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Oryoki
The monk does not go out with a five gallon bucket to provision himself for a week or a month; he takes a bowl just big enough to hold the food he will need for that day. On occasion I am sure he returns and his bowl does not contain enough food and there are days when the bowl is overflowing with more than he could eat. I image in the end it all evens out and his fellow monks share with him during his lean days and he is happy to do the same for them. It may appear at first glance that the monk is the recipient of the generosity of his community; however giver and receiver benefit equally. This mutual benefit of helper and helped is echoed throughout the world’s spiritual traditions. The following Buddhist tale is a good example:
Two Banquet Halls A Zen story tells of a fellow who dies and finds himself in a shimmering realm. He says to himself, “I must have lived a better life than I thought.” A glistening being appears and guides him into a regal banquet hall. There is an immense circular table that is laden with delicacies. He sits down at the table just as other people are doing so. But when he picks up his fork to eat, someone comes from behind and straps boards to his arms so he can’t bend his elbows. He can still get food on his fork, but he can’t get his fork to his mouth. Looking around, he notices that everyone else is in the same predicament, and the hall is filled with grumbling and groaning. He calls over the glistening being, “This must be hell! What is heaven?” The glistening being takes him to another banquet hall that looks just like the first, with the same big, circular table laden with the same food. Again he sits down just as others are doing so, and again boards are strapped to his arms so he can’t reach his mouth with his fork. He thinks, “What’s going on? This is the same thing as before!” Then he looks around the table and notices something different. Instead of people grumbling and groaning as they try unsuccessfully to get food to their mouths, each person is holding his or her arm straight out to the right, to feed the person at the next seat. He does the same, and the hall is quickly filled with the sound of people happily eating. (Essential Buddhism 137) But let us get back to the begging bowl for just a minute. Is it possible for society to honor the metaphorical ideals represented in the begging bowl? I realize that it would be impractical for the hungry in a community to go out begging for food everyday, I am talking about a widespread social culture (public and private) that shares their wealth with those in need. Can we take the philosophical notion of kindness and humanity and create concrete methods of application to solve world hunger? In terms of world hunger, governments and relief organizations often think that the answer can be found in economic solutions alone. I agree with Amartya Sen that what we need is “not so much the social consequences of economic reforms, but the economic consequences of social reforms” (259). Society is beginning to declare and document the ideal of universal human rights in national and international forms even as society has not yet fully realized the ideal of giving of oneself (time or resources) for others. In 2001 as part of a declaration of universal human rights at the World Food Summit: Five Years Later (this is the name of the World Food Summit that occurred in 2001 five years after the first in 1996), “182 heads of state and government or their representatives reaffirmed that everyone has the right to have access to safe and nutritious food,” and twenty countries include in their constitutions the right to food (FAO 3). Additionally, the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares that “food is a basic human right and a principal component of the universal human right to life” (DeRose 175). However, governments still hesitate to take the necessary actions to move these statements beyond simple words into true action. The story from a participant at a compassionate action workshop gives an illustration of where humanity is in the process of humanitarian aid:
One evening, speaking before an open microphone to the participants, a woman confessed to an ongoing moral conflict she was suffering over a beggar on her local street corner for whom she budgeted around two dollars and fifty cents per week in spare change. Before the course, she had merely deposited quarters in his paper cup and went on her way essentially unchanged. Now she wondered why she could no longer perform this act in a perfunctory manner. “I realized that although I had passed by this man for more than a year, I had never actually acknowledged his existence as a fellow human being,” she said. “When I asked myself why, I discovered I was afraid – not of rape or The crucial difference between the beggar with his paper cup and a monk with a begging bowl is the relationship between giver and receiver. In the case of the beggar he may receive enough to subsist on but never any recognition of his worth. While the monk may not receive much more than the beggar, the giver is honoring the monk for his contribution in the world. The developed nations of the world are in a similar situation as the woman telling the story – they have begun to realize that they can no longer hand over development assistance without recognizing the humanity of those receiving the assistance (thus the significance of a declaration of universal human rights) and yet they are not ready to declare the recipients as members of their families – they drop spare change into the paper cup but are not ready to fill the begging bowl. But let’s assume for a moment that developed nations were ready to take on the responsibility of helping countries less fortunate than their own in such a way that took into account the needs of the recipient more than the economic gain of the donor. What would go into the begging bowl? Winner of the Nobel Prize in economics Amartya Sen says that development must be an expansion of freedoms and thus would fill the bowl with “political freedoms, economic facilities, social opportunities, transparency guarantees, and protective security” (36). Sen recognizes the need to focus on the intrinsic worth of humanity in addressing economic and social problems. When individuals have the freedom to live a life they feel is of value they become productive members of society. Let’s take a closer look at exactly what some of these freedoms would entail. Political freedoms “refer to the opportunities people have to determine who should govern and on what principles” (Sen 38). This would also include basic civil rights, the freedom to criticize government, a free press, and the ability to choose between different political parties. Famines do not occur in democratic countries, rich or poor, though undernourishment knows no such boundaries (Sen 16). In a country in which government officials rely on the vote of the people (and a free press informs the people) there is a much greater impetus for elected officials to be responsive to the needs of their constituency. In fact, in India there is a direct correlation between newspaper circulation and relief spending (World Bank 40). Economic facilities include “the opportunities that individuals respectively enjoy to utilize economic resources for the purpose of consumption, or production, or exchange” (Sen 39). This may be seen as the spare change/paper cup part of the equation: the actual income at a person’s disposal. It would also include a person’s access to credit. Micro credit has become an important tool to provide financial services to low income clients, particularly women. Social opportunities refer to a person’s access to education and healthcare. “These facilities are important not only for the conduct of private lives (such as living a healthy life and avoiding preventable morbidity and premature mortality), but also for more effective participation in economic and political activities” (Sen 39). Illiteracy (and ill health for that matter) can prevent a person from fully participating in economic and political proceedings. Transparency guarantees “deal with the need for openness that people can expect: freedom to deal with one another under guarantees of disclosure and lucidity” (Sen 39). The World Development Report agrees that a transparent business environment will limit special favors, kickbacks, and corruption (8). A level playing field ensures equal access to the market for all participants, including those that are not well-connections or able to buy privilege. Even with these freedoms in place there will always be disasters of nature, finances, or health that may leave an individual in need of assistance. Protective security provides the “fixed institutional arrangements such as unemployment benefits and statutory income supplements to the indigent as well as ad hoc arrangements such as famine relief or emergency public employment to generate income for destitutes” (Sen 40). The solution of increasing freedom to address the needs of hunger and poverty could be within our grasp. It is a matter of will. The international desire is moving in that direction as seen by the increasing recognition of universal human rights. The next step will be to move from the position of adding spare change to a paper cup to one of filling the oryoki.
DeRose, Laurie, Ellen Messer, and Sara Millman. Who's Hungry? And How Do We Know? Food Shortage, Poverty, and Deprivation. Tokyo: United Nations U P, 1998. Maguire, Jack. Essential Buddhism: A Complete Guide to Beliefs and Practices. New York: Pocket, 2001. Miller, Ronald S. As Above, So Below. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1992. Sen, Amartya. Development as Freedom. New York: Anchor, 2000. United Nations. Food and Agriculture Organization. “The State of Food Insecurity in the World 2002.” 4th ed. Rome: FAO, 2002. The World Bank. “World Development Report 2000/2001: Attacking Poverty.” New York: Oxford U P, 2001.
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