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Buddhism in a Value-Changing Society

Sri Lanka is among a number of countries inSouth Asia that have come under the influenceof Buddhism. These countries claim to have tra-ditionally cherished the Buddhist value system,and the way of life and the cultural traditionsof their people have long been nurtured by it.However, most of us today experience the rapidspread of a global culture which has been under-mining the traditional value systems of manynations of the world. Under such circumstancesthe question naturally arises whether Buddhistvalues can play a meaningful role in the lives ofcontemporary man, even in traditionally Bud-dhist societies. Are Buddhist values becomingdecadent and outmoded? In the face of the mod-ern developments in scientific knowledge andtechnological skill, is it becoming necessary tolook for a different set of values to replace theones traditionally upheld?

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What is evident is that the advent of the so-called global culture is threatening to erode tra-ditional values. How could those who still ad-here to the message of the Buddha respond tothe changes everywhere taking place?

Values can be approached from two differentstandpoints. Most social scientists prefer to takethe standpoint that may be called sociologicalrelativism in dealing with questions of value inrelation to different societies. The social scien-tist’s approach does not involve any absolutestandard for judging the goodness or badness ofthe norms upheld by a particular society. Theapplication of such an approach to examine theexisting values of a traditional Buddhist societyinvolves merely a description of the social be-haviour of its people and a causal explanationof such behaviour.

One may also take a different approach tovalues, which is philosophical and largely nor-mative. That is the approach that I prefer to takein this discussion. The question of values is avery complex one. It is sometimes said in philo-

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sophical circles that questions of value cannotbe settled in the way that questions of fact canbe settled. Most of us are aware that there isvery wide disagreement over questions of value.Therefore, before I get to the core of this sub-ject, I would like to introduce a few distinctions.

One distinction I wish to make initially isbetween what we call a statement of fact andwhat we call a value judgement. The widespreadbelief today is that statements of fact are basedon empirical observation. Accordingly the do-main of facts is considered to come within rangeof the empirical sciences. So we are accustomedto say that there are empirical facts which sci-entists discover and on the basis of which theybuild a certain body of knowledge. In order todo this they use a methodology known as thescientific method.

It is also widely held today that religions donot contain facts. Religious discourse is said tohave a different logical structure from that offactual discourse. According to this view, reli-gious discourse, what religions have to tell us,

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does not consist of facts about the world. Thisimplies that religion has nothing to do withknowledge. Religion does not reveal to us any-thing that can be considered true or anythingthat can be known by empirical investigation.

Therefore people who are interested in study-ing religion are interested mainly in studyinganthropological facts about religion. One mayconsider it illuminating to study the sociologyof religion, or intellectually rewarding to studythe philosophy of religion. In the sociology ofreligion one studies the prevalent patterns ofreligious behaviour observable in societies inwhich religious beliefs are professed, and gen-eral laws are established to explain and predictsuch behaviour. From this point of view one may,for example, study the behaviour of religiouspeople in connection with pilgrimage, prayer, orworship, and discover general laws that maycut across various religious communities. In thephilosophy of religion one may point out how areligious statement differs in its logical struc-ture from a statement in empirical science, by

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maintaining, for instance, that a religious state-ment is not falsifiable and therefore has no em-pirical content.

According to this view the religious statementsfound in any religion do not consist of any genu-ine facts. If we bring in Buddhism itself to illus-trate this view, one might argue on the basis ofthe above that the concept of pat@icca samuppa3da(dependent origination) in Buddhism has noth-ing to do with facts, truth, or science, for it is areligious concept. Any religious statement con-taining this concept has nothing to do with em-pirical truth, but only introduces a kind of reli-gious perspective about life. There is a tendencyto apply this analysis to all religions. Its appli-cation is not confined to theistic religions likeChristianity and Islam which contain the meta-physical concept of God, but is extended to covera non-theistic religion like Buddhism which inmy view is non-metaphysical and has a verydeep psychological content.

This is considered the “non-cognitivist the-sis” regarding the nature of religious language.

