Shangri La Criticism, Life Recipes and Bhutan
Nagarjuna N
who view the world through a very different perspective than those in
the West.
The Wikipedia free encyclopedia describes Bhutan this way:
Gross National Happiness (GNH) is an attempt to define quality of life
in more holistic and psychological terms than Gross National Product.
The term was coined by Bhutan's King Jigme Singye Wangchuck in 1972.
It signaled his commitment to building an economy that would serve
Bhutan's unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values.
The concept of GNH claims to be based on the premise that true
development of human society takes place when material and spiritual
development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other.
The four pillars of GNH are the promotion of equitable and sustainable
socio-economic development, preservation and promotion of cultural
values, conservation of the natural environment, and establishment of
good governance.
The entire country of Bhutan is mountainous except for a small strip
of subtropical plains in the extreme south which is intersected by
valleys known as the Duars. The elevation gain from the subtropical
plains to the glacier-covered Himalayan heights exceeds 7,000 meters
(23,000 feet). Television was first introduced to Bhutan in 1999.
Bhutan's traditional economy is based on forestry, animal husbandry,
and subsistence agriculture, but these account for less than 50% of
the GDP now that Bhutan has become an exporter of hydroelectricity.
An extensive census conducted in April 2006 resulted in a population
figure of 672,425.
Thimphu is the capital and largest city.
Bhutan is one of the most isolated nations in the world; foreign
influences and tourism are regulated by the government to preserve its
traditional Tibetan Buddhist culture.
Bhutan is often described as the last surviving refuge of traditional
Himalayan Buddhist culture.
Bhutan is linked historically and culturally with its northern
neighbor Tibet, yet politically and economically today's kingdom has
drawn much closer to India.
Some Thoughts on Bhutanese Culture :
By Diederik Prakke
Maslow and others have presented the needs of (human) beings as a
hierarchy: In the first place we need food, then shelter, and
subsequently non-material goods such as peace, meaningful employment,
love and spiritual development.
Defining the basic needs of human beings helps to overcome the
drawback of traditional economic science: That all desires of human
beings are seen as equally valid. Moreover, the hierarchy of basic
needs also facilitates to distinguish true and long-term from false or
momentary satisfiers; to distinguish real food from drugs.
Stable happiness flourishes if the material needs are sufficiently met
and the higher needs met in abundance by true satisfiers. Moreover
happiness is more stable, if the roots are steadfast. In fact
happiness becomes unconditional and indestructible if it is based no
longer on any wish or condition, but on understanding the truth.
Individuals, who wish to live in such a state, thus need an
understanding of the truth, and methods that remove the blockages that
prevent love and activity to manifest freely from that basis.
A government that is not only concerned about the material well-being
of its citizens, but also wishes to enhance the Fulfillment of the
emotional and spiritual needs, may therefore Endeavour to make such
vision and methods available. Since this is precisely what the
Buddha's teachings are said to offer, Bhutan may well turn in the
first place to its own heritage and explore how its wisdom can be
presented inways that inspire interested individuals of today.
In focusing on the spiritual dimension of development, I do not
suggest that the 'lower' needs can be forgotten or looked down upon.
In fact both the hierarchy of needs, and the Buddhist notions of
absolute and relative truth urge to pay attention to the immediate
concern or bottleneck an individual or society experiences. Thus
Bhutan cannot afford only to do what this article will do: Reflect on
the ultimate and subtle aspects of development. Bhutan will have to
look into economic inequity, elite control of power, and the like. I
will indulge in higher reflections only in the hope that this will
eventually contribute to better approaches on all levels inthe
relative world.
Within our everyday experience we do have unconditional gaps, in which
real joy and appreciation happen, for example when we are suddenly
amazed to look out of our window and see the word covered by snow, or
when we are delighted by the song of the first birds in spring.
But other than that, even what we think of as pleasurable, has the
taste of dissatisfaction, struggle. There is struggle because we want
to arrange and keep our pleasures so badly,
or invest so much in pretending indifference to ease the pain of
loosing them.
