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ENLIGHTENED POLITICS

IN SAṂSĀRA

Just before Donald Trump took office as President of the United States, he expressed a
willingness to wage a “preventive” war in North Korea, a prospect that previous US Presidents
dismissed because it would risk an enormous loss of life. However, his increasingly bellicose
rhetoric of hate and fear aimed at North Korea of late has pushed the US and the communist
dictatorship to the brink of nuclear war. Should war breaks out in the Korean peninsula,
thousands will die, there will be economic ruin, and pain and suffering will affect millions of
people in Asia. The leadership in Washington and Pyongyang seem to have a lot of trouble
understanding this.

Closer to home, the politics of hate and fear has also become a daily phenomenon as the
date for the general election gets nearer. This is the season where politicians sow the seeds
of disunity, fear, and hate among the voters. They seek to advance themselves by destroying
their opponents’ reputations and careers. It becomes worse when religion is made use of by
politicians for their political goals. But politicians fail to understand that there is an inherent
problem in trying to intermingle religion with politics. The basis of all religions is morality,
purity, and faith, while that for politics is power. History has shown that religion is often abused
by politicians in power to justify their indiscriminate arrests and persecution of those in the
opposition. When religion is used to pander to political whims, it has to forego its high moral
ideals and become debased by worldly political demands based on greed, hatred, and ignorance.

As Buddhists, it is our duty to remind our politicians to practice positive politics of kindness,
inclusiveness, and openness if they expect us to vote for them. They have to practice what is
called enlightened politics. The notion of enlightened politics points to two facts of life. First,
every human being, irrespective of ethnicity or religion, wants peace, freedom and happiness.
Second, we live in a multi-racial and multi-religious community that bind our well-being to
the well-being of others. The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls it “interbeing.” It
means that our action has repercussion – both positive and negative - on others. We should
also remind our political leaders of the old Zen saying: “There is no place in the world to spit.”
This means there is no place we can ignore, defile or persecute others because we ourselves are
everywhere.

So is enlightened politics even possible in saṃsāra? Yes it is if we truly believe and practice the
ideal of democracy, which emphasises honesty, inclusiveness, openness, and human dignity.
These are also the qualities and insights taught by the Buddha. Every Buddhist should have this
ideal in mind because a happy world starts with us. This is the message of peace and hope for
the future that as a Buddhist we should make known to all politicians who will receive our vote.

As John Lennon said in his famous song, “Imagine”,
Imagine all the people,
living life in peace.
You may say I’m a dreamer,
but I’m not the only one.
hope someday you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.