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Buddhism in support of The Social Justice
The meaning of Justice in Society and Buddhism

Thích Chân Quang
Translated by Minh Thiện Phước

1. The Justice in Society

Theoretically, justice means whosoever having made much credits should receive the most benefit.
Those who have had little credits receive less benefit.  Who is good and works hard bound to obtain more benefit from the social community than the lazy and bad. It is the justice in society.

The social justice policy naturally encourages the progress of the society; force human beings to train themselves and work hard in order to contribute for the common prosperity of the society if ones want to gain the appropriate beneficial treatment. However, the justice created by mankind is not perfect by many other reasons.

One of the most recognized reason is the ones who are responsible to judge the talents and credits are not absolute lucid as well as not having definite sense of justice. People who are significantly good used to be forgotten; ones who are so whole heartedly used to be hated. And more often, those who are responsible for judging people’s credits have one-sided estimation for their relatives, relations. That is why it’s very difficult for the society to have the justice; and it is also why ones call for the social justice. In our Vesak 2008 forum in Vietnam this time; we are also interested in the meaning of the justice of the society and invite scholars to contribute opinions.

As suggested, it is said that the society has not had justice since those who judge the credits, talents, support from people are not perfect, not precise estimation or with right estimation but one-sided to their favor relations. In order to solve the social justice according to this aspect, the ones who are the judges firstly required being good men and having right sense of justice. But to decide good men with sense of justice will create lots of ebullient and complicated criticism which we can not analyze in this limited paper. However, we still request an efficient method to decide who should be the judges for the society; because they are the ones who control the existence of justice in the society.

2. The Relativism of the Justice in Society

But the justice in society is not the aim of Buddhism, as well as mankind. Why? Because the real goal of Buddhism as well as that of mankind is to seek for the escape from suffering; seek of the happiness for sentient beings. The meaning of happiness is bigger than that of justice. It covers the meaning of justice and sometimes even different.

In the society, the number of people who have the advantages, have some talents and opportunities always takes the minority. Because they have the advantages, talents and opportunities they obtain much interest from the society. They get prosperity fast and become the upper society and leave behind lots of people to be in the poor level. The national wealth concentrates on a very little ratio, e.g. the statistics in China shows 65% of the national wealth belongs too 0.6% of the rich in China. These people have the right to be rich according to the law and be extremely rich. However who will not be hurt when acknowledging such the terrible statistics?

They have earned the regulation of justice from society and collect lots of benefits for them. But they also create the distance between the poor and the rich of society. The society is just and the society is off balance. The society is not even.

It is also wrong if one wants to create an even society. One is the same with the others, one takes the same property as the others no matter of their skills and supports are different. Obviously there will be no justice if the better, the more supporting just only earn the same treatment as the worse and less supporting. The regulation of leveling-off surely will freeze people’s enthusiasm to support for the social development. No body will devotedly support or just work indifferently and sooner or later that society will fall into a crisis of lacking human power. Or we leave the justice to control itself, who are good and work hard will earn more and in a short time, the society will not only be flat, but tilted up vertically; some stay up on the top and others are down the bottom

Clearly we can not interfere to even the society the hard way; neither do we let the justice control freely the society and create big off balance. There must be something more different, more humanly, including justice and compassion.  The society is not solely for the good and having the same opportunities; there are more people do not have good skills and good opportunities. Should we do not have a supporting policy those people will fall down and down to the bottom of the society. A society with lots of the poor will be a one lacking of civilization, less compassionate, less humanly. Sometimes we name that society unjust.

The term “injustice” is less precise, in fact that society is supposed to be very just so it creates the off-balance. So we should call that off-balance society “a society of unlevelling”; not levelled.  So “just” and “level” are now contradictory. 

For those people who support for the idea of free competing on talents, free earning on interests, accept the society of off-balance, go for another doctrine.

For those people who restrict the earning of people to be on the same level, to be very equal no matter how different the support, also go for different doctrine.

After some time of practice those doctrines, some countries start seeking for the adjustment, combination in order to gain the purpose of happiness for mankind since it is the noblest aim. Injustice is suffering, but unlevelling is also not favorable.

Now if we present an opinion which will not level the society flatly; or not create big difference and accept a society with acceptable roughness then there will be other unreasonableness. So how rough is it acceptable? What is the method to cut off that roughness to a right degree?

3. Buddhist Point of View

The aim of Buddhism is to escape the suffering in order to build a peace and happy life for mankind. In order to have happiness, everybody has to practice the Eight-fold Noble Path thoroughly. This essay is not either deep enough to introduce the meaning of the Eight-fold Noble Path which is very intellectual. We just give out a few points from the Eight-fold Noble Path which connects to the meaning of the justice in society only.

According to Buddhism, the law of karma controls the lives of human beings strictly. All one created to the sentient beings now returns to form one’s life. If one brought to the sentient beings happiness, dharma, knowledge, peace… then one’s life will get health, intelligence, happy and power. If one brought to the sentient beings suffering, wrongness then his life will get the misfortune, sorrow, and humbleness.

