Well that’s a nice thing full of metta to say about me Mat. I am an aggravating internet activist. I thought I was just a Buddhist with a point of view expressing themselves in a Dhamma forum. Maybe you better not read what I share Mat if it agitates you. Just rest in your path of peace. May peace be with you! Your Dhamma friend, Laurence
I am not sure what that means but that’s OK. We do seem to be finding very different meanings in the same teaching. May you be well and happy!
It seemed to have been a statement made in joy - I will be a slave-wife! When did her path-moment take place? Was it just before she made her commitment to a slave existence? I did see the positive message in the teaching as well. It just happened to have extreme-sexist connotations in the teaching that Blind-Freddy could see! Its a mystery to me how anyone could miss it - ho hum!
One day my wife happened to take a taxi home, and it turned out that the cabbie used to work as a butler (in England). He was saying how much he missed his previous working situation, and interestingly, that no one now knows much about employing a butler. I’m just saying that we cannot jump to conclusions about things. Its not black or white and there are shades of grey. Those working on 0 hours contracts or the ‘gig’ economy for example like the freedom of it and are willing to loose some of the stability a solid contract provides as they can work when they want to. Similarly giving up one’s freedom happens when the perceived gains of stability, etc are in place, but of course this is not the case in forced slavery or any such situation.
Arranged marriage is another such issue, of course.
The Dhamma is hard to make sense of, hence the need for spiritual friendships.
with metta
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Yes, I cannot make sense of how butchery and arms dealing were easily recognised as forms of wrong livelihood due to the great suffering and pain that they cause in the lives of people and animals. Somehow, the capture, forced movement and, sale of people that had been forcibly removed from their homes, did not seem to be worth a mention for the unimaginable suffering this practice gives rise to in the lives of human beings. No wrong livliehood status for the slave trader - not in Buddhism. It would take a lot of Dhamma friendship and some very peculiar reasoning to explain to me why this wasn’t seen as a major cause for concern. We now know, according to the well-informed comments made by the Bhante - above - that slavery is not incompatible with Buddhist ethics. Great wonder!
Yes, it is wrong Livelihood
“A lay follower should not engage in five types of business. Which five? Business in weapons, business in human beings, business in meat, business in intoxicants, and business in poison.” AN 5.177
With metta
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Well that’s a relief! A lay follower cannot be a slave trader but the Bhante was willing to explain how it would not be unethical to be a slave buyer and owner. Were there any instances in the EBT’s where it speaks of Buddhists owning slaves? I guess if Buddhists could buy and own them that would be contributing to the practice of forcibly enslaving people in the slave trade? Would that be contradictory to Buddhist ethics. The Bhante saw know problem with it!
I seem to have asked the kind of question that meets with silence - yet again. How about you Dan, can you answer my question? Can anyone answer my question. Is there accounts in the EBT’s of Buddhists owning people? If so, that would be a ringing endorsement of slave owning - why not reintroduce it? We would be kind to people if we owned them - wouldn’t we? Just like the olden days Buddhist slave owners - don’t you think? Did the Buddha discourage the buying and owning of slaves by his Buddhist followers?
I wonder why not simply using the word “serf”?
“A member of the lowest feudal class, legally bound to a landed estate and required to perform labor for the lord of that estate in exchange for a personal allotment of land.”
It’s pretty close from slave but not really there either. I think it might have been a good translation.
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Most of the layity were stream entrants. This means they their morality training (sila) was complete at some point in their life. This would also mean right Livelihood was also established sooner or later. Anathapindika was known to have lost a lot of his wealth perhaps from releasing his ‘slaves’ or would have treated them in a human manner, but it is unclear as affairs of lay people weren’t recorded very well.
With metta
Yes, but righ-livliehood means not to make a living from trading/selling human beings and would not apply to being a customer. Perhaps, Bhante Dhammanando can answer the second question I asked him. He said he would try if the thread was moved to ‘Discussion’ and it has! How about it dear Bhante - can you try to explain what you had in mind about it not clashing with lay Buddhist practice i.e buying and owning slaves?
I’m with Aminah. The original intent of this thread was to discuss the use of an English translation of a word used to describe a practice that has taken myriad forms across cultures throughout human history.
The practice of requiring work from someone who is obligated to provide it not out of free will has been manifested in many ways. Most languages have multiple words to describe the varied forms that this practice takes. Choosing which word to use when translating an ancient text obviously is tricky. It requires an understanding of the practice itself in its historical and cultural context, and also an understanding of present-day usage in the contemporary vernacular to make sure that the translation is as historically and culturally accurate as possible.
English words for servitude encompass multiple manifestations of that concept. Figuring out which one is most faithful to the original meaning of a word from an ancient language is fraught with difficulties. It’s probably best to let language experts tackle this task in consultation with historians and other experts who can interpret the context in which a word occurs and help determine its meaning when it was used and how that translates both literally and figuratively to present-day circumstances.
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Yes, and in order to facilitate ongoing discussion it was determined that the threads instigator should move it to Discussion. He personally asked if this was a suitable way for enabling the discussion that had taken a different course. Maybe we should ask Stue if he would like to see the discussion return to the original theme or is he OK with the ongoing inquiry?
Looks like the Buddhist Chinese emperor Wang Mang and Asoka the Buddhist Indian emperor banned slaves in their respective empires probably as a result of Buddhism.