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According to this thesis religion is neither truenor false in a factual sense. It has within itselfits own criteria of truth and falsity. Religiousstatements do not compete with statements ofscience which deal with empirical matters. Thecriteria of truth or falsity of religious statementsapply only within the community of believers ofa particular religion.

A similar non-cognitivist thesis is affirmed inconnection with value judgements as well. Withregard to values it is maintained that ourjudgements of value—that is, judgements aboutwhat is good and bad, what is right and wrong,what we ought to do and ought not to do—areneither true nor false. In other words, values donot describe the nature of things. What followsfrom this is a relativist view about the natureof values. Values, unlike facts, cannot be provedtrue or false. Disagreement in the sphere ofvalues is considered ultimately reducible todisagreement in attitudes. This is contrastedwith the kind of disagreement that may arisewith regard to matters of fact.

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This may be explained with an example. Sup-posing two persons A and B disagree about themorality of imposing the death penalty on peo-ple who are found guilty of homicide. This dis-agreement may sometimes arise when both ofthem have a common standard for making moraljudgements, but they hold different views aboutthe relevant empirical facts. A may disagree withB because in A’s opinion the death penalty func-tions as a deterrent against a criminal act likehomicide and has the effect of reducing this crimein any society in which the penalty is legallyimposed, while B holds the opinion that the ex-istence of the death penalty never makes a dif-ference to the incidence of crime.

Such disagreement can be resolved by a morethoroughgoing investigation of the facts. Em-pirical and scientific methods can be effectivelyemployed to resolve such disagreement. How-ever, if the disagreement between A and B isnot based on their beliefs about the empiricallyobservable consequences of the death penalty,but on the moral rightness or wrongness of de-

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stroying the life of a criminal as a retributivepunishment for his crime, the disagreement be-comes one of variance in attitudes.

I said at the beginning that I wish to makecertain distinctions. The first distinction that Ihave already made is between facts and values.The example referred to above raises anotherquestion that might interest us, the question ofthe distinction between beliefs relating to factsand beliefs relating to values. Now, people canhave beliefs relating to facts, what we call fac-tual beliefs. It is quite evident that people’s be-liefs relating to facts change from time to time.It depends on how much experience people havehad, how much empirical data they have gath-ered in order to come to conclusions about thenature of existence.

So beliefs relating to facts are relative to thedegree of empirical investigation people havemade into the nature of things. There was atime when people believed that the earth is flat,but they have now given up that belief. People’sbeliefs regarding facts have changed over time.

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People can also have beliefs relating to values,and these too can change. There was a timewhen slavery was considered to be a valuableinstitution in society. But today it is almost uni-versally agreed that slavery is bad, that if itexists in any society it ought to be abolished,and that no society should allow slavery to con-tinue. Thus people’s beliefs about values alsocan change.

The subject under investigation in the presentdiscussion is the question of the relationshipbetween Buddhism and changing values. Wheredoes Buddhism stand in a value-changing world?Here, we have admitted in some sense that weare living in a world in which values are chang-ing. In this connection it may be questionedwhether values themselves are changing orwhether it is only our beliefs about values thatare changing. I made the point that our beliefsabout facts do change. But is there a sense insaying that facts changes?

I do not think that we could meaningfullysay that facts change. Is it meaningful to say

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that at the time people thought that the earthwas flat, the earth was in fact flat, and todaysince people believe that the earth is spherical,the earth is in fact spherical? I do not think it ismeaningful to say so. So we say that the factthat the earth is spherical remained a fact evenwhen people believed the earth to be flat. Butsupposing we think about values in the sameway: can we say that values have this inflex-ibility? A value at one time may not be a valueat another time. But a fact at one time remainsa fact at another time as well.

Buddhism too holds that there are certainfacts about the world, certain laws (niya 3mas),which have remained the same. They do notdepend on what people believe and know or whatpeople have discovered. They do not depend onpeople’s views and beliefs. About the nature ofcausal dependence of things, the Buddha saysthat the patterns of dependence have remainedthe same, and whether Buddhas are born ornot, phenomena occur in accordance with them.A Buddha’s function in respect of these niya 3mas

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is to point out the regularities of events andbring them to the attention of others. Can thesame be said about the nature of values?

