democracy

Democracy and spiritual practice

July 1, 2025

Because of the alarming political situation in the US, which has parallels with events in other countries, I’ve been writing about how we, as spiritual practitioners, might skillfully face the troubling emotions politics can give rise to.

The two emotions that stand out for me are fear (where is this all going? how bad will things get?) and despair (mourning the loss of democratic norms).

To help me to deal with these potent emotions, I’ve adopted three slogans: Feet on the ground. Heart wide open. Eyes upward (or keep looking up). These provide a framework for my practice.

Feet on the ground means finding ways to keep ourselves emotionally balanced, so we can avoid panic and despair. We might want to be mindful in our news consumption. We might choose not to follow those who build followings on social media by generating, outrage, and follow instead people who are informed, compassionate, and balanced. Keeping up a daily meditation practice helps us be calmer. Keeping up our friendships (especially with those who are wise and balanced) helps us with emotional regulation. We might also understand that what’s happening today is part of a long historical pattern of swings between more democratic and autocratic styles of government.
Heart wide open reminds me that it’s important not to shut down and disengage, no matter how overwhelming the news might be. We need to create an inner space of compassion — staying in touch with our own suffering — and live from that space. We need to stay in touch with the reality of others’ suffering, and do what we can to help.
Eyes upward reminds me that we mustn’t ever let what’s happening now seem acceptable. We must remember, at a time of viciousness and chaos, what’s good and normal, and how things should be. But a return to normal, difficult as it is to imagine the path that takes us there, wouldn’t be enough. “Eyes upward” means aspiring to create a better, fairer society than we had before. Above all, it means developing a deeper appreciation of democracy and wanting a better, more inclusive, less corrupt democracy.

Democracy Is Under Threat

In fact, one of the things we are losing, or might be losing — and this is a source both of grief and fear — is democracy itself. The grief comes because of the freedoms and security we have lost. The fear comes for many reasons, but chief amongst them is that when leaders are no longer subject to democratic accountability, very bad things start to happen, from political persecution up to torture, murder, and genocide.

Democracy goes through periods of expansion and contraction. There were very few democracies before World War I, but an explosion of them afterwards. Democracies in that period also became more truly democratic, extending the franchise to working class men and to women.

Before WWII there was rise of authoritarianism and a decline in democracy. But after that war, the former colonies shed their European overlords, former dictatorships became democracies, and democracy expanded again. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former communist dictatorships adopted democratic forms of government. The number of people living in democracies peaked around 2006, after which democracy there was a rise once again of authoritarianism. Sometimes this authoritarianism took the guise of “illiberal democracy” where elections take place, but the ruling party has rigged things so that they’re almost certain to stay in power. Orbán’s Hungary is a prime example of this.

Right now we’re seeing a stark decline in democracy in the United States. Danger signs include:

the president taking control of governmental spending (a function reserved for congress)
threats to media outlets and law firms that the president regards as enemies
threats against judges (and actual arrests)
the executive branch defying court orders
the government attempting to take over the running of universities, etc.

These are all classic moves in establishing a Hungary-type authoritarian pseudo-democracy.

Recognizing the long-term ups and downs of democracy reminds us that it’s not “game over” when a country becomes authoritarian or even an outright dictatorship. Authoritarian regimes tend to implode, and people’s hunger for freedom and self-determination can never be entirely suppressed.

Reasons to Have Faith In Democracy

I have faith in democracy as the best form of government for complex modern states. It is our best hope for a dignified human existence. And it is the best political system for facilitating spiritual practice.

I say this knowing that there is no such thing as a perfect democracy. Human beings are themselves not perfect, and we are emerging from a history soaked in blood. We cannot slough off the past, and have to learn from it, sometimes painfully, in order to move on.

I offer four grounds to support my claim that liberal democracy is the best form of government.

1. Liberal Democracies Are More Peaceful

It is exceedingly rare for democracies to go to war with each other. The establishment of democracy in virtually all of Europe and South America has drastically reduced the incidence of war in those areas of the world. The more democracies there are, the more peaceful the world is likely to become.

Autocracies are inevitably violent. Their leaders are themselves belligerent and intolerant. They see wars as a good way of distracting a population from the poor standard of living that results from their inept leadership. Their populations are often unable to protest against wars. This is the case in Russia, for example. People may be so misled by propaganda that they don’t understand what’s going on. Many people in Russia think their soldiers are fighting Nazis in Ukraine. The more freedom there is, and the more the media is able to report what’s going on, the more opposition there is to war.

