Buddhism is democratic insofar as it recognizes that all beings have the same potential to awaken to the pure Mind thus becoming Buddha. Buddhahood is nothing more than Mind experiencing Mind as purely itself in which it stands on its own as the absolute positive medium of all. Difference, disunity, and selfishness fall on the side of Mind’s non-cognition of itself—the undemocratic resisting individuum.
In order to maintain the world of individuality we have to forsake any hope of awakening (Buddha). We have to reject, in other words, our Buddha-nature becoming, instead, the votaries of Mara the Evil One where the repetition of the cycle of birth and death are our lot, although some vehemently deny that there is anything beyond death.
This, by the way, is where the modern world stands in which death is treated as an entrance into finality since it is believed that man is less than the sum of his body which in death disintegrates returning to spacial indifference.
Can we say that the true essence of democracy has no real power in the modern world which is tied to the furtherance of the individual by means of materialism? Perhaps we can. Most people are only looking out for their own skins and could not care less about a spiritual commonality through Mind’s animative power that gives life to all. Such people are the plutocrats who believe that those with the most material goods should rule. In fact, it is the only measure they know, namely, how much wealth one has or doesn’t have. Also, this leads to a simplistic kind of morality which is hardly moral: good people are those who have more material goods and advantage whereas not so good people have less and are, therefore, to be treated accordingly as possible deviants.
By seeing, as the Buddha did, that all beings are animates of pure Mind which is above difference and individuality, there can be no legitimate rule except one which is spiritually democratic or at least dedicated to this principle.
Yet, the realpolitik is that democracy has no real power in the modern world since those who are strongly tied to materialism and the individual view the world differently. Collectively, we don’t openly wish to admit this, but plutodemocracy is precisely the form of governance the modern world maintains that lays under Western civilization. As we might expect, man is not regarded as a spiritual animal but, instead, is regarded as an economic one so that the fruits of civilization must, therefore, be economic.
How, therefore, can the democratic spirit live in harmony with the plutocratic pursuit of life? This is an interesting question. But the answer must be that there can be no harmony between the two. But if truth is to be our judge, spirit rules the body and so must the commonality of life’s animative spirit in all the people (demos) rule the state. This means that the state should be dedicated to the implementation and preservation of the necessary conditions that make possible the study of spirit. This means, also, that a society should be based on noble leisure (Grk. scholê)—not materialism which is the struggle for wealth based on goods.
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