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Article being replied to is at:
http://www.buddhajones.com/Articles/ReformOpinion.htmlOur organization is rife with politics. It always has been and it probably always will be. We want to think that we're above it all, that somehow the SGI-USA is different from any other religious or corporate entity. Truth is, you'll find power grabs, distortions, manipulations, and backstabbing in every workplace and every human organization.
This is precisely where reform of the organization can help. President Ikeda once made a critique of "democracy" in the Human Revolution, talking about how democracy introduces the element of "politics" to an organization. But he was wrong on this. The truth is that such "politics" is always already there. His idea of the "capable few" was a good one, but it was a political idea. The capable few were only as good as the "single unifying idea" that united them. Once a certain amount of time has passed the "capable few" tend to get replaced with the sneaky few. Byzantine politics infiltrates hierarchies the way that Stalin reached the top of the Russian Communist Party and kept himself there. What democratic processes are meant to do is to regulate and limit, and hopefully prevent such byzantine politics. That is the idea of "checks and balances" and the idea behind both the USA constitution and works such as the Magna Carta. Things like appellate procedures, proceedures for elections, referendums, review of proposed rules by representative bodies, and subjecting executives to some kind of limiting scrutiny are not things that can eliminate politics or even abuse, but they are things that can bring behaviors into the open where they become more self limiting.
In the SGI, our intense idealism often blinds us to the dark realities of human nature and leaves us naive and incapable of working with darkness to create value. We're trying to eliminate fundamental darkness when Buddhism is really about transforming it.
This is true. And the keyword is that we tend to "blind" ourselves to realities. Even obvious ones. The result is often that we come across very different from the way we see ourselves. Worse it can cause us to fall into the very patterns of behavior we see as dark when we identify them in others.
Tariq's speech is a good example. Instead of inviting transformative dialogue with the declarers, Tariq hits them with a sledgehammer.
To me the biggest problem with Tariq's speech was not that he hit "reform" with a sledgehammer, but that his speech was inaccurate and avoided dealing with the truths raised by the declaration. Preferring instead to deny the obvious and mislead people about what was said in the declaration. He chose to ignore those things that he couldn't deny, and to instead attack the faith and sincerity of those who might agree with the document. That in itself was a triumph of the dark type of politics over Buddhism.
On a side note, this is the same flaw that we see in the Victory Over Violence campaign. We reify violence, treating it as something concrete rather than something essentially "empty" arising from dependent origination. We mistakenly think we can end violence by eliminating it from our thoughts and speech. Instead, we should be practicing how to transmute the energy of violence into the energy of creation.
This is true also. By treating abstractions as if they were real, we miss the point of talking about fundamental darkness. Our biggest concern is not the fundamental darkness in the hearts of Nikken and company, but that in ourselves. It's not the authoritarianism of the priests, whom we have dealt with rather well. But the authoritarianism in people like Tariq, or more to the point, the authoritarianism in people like myself. By treating Reform people as agents of fundamental darkness, people are simply succumbing to yet another delusion -- succumbing to fundamental darkness and viewing friends as enemies. The existence of fundamental darkness is in discord, confusion, dissension, and fighting. It is also in the causes of those things. To blame the messengers of change is to mistake the symptom for the cause. The Devadatta "nature" is as alive, potentially, in any "leader" as it is in any "rebel." Abstractions are meant to help us see reality for what it is. Nichiren says he fought it in himself by "taking great care so that the king devil doesn't come around me much anymore."
The reform declaration is as idealistic as Victory Over Violence. The declarers have a clear idea of how the organization should be, and how we don't measure up to our stated goals. It suggests that the solution to this age-old problem is political. Put a better system in place, open the books, insist on accountability, end the nasty rhetoric, etc. and the whole organization will be better.
Here is where I differ with you. Because I believe that the way out of the "reification" problem is by taking concrete steps to make valid abstracts a reality. If you do those concrete things, the organization will be better. It may not stay better. It may not eliminate all the underlying problems, but those problems will then be amenable to debate perhaps. You are arguing with a simple truism.
By reifying the organization, both "sides" in the reform debate miss the point that, like all phenomena, the organization is empty of any intrinsic identity. It truly can and does change as our minds change, instantaneously. Neither a memo nor a declaration can do the trick.
It is precisely because the organization is empty of an "intrinsic" identity that reforms are needed and that people need to push for them. And yes, neither a memo nor a declaration can do the trick. But without memos, declarations, discussions and even arguments, no one will change their minds. Those who benefit from the "Status Quo Ante" will never realize that it is in their best interest to change. Those who are unhappy will have no recourse. And those who are mildly dissatisfied will never figure out why. Right now the organization thinks that it can function on it's current model, when it has been obvious for years that it can, but not well. Maybe it can continue in it's current path. But a significant number of people, including you, think that it's current path is right over a clift. Change the model and you also are changing minds. Point out the clift and someone may get mad at you immediately, but be grateful later. It works both ways. To make any abstract notion a reality takes effort. To deal with reality as a human being, takes a certain amount of abstraction from that reality. This effort must have both an "internal" (self reform) and an external dimension. For me "reform" has already occured in my mind. I'm just trying to find ways to convince other people that it's in their best interest to make it a reality.
When MacArthur "made" Japan a democratic country, the Japanese didn't really understand the changes. They still don't really, but they are making progress. Without his changes, they would probably have quickly reverted back into something more authoritarian and repressive. His changes were "seminal" to something better. When a "cathedral" is designed it starts as an abstract word in a dreamers mind. When the design is drawn up, the funds raised, and the building built, the abstract acquires a concrete and stone symbol. If that Cathedral is later torn down, that doesn't invalidate the purpose originally intended for it. On the other hand if a war Victory memorial is started before a war is even begun, there is no telling as to whether it will ever fulfil it's purpose. Sometimes people create symbols prematurely.
When the "Founding Fathers" made the declaration of Independence, they had no fully awakened consciousness that they were creating a nation. Many of them thought of their "country" as Virginia, or Massachusetts, or Pennsylvannia. The ultimate direction of the USA was "empty" at that point. But the action of creating a document and making a declaration converted an "abstract" into the beginnings of a reality. It took years of effort and a civil war to make that beginning a full reality. And the process is ongoing.
The process of taking a "dream" an "abstract notion" is always a process of creation. If we confuse this process, then we may commit the error of reifying an abstract concept. But if we never take any action. The abstract simply remains abstract.
Chris
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