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CHAPTER
20 Seeking
Alternatives
On December 8, 1995,
I received the Right Livelihood Award in the Swedish Parliament. The award
committee cited the judgment from my recent acquittal in which the court
stated, "He warned the students not to live a luxurious, consumer
lifestyle, not to worship being rich, not to admire people in power, and to be
concerned about justice and righteousness." The Right Livelihood Award is
widely considered the alternative Nobel Prize (an award I'd been twice
nominated for but didn't win). I felt very privileged to receive the Right
Livelihood Award on the same day the Japanese Buddhists celebrate the Buddha's
enlightenment. In fact, "right livelihood" is itself a Buddhist term
meaning a livelihood that is nonexploitative to oneself or others. A group of
four Buddhist monks chanted in Pali at the ceremony—probably the first time
there was Buddhist chanting in any Western parliament.
Alternatives
to Consumerism
This award reflects
my recent concern for developing an alternative to consumerism—the new, demonic
religion. It reduces life to only one purpose—to acquire money in order to
consume, to put it very crudely. This new religion is very powerful. Even the
churches and temples are building more and larger buildings, and the monks are
leading a more luxurious lifestyle. The media teaches people to be aggressive,
offering violence, crime, and sex. People learn to look down on their own
family and cultural heritage. We are urged to consume more, and this leads to
the destruction of the environment.
My main work has
always involved alternative development because I believe the present model of
development is wrong. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the rich do
not even become happier. I have come to see that alternative development will
not work
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200 I LOYALTY DEMANDS
DISSENT SEEKING ALTERNATIVES 1209
unless we tackle this
core of consumerism. Of course, we cannot match their promoters with money or
technology. But they dont have spiritual depth. That's why I created a project
on Buddhist, Christian, and Muslim alternatives to consumerism. I feel that
these three leading world religions should collaborate to wrestle with this
issue.
I planned the
Alternatives to Consumerism project ten years ago with Chandra Muzaffar, Uthai
Dulyakasem Chaiwat Satha-anand, David Chappell, and George Willoughby. It was
not funded back then, but just like anything I start, I kept pushing for it all
these years. A small Swiss and French group called Foundation for the Progress
of Humanity agreed to support us as part of their commitment to environmental
balance and social justice. The Catholic Comité Contre la Famine et pour le
Développement, also supports us, and we have the collaboration of quite a
number of friends from the three religious traditions. The project tells the
stories of simple, self-reliant, spiritual, and harmonious lifestyles that
confront consumerism.
We bring people
together in Asia, Europe, and America. It is a more or less practical forum to
meet people. In 1997 we held a big "Alternatives to Consumerism"
conference. We invited all kinds of people—Native, African, and European
Americans; Europeans; Africans; and Asians. The whole gathering was about
spiritual reflections. We need spiritual force for social justice and
environmental balance. There are many people around the world seeking something
beyond the usual development model or the usual intellectual approach. We are
seeking something that reaches deep down into our common roots. We all need the
earth, the water, the clouds, the sun. If our organizations can learn something
spiritual, we will cultivate more love and less hatred. In fact, I think the
world should concentrate on peace and the spiritual dimension of life
throughout the next century. Although we have some differences, we can work
with each other to do something for the benefit of all beings.
We have also been
working on alternative media for the past few years, since the mainstream press
and media promote violence, greed, and lust. Our friends Chee and Sok Nai from
Malaysia are producing alternative images. The so-called primitive people in
India; Christian communities such as L'Arche in France; and the Muslim Baan Krua
in Bangkok and Luang Pho Nan in Northeast Siam are all struggling within their
own religious traditions against consumerism, although they don't call it that.
We hope to televise some of these struggles.
The
Spirit in Education Movement (SEM)
At home in Siam I
recently began the SEM. The idea for SEM arose out of the need to counter a
mainstream education that promotes a compartmentalized, "head"
learning. Education has become a means to a certificate or a job. It doesn't
matter whether that job is a right livelihood or a wrong one. The only thing
that matters is how much money you make. Education has lost its ethical
dimension. SEM is based on Buddhist principles, encouraging teachers and
students to learn from each other and the environment. We work to develop and
strengthen meditation practices and artistic creativity. We must all find our
inner strength and learn who we are in order to cultivate inner peace.
Education, for us, is building friendships and having time for more than
intellectual pursuits.