The Buddha agreed that what people in factvalue at different times in the history of humancivilization may vary. There are some Buddhistterms that come very close to the English termsused to express values, particularly ethical val-ues, terms like kusala and dhamma. From theBuddha’s point of view what people consider tobe right (kusala or dhamma) at one time—inother words, people’s beliefs about what is rightat one time—may be different from their beliefsat another time. In the Aggañña Sutta, for in-stance, it is said: “At that time it was commonlyaccepted as unrighteous, but now it is commonlyaccepted as righteous (adhammasammatam 1 …tena samayena hoti tadetarahi dhamma-sammatam).”

This is recognized in Buddhism as a realpossibility. What people believe to be kusala to-day may not have been considered kusala inthe past. What people actually value is expressed

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by the words they use to praise things. Theirmoral values are revealed by the types of be-haviour they consider to be honourable andpraiseworthy.

In the Cakkavattisi #hana3da Sutta the Bud-dha points out that social values can undergo agradual transformation in such a way that whatis considered to be dishonourable and blame-worthy at one time may be considered honour-able and praiseworthy at another time: “Whenpeople’s life span is reduced to ten years, thosewho show no respect towards mother, father,recluses, brahmins, and the elders in the familywill become honoured and praised just as nowthose who show respect towards mother, father,recluses, brahmins, and the elders in the familyare honoured and praised (dasavassa 3yukesubhikkhave manussesu ye te bhavissanti amat-teyya 3 apetteyya 3 asa 3mañña 3 abra 3hmañña 3 na kulejet @t @ha 3pacayino te pujja 3 bhavissanti pa 3sam1sa 3 caseyyatha 3pi bhikkhave etarahi metteyya 3 petteyya 3sa3mañña3 bra3hmañña3 kule jet@t@ha3pacayino te pujja3ca pa 3sam1sa 3 ca).”

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This implies that people’s beliefs about val-ues change. But does the Buddha hold thatthough people’s beliefs about values may changeover time, there are certain values which haveuniversal validity? This is the main questionabout the nature of values: whether there aresome values that can be recognized as core val-ues by which all human beings must live if theyare to lead a life of happiness, tranquillity, andwell being.

Buddhism answers this question in the affirm-ative. There is a system of core values which canbe discovered by human intelligence and expe-rience, and these have to be upheld at all timesif human beings are to lead a decent form of life.

Erich Fromm, a well-known humanistic psy-chologist, makes some observations in his workThe Sane Society which bear closely on the pointI am going to raise. He raises the question “Cana society be sick?” and then remarks:

To speak of a whole society as lacking in men-tal health implies a controversial assumptioncontrary to the position of sociological relativ-ism held by most social scientists today.…

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To speak of a “sane society” implies a premisedifferent from sociological relativism. It makessense only if we assume that there can be a so-ciety which is not sane, and this assumption, inturn, implies that there are universal criteriafor mental health which are valid for the hu-man race as such, and according to which thestate of health of each society can be judged.(p.12)

Fromm wishes to take the position which herefers to as “normative humanism.” He goes onto say:

The approach of normative humanism is basedon the assumption that, as in any other prob-lem, there are right and wrong, satisfactory andunsatisfactory solutions to the problem of hu-man existence. Mental health is achieved if mandevelops into full maturity according to the char-acteristics and laws of human nature. Mentalillness consists in the failure of such develop-ment....

What is so deceptive about the state of mindof the members of a society is the “consensualvalidation” of their concepts. It is naively as-sumed that the fact that the majority of peopleshare certain ideas or feelings proves the valid-

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ity of these ideas and feelings. Nothing is fur-ther from the truth. (p.14)

What Fromm says about the concept of “men-tal health” applies equally to the concept of val-ues too. Buddhism can respond to the changingvalues in a society not from the standpoint ofsociological relativism but from the standpointof normative humanism.

