I was just doing a little bit of research on the notion of “equality of outcome” (sometimes called “equality of result”) which is an egalitarian idea that believes we must eliminate material inequalities between individuals. To accomplish this goal involves the transfer of wealth from those who have a lot of wealth, to those who have less so that all have an equal amount. If this were a marathon race everyone would end up winning and all would receive the same prize.
This is not quite the same as “equality of opportunity”. An example of this kind of equality would be a free education for all children from K thru 12 and a free college education. But what about children who go to better private schools or go to better private colleges? It seems that they have better opportunities.
A bitter pill to swallow, humans cannot make utopias and when they try, more than often, their utopias turn into dystopias in the example of the former Soviet Union. The best that we can do is to keep making adjustments and tweaks to the system then step back to see if they work as intended and if not, go back to the drawing board.
Switching gears to Buddhism, there is no such thing as equality of outcome. We are not already Buddhas according to the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra and the path to Buddhahood will not likely be successful for everyone who tries. Any Buddhist who says otherwise errs. Few monastics and lay people during the Buddha’s time became aryans (those who had entered the stream). Most remained anaryans (lit. not-aryan). This is all proven in Peter Masefield’s book titled, Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism.
The dumbing down of Buddhism so that everyone can pass through the gates of egalitarianism is certainly an abomination which is like handing out certificates of participation as the equivalent of a college degree. Buddhism is about sacrifice, for example, overcoming the five hindrances. If you can’t manage this you will likely have many rebirths before you can.
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