We try to integrate
alternative politics and alternatives to consumerism into our courses. Our
first course, Alternative Development from a Buddhist Perspective, ran for
three weeks. It was open to everyone and was very successful. We had professors
from Canada, Germany, and India, and maechi (nuns) and monks with almost no
education. They all loved it. We do not limit ourselves to Thais and Buddhists.
We have Quakers, Mennonites, and Maryknoll priests. We run courses for
Cambodians, Sri Lankans, and Bangladeshis. We recently trained thirty Baptists
from Burma. Most of our SEM courses are very small. They are intensive and
allow deeper discussion. The subjects are all interrelated and
non-compartmentalized. We do not address the usual issues taken up by academic
institutions. Our courses always include meditation practice. We try to link
the heart and the head.
We are developing
dialogues with existing educational institutions and alternative thinkers and
educators who believe in inner spirit and environmental balance. Some of these
have included The Naropa Institute in America, Schumacher College in England,
and the Institute of Total Revolution in India. I often teach at these places,
and their teachers and students come to us. We hope to link with institutes in
Japan and Taiwan. Mainstream educational institutions
10 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS
DISSENT
are also linking with
us. They have asked us to teach courses for them. Some business groups have
asked us to run courses on conflict resolution because they feel they lose too
much time on infighting.
As part of our work,
we have revived the Pajarayasara magazine started by Bibhob Dhongchai over
twenty years ago. He started it to give voice to new ideas in education, but we
focus now not only on alternative education but alternative economics,
politics, and environmental issues. We have a related project focusing on
alternative politics. The prevailing politics promotes hatred and violence.
Most political regimes around the world, especially in Asia, are a heritage of
the colonial past. I'm looking for alternatives. We Buddhists are working with
like-minded people from different cultures and religions. Luckily, there are a
lot of people thinking in these terms—Maurice Ash in England, Chandra Muzzafar
in Malaysia, Helena Norberg-Hodge in Ladakh, Abdulrahman Wahid of Indonesia,
Bishop Labayan and Walden Bello from the Philippines, and Satish Kumar of
India, now living in England.
Lately we have been
fighting the gas pipeline coming from Burma into my country: As the local people
become aware, they want to fight for their own safety: Then, they want to fight
to preserve the forest for their children and grandchildren. Finally, they
realize that they are fighting not only for the local people in Kanchanaburi
but for the entire country: the region, and even the world. They are concerned
about the ethnic Burmese who have been deprived of basic human rights and
forced to work without pay, for the villages that have been uprooted, and for
child laborers. It's a fight for human dignity all over the world.
I only play a small
part because ultimately people have to empower themselves. Perhaps I can help
them by reminding them not to hate the oppressors. I speak with fellow
Christians and Muslims, as well as Buddhists. I don't have the ability or
network to destroy consumerism, globalization, the World Bank, the World Trade
Organization, or the International Monetary Fund. But if these things don't
change to serve the people, they will destroy themselves. They have no moral
legitimacy but only greed to drive them, and this will be their downfall.
Meanwhile, I hope that the small people, with alternatives, can survive.
CH21
Reflections
These memoirs are
being published for my sixty-fifth birthday. Sixty-five is old by Asian
standards, where you're an old man by the age of sixty. The average life
expectancy in Siam is fifty-seven for men. I feel I have lived eight surplus
years already.
When I reflect on my
life and my achievements, I see that I have managed to make many good friends.
The Buddha said, "Good friends are the whole of the holy life." Good
friends become your other self. They help you, encourage you, and are critical
of you. For me, encountering new people and strengthening old friendships has
been a wonderful part of life. I have many good friends who, like me, are
critical of the mainstream, especially friends in the West. More people
misunderstand me in my own country because I am a challenge to them, but I am
gaining more Thai friends among the younger people.
Some people might ask
if I am not wasting my time attending so many meetings and talking with so many
people. We waste a lot of fuel flying to and from conferences. We eat junk
food. Sometimes we use too much paper, wasting the trees. But I want to expand
my work to include more people who think alternatively: We must come together
to speak out. The more you talk with people in power, the more chance that they
will eventually listen. Eventually they will be fair. We can make good friends
and listen to each other. When I go to talk with the Archbishop of Canterbury
or the president of the World Bank, I don't think they can change things
overnight. But it is always good to talk. It is a sign that they are ready to
listen. That kind of exchange is essential. Sometimes you can change things for
the better. That is why I develop and maintain my international connections.