Having this in mind, we may raise the ques-tion, “Does Buddhism provide some criterion inorder to identify a system of core values?” Mybelief is that the Buddha did this in the Ka 3la 3maSutta and many other places.

The question as to how we could discover thedifference between good and bad, right andwrong, is one which perplexed even those peo-ple who lived during the time of the Buddha.This is an area in which diversity of opinion ispossible and diversity of opinion has always beenaround. Given the conditions during the time inwhich the Buddha lived, with so many innova-tive teachers proposing various paths to libera-tion, with so many different ideologies and life-

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styles, there was much diversity of opinion overhow a person can best live his or her life. It wasdue to this diversity of opinion about the natureof the good life that the Ka3la3mas were very muchpuzzled. Many teachers who came to themtaught different lifestyles, and set up differentgoals as worthy of pursuit. The Ka3la3mas be-came perplexed because they were presentedwith mutually contradictory views about thenature of the good life. So they asked the Bud-dha, “How are we to determine what is reallythe nature of the good life in the face of thisdiversity of opinion?”

The Buddha showed them a way of determin-ing the nature of the good life. He said that oneshould not go by report or tradition, by theauthority of others, or by speculative reason. Oneshould make use of one’s own observation andexperience about the nature of life and therebydetermine what is wholesome (kusala) and whatis unwholesome (akusala). The Buddha askedthe Ka 3la3mas to consider a person who is over-whelmed or swayed by greed, hatred, or confu-

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sion of mind, and determine if that psychologi-cal state is conducive to his well being. Can onelive a satisfactory life if one is overcome by thesepsychological conditions? The Buddha requeststhe Ka 3la 3mas to reflect on this matter.

The Ka 3la 3mas agreed that when a person isoverwhelmed by greed it brings very harmfulconsequences. It does not lead to happiness, tran-quillity, and peace of mind; it only leads to dis-turbance. It does not conduce to the well beingof the person who is affected by that emotion,nor does it conduce to the well being of thosewith whom he comes in contact. When greed,hatred, or confusion is excited in any human be-ing, that person creates a world of suffering forhimself and also a world of suffering for others.

The Buddha says that the roots of evil, im-moral, or unwholesome behaviour are greed,hatred, and delusion. This can be discovered byreflecting on one’s experience. There are threeways in which people may act: by thought, word,or bodily deed. The best way to find out whetherone is properly conducting oneself by thought,

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word, or bodily deed is to reflect on the conse-quences of that action itself. One needs to con-sider whether the act performed is leading toharm or injury to oneself, to others, or to both. Ifany action conduces to harm or injury to one-self, to others, or to both, then that action isbad. So the Buddhist value system, or the corevalues that Buddhism has tried to establish, arebased on this criterion. The consequences to one-self and the consequences to others have beenaccepted as the basis. What is morally praise-worthy or valuable and what is morally blame-worthy and evil are to be distinguished prima-rily by this criterion.

Using the aforesaid criterion let us try to seehow the changing value system is affecting ustoday. We see that in the sphere of values thereis a very strong tendency to be influenced bygeneral social trends. Especially due to the devel-opment of the scientific and technological men-tality, it has become almost axiomatic today thatvalue questions are not within the power of anyindividual to deal with. This implies that val-

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ues are in some sense mechanistically deter-mined by the socio-economic conditions underwhich we live. No independent judgement is pos-sible because people act in mechanical ways.Human behaviour is mechanical. Therefore, how-ever much we try to act according to a certainperception of value, we are compelled by thesocial conditions and the social circumstancesto behave in a certain way. The value struc-tures which we try to develop ideologicallythrough religious doctrines and through tradi-tional moral teachings may be acknowledged,but in practical terms people cannot put theminto practice in their real life, for the emergingglobal culture exerts a powerful and irresistibleinfluence on people all over the world.

This situation has to be faced by the Bud-dhists themselves. The Buddhists may have avery rational and systematic value system, avery profound theoretical system of values. Butcan we live by that value system when we arefaced with these influences from an alternativeglobal value system? Are we not being carried

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away by the current and compelled to drift withit? This is the problem we have to face as Bud-dhists.