When autocratic leaders don’t direct violence against other countries, they often do so against less-favored citizens of their own countries. Liberal democracies tend to be peaceful places to live. Citizens do not generally have to fear that they will be dragged off for holding dissenting views. As Orwell wrote, “No system except democracy can be trusted to save us from unspeakable horrors.”

2. Liberal Democracy Allows for Material Flourishing

Liberal democracies tend to provide a far higher standard of living than autocratic regimes. The 10 countries with the highest standard of living are all liberal democracies, and yet liberal democracies count for only a third of the world’s governments.

Liberal democracies tend to be stable, predictable, and durable. No democracy is perfect, but in the main they have strong political institutions and legal systems, and democracies usually choose people with demonstrated competence to staff its agencies. Authoritarian regimes, offer government posts as rewards to those who demonstrate loyalty to the leader. Corruption flourishes, and as a result, the country and its economy become inefficient. The more dysfunctional and corrupt a democracy is, the more likely it is that it’s in the process of becoming authoritarian.

The more flawed a democracy is, the worse the standard of living tends to me. Neither the UK and US is anywhere near the top of the standard of living chart (the US is 15th, while the UK is 22nd), and both countries have been downgraded by the Economist Intelligence Unit from “full” to “flawed” democracies.

3. Liberal Democracy Allows for Emotional and Spiritual Flourishing

There is a reason why so many great spiritual and philosophical teachers—including the Buddha, Confucius, Socrates, and Plato—arose in the so-called Axial Age. The invention of iron meant that society was no longer living at a subsistence level. People could use iron axes to clear forests for agriculture use, and plow fields with iron-tipped plows. The agricultural surplus they generated, they could transport long distances in carts with iron-rimmed wheels. This created cities, where minds could more easily meet and talk.

With a higher standard of living, and with more free time, people could now ask questions like, “What is my life’s purpose? What does it mean to live a good life?” To focus here on material flourishing is not to be materialistic. It’s to recognize that freedom from material want allows for spiritual flourishing.

Many of the qualities necessary in the political culture of a democracy — a democracy’s “personality,” so to speak — are skillful traits of trust, ethics, and empathy. These qualities give rise to well-being in those that bear them and open them up to spiritual growth.

By contrast, authoritarian regimes produce unhappy people. Authoritarian governments engender feelings of powerlessness and cynicism. People may believe a regime’s propaganda for a while, but eventually they realize that they are surrounded by lies. Everyone is corrupt, and nothing is done well, but changing things is almost impossible.

Authoritarian regimes have to distract their populations from their problems. One way to do this is to generate hatred. Leaders will often target a despised group that they blame for society’s problems. In this way, authoritarianism encourages unskillful emotions of hatred and intolerance. For the same reason it encourages simplistic black and white thinking, rather than more nuanced thinking that encourages truth-seeking.

4. Liberal Democracies are Tolerant of Spiritual Exploration

One of the “personality traits” of democracies being their tolerance of diversity, democracies tend to allow for spiritual experimentation. Mature democracies officially recognize, minority religions such as Buddhism, and often give them access to special benefits, such as tax-exemptions. Although in some ways the US is a religiously intolerant nation, people who are Buddhists or members of other minority languages have been elected to high office.

The American experiment took as axiomatic the idea that people should be free to follow their own conscience in seeking a life that’s meaningful. For that reason, the founders of the US avoided having a state religion. In contrast, autocratic nations often have a favored state religion, and minority religions may be disadvantaged, discriminated against, or even persecuted.

Because of these positive conditions, Buddhist sanghas tend to flourish in democratic nations.

So for these four reasons — democracies being more peaceful, prosperous, emotionally skillful, and supportive of spiritual exploration — I describe democracy as the most desirable form of political organization.

We Are the Majority

As democratic norms are eroded, we need to avoid panic (feet on the ground), yet we need to care deeply (heart wide open) and channel our love anger into opposing harmful changes. And as we do these things we need to keep reminding ourselves and others of democratic ideals, and of the material, emotional, and spiritual benefits of democracy (eyes upward). We need to keep democracy in people’s minds and on people’s tongues, and resist their tendency to see what’s happening as inevitable and unstoppable.

It’s the desire for freedom that’s unstoppable. Yes, sometimes people take democracy for granted. Sometimes they’ll vote for authoritarian leaders because they’re struggling economically or afraid of demographic change. And for some people the cruelty is the point.

But as I’ve written before, “[it’s] important to remember that there are many people in the US (and elsewhere, of course) who believe in kindness, generosity, tolerance, compassion, democracy, standing up to autocrats, and protecting the world that sustains us. That’s much more than half of the population. We are the majority.

