The West understands religious freedom in the context of human rights. Religious freedom is the first freedom in the U.S. Constitution's Bill of Rights, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights speaks of "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion." If we want to understand Buddhist ideas about religious freedom, we should first consider Buddhist perspectives on the broader concept of human rights.
This, however, requires considerable qualification. First, some Buddhists note that the Western notion of "rights" was foreign to the Eastern societies in which Buddhism developed. For example, Shin Buddhist priest and scholar Taitetsu Unno explains that East Asia has traditionally been characterized by a consensual model of society, "ruling out any assertions of self against recognized forms of authority, whether secular or religious." This, he holds, is a model in great contrast to any concept of rights understood as "demanding one's due." In the case of societies originally shaped by Confucian ethics, he notes, the principle of duty prevailed, not the principle of rights.
Other Buddhists also object to speaking merely of "human" rights. Zen Buddhist sensei Masao Abe explains:
Strictly speaking, the exact equivalent of the phrase 'human rights' in the Western sense cannot be found anywhere in Buddhist literature. In the Western notion of 'human rights,' 'rights' are understood as pertaining only to humans; nonhuman creatures are either excluded or at most regarded as peripheral and secondary…. By marked contrast, in Buddhism a human being is not grasped only from the human point of view, that is, not simply on an anthropocentric basis, but on a much broader trans-homocentric, cosmological basis. More concretely, in Buddhism human beings are grasped as a part of all sentient beings or even as a part of all beings, sentient and nonsentient, because both human and nonhuman beings are equally subject to transiency or impermanency.
None of this is to say, however, that Buddhists have nothing to add to the conversation on human rights and religious freedom. Rather, it is precisely in Buddhist beliefs about human nature that we find the inherent dignity, respect, and compassion for humanity (and, ultimately, for the whole Earth) that provide the foundation for the Buddhist contribution to the concept of human rights. Unno notes:
The fact that the Buddhist tradition in its past history has had little to say about personal rights in the current sense of the term does not mean that Buddhists were not concerned with human well-being, with the dignity and autonomy of the spirit. In fact, throughout its long history, in spite of some dark and unsavory moments, Buddhism has taught the path whereby all forms of existence, animate or inanimate, would be able to radiate and shine in their own natural light.
Buddhists understand human nature according to two basic principles. The first is the doctrine of no-soul or no-self. Walpola Rahula, world-renowned author of What the Buddha Taught, explains that when we think of a soul or a self, we generally think of "a permanent, everlasting entity in man", but Buddhism is unique, he insists, because it denies the existence of such a soul. To the Buddhist, the notion of the self is an imaginary belief. Rahula explains this phenomenon as the result of the interaction of the Five Aggregates that Buddhists believe compose an individual:
One thing disappears, conditioning the appearance of the next in a series of cause and effect. There is no unchanging substance in them. There is nothing behind them that can be called a permanent Self (Atman), individuality, or anything that can in reality be called 'I'. Every one will agree that neither matter, nor sensation, nor perception, nor any one of these mental activities, nor consciousness can really be called 'I.' But when these five physical and mental aggregates which are interdependent are working together in combination as a physio-psychological machine, we get the idea of 'I.' But this is only a false idea.
The idea of self consists only of the perception of a series of causes and effects. Moreover, this series of causes and effects is part of a larger circle of causes and effects in an existence that is completely relative, conditioned, and interdependent. The Buddhist doctrine of no-self is part of the larger Buddhist view of a world that is completely interconnected. This second view, essential to the Buddhist understanding of human nature, may be referred to as conditioned genesis, co-origination, or as Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh calls it, Interbeing. Nhat Hanh elaborates:
When we look into the heart of a flower, we see clouds, sunshine, minerals, time, the earth, and everything else in the cosmos in it. Without clouds, there could be no rain, and there would be no flower. Without time, the flower could not bloom. In fact, the flower is made entirely of non-flower elements; it has no independent, individual existence. It 'inter-is' with everything else in the universe.
How then do these doctrines of no-self and Interbeing contribute to Buddhist concepts of human rights? Unno explains that when we understand ourselves as part of the interdependence of all life, we gain a respect for the rights of other people as well as the rights of all other sentient beings:
Respect for the individual and the recognition of rights is not a static but a dynamic fact which makes it imperative that as we affirm our own individual rights we must also be willing to give up ourselves in order to affirm the rights of others. When, however, we affirm only our own rights at the expense of the rights of others-including the rights of humanity over nature, one nation or race over another, one belief or view over others-we become tyrannical and oppressive. The proper understanding of interdependence, as the elemental form of relationship, would exclude such self-righteousness and would create a truly global society of equals.
Unno further notes that the ideal of the bodhisattva ("Buddha-in-the-making") is to put the needs of others above one's own. He helps us to grasp the notion of Interbeing and its relation to human rights, however, as he explains that "in essence there is no one who is placed above the other, for as found in the classical formulation, there exists absolute equality of self and other…and interchangeability of self and other."Similarly, Abe explains the doctrines of no-self and Interbeing: On a relative level, we can speak of selfhood. We can say, "I am I and not you; you are you and not me." But on the absolute level, we cannot speak of any substantial self. We become capable of saying, "I am not I, and you are not you; thereby, I am you, and you are me."Perhaps we can best understand the implications of the Buddhist ideas of no-self and Interbeing by considering Christ's command to love our neighbors as ourselves. If the Buddha had made a similar statement, he might have said, "Love your neighbor because he is yourself." To the Buddhist, whether we speak of "rights" or "duty," when the illusion of self disappears, neighbor, beast, mountain, and tree all cry out for the same respect, freedom, and charity.
