Best Of

The US prison system is awful. It is a breeder of injustice, gangs and cruel punishments. In Spain it seems we have a better system. Larry Lawton, ex-convict (11years in Federal institutions) agreed with this as well as mentioning how certain European countries are just so advanced in this aspect.

The problem of rapes for example...and gang violence/activity...

https://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=9,3679,0,0,1,0

Here in an interview with Kobutsu Malone, revealing how this has not changed, perhaps it has even worsened:

" I actually got arrested in Washington, D.C., in 1968. I was at a friend’s house and was falsely charged with presence in an illegal establishment and possession of implements of a crime. I was sent to the D.C. jail. I stayed in there fourteen days, and on the second or third day I was in there I was beaten and raped. I managed to stick my foot in an electric gate and got transferred out to a hospital."

Such environments are cruel. I believe prison should be an isolated place for the benefit of society and the convicts, like an island where you can grow and heal, both you and society. But creating these pits of horror and torments, it seems like you are creating Hell on Earth for no reason. In the end, you just end up with more crime and damaged human beings.

I think a part of the view in Buddha's time has to do with the social system they were living in as well. It relied much more on the wisdom (or lack thereof) of those carrying out the sentence, was the guilty willing and capable of rehabilitation or would they only continue to commit harm? Versus the rules based systems (rule of law) that most of the world operates on today. While doing much to rectify and avoid the whims and abuses of the powerful at the time, it also has its downfalls, in that we're less able to rehabilitate and use good judgement to help those who are helpable.

Interesting how, while the Buddha accepts Angulimala and even the King too his transformation from a killer to a bhikkhu, Angulimala is still subject to the kamma of his criminal actions that inevitably lead to his gruesome death.

The Buddha says to him: "Bear with it, brahman! Bear with it! The fruit of the kamma that would have burned you in hell for many years, many hundreds of years, many thousands of years, you are now experiencing in the here-&-now!". Angulimala does not retaliate nor curse, he accepts it and thus released from samsara.

When I talk about providing sessions to prisoners, one important aspect is their acceptance of the deed they committed and the cost society has imposed on them: you murdered, you indeed did a wrong thing. But this should not become a source of eternal anguish or torment, you should ask for forgiveness and acceptance of your misdoing but also accept that the people you hurt might not forgive you and this is the result of your actions. What you do from now on is essential not only for your own well-being, but perhaps even for the well-being of others too.

Thanks for the sutta @Jason

The Buddha generally seemed to leave questions like this to civil authorities, and would likely be viewed as a consequence of their unskillful actions. There definitely does seem to be an acknowledgement of a person's capacity to change, though, and the Buddha accepted people who were murderers into the Sangha (e.g., Angulimala). So I think there's also room for things like restorative justice. But in general, long jail times for seriously violent crimes doesn't seem particularly anti-Buddhist in and of itself.

I know that my current take it at odds with Buddhism in many ways, and it may not be the case that nibbana/awakening isn't just the cessation of greed, hatred, and delusion and experience, but the experience of something underlying it or beyond it. There are certainly many good objections to this based on teachings in the Pali Canon, and there are numerous ways to answer them. However, I personally think that this POV makes the most sense when viewed from a Spinozan POV if his Substance = consciousness, not unlike in some Mind-only traditions or Brahman in Vedanta.

In his Ethics, Spinoza reasons the underlying unity of existence in a radical way, which isn't something that's easily experienceable or obvious, but which is a perception that can be reasoned and which has effects on how we perceive, experience, and relate to any of the conditioned phenomena we come into contact with, including other beings and our own emotions. I see in his God Nature, or Substance (and much of the Buddha's Dhamma+nibbana) the same concept as Thich Nhat Hanh's interbeing or Paul Tillich's ground of existence due to his arguments about the singularity of the Substance.

Spinoza argues that there's ultimately one Substance, that this Substance is infinite, and that it has infinite attributes. The infinite attributes, as far as I currently understand it, ties into the existence of conditioned phenomena itself and how we can have a causally deterministic world that itself is part of a singular, infinite whole. It's very much like the metaphysics of quantum mechanics and uncertainty and probabilities vs. our level of experiences and observations. And eventually, his reasoning seems to lead to a Buddhist or even Stoic-like psychology and sense of equanimity.

So in my panentheistic reading, if my understanding of Spinoza is accurate:

Substance = self-existing, being/ground of being.

Attributes = the ways intellect perceive Substance, which, while infinite, are limited to 2 knowables in human experience: thought and extension, mind and body. That said, God, Nature, Substance isn't limited to those and can be said to be both immanent and transcendent as well as outside of space and time, the latter of which falling into the realm of attributes and modes/modification (i.e., samsara).

Mode/modification = conditioned phenomena, affected by causes and conditions, modes of Substance that make up the variety of finite things in the universe and what's experienced of it via thought and extension.

Furthermore, if we allow that the fundamental nature of Spinoza's God, Nature, Substance, or whatever else we want to call it doesn't necessarily have to be material but immaterial or neither material nor nonmaterial (a la neutral monism), then his God, Nature, Substance can certainly lead into panentheistic territory (our conditioned world+something beyond it, which we can label the absolute, the transcendent, ultimate reality, etc). And if Substance = consciousness, then it's ultimately just Substance realizing its own nature via its modes/modifications, with various sentient beings having various levels of conscious experience. And whereas Spinoza argues you can reason this ultimate reality/unity, perhaps what the Buddha is suggesting is that you can actually experience it.

Then again, my views may change yet again, but I'm very much swayed by the experience of others and the possibility of touching or experiencing something profound and beyond the range of logical thinking and human language. It may just be wishful thinking on my part and an unconscious aversion to death and nonexistence. But you never know and I think it's worth being open-minded about.