Over here, Clemenza! Ever wanted to know about ‘General Systems Theory’ – one of those subjects you always hear vague things about yet never quite know what it actually is? Ever wondered why we seem to love a good gangster? Well, then this is for you! To tell the truth, we would have picked this anyway for the podcast because the title was just so good! But it happens to be an excellent and very full short talk by Khemasuri on a growing area of contemporary Buddhist philosophical thought. This one requires a bit of concentration – but it pays off with her passionately argued case for embracing personal responsibility and community engagement as a way of effecting social change in our troubled world. Just like “going to the mattresses”. But in a good way…
Talk given at the Buddhafield Festival, Devon, 2007
Contents
01 ‘Evolution or extinction’ by Sangharakshita (1971) – this talk as a response; the Buddha’s basic teaching and experience; conceptual constructions of a specific time and culture – ‘pratitya samutpada’ (‘dependent arising’) and ‘general systems theory’
02 The difference between causality and conditionality; Cartesian thinking – from the holistic to the mechanistic; conditionality through the whole of human culture and experience; properties of all systems; feedback mechanisms; systems evolving in complexity – evolution and change; points of instability – the possibillity of collapse; non-predictability and synergy
03 Repercussions for how we act; the Cartesian model of the world and its effect on behaviour; systems theory, actions and consequences; means and ends as the same thing
04 Social networks, systems and change; ‘event-triggering process’ – shocks to the system and creative response; change with a community of individuals; the properties of a living community
05 What the Mafia can teach us about supporting change; Fritjof Capra’s ideas on the criminal underworld’s success; what the Mafia does well as a community; towards an ethical underworld
06 What we can do individually and collectively; the revolutionary nature of the ‘metta bhavana’ meditation (‘development of loving kindness’); actions and consequences again; taking risks; different ways of doing community; collective change is not comfortable – the validity of strong emotions
07 The importance of passing on knowledge and promoting another vision of the world; diversity; don’t leave your values and principles at home; acting from the heart; the ‘infinite game’; profound personal feedback from your efforts
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So what I want to do is I want to give this talk because I really want to say some things about how we affect change in the world and also the place of the spiritual community in doing this. In 1971, Bante Sangha Ratchett of my teacher gave a lecture called Evolution or Extinction, a Buddhist view of current world problems. In one part of this lecture he talks about the individual's responsibility for the way the world is and the role of the spiritual community in promoting change. He talks about the potential of the spiritual community being like an earthworm, an earthworm undermining the existing order and shifting the governing values of the world. And this talk is my response to his lecture. I'm going to start talking about the underlying essence of the Buddhist teaching which is known as Pratita Samapada and how system theory works as a conceptual construction of this essence. Then I'll move on to the implications of setting up conditions for change informed by this system's thinking. And then we'll look at how the criminal underworld does some of this very well. And then I would like to talk a bit about what we as individuals and members of a spiritual community could learn from this and be a catalyst for change in the world. So Buddhism in its 2,500 year history has spread very widely and has done so in the spirit of adaptation and assimilation. The Buddha in discourse defined the Dharma, his teaching as whatever is conducive to dispassion, detachment, leads to a decrease in worldly gains, frugality, contentment, energy, delight in the good and solitude. This is the norm. This is the discipline. This is the master's message. Sankarachto in the survey says the Dharma while remaining essentially changeless was capable of assuming a thousand forms because it is in principle simply the means to enlightenment. The fundamental experience of the Buddha on his enlightenment was what was called Pratita Samapada and this is defined as condition co-production, dependent arising, mutual causality. And this insight, this experience the Buddha had was transcendental. It had nothing to do with any kind of conceptual construction. It was a very particular way of experiencing the world. And in the Buddha's time it was just known as the way things are. Pratita Samapada was described by the Buddha in terms of comprehensible to the intellect and he used various ways of doing this, the four noble truths, the nidal and the chain. And these were conceptual constructs of Pratita Samapada and they were of his time and of his culture. For me today, insistence theory, which has grown out of a scientific understanding, is a conceptual construction of our time and our culture and can bring us closer to understanding conditionality or dependent arising, which is akin to the essence of the Buddha's teaching. So to begin with, I want to look a little bit at the difference between causality and conditionality and the implications for acting on these as paradigms in terms of the way we view the world. So causality was