of self disappears, neighbor, beast, mountain, and tree all cry out for the same respect, freedom, and charity.

Religious Freedom and Salvation

While Buddhist doctrines of no-self and Interbeing present the extension of religious freedom as a human duty, there is more to the commitment to religious freedom in particular. To the Buddhist, religious freedom is crucial to religious salvation. In order to understand this, however, we must first understand the Buddhist concept of religious salvation.

For Buddhists, there are Four Noble Truths. The first, dukkha, is the realization of suffering. According to myth, the Buddha discovered this truth upon his first encounters with old age, sickness, death, and, finally, an ascetic. The Buddha's father, a great ruler in 6th-century India, had tried to protect the Buddha from all images of suffering in an attempt to control his son's prophesied fate: he would either conquer the world or forsake it. But the king's efforts were thwarted, either by the oversight of his servants or the intervention of the gods, and the suffering the Buddha encountered spurred him on to his epic pursuit of Enlightenment.

The second Noble Truth teaches that the twin causes of suffering are desire and attachment. This includes the desire for sense-pleasures and for wealth and power, as well as the attachment to ideas, ideals, views, opinions, theories, and beliefs. Moreover, the chief source of all desire lies in the false idea of self that stands in contrast to the realization of no-self. The desire of the second noble truth is also the reason for the "continuity of beings" better known to most Westerners as reincarnation. One of our desires, called karma, is the will to live, to exist and re-exist, to continue.10 Buddhists believe that the forces of desire do not end with the death of the physical body, but continue to manifest themselves in other forms. This phenomenon is the reason for the cycle of rebirth.11

Nirvana, the cessation of suffering, is the third Noble Truth. Those who reach Nirvana reach salvation; they reach Enlightenment, the summum bonum of Buddhism. They have rid themselves of all desires and attachments and have extinguished all ideas and concepts. As Rahula explains:

Here the four elements of solidity, fluidity, heat and motion have no place; the notions of length and breadth, the subtle and the gross, good and evil, name and form are altogether destroyed; neither this world nor the other, nor coming, going or standing, neither death nor birth, nor sense-objects are to be found.12

As the cessation of all desires and attachments, Nirvana is necessarily the extinction of the desire to exist and the extinction of attachment to the idea of self. Thus, Nirvana also constitutes an escape from the cycle of rebirth. Buddhists regularly refer to Nirvana and Enlightenment as liberation — freedom from desires and attachments, freedom from suffering, and freedom from the cycle of reincarnation. To the Buddhist, Nirvana is the truest manifestation of religious freedom.

The fourth Noble Truth is the path leading to Nirvana. This is the Buddha's Middle Path, which is generally referred to as the Noble Eightfold Path because of its eight components: Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration, Right Thought and Right Understanding (which includes the realization of the Four Noble Truths). The way of salvation, therefore, is personal effort — perseverance along the Noble Eightfold Path until one reaches Nirvana. In Buddhism, salvation does not depend upon faith or grace, but rather the individual's realization of truth. The Buddha repeatedly emphasized that one should not rely on the authority of teachers or masters; one should not even rely on the Buddha's own authority. Instead, Masao Abe identifies the Buddha's "sure way of distinguishing from truth and falsehood" in his teaching recorded in the First Suttanta of the Digha Nikaya: "Make a trial, find out what leads to your happiness and freedom — and what does not, reject it. What leads on to greater happiness — follow it."13 Similarly, one of the most well-known teachings of the Buddha is his charge to "be lamps unto yourselves; work out your salvation with diligence." Religious freedom is a clear prerequisite for compliance to such a mandate. In Rahula's words:

The freedom of thought allowed by the Buddha is unheard of elsewhere in the history of religions. This freedom is necessary because, according to the Buddha, man's emancipation depends on his own realization of Truth, and not on the benevolent grace of a god or any external power as a reward for his obedient good behaviour.14

Because salvation depends on an individual's own ability to apprehend truth, people must be free to make their own trials, to work out their own salvation. The absolute freedom of Enlightenment requires first an empirical, temporal freedom of thought.