One of my
contributions to this process is that I can bring the best from the various
traditions. I recognize that my people are not really just the Thais. My
ancestors came from China. We are in debt to
212 1 LOYALTY DEMANDS
DISSENT REFLECTIONS 1213
the Indians and to
the Sri Lankans for our Buddhism. I try to look profoundly into my own cultures
with all their positive and negative elements and to bring them into the modern
world. My aspiration is to help my people discover their roots—our spiritual
and cultural heritage. Our most fundamental starting place for this project is
the breath. There is no denying that this is one thing we all share. If we can
begin here, many beautiful things will grow. With breathing, 1 feel we can even
overcome consumerism. "I breathe therefore I am" means that everyone
is important, not only human beings but animals, trees, rivers, the land.
In the Buddhist
tradition, development toward happiness is an important aspect. We develop
towards bringing our body and mind into harmony with our heart, with our
environment, with society. This is not development at the expense of the
environment or of the poor. It means development in a useful fashion. This past
July we had an economic crisis, and the value of our currency dropped
drastically. Many people were unhappy. They didn't realize it is all an
hallucination. Even the dollar might become scratch paper within a few decades.
So why worry? Our ancestors existed on fish, rice, water, the fields, and the
trees. These are our roots. We should look to the poor, to the people who are
self-reliant. Why concentrate on money?
The West cut off its
roots the year that Columbus claimed to have discovered America. Of course,
people had already been there for hundreds of years, living with their own
local wisdom. But when the West claimed superiority, they began to look forward
without ever looking back I am very critical of the mainstream Western approach—technology,
capitalism, consumerism. Even so, I learned a great deal from my Western
education. I am indebted to writers of Western literature for their social
commitment and analysis of society. My tradition alone would have made me very
conservative, even as an engaged Buddhist. English writers really helped me to
become concerned about the poor. While our Buddhist roots are very important,
these roots must spring into contemporary society. In much of our forest
tradition in this country, there are wonderful monks. However, they have no
idea about social justice. They don't know that the forests are being
destroyed. I think the West has that awareness of social justice.
But ultimately, for
me, Buddhism has always come first. We Buddhists must not only become aware of
unjust social structures. We must try to eliminate or overcome them with
awareness and nonviolence. We must be mindful. We must see suffering with
understanding, and with that understanding, perhaps we can be skillful in doing
something. Just this past New Year's Eve several of us were on our way to a
party at my in-laws' house. On the way, the car spun out of control and went
straight into a ditch. Fortunately, no one was hurt. As we were waiting for a
truck to come haul our car out, a neighbor came out of her house and told us
this is called "death corner." The tow truck driver was amazed that
no one was hurt and wanted to know if I had a special amulet. I said,
"Yes, I have the Buddha. The Buddha kept me alive. If you know the Buddha,
you have mindfulness, you have peace." This is the message I am always
sharing with others. I guess it's not time for me to stop yet.
APPENDIX
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
39
Accepta1nce
Speech for the Right LivelihoodAward
December 8, 1995
I feel very
privileged to be here at the Swedish Parliament to receive the Right Livelihood
Award—especially today. Everyone knows that the awards are widely considered
the Alternative Nobel Prizes.
What everyone may not
know is that December 8, according to some traditions, is Buddha's
enlightenment day—the day an ordinary human
being awoke from
attachment to greed, hatred, and delusion to become fully enlightened and
compassionate. Selfishness was transformed into selflessness and intellectual
arrogance into a real understanding of the self and the world—the kind of real
understanding necessarily accompanied by loving kindness toward all sentient
beings.
Right Livelihood
itself is a Buddhist term, a key element in the Noble Eightfold Path, or Middle
Way, the Buddha taught as a way
for all of us to
transcend greed, hatred, and delusion—or at least to
lessen them. The
stages on the Path are Right View, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action,
Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right
Mindfulness, and
Right Concentration. Right Livelihood means a
livelihood which is
nonexploitative to the self or others, and, as a Buddhist, I am happy to be
recognized as one who tries to lead this
kind of life. In my
own country I am usually known as a troublemaker or rabble-rouser, one who
challenges the economic and technological "development" destined to
make Siam the fifth "Tiger" among the newly industrialized countries
modeled after Japan. This "Gang of Four" already includes Taiwan,
South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore.
