Law and Buddhism

Youngest of the three religions to evolve in BCE India, Buddhism has taught itself from the follies of its predecessors and as a result charts out ‘an equitable path to lead life’. Thus from the point of view of a law student, a study of Buddhist mores and culture presents a unique scenario where one can delve into ancient religious texts and sanctions and impute a contemporaneous legal understanding to them. This short treatise would analyze the fundamental teachings of Gautama Buddha and try to evaluate as to how it has or may affect the myriad of law, morality and legal system that we adhere to today.

Buddhism evolved from the teaching of a ‘sheltered prince turned ascetic’ Siddhartha Gautama who one day ventured outside his palace and set his eyes on the ‘four sights’. Troubled at heart he renunciated princely life and sought the meaning of life, he meditated under a fig tree and achieved spiritual awakening and came to be known as Buddha or the awakened/ enlightened one. Buddhists believe that there is an eternal cycle of life and rebirth, this cycle causes suffering from attachment and the only way to get out of this cycle is by eliminating desire by following path of Buddha. Aware of varying levels of commitment, Buddha laid down the Five Precepts of the basic code of ethics for a common man, for those who wanted to lead more ascetic lifestyle there was the Noble Eightfold Path represented by the eight spokes of the Dharmachakra, for the novice monks and nuns there was the Ten Precepts and finally 277 rules for fully ordained monks and 311 for nuns.

Let us analyze these Buddhist rules and precepts and try to glean out the ‘God particle’ out of it. The Five Precepts or the pañca-sīla in Pali refers to the very basic of Buddha’s teaching and lays down commitments to abstain from killing, stealing, sexual misconduct, lying and intoxication. The Noble Eightfold Path builds on the pañca-sīla and adds abstinence from overindulgence in eating, decorative accessories and luxurious abode. For the novice monks and nuns apart from the eight precepts there is bar on attending entertainment programs and accepting money. For the ordained Buddhist ascetic living at the monastery the rules were contained in the Patimokkha which lays down in detail how a monk or nun should carry out his/her daily activities, it contains varied rules from expulsion, probation to a step by step account of dispute resolution processes that concern monks only.

A quick review of the stair case approach followed by Buddhism shows the innate understanding of Gautama Buddha and subsequent Buddhist sanghas that even to lead righteous life and attain nirvana unequals must be treated unequally, thus while for a common person there are five guidelines to follow for an ordained nun there are 311; but the magnificence of the scheme lies in the fact that the core in 5 and 311 rules are same ‘to encourage the relinquishment of harmful mental qualities and the nurturing of beneficial mental qualities’. Buddhists try to attain this by wisdom, ethical conduct and proper concentration. This forms the bedrock of Buddhist understanding of Middle path.

Question arises as to how we can use such high placed idealistic edicts and moralistic concepts and accord them their correct position in our so called contemporary legal structure or how is it different from various other religious dictates on similar issues. We find lot of encouragement in the writings of Colleen Walsh, Rebecca R. French, Vesna Wallace to name a few. The most important inspirations that we can draw from Buddha’s teachings that have direct bearing on our law, morality and legal system today would be the principles of non attachment and open-mindedness in ADR proceedings especially negotiation and following restorative instead of retributive justice. Buddhism teaches one to remain unattached to ones surroundings; this is the soul of every successful ADR proceeding where an open minded approach would make wonders in solving a dispute. Also given Buddhist abhorrence to violence it is natural that it would propagate ‘a version of’ universal love and would try to reform the offender and restore the victim. 14th Dalai Lama has tried to describe the existence of law as a compassionate way to protect people which essentially contains the precept that we look at greater social concern and the effect on society by punishing the offender, thus where a victim offender mediation can bring out the best possible result Buddhist teaching would encourage us to follow that path instead of blindly adhering to the retributive form of criminal justice system.

Thus we find that Buddha taught us to empathize, practice non violence and lead a life of wisdom, if we had indeed followed that path then we would hardly need any law, but given that we live in an imperfect world we must have law to restore order and to protect people albeit in a ‘compassionate’ manner. We find reflection of Buddha’s teachings in many aspects of our present day law like professional ethics, legal sanction against adultery etc.; but the main foundation of Buddhist thoughts resonate with love and respect for others, this can be the elusive ‘god particle’ which can be given a contemporaneous legal interpretation to champion the cause of ADR mechanisms in both criminal and civil dispute. It is perhaps in this area of contemporary law where Buddhist tenets may have their greatest practical impact.