Several years ago I wrote a post about the expected scope of this research project. I wanted to clarify what kind of operation I was performing in studying the intersection of Buddhism and anarchism. In that post, out of a healthy abundance of skepticism, I concluded that a reasonable outcome would be to find an argument in support of Buddhists engaging in anarchistic political action. While individuals and groups within them might come to overlap, the ideologies in question would remain separate. I still think that this is a reasonably cautious hypothesis with a lot of evidence supporting it.
That said, I have by this point thoroughly broken my own rule. In retrospect, this was probably inevitable. When you stare too long into emptiness, as the saying goes, it has a tendency to stare back into you. At least on a personal level, I can no longer properly distinguish where the Buddhism ends and the anarchism begins. I can’t promise that this insight will be the same for everyone who investigates this subject. But I can say that with some confidence that this understanding is intimately informed by my own practice. I have seen it for myself and know it to be true. If I had to sum it up into a short sentence it might go something like: “Emptiness is freedom and freedom is emptiness”. Think about that if you like. But, while that may mean something profound to me, from the observer’s perspective it might seem like just the kind of cryptic message that we had hoped to demystify. I have to admit that despite my desire for clear logical certainty, the mystery is what drives the movement after all.
While a turn toward mysticism may be a loss for scholarly objectivity, I’m not in the least bit concerned. I never claimed to be a scholar and never plan to become one. I have discovered that my role is to synthesize existing research in order to discover new possibilities for practice. If you make your mind a strange enough stew of ideas, something interesting is bound to “mystically” emerge all on its own. I have always been a doer at least as much as a thinker. I can’t really dive into any topic without becoming consumed by it and driven to try it out in the real world. So it is no wonder that the puzzling and paradoxical features of this mixture of religion and politics found its way into my daily life, on and off the meditation cushion.
I will continue to tease out the historical narratives as best as I am able. I think this is a very important part of the process. But readers should also expect more posts in the near future like “Fragments of a Buddhist Anarchism” and “On Selves and Masters“. These have a more declarative, affirmative, and confident tone. They have little regard for clean categorical delineation, and are by nature messy, contradictory and emotionally charged. They read more like gospel (or craziness) than research.
When I began this project I wasn’t sure that a coherent and practical synthesis would be possible, and so I hedged my bets. Now all bets are off. The treasured storehouses of dogma and theory have been broken open by the rebels. The priests are screaming and running around, tripping on their robes in holy consternation. They can cry “stop, thief!” as piteously as they like. But the crime once committed cannot be undone. The vital potential they so jealously guarded has already been liberated by none other than itself.
So, from this point onward, as long as it makes sense to, we will be experimenting on Buddhist theory and reassembling it into means which might be useful for our ends. Some things might get broken in the process, but they can always be reassembled. Ideology, a set of “coherently articulated ideas and practices”, is a bit like Lego blocks. Maybe you get started by getting a few sets which come with nice instruction booklets for building specified models: Spaceships, dinosaurs, fire trucks, towns, scenes from movies, and so on. But over time, if you are anything like me, the component bricks all found their way into a big unsorted tub of chaos. Maybe you were neater and kept them sorted by size or color, but even so the point is the same. Ideologies are like the packaged sets we are sold: They come with instruction booklets, suggested modifications, and the exact type and number of bricks needed to make the model “as advertised”. Following the instructions with the correct parts produces consistent and homogenous results. But over time, some bricks get lost, others broken. Old models become boring; others break when dropped by a careless sibling. This is just nature taking its course. For a child, true creative freedom begins when they decide to pick up the pieces and make something new. The parts may be the same, but the pattern and purpose may be radically altered. This way lies infinite fun space, where time and pieces, not imagination, are the only limits.
