Buddhism and Disability: Toward a Socially Engaged Buddhist ‘Theology’ of Bodily Inclusiveness
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Published:
Jun 30, 2018
Keywords:
Engaged Buddhist Buddhism Disability
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Abstract
This article testifies to the fact that focusing on the body can facilitate history, speaking
to the presence - without the necessity of anachronistic categorizations and retro- diagnoses.
This does not preclude - or devalue the usefulness of - diachronic phenomenological and
philosophical meanderings, in particular when the focus, limitations, and parameters of such
enquiries are clearly defi ned. With these caveats, I would like to open up a dialogue between
contemporary critical disability theory with Buddhist thought, moving in this chapter from
investigating selected variable bodies within the circumscribed yet still somewhat fl uid, fuzzy
and messy discursive context of Buddhist practices, narratives, and philosophies to infusing
‘variability’ as a critical angle with Buddhist ‘theology’ (i.e. Buddhist constructive-critical
thought).
Article Details
How to Cite
Scherer, B. (2018). Buddhism and Disability: Toward a Socially Engaged Buddhist ‘Theology’ of Bodily Inclusiveness. The Journal of International Association of Buddhist Universities (JIABU), 11(2), 403–418. Retrieved from https://so06.tci-thaijo.org/index.php/Jiabu/article/view/220130
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Views and opinions expressed in the articles published by The Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Universities (JIABU), are of responsibility by such authors but not the editors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors.
References
This article is slightly adapted from Scherer, Bee. 2016: “Variable Bodies, Buddhism and (No-)Selfhood: Towards Dehegemonized Embodiment.” In The Variable Body in History (QP in Focus 1), edited by Chris Mounsey and Stan Booth, 247-263, Oxford: Peter Lang.
Robert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (NYU Press: New York, 2006).
Chris Mounsey, “Introduction: Variability - Beyond Sameness and Difference,” in The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Chris Mounsey (Bucknell University Press: Lewisburg, 2014), 1-27.
Ibid., 18.
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York and London: Routledge, [1994] 2012), 123; emphasis in the original.
In this article, I do not attempt to provide a survey of the vast streams of Buddhist traditions in their relationship to ‘disability’. A useful - yet by its lack of direct access to primary texts quite limited - compilation of literature on Buddhism and disability in Asia is M. Mills, ‘Buddhism and Responses to Disability, Mental Disorders and Deafness in Asia. A bibliography of historical and modem texts with introduction and partial annotation, and some echoes in Western countries’ (West Midlands, 2013), https://cirrie.buffalo.edu/bibliographv/buddhism/. (accessed 12 April 2016).
Bee Scherer, ‘Crossings and Dwellings: Being behind Transphobia,’ paper given at the conference Fear and Loathing: Phobia in Literature and Culture, 9-10 May 2014, University of Kent, U'K. Available at the Queering Paradigms blog, https://queeringparadigms.coni/2014/08/ll/crossings-and-dwellings-being-behind-transphobia/ (accessed 12 April 2016).
Susanne Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2007).
B. Scherer, “Karma: The Transformations of a Buddhist Conundrum,” in Vajrayana Buddhism in Russia: History and Modernity, edited by Chetyrova, L.B. et al. (St Petersburg state University: St. Petersburg, 2009), 259-285.
David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2008).
Scherer, ‘Karma’, 265 and 277-8.
dukkhanceva pannapemi dukkhassa ca nirodham M 22 I 140. Pali texts referred to are the editions of the Pali Text Society, London. Abbreviations follow the Critical Pali Dictionary (see the Epilegomena to Vol. 1 and online at https://pali.hum.ku.dk/cpd/intro/voll_epileg_abbrev_texts.html, accessed 12 April 2016).
Mahavagga Vin I 71 i 91; cp. IX, 4, 10-11 i 322; Vin I 76 i 93-95 adds leprosy, boils, eczema and epilepsy.
For the parallels on ‘cripples’ in the other four early Buddhist vinaya traditions see the references in Erich Frauwallner, The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature (Is.M.E.O.: Rome, 1956), 77.
Vin I 61 i 85-86; see Bee Scherer, “Variant Dharma: Buddhist Queers, Queering Buddhisms” in Queering Paradigms VI (Oxford: Peter Lang 2016).
Vin IX, 4,10 i 322.
Vin IX, 4, 11 i 322.
andhe jinne matapitaro M. 81 ii 48 and 51-52.
