Buddhism is one of the largest and oldest religions in the world, having been founded in approximately 500 BCE and currently possessing the third largest number of adherents of any world belief system.
Over time, the fields of quantum mechanics, existentialism, phenomenology, and physics have all found parallels between their own theories and the theories of Buddhist thinkers throughout history. In addition, many concepts in the field of therapy such as a focus on the present moment and the belief that much of the turmoil human beings face originates not from external stimuli but from our own anxieties and psychological baggage were written about again and again by both Siddhartha Gautama, the historical founder of Buddhism, and those who followed in his footsteps.
In addition to finding common grounds with transhumanists, scientists, philosophers, and therapists, Buddhism has long been engaged in the world of social activism. Many of those engaged in activities pertaining to environmentalism, human rights, antiwar activism, and similar activities consider themselves Buddhist or ally themselves with its philosophy.
Many organizations, such as the Zen Peacemakers, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and Buddhist Global Relief are founded as both sanghas (Buddhist congregations) and politically and socially active groups . But this was not always the case. In fact, at various points in its history, Buddhism was not only unconcerned with improving the world, but actively discouraged working to improve living conditions on this planet. However as James Hughes points out in an interview by Tricycle; The Buddhist Review, future technology, in this case that of pills to help one understand and feel what it is like to be enlightened will radically change the frontier of Buddhist meditation. James Hughes believes in improving the world and our minds with state of the art technology. “I sometimes describe the Buddhist Transhumanist project as a “Pure Land effort.” We want to build an environment that maximizes our capacity for spiritual growth and understanding, or, to use a more secular term, for more flourishing. Our effort would have a purpose different from simple self-gratification.”
Buddhism was founded in ancient India by Siddhartha Gautama, a young prince who traditionally left his family at the age of 28 to live the life of a traveling ascetic. After years of studying Hinduism, the story goes, he meditated under a tree and achieved enlightenment. As it would take several pages to even begin to define the term enlightenment, and as its definition is not the purpose of this paper, it is enough at this juncture to say that enlightenment in this context involves and certain understanding in to the way the universe works, and humanity’s ultimate place in it. At first Siddhartha feared that no one would understand what he had just become aware of, and decided not to teach it at all. However, he ultimately came to the conclusion that others were bound to comprehend what he had learned, and that even if only a few understood it, he still had an obligation to teach. As we will see, both the feeling that other human beings will not understand and are therefore not worth the time, and that if there is a possibility for others to be helped by Buddhism that it is necessary for those following it to at least make an attempt to help, permeate Buddhist thought throughout history.
Early Buddhism was revolutionary due to the equality it believed that all human beings possessed. We will see this same way of thinking about equality amongst the posthuman as well. The Hinduism that Buddhism derived from believed in a caste system, in which a person is born in to a social stratum and that this stratum is their lot in life. There was no hope of raising one’s position in society, as one’s class was decided by how they had acted in previous lifetimes, and was ultimately ordained by the gods. If a person wanted to move upwards in Hindu society, their best chance was to obey those of the castes above theirs in the hierarchy, and especially to obey the dictates of the Brahmins, the Hindu priest caste. Buddhism held that every human being was equally capable of achieving the enlightenment that Siddhartha had, and that they did not require the Hindu caste of priests, or even the Hindu pantheon of deities, as intermediaries, to the point that his last words were “Be lamps unto yourselves. Work out your own salvation with diligence.”
Siddhartha’s philosophy was concerned on relieving suffering for humans and other forms of life, with metaphysics and beliefs in the spiritual being considered unimportant. Famously, Siddhartha once said that someone who would not follow Buddhism until they were told what happens after death, whether deities exist, etc. was similar to “a man shot with an arrow who refuses to have the arrow removed until he is told who shot the arrow, what caste the archer came from, whether they were tall or short, old or young… Such a man would surely die before the arrow was removed.” Because of its derivation from Hinduism, early Buddhism took for granted the existence of reincarnation and the Hindu pantheon, though neither is ever supported by the oldest records of what Siddhartha actually taught.
Though everyone was equally capable of enlightenment, women were not given equal footing time with men. Though the way they were treated by early Buddhism was superior to their treatment in Hinduism, they were still second class members of the religion. Traditionally, Siddhartha would not even allow women to ordain and become monks until convinced by one of his students.
After Siddhartha died, Buddhism evolved in to a set of schools that were later given the pejorative term “Hinayana” or “Lesser Vehicle” by their opponents, the “Mahayana” or “Greater Vehicle” schools. The only one that still exists is Theravada, or “The Teaching of the Elders”, Buddhism. The aforementioned Buddhist Global Relief, which is primarily concerned with helping victims of natural disasters, and the Mind Body Awareness Project, a California group which attempts to use Buddhist meditation techniques and modern therapy to help recovering drug addicts, are affiliated with Theravada, and as a school it is predominantly present in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Malaysia.
The early, pre-Mahayana, schools kept Siddhartha’s focus on the here and now, without worrying about metaphysics. They also followed a philosophy of compassion for all living things and strict sense of pacifism (Buddhism has a much shorter history of religious crusades than most every other organized religion as violence was (and is) never considered justified, even to “spread” or “defend” the faith; an idea which will surely be present with onset of human cognitive enhancement.)
Additionally, the early schools were very concerned with renunciation of the world and of its ways. The world as it appears was considered transitory and illusory, and the primary concern was to achieve enlightenment or a good situation in an adherent’s next life. This created a general view being concerned with social injustice or improving the condition of living on Earth was considered at best a waste of time and at worst a distraction from tasks that actually mattered.
Though the early schools kept the focus away from metaphysical theorizing, they moved from the individualism and equality of “be lamps unto yourselves” to a sense that only ordained monks could attain enlightenment, and that the laity’s role was to support them and in doing this be reborn in their next life as someone with the type of mindset to be ordained. Monks went through the streets every day begging, and in return ran schools and gave lectures on Buddhism. In many southeastern Asian nations, Buddhist monks are still the primary teachers of young children.
The early schools of Buddhism, while engaged in social services such as education and in generally peaceful and progressive beliefs, was in general too renunciatory to on any large scale engage in social activism on the part of the monks, and relegated the laity to the position of simply praying and giving monks donations, as these were viewed as the practices most beneficial to a layperson. Some Buddhists recognized this and, taking matters in to their own hands, created the foundations of the Mahayana schools.
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Source: ieet.org