We also have become more and more inclinedto think that we need to change according tothese influences and that there is no point intrying to resist them. We think that the Bud-dhists themselves have to make adjustments,that we must change according to the times andbring our values into accord with the dominantinfluences. To use Fromm’s description, this isconsensual validation in the sphere of values,taking to be valid what most people believe.

The mechanistic view of human behaviour hassupported this standpoint to a great extent. Inthe area of human morality it is suggested thatno effort on the part of the individual to changeoneself—by reflection, by effort, by mindfulness,by developing the kind of virtues that Buddhismadvocates—is going to be successful because thesocial and material conditions of life inevitablydetermine our morality and our value system.Therefore, if from our standpoint as Buddhists

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we find any deterioration in the value system ofthe society in which we live, those changes areinevitable however much we try to preserveBuddhist virtues. This is because human beha-viour is in some way mechanistically determinedby the material conditions of living. So, it issaid, the only way to change our value struc-ture is to change the material conditions of life.When material conditions are changed the valuesystem will also change.

Let us reflect, for instance, the way people inthis country behave when they compete at abus halt to get into a bus. There are so fewbuses and many people have to compete to get aseat in the bus. A certain condition has beencreated. People do not care for the elderly andthe weak. It becomes a matter of survival of thefittest. People may speak about concern for theweak and elderly as virtues, but despite thepreaching about morality and higher values peo-ple’s behaviour depends on the material condi-tions that prevail in society. This argument is avery strong one. How can we as Buddhists live

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up to the Buddhist value system when certainmaterial conditions in society work against ourefforts to follow that value system?

I think this question is also related to a cer-tain attitude which has developed along withthe belief in mechanical ways of changing hu-man behaviour. It has been so much built intothe minds of people that we fail to take cogni-zance of the fact that we can change ourselvesinwardly. The established view is that if we wantto change ourselves, we first need to change theoutside world. There is no possibility of an in-ner change unless there is a total change in theexternal environment. It is only through achange in the external conditions that we canbring about an inner change.

Now if this were true, Buddhism would bereduced to nothing and would have nothing tooffer. If it is true that we can bring about achange in people’s respect for morality, virtues,and human values only by changing the exter-nal conditions, we should cease to preach aboutmorality and kindness and put all our effort

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into changing the external conditions.What Buddhism maintains is that we are ca-

pable of bringing about a change inwardly. Onecannot change all the factors in the outside worldin accordance with one’s own desires and wants,for the external determinants are too numerousand diverse. People have various psychologicaltendencies such as jealousy, miserliness, andcompetitiveness. These psychological tendenciesare responsible for the breakdown of social mo-rality. However, Buddhism believes that thesepsychological tendencies, triggered off by thematerial conditions of life, can be changed in-wardly. They can be changed if we understandour own nature through mindfulness, concen-tration, and wisdom. If we develop our innerselves we can overcome the outside influences.That is why Buddhism maintains that we canlive happily in this world even amidst peoplewho are unhappy, we can live happily indeedamong people who are envious (susukham 1 vataji#va 3ma, verinesu averino; verinesu manussesu,vihara 3ma averino – Dhammapada).

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The mechanistic or deterministic world viewhas totally destroyed the sense of individualresponsibility. One of the most damaging socialattitudes today is the renunciation of individualresponsibility. This has resulted in the erosionof the sense of the moral shame and dread (hiriand ottappa) to do what is wrong. All wrongdo-ings is justified on the basis of the argument,“Given the conditions that existed, I could nothave acted otherwise.” But Buddhism is not forthose who wish to resign themselves to such adeterministic mode of thinking. Buddhism is asystem which affirms the efficacy of the humanwill to overcome conditions that determine one’schoices. It insists on the importance of swim-ming against the current (pat @isotaga 3mi).