This model of
development has no ethical or spiritual dimension, and its technological
advances involve massive ecological devastation
while its economic
progress widens the abyss between rich and poor, even while subjecting whole
populations to the voraciousness of the
barely masked greed
called consumerism. There are no human rights within it, especially economic,
social, and development human rights, even as it sometimes pays lip service to
civil and political freedoms. This model of development is called "progress,"
which comes from the Latin root meaning madness. Since I want to be sane and to
live in a saner world, I have spent my life attempting to offer alternatives,
not only in my country but throughout Asia and beyond. To paraphrase Shumacher,
my efforts are "small" but attempt to be "beautiful."
The Thai authorities
do not always find my criticism of the status quo beautiful, however,
especially when we have military coups, which we do quite often in my country.
The powers that be become very angry with me; sometimes they burn my books, and
sometimes I am forced into exile lest they put me in jail. I have been persona
non grata with the Thai authorities since 1967, and in 1976 the Thai military
junta wanted to arrest or perhaps kill me. Fortunately, I was in England at the
time, so they only drove my business into bankruptcy. Many of my contemporaries
and students were murdered, maimed, or imprisoned. The lucky ones managed to
flee abroad. I remained abroad for two years. I wish to thank the Swedish government
and people who were most generous to Thai refugees. The Swedish Ambassador in
Bangkok took personal risks to help Thai intellectuals reach Sweden, and
then-Prime Minister Olaf Palme was friendly and helpful to many of us.
In 1991 my open
criticism of the military junta again drove me into exile. Unofficially the
junta tried to kill me; officially they charged me with lèse-majesté, an
extremely serious crime in Siam with a maximum penalty of 15 years. I was
fortunate in that the German Ambassador in Bangkok helped protect me. When I
was able to escape abroad, my first destination was, of course, Sweden. My
Swedish friends did not disappoint me. We have now formed a Thai Studies
Association among my Thai friends in Sweden and elsewhere in order to help
people within Siam work for social justice and social welfare. Friends provided
me with hospitality and arranged teaching work in Europe, North America, and
Japan. Among other positions, I was a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the
University of Hawaii and received the Naropa Institute Founder's Award, as well
as giving cours-
38
240 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT
es there. My alma
mater, the University of Wales, Lampeter, also provided me with an honorary
fellowship. Both International PEN Centres in London and Toronto elected me
their honorary member. Not only did the Thai PEN Centre ignore me, ten years
ago its former president was the instigator to bring the case of lèse-majesté
against me.
I remained in exile
for fourteen months this time before being able to return to face court
hearings on the charges oflèse-majesté. Compared with my friends from
Indonesia, Burma, Tibet, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and elsewhere, this is very
light. Yet exile can be miserable; only friendship, hope, forgiveness, and the
practice of mindful deep breathing helped me to keep my head above water. I
must admit that when I see senseless killing and human rights abuse, I
sometimes become angry. But Thich Nhat Hanh, my Vietnamese Buddhist teacher,
taught me to become aware of anger in order to surround it with mindfulness. He
says that anger is like a closed flower which will bloom when the sunlight
penetrates it deeply. If you keep breathing mindfully, shining compassion and
understanding upon it, your practice will penetrate the anger, and you will
look into its depths and see its root. When this happens, the anger cannot
resist. The flower will bloom and show its heart to the sun. The same is true
of greed, lust, and delusion.
With this mindful
practice of breathing, I learned not to hate the
military junta, nor
the corrupt politicians, nor even the executives in the multinational
corporations. I became more aware of the unjust social, political, and economic
structures as the source of injustice and violence. The rich and powerful benefit
economically and legally from the system, but they are also trapped by it, and
neither they nor their
families are made
happy.
My court case on the
lèse-majesté charges lasted almost four years, during which time many friends
and organizations assisted. They
included Amnesty
International (London); the International
Commission of Jurists
(Geneva) and the Human Rights Desk of Bread for the World (Stuttgart), among
many others. My attorneys
were wonderful,
fighting the case patiently, courteously, and courageously; and my colleagues
gave me much encouragement. My wife has always been and continues to remain a
tremendous support to me.
