Creating Justice in our Culture according to the Buddhist Mind Model:

A Study on the Notion of Karma in the Early Buddhism and Mind Only in Wonhyo
Ryu, Jeidong
Research Professor, Sungkonghoe University
Is our contemporary global culture is a just culture? Are we living in a just culture? Do we
treat each other, including anyone from anywhere, with a just manner in our culture? Is there
neither oppression nor exploitation in our culture?
In this sense, then, perhaps the most obvious factor in stimulating the critical look at
Buddhist ideas within the Soto Zen school was the shock of the so-called Machida Incident
that stems from the 1979 World Conference on Religion and Peace. Machida Muneo, then
president of the Buddhist Federation of Japan and secretary general of the Soto Zen sect,
denied that any form of social discrimination existed in Japan. He subsequently recanted (in
1984) and the Soto sect admitted its long history of perpetuating social discrimination and
established numerous committees to study and rectify the situation. Still, many of those
involved began to look at the issue more deeply, wondering if there was any systemic reason
why such practices could continue unquestioned for so much of Soto history.

In the dimension of justice, our culture might be seen to be seriously problematic,

especially when it is considered from the perspective of the oppressed and exploited in
the contemporary world.
One of the most interesting responses to the critique of hongaku shiso comes from the side
of Japanese feminists, who have picked up on the theme and applied it to their critique of
contemporary Japanese society. Ogoshi Aiko, Minamoto Junko, and Yamashita Akiko made a
considerable splash with their best-selling book, Buddhism as a Promoter of Sexual
Discrimination.52 They point out that to date the feminist movement in Japan has largely
consisted in activities and analyses inuenced by Western models, and that if feminism is to
take root and be meaningful for Japanese society, it must respond to the indigenous situation.
In this context they refer to Hakamayas critique of hongaku shiso and argue that this ethos
has contributed greatly to sexual discrimination in Japan. They point out that the wa ethos
puts the burden for staying at home and maintaining the harmony of family life on women,
and this acts to inhibit the liberation of Japanese women from restrictive traditional roles, not
to mention its unconscious effect on all aspects of their daily life.
Surely no one familiar with the place of women in Japanese society can deny the claim
that women are discriminated against in Japan. The claim that hongaku shis is responsible is
another matter, and requires further analysis.

The observation and recognition of such an imperfection in our culture can prompt

us to search for means to improve it. Can we get some help from the ancient
wisdom traditions in doing so? This kind of search can be said to have been one of
the major motives in the development of the great ancient philosophical and spiritual
traditions of the world.
1. The basic teaching of the Buddha is the law of causation (prattya-samutpda),
formulated in response to the Indian philosophy of a substantial atman. Any idea that implies
an underlying substance (a topos; basho) and any philosophy that accepts a topos is
called a dhtu-vda. Examples of dhtu-vda are the atman concept in India, the idea of
nature (Jpn. shizen) in Chinese philosophy, and the original enlightenment idea in Japan.
These ideas run contrary to the basic Buddhist idea of causation.
2. The moral imperative of Buddhism is to act selessly (antman) to benefit others. Any
religion that favors the self to the neglect of others contradicts the Buddhist ideal. The
hongaku shiso idea that grasses, trees, mountains, and rivers have all attained Buddhahood;
that sentient and non-sentient beings are all endowed with the way of the Buddha (or, in
Hakamayas words, included in the substance of Buddha) leaves no room for this moral
imperative.
3. Buddhism requires faith, words, and the use of the intellect (wisdom, praj) to choose
the truth of prattya-samutpda. The Zen allergy to the use of words is more native Chinese
than Buddhist, and the ineffability of thusness (shinnyo) asserted in hongaku shis leaves
no room for words or faith.

In Buddhism, one of the great traditions, this imperfection is explained to have been
caused by the ignorance, anger, and greed in our mind. Nowadays, our ignorance,
anger, and greed might be analyzed to have been culturally institutionalized so
profoundly that not only our individual efforts but also our collective efforts are needed
desperately to cure our culture of such a fixation. Especially, our own often ordinary
justification of our own discriminatory culture by various means is a great threat to
achieving a properly just culture. Actually, in Buddhism, karma is, not infrequently,
pinpointed as the main excuse for social discrimination and injustice, making nearly
unsolvable the problem of justice in our culture.
In Buddhist societies where women are not allowed to be fully ordained as monks, women
are often told by monks that having been born a woman is a result of bad karma. In order
to remedy this problem, the only thing that women can do is to accumulate a lot of merit in
this life, so that in their next life they will be born a man, and then they can become a
monk if they choose to. Th is way of thinking makes women feel inferior and that they are
to blame for the outcome of their lives. It makes them more willing to accept whatever
gender-based violence that they experience, since it is seen as a direct result of their unlucky
fate in having been born a woman.1)

The notion of karma, however, should not be misunderstood in such a way. Buddhist
conception of karma, unlike earlier Hinduist one, according to a few studies of ancient
Indian ideas, was originally proposed, not as a principle for explaining and justifying
the existing discrimination in a culture, but as a liberating principle for a just culture.

What harm is it
To be a woman
When the mind is concentrated
And the insight is clear?
If I asked myself
Am I a woman
or a man in this?
then I would be speaking
Maras language
(in Murcott 1991, 15859)

The Buddhist emphasis on the significance of volition or intention in karmic

retribution should be carefully understood in the proposition, lest misconception of it
may lead to injustices. In short, by the properly nuanced observation and change of our
intention, we might hope to transform our attitude toward the injustice in our culture so
that our culture might become a more just culture.
Wonhyo, one of the representative monks in the ancient Silla period of Korea,
reinterpreting such an observation from a more dynamic understanding of our own
mind, suggested that our mind should be regarded as the foundational basis for the
reformation of our discriminatory culture, one of the major causes in social injustice. In
addition, focusing his attention on the oppressed people in his own country, the unified
Silla kingdom, as his own sitz im leben, he continued to make great efforts for the
betterment of their situation through various cultural strategies. As a wise and practical
innovator, he contributed greatly in liberating them from various kinds of social
injustices and discriminations. Even today, his spirit might shed some light on our
efforts for a holistic justice in our modern culture.

1) ( Ouyporn Khuankaew, "Buddhism and Domestic Violence." WFB Review: Journal of the

World Federation of Buddhists 39, nos. 3/4.(Khuankaew 2002, 23-24)