expounded by Descartes and others of his time and is often known as Cartesian thinking. And this moved from a holistic understanding of the world to a mechanistic one where there is direct cause and effect. So A causes B, you top down a tree, you process it and you get paper at the other end. So this sees the world as being machine-like, there's a direct relationship between input and outcome, it led to us understanding that we could control the world from the outside, that we were in charge, that we were separate from the world. In fact, as superior beings, we could dominate the world by our superior intellect and the world was there for man to have dominion over. Systems theory looks at the interplay of conditions which make up the world we live in and conditionality means that there are lots of different things going on that lead to a lot of other different things going on. So in a very straight materialistic sense, you can chop down a tree and you process it to make newspaper, but it also destroys habitative living beings by chopping down the tree, it uses chemicals that have an effect on the environment, it uses water which decreases the flow in the river, which means plants are affected, which means we have waste, etc, etc. So that one thing triggers a lot of different other things and this conditionality can not only be seen in the material world, but also in culture and society and our consciousness. So it makes a lot of different things understandable, but it's a paradigm shift and it's very different from the one that we are used to using in the world and it has certain properties. So I won't go into this in a lot of detail because I just don't have time, but it's important to know that all systems are holes in cells and all systems fit into larger systems. So for instance, I'm composed of cells which make up my organs, which make up me and I'm part of my family and my family is part of society and all of those are systems within themselves which are connected to other systems and it's very difficult to affect one without affecting another, things don't happen in isolation. All open systems have self-generated goals, so a red blood cell, it's self-generated goal would be to carry oxygen around the body. So we all have a purpose, there's a goal at the centre of that system and there are feedback mechanisms operating on that system which actually increase or decrease a derivation from the goal at the centre of that system and there are two kinds, there are self-stabilising which decreases the impact of anything that's slightly untoward within the system, so it strengthens the goal and there are self-changing feedback systems which means that the system evolves in complexity and the system that evolves in complexity is the one that will trigger evolution in personal terms it's how we learn and at all levels is change producing and this self-changing, this change producing feedback exists at a point of instability within a system, so the system has to be a bit unstable and not only can it lead to change but it can lead to the collapse of that system when a new balance can't be achieved for some reason, so I have a mechanism in my body which regulates my temperature, my capillary is open if I'm too hot or I shiver if I'm too cold but if neither of those are working very well I may end up with a fever, the system may break down and not work anymore and all systems have what are known as emergent properties which are dependent on the conditions and the relationships between them and systems are not reducible to parts and they are more than the sum of the parts, for instance the wetness of water cannot be predicted by the qualities of oxygen and hydrogen, when oxygen and hydrogen come together, the water is something completely different and these emergent properties can be unpredictable, literally, you cannot predict them and this is the process in synergy, so when things just work together you just don't really know quite what's going to happen, you're not in charge. So the difference between a Cartesian way of looking at the world and a systems way of looking at the world has quite a lot of repercussions for how we act and Cartesian understanding and a systems approach lead us to very different perspectives on our interaction with the world, so we would see our place in the world differently, we would have the opportunity to behave differently and we would have to evaluate the effects of our actions very differently using these two different paradigms. So in a Cartesian model and this is the one that is largely a dominant cultural understanding in our world today, is that we do something because we desire a particular outcome and we expect the outcome to be the one that we desire, we are goal orientated, we think that if we know enough we can dominate our environment, we're in charge and we would consider the means of our actions to justify the ends, we tend to be always looking into the future when we can have what we want, often we will recognise ourselves, regard ourselves as acting in opposition to others who may take what we want from us, we will act competitively and we will be in a win-lose game, so I win, you lose, you win, I lose, it's a very isolating way of looking at things, we see ourselves as very individualistic, acting on our own, often because we see ourselves as being on our own and in competition with us, we do become polarised, we divide ourselves from others and the world around us and this often leads to judgement and blame on others and their actions, if we don't get what we want, we will experience