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH 41
I was acquitted on
the charges oflèse-majesté, which is very unusual. My acquittal made me proud
of our judiciary system, making me believe that our progressive judges no
longer blindly follow oppressive laws, many of them decrees of the military
junta, but now care more for justice and mercy. The judges went so far as to
praise me in court stating, which is unprecedented within living memory, that,
"It is clear that the defendant aimed at teaching the students to be
conscious of the essence of democracy. He warned the students not to live a
luxurious, consumer lifestyle, not to worship being rich, not to admire people
in power, and to be concerned about justice and righteousness." I was
pleased when the Right Livelihood Award Committee cited this part of the
judgment and encouraged me to go forward with new projects.
My latest projects
concern interfaith Alternatives to Consumerism and the Spirit in Education
Movement (SEM). The Foundation for the Progress of Humanity (France,
Switzerland) has helped initiate the first project which calls for Buddhists,
Christians, and Muslims to work together in developing awareness of the
problems of consumerism and demonstrating viable alternative ways of living.
The second project, SEM, has already begun with assistance from the Sharpham
Trust (England) and the Heinrich Boll Foundation (Germany). We have already
given courses and will initiate SEM formally with a public event on December
12, with the Head of Shumacher College (England) as keynote speaker. I hope SEM
will provide an alternative to prevailing educational trends which concentrate
on the head rather than the heart and reward cleverness without regard to
ethics. The Naropa Institute (Boulder, Colorado) already attempts to introduce
engaged Buddhism as part of its curriculum, that is, to teach its students how
to confront suffering and be mindful of ways of overcoming it nonviolently both
at the personal and the social, economic, and other structural levels. The
Institute ofTotal Revolution (Vecchi, Gujarat, India) also trains in a Gandhian
method of education.
At SEM we try to
develop friendship in the Buddhist sense of kalayanamitra, among students and
teachers—to learn from each other and from the environment; to develop
meditation practice and artistic creativity; to understand and respect
indigenous cultures; to
242 LOYALTY DEMANDS DISSENT
plant seeds of peace
within ourselves and our world; to develop beauty, goodness, and critical
self-awareness in order to become transformed personally. This, in turn, will
lead us to care less for ourselves and more for others; to combine
understanding and compassion; to work for social justice and ecological
balance; and to develop Right Livelihood as part of our Buddhist practice.
SEM participants will
not avoid contact with suffering or become separate from our awareness of
suffering in the world but will find
ways to alleviate
suffering wherever it is found. Above all, they will try to understand the ways
in which prevailing economic, social, and political systems contribute to
suffering, to violence, and to the culture of violence that surrounds us, in
order to provide a countervailing force of nonviolence, compassion, and
understanding.
At the deepest level,
the causes of suffering are always greed, hatred, and delusion. At the more
immediate level, these causes have become
embodied in
consumerism, militarism, compartmentalization of thought and practice (e.g.,
the use of such strategies as "social engineering"), and the
separation of efforts to resolve social problems from the process of personal
transformation.
In SEM we hope to
understand that the knowledge we presently possess is not changeless so that we
can learn and practice nonat-
tachment to views, to
become open to receive the truth that resides in life and not simply in
conceptual knowledge. I hope SEM participants will be able to learn throughout
their entire lives and to observe the reality of the world and within ourselves
at all times.
In order to do this,
and not to lose ourselves in dispersion in our surroundings, we need to
practice mindfulness, especially the breath-
ing which brings us
back to what is happening in the present moment—with what is wondrous,
refreshing, and healing both within and around us. We hope to continually plant
seeds of joy, peace, and understanding in ourselves in order to facilitate the
ongoing work of transformation in the depths of our consciousness.
I am very grateful to
be in this wonderful company, to be accepting this Right Livelihood Award, and
to be able to share with you
some of my work, my
hopes, and my dreams. I welcome all participation in our projects, especially
in the new work on Alternatives to Consumerism and in the Spirit in Education
Movement. It would
ACCEPTANCE SPEECH
1243
be wonderful to
welcome any of you as teachers and/or students in our SEM courses.
Before I thank you
all, both for this wonderful award and for your interest in our work and
projects, may I ask the four Buddhist monks—constituting the Sangha—from Burma,
Siam, England, and Germany,
to chant words of the
Buddha for peace and happiness of all sentient beings.
Sulak Sivaraksa
Stockholm, Sweden
December 8, 1995