We are the majority. And we will prevail.

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Stay in touch with the good

April 25, 2025

Bodhipaksa

on practice

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As human beings, we are psychologically porous. We’re open to influences from outside ourselves, including others’ words and actions. That’s largely a good thing, because it means we can learn from other human beings.

But it also means that what’s going on around us can affect, in not-so-good ways, our sense of what’s normal and what’s right.

Peer-pressure is one term we use to describe that kind of influence. It’s a term that might suggest a conscious attempt by an individual of group to persuade someone to do something, like a group of teens pressuring one of their members to try smoking.

But this pressure can also be indirect; we witness people talking and acting in certain ways, and even if they don’t try to sway us, their actions can become a cultural norm that we want to conform to. We want to fit in. This pressure comes not from our peers, but from ourselves.

Moral compasses can shift

There are, however, more subtle ways that we conform to what’s around us. Our sense of right and wrong can shift without our even knowing about it. This happens not because we want to conform, but because our moral compass responds to the magnetic field of what’s happening around us.

This isn’t about wanting to fit in. It’s simply that we are attuned to our environment, and as moral values, actions, and speech change in our society, we change too. And this can happen in good ways. Generally there’s been a shift toward greater tolerance, for example. In 2005 gay marriage was almost unthinkable in the US. In 2015 it was legal everywhere, and more and more people accepted it. The more people there are accepting something, the more likely others will start accepting it too.

Also see:

On the negative side, if we see cruelty and dehumanization around us, we may start to buy into it. We get used to it. Tune it out. We may believe the story that the person snatched off the street and deported to a hellish prison camp is a dangerous gang member, even though no evidence, or only laughable evidence, is given to support this. The government says that’s the case, but there’s no due process and no opportunity for the abducted person to defend themselves against legal charges, because there are no legal charges. Many of us may want to believe the government. We assume they must have their reasons. Or maybe we don’t care much because we don’t think this will happen to us and we lack empathy for those who are effected.

Shift happens

I remember seeing moral change happen to a young man, not long after Margaret Thatcher had been elected. We were both 18 and had worked together for a few months over the summer. We happened to bump into each other on a train platform, and when the train arrived he pushed his way past other travelers in his haste to get on board.

After I caught up with him he told me that you have to grab what you want in life. Having been been brought up to make sure that older people and women with children were seated first, I was shocked by his selfishness. He hadn’t been like that before, but the Thatcherite ethos that greed is good had taken root in his mind. He saw boarding a train as a way to show he was a “winner” in life’s competition, rather than as an opportunity to be civil to others.

Binding our minds to the good

One way we can resist becoming less skillful is to explicitly root our lives in moral values. As a Buddhist, I have lists of ethical precepts to guide my actions. The simplest of these is the five precepts. These are practices where we consciously aim to abstain from unskillful actions. There are, however, although ethically skillful actions we can commit ourselves to. For the sake of convenience, I’ll combine these:

I undertake to abstain from harming living beings, and vow to live with compassion.
I undertake to abstain from taking what’s not given, and vow to live with generosity.
I undertake to abstain from sexual misconduct, and vow to live with respect for others.
I undertake to abstain from untruth, and vow to live with honesty and integrity.
I undertake to abstain from intoxication, and vow to live mindfully.

Ethics as a free choice

These are not rules. There is no authority making us obey them, and no punishments, beyond the natural consequences of our actions, for failing to observe them. Each precept contains something we choose to undertake for the benefit of ourselves and others. Together they comprise a set of “training principles” (sikkha-pada) through which we aim to change ourselves through the decisions we make in life.

To keep themselves oriented to these precepts, many people chant them daily, often as a prelude to their sitting meditation practice.

I talk about this as “binding our minds to the good,” but this does not imply a lack of freedom. A ship that’s adrift, being pushed around by the winds and tides, is not free. A ship that has sails and an anchor is free.

Ethics as a mirror

But simply saying words doesn’t change us. We need to keep coming back to examining our thoughts, words, and actions against the yardstick of the ethical principles that the precepts remind us of. For example, no matter how badly some politicians behave, it’s unethical for us to wish harm upon them. No matter how much we think an item of fake news might help our cause politically, if it’s untrue we shouldn’t spread it. Fighting these temptations is difficult, but it’s a good difficult. It’s the kind of difficulty that makes us better people.

The Buddha pointed out to his son that just as a mirror reflects our appearance, moral reflection shows us who we are. The precepts give us a way of seeing ourselves.