This law of Karma has controlled a lot to the justice in society. When one contributes plenty of good things to life, he is supposed to receive the accordingly good treatment return, but his bad Karma from the past stops that treatment coming to him. He still stays in the poverty and suffering. He even had serious indignity. Looking into such cases, one can feel that the society is unjust; however one should see through the Karma factor to learn that Karma is also an important parameter in the forming of the justice in society.

Or another case of a man without any talent, without much support to life; but somehow, he makes successful progress and receives lots of benefit from society. That case also haunts us the injustice of society. Again, the Karma here is another parameter which takes control and make one feel upset if he does not understand the characteristics for Karma. 

Yet Karma is not a kind of destiny which let a man let go and loses struggling. Whoever believes that Karma is kind of destiny it is a misunderstanding.

If one sees that his life is suffering, and learns that it rooted from the past Karma, perhaps he made something not good, so now he should happily accept and makes great effort to do good deeds in order to change the Karma. This thinking is completely precise. The act of happy acceptance is an active behavior. The effort of changing the Karma is another active behavior. These two dedicated acts give a man power to live happily and struggle ahead. If one learns that his past Karma was bad which cause suffering in this life; he then lets drift of it and does nothing in order to change the Karma; this is a big mistake. Or we see a poor person in difficulty and we blame that that is his bad Karma so it serves him right, we don’t bother giving any help; this idea ignorance is also wrong. In mind we have to initiate the idea of help to the sufferers that we really understand the law of Karma. 

The Karma is the absolute justice, thorough from the Cause to the Effect. But one’s stream of life takes many layers of different Karma. One can have a bad effect from the Karma A, as the same time he gets the good effect from the Karma B and he might as well make a new Karma C. 

As a matter of fact, at the same time, one endures a few thousands of karma on top of one another. Because there are so many karma merge at the same time so one is easy to get a wrong view and think mistakenly that this “effect” is from another “cause”. One can wrongly see that such good men take suffering “effect”; leisurely play boys take rich life “effect”. And one then say the society is unjust.

So don’t we need to do anything and just let the karma leads to the justice in society? Saying that way, one can fall into the previous mentioned wrong opinion of letting drift things. The responsibility of men in life is to devotedly give a hand to the justice of society. Good men should take more benefit return; at the same time those people should be stopped from gaining more advantages by their upper hand position that they take too much benefit and make the society off balance. 

The injustice of society starts from point that good men do not have the corresponding treatment.

The off balance of society starts from the upper hand people who take more good treatment for themselves.

The bad karma can stop good men to receive the corresponding treatment.
The good karma can help a “not yet good” people to get more good treatment.
Now good people could still unintentionally or intentionally make a bad Karma in the past.
And the bad people could still unintentionally or intentionally make a good Karma in the past too.
Observing these facts we can determine one’s behavior in building the justice in society and do not hope in absolute justice happening right in front of one’s eyes. We can try our best but do not seek for the perfection.

Good men need to have the corresponding treatment but sometimes the opportunity for the treatment not yet come in time.

The upper-hand people need to have advices or even appropriate policy so they will not become greedy and take more benefit.

Whosoever need to try their best to support to the society, but do not wish he must have the corresponding fair treatment, because sometimes the past Karma won’t yet give him good fruit. In fact, a genuine disciple of Buddha must never wish to do good deeds in order to get good “fruits”; ones make good deeds just for the sake of love to the sentient beings.

In these doing good deeds, the prevention of the off-balance of society is very meaningful.  It is not supposed to let the so big fortune belong to the possession of a few men. We have to advise the rich to share with the poor dedicatedly; find ways to support the poor to be better. The list of “top ten most rich men” is a shame for the society rather than a pride. The society should only be proud because it has the least poor people. Instead of creating the list of “top ten of the richest”, one should make the list of “top one hundred of the remaining poorest” in the bottom of the society and force it to have the responsibility to pull those people up.

At last, the education of ethic, karma for the community so that every body loves one another, helps one another by their own heart is the most basic measure to build a society of  prosperity, civilization, justice and less off balance.

SUMMARY

The Justice in Society:

Definition of the justice in society. The credit from everybody has to be treated deservingly. This policy is supposed to create the justice in society however there are some factors which are not perfect and these factors themselves create unreasonableness.

The Relativism of the Justice in Society

The utmost aim of Buddhism and mankind is to seek for the escape from suffering. Next the author analyze on the meaning of happiness and justice. The minority of people who have talents and advantages receive the justice from society and this is the one that creates the injustice in society. Therefore, the regulation to create a flat society will discourage the whole-hearted people who support for the development of society and also create a crisis of lacking... The society with such off balance with the good in the top and the worse at the bottom and there is no more justice.

Buddhist Point of View

The escape from suffering in Buddhist perspective is to construct human’s life happier. A few points of view derived from The Eight Fold-path relates closely to the meaning of the justice in society. The law of Karma also effectively controls the justice in society. The Cause and Effect, the doing good deeds and education on Karma to help people to treat one another more humanistic and more moral is an active factor that control the justice in society.