For example, the Lesser Chronicle of the Buddhist rulers of รท Lanka, the Culavamsa, mentions such charity for the 4th century CE king Buddhadasa (Mhv 37. 148 and 182); the 7th century CE ruler Aggibodhi (Mhv 45.43) and the 8th century CE king Udaya I (Mhv 49. 20).
Balapandita-sutta,M. 129, iii 167-178.
dubbanno duddasiko okotimako bavhabadho, kano va kuni va khanjo va pakkhahato va, Vin II 90 ร I 194 AI 107, II 85, III 385 Pug 51; the Balapandita-sutta M 129 III 169 substitutes khanjo ‘lame’ for khujjo ‘humpbacked’.
E.g.Mill 169; SI 194AI 107, II 85, III 385 Pug 51. Additionally, parts of the stock phrase occur separately throughout the Pali canon.
Sanskrit varna (Pali vanno) denotes both color and caste.
durvarno durdarsano avakotimako ‘medhyamraksitagatro durgandhas ca Av 50 i 280; p. 125 Vaidya (abbreviations and editions of Sanskrit texts refer to Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary (1953) with occasionally relevant alternative or newer editions added by editor’s name only).
Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies, Ch. 4.
pandaka and intersex; see above Scherer, Variant Dharma.
itthibhava (cp. Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies, 70-71). See, for example, the list in the para-canonical verses in the Jataka commentary ( J-a 144) and the statement in the Milindapanha Mil 93 PTS on the inferiority (ittarata) of woman (itthi, note the wordplay!).
Suttanipata commentary Sn-a i 50 and Apadana commentary Ap-a 141.
See Toshiichi Endo, Buddha in Theravada Buddhism: A Study of the Concept of Buddha in the Pali Commentaries (Buddhist Cultural Centre: Dehiwala, รท Lanka, 2002), 160-164, andMrozik, Virtuous Bodies, 71.
jatyandhas ca jadas cajihvakas ca candalas [caj {na} jatu I sukhito bhavaty abhyakhyanabahulas ca sandakas ca pandakas ca nityadasas ca I stri ca bhavati sva ca sukaras ca gardabhas costras ca asTvisas ca bhavati tatra jatau I Siksasamuccaya Siks p. 69; all translations are my own unless indicated otherwise.
kanas ca khanjas ca vijihvakas ca I virupakas caiva bhavanti ragat Candrottaradarikapariprccha, Siks p. 80.
bhavanti nanavidhadosabhajas carantiye kamacanm jaghanyam (ibid.)
Elere denoted by the term visamjna cp. above jada.
jatyandhabhava vadhira visamjna I [...] bhavanti nityam khalu kamalolah 11 Siks p. 80.
Saddharmapundanka-sutra SP 3 verses 122; 129ab; 132 a-c: purusatmabhavam cayada labhante te kunthaka langaka bhonti tatra I kubjatha kana ca jada jaghanya asraddadhanta ima sutra mahyam 11 122; na capi so dharma smoti balo badhirasca so bhoti acetanasca I 129ab; manusyabhavatvamupetya capi andhatva badhiratva jadatvameti parapresya so bhoti daridra nityam 3.132a-c.
dubbannam duddasikam okotimakam yebhuyyena bhikkhunamparibhutarupam Ud VII 5, 76.
M 63 i 429.
38 sallakato anuttaro รท 560; Mil 215.
39 For Buddhism and Healing see [Paul Demieville], Buddhism and Healing: Demieville’s Article “Byo ’’from Hobogirin, translated by Mark Tatz (University Press of America: Lanham, 1985); Raoul Bimbaum, The Healing Buddha (Shambhala: Boston, 1989); Tadeusz Skorupski, ‘Health and Suffering in Buddhism: Doctrinal and Existential
Considerations,’ in Religion, Health and Suffering, edited by J.R. Hinnells and R. Porter (Kegan Paul International:
London, 1999), 139-165; andAnalayo, ‘Healing in Early Buddhism’ Buddhist Studies Review 32nl, 2015, 19-33.