disappointment and disempowerment, we will see ourselves as not good enough and often we'll have very low self-esteem and this is really important because it is a dominant culture we have in the world at the moment, this is the way that a lot of people see themselves and the way that they interact with society, systems approach says something very different, it says this is a process which involves synergy, it's not a win-lose game but it's a win-win-lose-lose game, it's collective and cooperative, we are all responsible for the way that the world is, the world that we live in is one we envisage in our minds and through our minds, our actions and through our actions, we bring things into reality, we have to act in this paradigm without understanding the full outcome of what our actions will be, we will act in the knowledge that we cannot but have an effect with everything that we do, i.e. all our actions have consequences but we will not know always what the outcome of those actions are, we can't know everything, we just can't know everything, not only is the world complex but it is also unpredictable, we never ever act in isolation, regarding ourselves as isolated individuals is not practical, all systems can grow and adapt, evolve and learn, change is constant, whatever we do we are contributing to either change or stability, we would have an understanding through this approach that the means is just important as the ends, the means are the ends in fact, how we do something is as important as what we do, our actions which include our thoughts, our speech, written word, whatever we do bodily within the world will have an effect and actions because of the change producing feedback mechanisms within a system, actions may be very small but may actually have huge effects, the chance remark, I have a friend who says small acts of kindness save lives and she's right, that's what happens at times, it also means that if you want to produce change it's best not to conform so it's important to think outside the box, the systems approach always says we are not on our own, we can make connections and friendships with people of common interests, it is actually very important to form networks, so I now want to say something about what systems theory has to say about social change, in systems theory the emergence of social change is seen as the emergence of novelty within a system, this needs to have certain conditions to be in existence, so the instigator of the change has to be an open system, it has to be a system which is alive, well and connected to other systems, it has to be a living network which in terms of systems theory that means that it exchanges information openly, it exchanges energy freely with other levels of systems, family, neighbourhood, your nation, your community, whatever, because change is an emergency phenomena, this takes place at a point of instability, so change is always there when there is instability in a system, so the process of change is dependent on these form of conditions and I'm just going to give an idea of how you could perceive change within this kind of system, okay and this could be at an individual level, so change within me can be produced by this kind of situation or it could be at a community level or within a country or globally, so you start with an event triggering process, this could be anything from a chance remark to a cataclysmic event, the event has to be perceived in a way which it is meaningful, okay, so it cannot be ignored or adjusted to, it's shock, perhaps on an individual level, you hear something that is a shock to you, you can't accept it with your normal understanding, the individual of the community chooses to be disturbed by this event, the information is then circulated about this disturbance as to the meaning and value of it and the individual in the community cannot absorb the event or disturbance and instability, this important point of instability in the system starts, this instability can lead to all sorts of different, at least chaos, confusion, uncertainty, doubt, this can be very uncomfortable and I'm sure everybody in this room knows what this is like to have this on an individual level, you know, you can't process something, it's just very uncomfortable, you can't make any sense and there are very strong emotions here and feelings of loss of control, fear, often self-doubt, pain, all sorts of things can happen, but out of this instability and discomfort, there comes a change in the system, so there is either breakdown in the system or a breakthrough in the system, if it's a breakthrough it leads to levels of creativity, novelty and change, the problem, whatever the event triggering process and the discomfort brought about by it, is not solved at its own level, the new order emerges that cannot be predicted by the previous conditions, these are the emergent properties I was talking about before, so that's how system theory looks at how change occurs, so I now want to look at change within a community, change within a community of individuals and I want to talk about community for me means all sorts of different levels, so it's not just the people you live with, it's the people who are on site here today, it's my community as a family, it's my community as a member of the western Buddhist order, I belong to a lot of different communities and everybody here will too, because I'm going to talk about communities that want to take time to explain the systems terms, what a definition of a community is, okay, living communities are self-generating in thought and meaning