The Neusner-Chilton volume contains two papers on the Golden Rule in Buddhism. The second is by Professor Charles Hallisey, then of the University of Wisconsin, who, like Scheible, concentrates on the south-Asia Theravada tradition.
Hallisey prefaces his analysis with the acknowledgement that the historical and cultural diversity of the Buddhist tradition makes:
“…a single general description of the Golden Rule and its place in Buddhism – one that will be somehow uniquely representative of Buddhism as a whole or even as a system…impossible”
And that:
“…in the different Buddhist traditions the Golden Rule has not been the subject of sustained reflection in its own right, as it was in Christianity and Confucianism.”
Hallisey first brings a verse from the Dhammapada in the same chapter cited by Scheible:
All are frightened of the rod.
For all, life is dear.
Having made oneself the example,
One should neither slay nor cause to slay.
He points to the third line of this verse and writes:
“’Having made oneself the example’ is what marks this verse as an example of the Golden Rule”. He notes that the “formulation is in the negative” and that “it does seem that negative versions, as in this verse, do prevail (in Buddhism).”
“In fact, this prevalence is so marked that Lambert Schmithausen has made the observation that ‘in the early canonical texts…the focus is on avoiding wrongdoing.”
It is interesting that Hallisey points out that “even though we, with our interest in the Golden Rule here, may wish to focus on” the third line of the verse above as representative of the Golden Rule” … “neither the Dhammapada nor the Udanavarga (i.e. the sources that contain that verse) seem to take note of the third line of the verse.”
Hallisey implies the possibility that we find what we wish to find, or are asked to find.
Hallisey, to his credit in my opinion, finds texts elsewhere in the Buddhist canon that might be proposed by others as representative of Golden Rule thinking or precepts but then shows why that interpretation might be biased in favor of the subject he’s been asked to examine.
While a verse removed from context might seem to provide support for a Golden Rule tradition, proper context might well argue for a different or more narrow interpretation. Hallisey takes pains to clarify the context and essentially disqualify some apparently supportive texts on that basis.
The idea of metta meditation practice: i.e ‘active interest in others’ or ‘loving kindness’ meditation; is one that is currently broadly popular across the religious spectrum. Hallisey cites a source as recommending that, building on the practice of wishing oneself well, a meditator “then use imaginative role reversal that is part of the Golden Rule to extend those good wishes to others.”
He suggests that “The Golden Rule here then is a mechanism utilized in a kind of moral engineering.”
I think it is a stretch to suggest that proposing a meditator “take an active interest in others” or “wish others well” is actually a Golden Rule statement or practice.
While metta meditation is a method that can cultivate a sensitivity to others and an other-directed altruistic feeling; a “wish” or a “feeling” is neither an action nor an explicit refraining from action.
It is a lovely meditative practice and an admirable sentiment but neither of those, in my view, qualifies as an ethic.
Hallisey appears to agree that, even if we were to accept that a directive to engage in metta practice is a Golden Rule idea:
“the pragmatic employment of (it)…seems to suggest that here the Golden Rule should be understood as integrated in a much larger moral framework…it seems that the actual rule that is operative is not one of reciprocity or fairness, but one of extravagant and unreciprocated generosity toward the other: do unto others what will make them happy.”
This notion of cultivating an “extravagant and unreciprocated generosity” is an aspirational one that makes a critical and potentially dangerous assumption i.e. that we know what will make the other happy.
To the extent that our understanding of ourselves provides the basis for our assumptions about others, we implicitly assume to ourselves the right to act on others and it is that “doing unto” others based on a self-referential standard that creates potential danger.
Hallisey brings an eighth-century source from the Mahayana tradition which “suggests that the kinship between beings in the world is defined by the commonality of suffering and happiness”.
Santideva (the actor in the source brought) first instructs that “one should meditate intently on the equality of oneself and others”: concluding in what Hallisey terms Santideva’s version of the Golden Rule:
“All beings equally experience suffering and happiness. I should look after them as I do myself”
Hallisey notes in this passage the presence of reflexivity and the absence of reciprocity.
He also notes: “Santideva is acutely aware, however, that this action guide is to be employed by an agent who is very skilled in taking care of himself and incapable of taking care of others.”
Hallisey acknowledges that this idea of extravagant generosity “seems very far from the moral logic of the Golden Rule itself” by which I take him to mean that while it has the tone of the Golden Rule it is not to be taken as a true Golden Rule statement.
I would not interpret any of the texts or commentaries that Hallisey brings as being truly analogous to the Golden Rule as it is typically stated. (And I suspect that he would not, either.)
However, that takes nothing away from the value of the texts he does bring as tools to help individuals cultivate higher moral qualities and, in his concluding words “help them become better than they have a right to be.”
©Charles R. Lightner