By holding ourselves to a framework of ethical standards, we’re more able to prevent the moral forces around us from pulling our inner compass out of alignment . Sangharakshita described this in terms of becoming a true individual rather than a group member. The group member feels they’re right because they’re doing the same as others are doing. The true individual’s moral compass is better insulated, and they can rely more on the precepts.

Keep looking up

In responding to our current political situation, one of the phrases I’ve been bearing in mind is “Keep looking up.” This means, stay in touch with your ideals. Keep aspiring for and working toward a better world. It also means, don’t accept the erosion of what’s good and right.

At the moment, what’s good and right is under grave threat in the US.

Free speech is being punished and curtailed.
The right to legal defense is under attack.
Judges are being threatened for upholding the laws and the constitution.
Due process is being dispensed with, so that the government claims it has the right to determine, without needing a trial, who is and isn’t guilty of crimes.
The government is saying it can snatch people off the streets and deport them to inhumane prisons overseas, and that these decisions are irreversible, even if they are illegal.
The government is saying that it can break the law with impunity and ignore the courts.

Our crumbling democracy

With remarkable rapidity, an entire democratic system is crumbling, because without due process, and especially without habeas corpus (the right to challenge your imprisonment) there is no basis for a democratic society. Any of us might vanish at any time. When means we’re fearful, and silence ourselves. Which means that our speech is not free, because it can land us in prison. Or in my case it could get me deported. This article, if brought to the attention of the immigration services, could get my green card revoked. This has happened to others.

And this is just the start. The track record of autocratic leaders is well-known. They always persecute political opponents, who they harass, jail or even kill. That is the path we are on, and we are moving down it much more quickly than most people had feared.

We have no idea how far things will go before they are reversed. This will happen, because human beings aspire to freedom. But we don’t yet know how this reversal will be brought about. Will we even have free and fair elections in future? Neither do we know how long it will take.

Aim higher

In the meantime, we have to keep looking up. Don’t just long for and work for a return to free speech, due process, the rule of law, and the separation of powers. Long for and work for a world that’s better than what we had, because our democracies are always flawed, and democracy in the US was more flawed than most.

The law has never been equally applied to all, regardless of social status, sex, or race. It’s always been harder for some people to vote than others. Not everyone’s vote is equal. Those in power have often served the interests of the rich and powerful more than their own citizens. Our task is not just to return to the democratic norms we used to take for granted, but to create a better, fairer democracy for ourselves and our descendants.

To that end, support courage when you see it. When a university refuses to comply with governments attempts to curtail its academic freedoms, celebrate and support them. Support courageous politicians. When a librarian refuses to remove books that contain LGBTQ themes or ethnic minority characters, praise them. Support courageous publications and give them your attention and your money. When someone gives a TED talk and names a coup as a coup, share this as an example of courage that we should emulate. When someone shows up at a demonstration and waves a banner showing resistance to the erosion of democratic norms, appreciate them and thank them.

These are all things we can look up to and emulate.

Keep looking up. Things will get better, but only if we remind ourselves and everyone else that they can.

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Politics as a spiritual practice

November 6, 2024

Bodhipaksa

on practice

I don’t normally post about politics here, but I feel I have to today, because a lot of people are distressed, shocked, and fearful. Even though the results of yesterday’s US election are not yet fully in, it’s clear that Donald Trump will be our next president.

I did not know what to expect with the US election. I thought it was possible that Trump might scrape to a narrow victory. I hoped, though, that Harris would would win, narrowly or (I scarcely dared dream it) by a landslide. I feared that if Harris did win, that the election would be disputed and that some Republican-controlled states might attempt to overturn the election results.

I had not expected Trump to win resoundingly, with a majority of the votes. [Later edit: not a majority! Slightly less than 50% of the votes cast.] (In 2016 Hillary Clinton got five million more votes than he did.) I think we’re fortunate that the election was not disputed, and that there was no attempt to overturn the vote.

At the moment I feel quite calm. My poor partner did not sleep a wink.

I am for once grateful that in the US system the victor does not take power immediately (unlike in the UK where the Prime Minister moves out of Downing Street the day after the election). So there’s a sense of normality at present. That won’t last, though.

It’s impossible to know what’s coming. Trump himself is just one part of things. He’s vindictive, petty, vain, and impulsive. He’s easily manipulated by those around him. Last time he was in office he was surrounded by people who, although not saints, were at least better than he was. With a small number of exceptions, those people have repudiated him and said he’s unfit for office. Two of them described him as a fascist. He’s now likely to be surrounded by people who are much worse than he is. It’s likely they’ll encourage his worst instincts and that we’ll see some very bad things happening.