So, in this metaphor ideologies are the prepackaged sets we are instructed to assemble ourselves into (for better or for worse). Their components (ideas and practices) are the blocks. Most ideologies which we inherit in this age of fracture and fragmentation are already ruined. What’s worse, the instruction booklets are missing steps, pages, or are absent altogether: All we have to go by is the picture on the box. And what would be the fun in doing that, anyways? We have this great big box full of parts to play with. We can create and destroy to our heart’s content. And most importantly with toys (and metaphors) like these, the fun only ends when we start clinging to our cherished favorite creations. This arrests development. Without the destruction of the old there is no possibility of making something newer and more interesting tomorrow. Acknowledging and accepting this is a step into maturity and wisdom, Sadly, even many adults have failed to understand this.
As for our ideas, namely Buddhism and anarchism, taking this step means taking responsibility. We are, as one blogger remarked, alive and practicing for around 1-3% of the 2,600 year history of Buddhism, and so as Buddhists bear a responsibility for developing it 1-3%. Anarchism, being a mere 200 years old, is only 7.6 % as old as Buddhism. And consequently, those of us who dare to call ourselves “anarchists” and practice it for the majority of our adult lives, bear responsibility for at least 20% of its existing history. Preservation, in a rapidly changing and imperiled world, is a losing battle. Change, adaptation and ultimately evolution are the only way ideas, as well as the species whose brains, stories, libraries, and computer networks hosting them can survive.
Our entire world is rushing headlong into an era of creative destruction. To survive all current organisms are going to have to transit a shrinking evolutionary bottleneck. Most will not. Humans could be among those who fail to pass through. But in the event that we do somehow survive, what emerges on the other side—biologically, culturally, technologically—will be utterly unlike the beings which entered it in the 21st century. Our ideas are subject to the same pressures. They are also our oldest and most powerful tools. Part of preparing ourselves for the future is assembling ideological toolkits which might give life and freedom a better chance of survival. On this point anarchism and Buddhism agree: we and we alone are responsible for our freedom. No one is coming to save us. We are the ones we have been waiting for.
So, without reservation, let’s turn over the box full of assorted ideas and practices. Dump that shit all out on the floor. Make something good out of the bits.
The first models we must disassemble are the sectarianisms. They are elaborate, scholarly edifices meant to preserve the idea of an idea and then produce, package and sell this abstraction. Where the original idea — much less the thing it represents — got off to while the sectarians were building their temples is anyone’s guess. I would check with the rebels from several paragraphs back. Curiously, they left most of the golden statues and jeweled hats and even most of the books behind. Taking a careful account of the storehouses, the priests were shocked to discover that almost nothing of value had been stolen. And yet, they bemoaned, something essential must be missing. If it wasn’t, how do you explain this terrifying emptiness? It feels like anything could happen next.
The fear of freedom is as deeply ingrained in human nature as is the quest to find it.
Whatever synthesis is happening here, the label “Buddhist Anarchism”, or any similar combination thereof, hardly feels adequate. While it may be descriptive of a certain paradoxical combination of abstract ideological categories, it can only be attractive to a few weirdos like you and I. To be honest, whatever we end up calling this thing, if it has any potential to live and grow it probably won’t describe itself with any word that ends in “-ism”. These words are fit for scholars, priests and zombies. But for the living, names are just what we call the thing we are doing right now — If we even feel the need to call it anything at all.
So rather than being pedantic and stuffy about the whole thing, lets be a bit silly and creative (don’t worry, dear reader, for the most part I will continue to keep up appearances of stuffiness and pedantry in “serious” writing). One idea that presented itself to me a few weeks ago and made me chuckle was “Non-dominational Buddhism”. Non-denominational religious movements seem to be pretty popular, at least in the USA. They’re usually weird and fucked up too. That sort of fits. If you’re reading this you’re probably some kind of weird and fucked up, but in a good way. So why not be weird and fucked up people who fight against domination as well as denomination? I think that more or less gets the point across. Not so much as a definitive endpoint than as an amusing signpost pointing vaguely to “over there”.
No Selves, No Masters 