and they have these properties, they have a common context of meaning, they have a free flow of information through open communication, they hold shared knowledge and rules of conduct, they have their internally generated goals as to what behaviours are acceptable or unacceptable, they exhibit a collective identity and a sense of belonging for the members of that community and they have recognisable bonds, these conditions are truly many institutions and organisations and communities from the criminal underworld to the sangha and I now want to look at how these conditions are conducive to change and I'm going to start now talking about what the mafia can teach us about supporting change, I've recently read a book by Fridoff Capra called The Hidden Connections and he talks from time to time in this book about the criminal underworld being more successful in promoting itself than multinational corporations in the conditions of globalisation that we have today, he says they are uniquely successful organisations and he identifies some reasons for this, he talks about the criminal underworld and I'm talking about the mafia for convenience, so the mafia do not originate in traditional institutions of the civil society, they are outside the box and they are not bound by conventional values or behaviour, so they are already a system within a larger system which is unconventional, which is non-conforming, because the mafia community is not bound by society's dominant values, it can challenge dominant values and provide triggers for change, they're a coalition of grassroots communities, so they are living systems which are connected to other communities in different ways, they are open systems, the mafia's communities are bound by a broad systematic perspective, a common context which relates to the meanings and stability of that organisation, they have a common understanding amongst them, they actually use global communication very skillfully to support their principles and practice, so they have what is important to an alive system, free flow of information and open communication, they employ a direct, frank and emotionally charged discourse, so they talk to people on the level of emotion and humanity, there is a strong sense of belonging and acknowledgement of the discomfort of change, they don't pretend that things are easy, so they engage people on an emotional level, they have an ability to use symbols and cultural codes effectively, so if the godfathers anything to go by, the family is very important, so there's a symbol of the family and there are cultural codes, the vendetta, which will have strong internal meanings for that system that people can relate to, so they have recognisable bonds in that way, they value tacit and explicit learning of the culture and skills of that network, they bring on people, they teach them the skills that they need to become a member of the criminal underworld, to become part of the mafia, so they share their knowledge freely, so although I think we can learn from the mafia the criminal underworld in the way that they organise themselves and how successful they are are not suggesting we adopt their values, I would like to be in a position where I can see a spiritual community promoting a kind of ethical underworld rather than a criminal underworld, we too need to promote our own values and principles and I would like to see the Buddhist community promoting change in the wider world, acting ethically is no longer an option but actually is a necessity for our global survival, we need to become an ethical underworld, we need to act on different levels to promote this, so I'm going to now talk about what we can do on an individual and a more collective level, so on an individual level we self-development, we go for self-development, we underpin how we are in the world with our ethical practice and clarity of mind through our meditation, so developing clarity and awareness is very important, I think that practicing metabarthana, the development of love and kindness is very important, I actually think of it as a revolutionary activity, it will change your relationships with yourself, with individuals, with your society, a great deal, a lot and it will change your actions as well, so that to come from a place of love and kindness is to dramatically change your inter-reaction with the world and I think it's important that we act skillfully and ethically as individuals because all our actions do have consequences, we may not know what they are but they will have consequences, so we need to act as ethically and as clearly as we can, we need to act on the knowledge that we are interdependent, that the consequences of our actions are borne by others and borne by the planet as a whole, as well as ourselves, so my actions don't stop here, they flow into the world and I don't know what effect they will have but I know that they will have an effect, by meditating and acting ethically, we work against craving, we develop lifestyles that encourage low consumption, economic sharing, right livelihood, we learn to be more contented with what we have, we can live and act in the present moment without an attachment to outcome, we can just live freely in the world from what is most important to us, ethical acts are actually self-validating, they don't need to have an outcome that we know about, they are worth doing in themselves, we can consider withdrawing support from groups and organisations that don't support spiritual values and principles and in fact I've done this in the past, I've just thought no I can't do