With metta
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Good on them but I am still curious as to what the Bhante may have had in mind? We know that killing animals and butchery is a form of wrong livelihood but being one of their customers is not a non-Buddhist practice. I wonder if ‘Ven. Dhammanando’ had something like this in mind with regard to buying and owning people? You can’t trade in people as that would be wrong livliehood but can a Buddhist buy and own people? He seemed to suggest, according to his erudite understanding of these early Buddhist teachings this may be OK.
I don’t know if the texts describe Buddhists owning slaves, although it wouldn’t be surprising, if the Buddha’s world was a slaveholding society.
But if there were slaveholding Buddhists, that should not be taken as a ringing endorsement of anything. We should avoid thinking that we can read the Buddha’s mind about the social realities of his time. The suttas give us detached and stylized third-person presentations of the Buddha and his spiritual teachings. There are very few passages that give us anything close to an intimate portrait of the Buddha, or that sound him on his inmost thinking about the events and practices in the world around him. We can only guess, sometimes, at what he thought of it all.
The Angulimalasutta (MN 86) depicts a scene where King Pasenadi visits the Buddha, in search of Angulimala, who we are told is a bandit and serial killer. The Buddha points out that Angulimala, who has gone forth, is sitting right there, presumably among the other monks. Now one wonders why at this point Pasenadi doesn’t get up abruptly and say, “Soldiers, arrest that man. And Gotama - you are under arrest too, for harboring a murderer and fugitive!”
All we can assume, if the story has any historical validity at all, is that by this point the Buddha had reached an understanding with Pasenadi, whereby people who had joined the Buddha’s order and sought refuge in it were the Buddha’s own responsibility, and would not be touched by the political authorities, even if they were guilty of great crimes. That’s quite amazing, and we can only imagine the delicate political balancing act and skill that must have gone into achieving this remarkable state of affairs: effectively a kind of sangha immunity from civil authority.
If the Buddha lived now, and he were permitted to visit a prison in a brutal totalitarian country, and speak to the prisoners and guards, how might he behave? Well, I think we can expect that he would have taught the prisoners to meditate, and practice resignation and forbearance, and to achieve a level of detachment from their surroundings and plight that would allow them to endure their captivity without suffering. And he would have taught the guards to meditate also, and to refrain from beating, abusing and humiliating their charges, and to understand how in harming them, they harm themselves.
But I feel fairly confident, from everything we know about the Buddha and his approach to society, that he would not have said, “This prison is an abomination! It must be closed! And the cruel government of this country must be replaced!” If he did that he would quickly find himself unable to visit the prison altogether.
The Buddha regarded the entire samsaric realm as a prison. And his aim was to help people achieve release from it. He wasn’t a modern political progressive activist with many schemes of wholesale samsaric reforms or revolution because he thought existing institutions and practices were bad; nor was he a modern political conservative who valued and wished to preserve existing political institutions because he thought they were good. The path to liberation that he taught involved neither the transformation nor affirmation of worldly society. It taught spiritual release from worldly society.
Perhaps the Buddha hoped that his teaching would lead ultimately to important social reforms. Perhaps. But if he had such thoughts, the method he chose for bringing about these reforms was to spread a message of universal kindness, friendliness and harmlessness, and to hope that with the gradual diffusion of these attitudes, social improvement would take care of itself.
The Buddha never said, “Thou shalt not eat meat!” But he did remind people that all beings tremble at the rod and fear death, and that a person who reflects on this will train his mind by refraining from killing.
So the fact that the Buddhist texts contain no thundering condemnations of some of the deplorable and cruel circumstances in the Buddha’s world should not be taken as either endorsements or condemnations of those circumstances. In some cases, the Buddha might have elected to remain silent, and keep his personal views to himself, because he judged that airing those views would not be beneficial. Or maybe he expressed his views to people like Sariputta and Moggalana, but they have not come down to us, because they were not regarded as part of the Teaching.
There are other approaches one could take. For example, Jesus of Nazareth appears to have been strongly opposed to money exchanging in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and led a riot there. But he was crucified almost immediately afterward. This does not appear to have been the Buddha’s approach.
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Ringing endorsement was a bit of an overstatement. What I would surmise is, if practicing Buddhists were slave owners - and Mat seems to believe Anathapindika may have had some - and this ownership was known about by the Buddha and not advised against, then we can reasonably conclude that this practice was not like breaking one of the precepts of Buddhist training. If Anathapindika was not following the basic ethical conduct taught by the Buddha he would not be a practicing Buddhist. As not buying and owning people is not wrong-livelihood, only selling and trading people is and, as there is no Lay Buddhist ethical guideline that takes the form of, ‘I undertake a training not to buy and own people’, what is there in the teachings that would prevent Buddhists from doing it - having slaves? We are encouraged to develop loving kindness, why couldn’t we do that with people we personally own?
Dear Venerable, the discussion has been moved to Discussion so you can now try to provide the answer to my second question? I am on the edge of my seat!
Why should we not own people Dan, as practicing Buddhists - if there was no legal prohibition against it? This is a serious question? Lord Buddha would not advice us against it? We would not be breaking any lay precepts. We would not be practicing wrong livelihood by buying and owning people and we could be kind to them. They may want to be our slave as well and are happy to be of service in any way they can. Under these circumstances assuming you had the room and the money to look after them nicely, is there any reason you would not be willing to own one or two really nice and supportive people in your life. What would be the harm in that?
They could give you all the space you needed when you required it. They could help you find time to practice walking and sitting meditation, read you the sutta’s which would help them by giving them an opportunity to be kind and helpful and supportive?