Normally you prepare to ride out four difficult years until the next election. This time we’re facing potentially catastrophic demolition of the mechanisms that preserve democracy, a collapsed economy, the partial restoration of the Soviet Union, and an acceleration of climate change.

There may not be another totally free and fair election for a long time, and even if decent people are elected in the future, what they inherit may not be fixable. But they’ll have to do what they can with what’s left. It’s possible that there may be a re-founding of the United States, if there is a United States in the future. A catastrophic collapse gives the opportunity to learn from the past and to avoid its mistakes. The US constitution and its laws have been manifestly “unfit for purpose” as they say in the UK. The fact that Donald Trump is heading for the White House rather than prison is just one illustration of that.

I find it important to remember that many of those who voted for Trump did not know what they were voting for. Many are struggling in an economy that favors the ultra-rich and largely ignores ordinary people. They wanted a change. Right wing channel news networks manipulate and dis-inform. They think inflation is at an all-time high when it’s not. They think crime is rampant, when it’s falling. They think their way of life is under threat from immigrants, when they are themselves the children of immigrants and depend on immigrants to do basic tasks that keep the economy running.

Many of those people did not know they were voting for a man who says he wants his generals to be like Hitler’s generals, and that he wants to use the US military against the civilian population. Or they’d heard this and thought it was propaganda. Or they thought it was just Trump trolling the libs. But many of the people working for Trump do not think it’s just Trump trolling. Some of them want violent oppression of all opposition.

Some people showed up to vote yesterday not knowing that Biden had dropped out of the race. A study showed that a mild Covid infection reduces a person’s IQ by three points. A more severe case with lingering symptoms causes a six-point drop. If hospitalization is required, the drop is nine points. That’s from a single infection. Presumably repeated infections cause further cognitive damage.

The population has literally been been dumbed down. I say this not as an insult (I’ve had Covid and an not immune to its cognitive effects). I say this because it may well be part of how we got to where we are.

In short, many people who voted for a man who has been called a “fascist” by people who worked closely with him have no idea what they’ve just done. They are not our enemy, and they deserve our compassion. (Others are enemies in the sense that they want to harm us, but we need not hate them in return. It’s a myth that you can’t oppose someone without also hating them.)

I find it important to remember that there are many people in the US (and elsewhere, of course) who believe in kindness, generosity, tolerance, compassion, democracy, standing up to autocrats, and protecting the world that sustains us. That’s much more than half of the population.

We are the majority.

I find it important to remember that fascist regimes (and it looks like that’s what we’ll end up with) always collapse. The “strong man” is emotionally fragile and cannot stand contradiction. So he doesn’t listen to critics on his own side, and his actions eventually bring things crashing down.

It’s likely that there will be a series of brutal moves following the transfer of power. These will be designed to intimidate, demoralize, and traumatize anyone who opposes the Trump administration.

We’re going to need to find ways to hold onto our faith when this happens.

We’re going to need to find ways to sustain that faith, and to sustain our kindness, compassion, tolerance, and belief in democracy for much longer than four years.

The best way to do that is to be actively involved in some organization that represents your values. Being engaged with like-minded people helps us feel strong. Doing something that makes a difference helps us feel strong.

I suggest we all start looking for ways to get involved, if we’re not already.

In the meantime, I highly recommend reading Timothy Snyder’s “On Tyranny.” Snyder is a history professor who studies autocracy. On Tyranny is a small book, easy to read, and simply written. It’s a guide-book to surviving fascism, and on keeping alive positive values through dark times.

I strongly suggest that you do NOT buy this book from Amazon, which is owned by a billionaire. People like Jeff Bezos have a lot to gain (in the short term) from an illiberal regime. (The day Bezos announced that the Washington Post would not endorse either candidate, he was reportedly in negotiations with Trump about the government using his rockets.) These people are not your friends. Don’t support them.

Instead, support a local book shop. Support ordinary people. Support your neighbors. Live your values.

If you don’t have a local bookshop or can’t get to one, try bookshop.org in the US, Hive in the UK, or look for some other independent outlet where you live.

If everything gets reduced to what’s most convenient (“one click purchasing”) you’re not living your values. The essence of ethics is doing things that are less convenient. It’s slightly harder in the short term. But it feels good in the long term.

We are the majority. It’s imperative that we stick together.

A couple of years ago I taught an online course called “Politics as a Spiritual Practice,” which is where the graphic above comes from. I do think it’s vital that we don’t just “do politics” but that we see our engagement with politics as a vehicle for developing patience, courage, compassion, and wisdom. The next four or more years are going to test us. Those tests can potentially make us better people. And we’re going to need better people to rebuild whatever we’re left with.