this anymore, this is not working in the way that I want it to and we can just take risks, we don't know what's going to happen, we can just do something, we can be bold, we can speak out, we can be gently subversive, so that's all things we can do as individuals and there are lots of things we can do, there's a collective as well as communities, so we can actually be an active part of a spiritual community and we can do this on all kinds of levels, we can do it on the level of friendship, just in conversation and communication with another person, we can do it in terms of the people we live with and the people we relate to in a very small area of our life, we can do it in the sangha, the spiritual community in all kinds of ways, I do it as part of the chapter, I do it as part of an order, as part of the Friends of the Western Buddhist Orva, I belong to the Network of Engaged Buddhist, I have a lot of different kind of communities, I belong to communities of people who will take work that encourages people to engage in the world out into the world, that's an important community to meet in, people that I can work alongside in promoting change and it's not always through personal contact as well, I belong to strong communities that are with people I rarely see by keeping contact with and you know at some time in the future sooner or later we will work together or produce something together, so it's not for these people I need to see all the time, we also need to be aware that change is not comfortable, so we know it's not comfortable on an individual level but confusion exists when there's change in our society too and confusion and doubt and insecurity are part of the process of change, so to belong to a community which understands that and will support and encourage you is just fantastic to be able to have people who understand what you're doing and will support you through difficult times, I'll be with you through difficult times, it's important to understand that if we experience strong emotions it's because we're really connected to what's happening outside us, we're not ill in any way, it's not a problem, it's not because there is anything wrong with us, it's a communication between us and the outside world based on our feelings and emotions, so we need support to be able to let that sort of thing in freely and we need to be able to support ourselves to let that sort of thing in freely through our practice, the spiritual community too is not bound by conventional values and principles and this is a real strength, we practice thinking outside the box in terms of normal cultural values, we can be subversive in the nicest possible way, I mean I just think that some ways that I operate as an order member is actually to subvert present cultural values held in our society, it's very important that we recognise it's good to share our knowledge and not to hang on to it, to share our talents and our abilities and skills within our spiritual community, this is the free foam of information and energy that I was talking about which makes the community alive and connected and effective, so teach others what you know and learn from people who know more than you do, it's important, understand that the use of symbol and myth to promote internal cultural norms will strengthen the sangha, we've got loads of these, we're just sitting in the right place to do this, promote vision, it's very important that we have another vision of the world and speak of it, an open system that is alive and working well will welcome diversity, backed by common values, diversity will strengthen the sangha through learning and offer the opportunity for it to evolve, so diversity is change enhancing and should be welcomed, we can use the networks that we have to communicate our values, principles and ideas as a spiritual community, to use our centres, to use our retreats and to teach meditation ethics to others, to encourage others to self-develop, it's all important work, it's also available to any of us to join other communities to promote our values and principles, peace groups, anti-globalisation networks, friends of the earth, these are all good outfits but do take your values and your principles with you, don't leave them at home, so help the sangha just step out into the world, interact with the world, promote its vision and its values and challenge cultural norms and we need to do this in the knowledge that we may never see the results, we may never know what the results are but know that we're doing this because it's important, because it comes from our hearts and it needs to be done, we just know that we are in this for the long haul, you know I'll be doing this for the rest of my life, because we are part of what has been called by some people an infinite game, a game that has no end, we need to continue doing it. The personal feedback in acting in this way can be profound, it will increase personal congruency, self-esteem, feelings of being worthwhile in the world and all of this will release energy, you will have more of a sense of empowerment if you act in this way. So we might as well act with as much integrity and is decisively and with as much kindness, generosity and clarity as we can manage and then just let go of outcome. Act according to our ideals and principles, be prepared to be subversive, trust the process, take risks, just do it and do it with others. In the spirit of my understanding I let these words flow into the universe not knowing what the outcome will be, but may be for the benefit of all beings. Thank you. (applause) (Applause)
