[romalama]

I have been reading this article about the legal system in Thailand. I found the comments on karma interesting and wondered if anyone had any further thoughts about it.


"Lifting the veil of ignorance: Buddhism and justice"


http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opin...-30171953.html

[Xtatotvk]

Always difficult to comment on another cultures values.
Karma is a way more serious matter that this article suggests
Personally l disagree with any system that enslaves others.

[Kissntell]

The monarchy seems to be just about the only stable institution left in Thailand. Its political landscape and recent events make Kafka's dysfunctional governments seem rather efficient and high-minded. If one used Thailand's political history of the past 10 years as an example of karma producing predictable results it would make abhidharmists' heads explode. It's more of a pachinko game than a ping pong match.

So, I can kind of see laws such as these as making some sense---in a place like Thailand. In fact, let's not forget that there have been times where the ONLY thing standing in the way between tyranny over over the Thai people and some modicum of restrain has been the current monarch. Remember that he personally intervened against the military on behalf of Thai student protesters in 1973 (I think) to prevent their being slaughtered. He has tirelessly worked to insure some measure of democracy in this badly divided country. He's just about the only institution Thai people respect other than SOME Buddhist institutions (and many of them have come under a cloud as well, as the trail of Mercedes and bling of certain senior monks can attest to)

Is this freedom of speech? No way. I live in the US. This is unthinkable in my country; not so much across the Atlantic puddle though, of course. Where a country bothers to have a monarchy they tend to protect it as we might protect the Statue of Liberty in my country. It's a symbol. We would send someone to jail for defacing a national monument. I suppose it's a similar thing; however, we can't stomach the idea of restraining speech; we see that as sacred and it's written into our constitution.

That doesn't mean it IS sacred or that other countries who fail to afford their citizens the same rights are barbaric. In Thailand you can pretty much say anything you want, with this one exception. You can say the Shinawatra extended family are the most corrupt on the planet, and you can say that the military are thugs (though I would be careful about the latter, legal or not). Since the King has no real power at this point and is not in good health to exercise it anyway, I think of this one restriction as more of a protection of a national monument type than a means of repression.

Is 20 years a reasonable sentence for someone "defacing a national treasure"; of course not. It's totally out of line with the behavior.

Can Karma in some way justify this? I don't see what it has to do with this. If we imprison a man who inveighs against a king for 20 years how is that sentence a karmic result of that action. Whatever karma devolves upon this person in the future depends on many causes and conditions and the time it will occur is uncertain---perhaps soon, perhaps in the distant future. If they pass a law which imposes the death penalty for picking daisies and I pick a daisy and am killed by the state is my death the result of picking daisies? Well....duhh...yes, in a strict sense, but is it the result of the karma that I generated through intention and action undertaken and completed? Of course not. We can't say exactly what the karma is from picking daisies; if it's the karma to suffer lethal injection then I suppose morality has radically shifted while I wasn't looking. Of course, we do know the workings of a justice system and government that chooses to set such penalties. Those are the actions of individuals motivated by whatever motivated them. And I say that whatever DID motivate them to impose such a draconian penalty for this act is certain to ripen into misfortune for them; more so than for the person who defamed the king.

Saying nasty things about the King is certainly shocking in Thailand; I suppose it might be compared to someone parading around with a Nazi flag in front of a Jewish children's school. It's just not done there. Still, with regard to the Nazi analogy, it was a Jewish lawyer for the ACLU that defended that American Nazi Party's right to parade through a mainly Jewish neighborhood in Skokie IL (near Chicago), where a large number of concentration camp survivors just happened to reside at that time. Shocking---yes. Offensive---highly. Illegal...no. Now I suppose that those who say it's all karma would have to argue that the Nazis who did this (yes, they did march) generated no bad karma from their actions. I would not want to have to make such an argument.

[Wavgbtif]

Always difficult to comment on another cultures values.
Karma is a way more serious matter that this article suggests
Personally l disagree with any system that enslaves others.

Yes frank.

The further I can go with the karma issue is about the outcome of Right View v.s the one from wrong view in terms of inner peace.

About other cultures, the anthropological approach -the one of immersion- goes more through observing facts than doing judgments. Its a very thin line between both.

Kind wishes,

[ElisasAUG]

The article reminded me that there were prominent Zen Buddhists who supported the military junta in Japan during the second world war, even going so far as to justify Japanese incursions into continental asia as "bodhisattva" actions.

It brings into question the political translation of the dharma. As the philosopher Aristotle once said, "all is political." Of course, from a doctrinal standpoint, the dharma isn't really a "thing" to be politicized. it is pure and therefore empty of the impurity of existing. It is only by following dharma that the impurities of karma can be purged. It is a similar formula to the transcendental path of the messiah in christianity.

My knowledge of Siddartha Gautama's politics is such that he a radical critic of institutionalized authority, to say the least. I think that it is heretical to invoke the dharma to support any form of worldly (or other-worldy) authority.

As for this particular invokation of dharmic terminology, "karma." I believe that the Buddha discouraged speculation on the subject. But I appreciate the refreshing citations in the article which detailed the buddha's own perspectives constituting a non-deterministic view of the phenomenon in question.