Human Suffering and the Quest for Cosmopolitan Solidarity: A Buddhist Perspective

Abstract

This article argues that Buddhist social thought offers valuable insight into debates about cosmopolitan solidarity by raising cosmopolitanism's need to explore more deeply the relationship between the nature of self and the politics of solidarity. It suggests that a radical ‘socio-existential’ account of the individual, which rejects a conception of the self as autonomous and separate from others, mitigates categories of exclusion and offers a robust account of the possibility of solidarity with strangers. Buddhist thought theorises a movement from suffering to solidarity that does not recognise borders or boundaries as containing inherent ethical value.

When planetary cosmopolitanism meets the Buddhist ethic: Recycling, karma and popular ecology in Singapore

“…As scholars note, modern conceptualisations of cosmopolitanism are primarily derived from the late‐eighteenth and early‐nineteenth centuries of Western modernity—a time when ‘questions of difference between Europeans and a world of other peoples [were] intensified into a temporal narrative that cast non‐Europeans as developmentally anterior’ (Clark & Szersynski, 2020, p. 112). Whilst cosmopolitan thought gestures towards an understanding of the ‘self’ that embraces a ‘society of strangers’, Buddhist ontologies conceive ‘a cosmopolitan self in which all inscriptions of cultural, ethnic, national and other forms of identity, on the body and in the mind, are empty [and] impermanent to begin with’ (Ward, 2013, p. 149). From this perspective, Buddhist thought emphasises a qualitatively different idea of interconnectedness, not only amongst humans, but between humans and other species as well.…”

“…The subject is shaped by connections, actions and by history, each co‐constituted by and within the wider environment. In this view, the relational account of the self and the world espoused in Buddhist thought is arguably ‘more radical than that currently advocated in cosmopolitan thought’ (Ward, 2013, p. 137).…”

“…In Buddhism, karma expresses a relationship between intentionality and consequences—where all things are subject to the laws of cause and effect—such that the quality of our actions ( karma ) determines one's future destiny, including the possibility of birth again (Lin & Yen, 2015). This reading of human–ecology relations posits the planetary condition as inseparable from one's intentions, and grounds accountability for planetary well‐being and suffering in the here and now, unbidden by any consideration of an afterlife (Ward, 2013). Where Judeo‐Christian traditions differ is the belief in life's existence as a unidirectional, linear process: once a period has passed, there is no possibility of return.…”

“…This is particularly important in the context of Singapore, where the restrictions on proselytisation and sharing religion with others in the multireligious society of Singapore compel religious groups to de‐emphasise the religious character of their engagements with the secular public (Shee, 2024). 10 By mobilising people of other faith and non‐faith, BBF's recycling efforts are thus vital in developing a cosmopolitan self in which all inscriptions of cultural, ethnic, national identities and more ‘are empty [and] impermanent’, in line with a Buddhist relational understanding of the self (Ward, 2013, p. 149).…”

Education and cosmopolitanism in Asia: an introduction

“…The Kiski Kahani project in Pune, India, for example, is a research project that has been developed to compile stories from the Ramayana, a South Asian epic, in order to reject the Hindu nationalist master narrative of the Ramayana, and privilege instead the fragmentary, improvised stories of the epic, highlighting the need to "develop cosmopolitan modalities that index a sense of belonging to a pluri-cultural world" (Hakim, 2014). According to Ward (2013), Buddhist thought has also always highlighted a movement from suffering to solidarity that does not recognize borders or boundaries as containing inherent ethical value. Rejecting a conception of the self as autonomous and separate from others, cosmopolitan education in the Buddhist tradition thus demands an exploration of the relationship between the nature of self and the politics of solidarity with strangers.…”