Buddhism teaches that the individual is freeto overcome external influences through thedevelopment of mindfulness, through the devel-opment of one’s inner nature without waitingfor all the external conditions to change. TheBuddhist viewpoint is that we cannot bring abouta change in human values by waiting for exter-

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nal conditions to change. It is human beingsthemselves who have to change external condi-tions. If the change does not start within our-selves we will enter into a vicious circle in whichexternal conditions determine our inner natureand our defiled inner nature sustains the op-pressive external conditions. We will be impris-oned within this vicious circle.

This is largely what is happening today. Peo-ple are not aware that they have to change in-wardly, that they must reduce their greed inorder to overcome their problems both at theinner level of their being as well as at the societallevel. In order to ameliorate the human condi-tion at the level of interpersonal relationships,at the level of social interaction between socialgroups, and at the level of interaction betweennations, it has become necessary for us to changeinwardly.

People do not realize that the problems thatwe confront result from the three roots of evilwhich the Buddha considered the basis of allhuman madness. If we do not realize this we

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will be perpetually caught up in this viciouscircle. The ecological problems, the environmen-tal crisis, the problems of international relations,the problems of poverty, civil war, and socialconflicts are all due to a lack of awareness aboutthe roots of all evil. It is this mechanistic view,popularized by the materialistic, mechanistic,technological, and technocratic mentality, thathas created a value crisis in the contemporaryworld. The only way this value crisis can beovercome is by resorting to the Buddhist solu-tion. This involves going back to the roots ofmoral evil and tackling them systematically withthe methods that the Buddha had made knownto the world many centuries ago.

The author, P.D. Premasiri, is Professor of Philo-sophy at the University of Peradeniya.

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The Path of FreedomVimuttimagga

Translated from the Chinese by

Rev. N.R.M. Ehara,Soma Thera, & Kheminda Thera

The Vimuttimagga is a manual of meditation,evidently based on the experience of Buddhistmonks in ancient times and compiled for the guid-ance of those intent on a contemplative life. Thework is composed in accordance with the classicalBuddhist division of the path into the three stagesof virtue, concentration, and wisdom, culminatingin the goal of liberation. It is widely believed thatthe Vimuttimagga may have been the model usedby Acariya Buddhaghosa to compose his magnumopus, the Visuddhimagga, several centuries later.The older work is marked by a leaner style and amore lively sense of urgency stemming from itsprimarily practical orientation. The Vimuttimagga

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is generally ascribed to the Arahant Upatissa, afamous Buddhist monk of Sri Lanka who lived inthe first century C.E. The original Pali text of thework no longer exists, but fortunately a Chinesetranslation of it, made in the sixth century, hassurvived. It is from that work that the presenttranslation into English has been made.

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THE BUDDHIST PUBLICATIONSOCIETY

The BPS is an approved charity dedicated to mak-ing known the Teaching of the Buddha, which hasa vital message for people of all creeds. Foundedin 1958, the BPS has published a wide variety ofbooks and booklets covering a great range of top-ics. Its publications include accurate annotatedtranslations of the Buddha’s discourses, standardreference works, as well as original contemporaryexpositions of Buddhist thought and practice. Theseworks present Buddhism as it truly is—a dynamicforce which has influenced receptive minds for thepast 2500 years and is still as relevant today as itwas when it first arose. A full list of our publica-tions will be sent upon request. Write to:

The Hony. SecretaryBUDDHIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY

P.O. Box 6154, Sangharaja Mawatha

Kandy • Sri LankaE–mail: bps@mail.lanka.net

Website: http: //www.lanka.com/dhamma

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Published in 1999

Buddhist Publication SocietyP.O. Box 6154, Sangharaja MawathaKandy, Sri Lanka

Copyright © 1999 by P.D. Premasiri

Typeset at the BPS

Printed in Sri Lanka byKarunaratne & Sons Ltd.67 UDA Industrial EstateKatuwana RoadHomagama

BODHI LEAVES NO. 148

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Buddhist Publication SocietyKandy • Sri Lanka

Buddhism in a Value –Changing Society

P.D. Premasiri

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Buddhism in a Value -Changing Society

P.D. Premasiri

BODHI LEAVES NO. 148

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