Religious Freedom and Social Engagement

As a precondition of individual salvation, religious freedom comes to involve, for some Buddhists, far more than mere non-oppression or non-establishment. For half a century, a growing movement within Buddhism has shifted the traditional emphasis of Buddhist practice on renunciation of the world to an emphasis on engagement with the world. During the Vietnam War, Thich Nhat Hanh, then chair of the Vietnamese Buddhist peace delegation, coined the term "Engaged Buddhism" for this movement, which "seeks to create and nurture vehicles for social action among Buddhists."15

During the Vietnam War, Engaged Buddhism manifested itself in what became known as the "Struggle Movement". Originally, the movement organized in 1963 to oppose government harassment of Buddhists, but the cause soon grew into a struggle against political oppression and for peace, utilizing tactics such as anti-war songs and poetry, fasting, strikes, demonstrations, refusal to participate in the war, aid and protection of deserters and draft resisters, and even the drastic act of self-immolation. Actions of the movement also grew to include relief, healing, and reconstruction. Buddhists evacuated villagers caught in cross-fire or endangered by an approaching line of battle, established cease-fire lines by negotiating with both sides, worked to reconstruct villages destroyed in battle, built and staffed orphanages for children who had lost their parents in the war, and worked to improve Vietnamese society by teaching new agricultural methods and basic medicine and sanitation in the countryside.16 Now a worldwide movement, Engaged Buddhism's efforts stretch from India, where the Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangah Sahyaka Gana (TBMSG) works to educate and improve the lives of ex-Untouchables, to California, where the Buddhist Peace Fellowship advocates a moratorium on executions.

One Engaged Buddhist movement in Sri Lanka, the Savodaya Shramadana Movement, articulates the connection between engagement and religious freedom in its dedication to a goal of dual liberation. Since its beginning in 1958, the movement has evolved from an organization centered on conducting work camps in depressed villages in Sri Lanka to an NGO dedicated to facilitating alternative development through vocational schools, community farms, preschools, and camps. It has also played a key peace-making role in the ethnic conflict that erupted in Sri Lanka in the late 1970s. In addition to Sarvodaya's organization of numerous peace marches, in 1994, A.T. Ariyaratne, leader of the Savodaya movement, arranged negotiations with the leaders of the Tamil insurgent group in an attempt to find a solution to the conflict.17

Sarvodaya's work should be understood in the context of its commitment to dual liberation, which means awakening, or bringing about Enlightenment in, individuals and societies together. While the liberation of the individual depends on the liberation of society, the liberation of society also depends on the liberation of the individual. George D. Bond explains:

An individual living in a society that is poor materially as well as spiritually will have great difficulty awakening to the reality of his or her own greed, hatred, and delusion. But unless some individuals awaken to these problems, social change and alleviation of poverty will never be sought.18

In Sarvodaya's commitment to dual liberation, the ultimate end of Buddhism stays the same — the spiritual enlightenment of Nirvana.19 The significance of the Sarvodaya view, however, is the notion that spiritual liberation will remain impossible without social liberation. "[B]efore people can awaken to the supreme, supramundane dimension of truth, they must awaken to the mundane dimensions of truth that surround them in society."20 In this light, religious freedom can depend on any of a number of factors, from political and ethnic peace to adequate nutrition, sanitation, or education. A war-torn or an impoverished society, politically free and religiously pluralist though it may be, still cannot enjoy true religious freedom.

Thus, we see that the Buddhism can make a valuable contribution to the conversation on religious freedom. When we engage our Buddhist neighbors, we encounter new perspectives, perspectives that challenge us to reexamine our own. For example, because Christians believe God created men and women in his image, we cannot embrace the Buddhist doctrine of no-soul. In spite of this essential difference in cosmology, we can certainly attest to the interconnectedness and interdependence of everything in our world. And as we contemplate this idea, we may find ourselves asking questions like, "What is the relationship between freedom and the environment?" When we understand our neighbor's faith, we also discover new areas of common ground that are certain to aid our dialogue and cooperation. In this instance, we find that we share with Buddhists a hope in a freedom that is not of this world. While our beliefs about what constitutes that freedom are very different, it is the belief in that freedom, nonetheless, that commits both Christians and Buddhists to a common earthly pursuit of religious freedom. All of that said, it is also important to note that this first step toward collaboration — understanding our Buddhist neighbors' point of view — is certainly not the last or the only step. The differences in Christian and Buddhist understandings of the very nature of freedom are certain to make partnership a challenge — requiring the willing to seek out practical means that contribute to the pursuit of religious freedom as it is understood by people of both faiths.

Endnotes