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16. Feb
2005: On Blind Obedience
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Shin Yatomi
SGI-USA
Study department leader
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1)
Blind obedience results when people view themselves
as a means to an end and seek to escape personal
responsibility for their actions.
2) Through learning life's dignity and personal
responsibility, one can overcome authoritarianism. |
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Early Buddhism
placed truth and justice above the authority of kings
and gods. Can Buddhism again become a religion without
dogmatism?
Obedience to authority may be deemed as a virtue when
authority
represents truth and good will. Obedience becomes a catalyst
for horrendous suffering, however, when authority represents
untruth and malice. For this reason, blind obedience—That
is, obedience without moral judgment—is the foremost
companion sought after by those perpetrating evil.
Social psychologist Stanley Milgram observes, “The
essence of obedience
consists in the fact that a person comes to view himself
as the instrument
for carrying out another person’s wishes, and he
therefore no longer regards himself as responsible for
his actions?(Obedience to Authority, p. xii). Malicious
authority thrives in any society or organization where
people view themselves as a means to an end and seek to
escape personal responsibility for their actions.
Originally, Buddhism stressed the dangers of blind obedience.
Buddhism
placed the correctness of one’s action above both
secular and religious authority. Early Buddhists, as one
Buddhist scholar points out, believed that justice must
be upheld above the authority of nations and kings; they
challenged the religious circle of the day by asserting
that truth transcends even the authority of gods (see
Hajime Nakamura, Nakamura Hajime Senshu,vol. 17, pp. 40?2).
This is exemplified in an early Buddhist text
where Shariputra, one of Shakyamuni’s main disciples,
tells a negligent
Brahman that one who acts justly is better than one who
acts unjustly “for the sake of the king”or”for
the sake of the deities”(The Middle Length Discourses
of the Buddha, pp.792?3).
After more than a millennium of dogmatism and authoritarianism
had
overshadowed Buddhist history, Nichiren Daishonin revived
the original spirit of Buddhism. In 1271, amid the crowd
of warriors on his way to the
execution site, Nichiren rebuked the guardian deity of
Japan’s warrior class for failing to “protect
the votary of the Lotus Sutra”(The Writings of Nichiren
Daishonin, p. 767). He called out to the god, “Great
Bodhisattva Hachiman, are you truly a god??(WND, 766).
Nichiren thought that what he called the “mystic
truth that is originally
inherent in all living beings”(WND, 3) and those
who spread this truth of life must be placed above the
authority of gods and deities, not to mention the authority
of priests.
The execution attempt failed, and Nichiren was exiled
to a remote
northern island. When he returned from his exile in 1274,
he met one of the most powerful government officials.
At this meeting, he declared his belief
that life’s supreme truth surpasses the secular
authority: “Even if it seems that, because I was
born in the ruler’s domain, I follow him in my actions,
I will never follow him in my heart”(WND, 579).
Nichiren refused to become an instrument of religious
or secular authority, followed his conscience and embraced
the consequences of his action with joy. In so doing,
he experienced an immense sense of freedom in his exile.
The truth of life must be upheld above the authority of
kings and gods—such thinking is still as revolutionary
today as it was in ancient India. Today, as well as in
the past, life’s dignity, truth and justice are
often invoked only when they seem to support national
interests or religious dogmas. Rarely have we seen nations
or religions willing to compromise on their interests
and dogmas for the sake of universal values that transcend
the boundaries of nations and faiths.
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as your practice of Nichiren
Buddhism helped you accept more responsibility for
your actions? If so, please share your experience. |
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Have you ever seen yourself
or others as an instrument for achieving someone
else’s wishes? How has your Buddhist understanding
helped you change such views? |
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The early Buddhist anti-authoritarian stance encourages
modern Buddhists
to be aware of the pitfall of dogmatism. Do Buddhists
say, “It’s true because the Buddha says so”?
Or do they say, “The Buddha says so because it’s
true”?
The warning of the early Buddhists also applies to the
members of any
society. Do the citizens of a republic say, “It’s
true because the government says so”? Or do they
seek the truth of a matter and then judge the actions
of the government?
The universal truth of life comes before religions and
nations. Blind
obedience to authority—whether it is religious or
political—not only obscures life’s truth but
also causes enormous suffering, as the history of humanity
has repeatedly shown us through persecutions and genocides.
People are not a means to an end. Each person is responsible
for his or her actions. To learn these simple lessons,
one must first discover the infinite value in each life
and develop the courage to accept personal responsibility—that
is, the joyful burden of freedom.
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