This pervasiveness of suffering may need some comment, for this is
what is rare and subtle in the Buddha's teaching. The Buddha saw that
not only the death of a relative or a fight
with a friend is painful, but that all our conditioned actions express
dissatisfaction with who we are. Most religions (and Buddhism, if not
correctly understood) acknowledge
suffering, but suggest that if you do your best a little more you will
overcome the 'bad', either by escaping to heaven or by attaining a
blissful state in this life. According to the experience of the Buddha
such self-improvement projects lead just to further imprisonment,
because they still express dissatisfaction with or denial of who we
really are. Buddhism teaches that there is no way out, though there is
a way in.
Because of this view of the inevitability of suffering or anguish,
which is at the same time the seed of love and compassion, Buddhism is
sometimes considered a negative
religion. This argument actually flips around when well considered.
The view of those who maintain that they are already perfectly happy
is grim, for they refuse to acknowledge and relate to the depth of
their experience. And the view of those who admit that there is
suffering but promise that there is a way out is equally grim, because
their happiness depends on future hope and promise, and a refusal to
take experience as it really is just at this very moment.
There are many ways to increase one's experiential awareness of
anguish, such as asking oneself whether one leads the life one dreamt
of as a child, contemplating impermanence, or
imagining the pain of oneself and others. The purpose of such
exercises is not to increase daydreaming as escape from the present
moment, but to open ones heart. Exercises of this
kind can also help to see how vast the unnecessary part of pain is:
Most suffering is not the direct, brilliant experience of the moment,
but the agony of hope and fear of how the
situation should or may change.
The Buddha went on to teach that anguish arises based on rejecting and
resenting reality,
which in turn is based on a misconception. Rejecting and resenting is
almost the definition of suffering, because we suffer when we are
united with what we do not want, when
we have a rejecting I-don't-want-mind. And the same holds for
dwelling: When we have what we want, we want to keep it, and suffer
because we have a mind that wants to maintain a
phenomenon which is certain to fleet, because impermanence is the
nature of all phenomena.
The second Noble Truth points at our secondary emotions. Our primary
emotions of jealousy, pride, greed, anger, passion and stupidity are
not a problem we can fight. The problem arises when we impute a
problem and follow secondary strategies to express or suppress the
primary
manifestations of our confused enlightened mind. We may think of how
peaceful life would be if our primary emotions would not arise, but as
long as they do, we might as well
make friends with them, developing a deep and tender curiosity, rather
than the judgmental attitude of our secondary emotions. Because we
cannot at once refrain from these habitual tendencies, Buddhism has
many suggestions on how to deal with our secondary confusion. We can
practice them not as punishment, but to develop a joyful understanding
of who we are.
The third Noble Truth is the subtlest of all, the hardest to fully
assimilate. It asserts that our dwelling and rejecting mind arises
based on the sub-conscious misconception of
taking awareness to constitute a self, implying that overcoming this
misconception causes the cessation of the experience of pervasive
anguish. The tradition of logic and debate in Himalayan Buddhism
establishes this view, by proving that neither sentient beings nor
phenomena
constitute a permanent self, but that unenlightened beingssub-
consciously do impute permanent entities, and that that projection is
the cause of all their suffering.
This Middle Way avoids the extremes of imputing permanent existence or
total nonexistence.
The strength of these teachings is to leave the gap of unknowing wide
open when our thoughts reach the limits of conceptual mind, rather
than positing soothing answers.
Many people feel encouraged and validated by the statement of their
religion that there is a God who loves and takes care of all of us.
Others take pride and find identity frominferring the opposite: That
no such being(s) exist.
But Buddha did not confirm people in either of such artificial faith:
He considered his students mature enough to live in the fathomless
groundless wisdom of unknowing.
Combining the second and the third Noble Truth we now understand why
the Buddha never intended to give life recipes. Many people who turn
to religion are looking for just that: Guidelines that tell them what
they should do to be good boys and girls. Compelled by compassion the
Buddha and later teachers did give instructions on practical
livelihood, but never to validate practitioners, and always as a
temporary concession to help beings on their way to gain certainty in
the highest view. Such skilful means may be compared to the finger
pointing at the moon: To find the moon the pointing finger is useful.
But once one has discovered the moon, one should discard the pointing
finger.