40 Suvarnaprabhasottama-sutra Sv 8-9 sarve casmimstrisahasramahasahasralokadhatau sattva buddhanubhavena divyasukhena samanvagata babhuvuh I jatyandhasca sattva rupani pasyanti sma I vadhirasca sattvah sattvebhyah sabdani srnvanti I unmattasca sattvah smrtim pratilabhante ‘viksiptacittasca smrtimanto babhu-\ vuh I nagnasca sattvasclvaraprdvrta (Bagchi 5) babhuvuh \jighatsitdsca sattvah paripurnagatra babhuvuh I trsitasca sattva vigatatrsna babhuvah I rogasprstasca sattva vigataroga babhuvuh I hmakayasca sattvah paripurnendriya babhuvuh
(I have omitted [... ] ‘Beings whose senses were incomplete became possessed of all their senses’, which is most likely
an interpolation duplicating the concluding sentence quoted and only found in the Tibetan and Chinese versions, but not
in the Sanskrit manuscript^ Nobel conjected and added this passage as aparipurnendriyah sattvah sarvendriyasamanvagata babhuvuh).
41 Ronald E. Emmerick, The Sutra of Golden Light: Being a Translation of the Suvamabhasottamasutra (Pali Text Society: Oxford, 2001), 4.
42 See in particular Siks 341-2.
43 Sv verses 3.81-83 (p. 39 Nobel) andhascapasyantu vicitrarupan vadhirasca srnvantu manojnaghosan 11 81 nagnasca vastrani labhantu citra daridrasattvasca dhanamllabhantu I 82ab ma kasyaciddhavatu duhkhavedana sudarsanah sattva bhavantu sarve I abhirupaprasadikasaumyarupa anekasukhasamcita nitya bhontu 11 83
Emmerick, The Sutra of Golden Light, 16.
Bodhicaryavatara BCA 10.19ab andhahpasyantu rupani srnvantu badhirah sada (ed. Minaev 1889; the tenth chapter is missing in Prajnakaramati’s commentary ed. by de la Vallee Poussin 1904-1914).
McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism, 45-57.
Cp. Christopher Queen, ‘Introduction: From Altruism to Activism, ’ in Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism, edited by Christopher Queen, Charles Prebish and Damien Keown, pp. 1-35 (RoutledgeCurzon: London, 2003), 18.
See Sally B. King, Socially Engaged Buddhism (University of Elawai’I Press: Elonolulu, 2009).
See King Socially Engaged Buddhism, 163-164.
See, e.g., Jon Kabat-Zinn, ‘Some Reflections on the Origins of MBSR, Skillful Means, and the Trouble with Maps’, Contemporary Buddhism, 12nl, 2001, 281-306.
For example, see Darla Y. Schurnm and Michael Stoltzfus, ‘Chronic Illness and Disability: Narratives of Suffering and Elealing in Buddhism and Christianity \ Journal of Religion, Disability & Health, 11:3, 2004, 5-21 andKampol Thongbunrrum, Bright and Shining Mind in a Disabled Body (Friends of Morak Society: Bangkok, 2007).
See Susan Squier, ‘Meditation, Disability, and Identity’, Literature and Medicine 23nl, 2004, 23-45.
David R. Loy, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Wisdom: Boston, 2008), 61.
‘Inter-being’ is a term coined and popularized by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen teacher who also is credited with coining the term ‘Socially Engaged Buddhism’.
George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 1987).
Scherer, ‘Crossings and Dwellings’.
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modem Age (Polity Press: Cambridge, 1991), Ch. 2.
Bee Scherer, ‘Overthinking Religion: Queering Religious Paradigms’, Scholar & Feminist Online 2016 (forth.).
Ibid.
Robert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability (NYU Press: New York, 2006).
Chris Mounsey, “Introduction: Variability - Beyond Sameness and Difference,” in The Idea of Disability in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Chris Mounsey (Bucknell University Press: Lewisburg, 2014), 1-27.
Ibid., 18.
Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York and London: Routledge, [1994] 2012), 123; emphasis in the original.
In this article, I do not attempt to provide a survey of the vast streams of Buddhist traditions in their relationship to ‘disability’. A useful - yet by its lack of direct access to primary texts quite limited - compilation of literature on Buddhism and disability in Asia is M. Mills, ‘Buddhism and Responses to Disability, Mental Disorders and Deafness in Asia. A bibliography of historical and modem texts with introduction and partial annotation, and some echoes in Western countries’ (West Midlands, 2013), https://cirrie.buffalo.edu/bibliographv/buddhism/. (accessed 12 April 2016).
Bee Scherer, ‘Crossings and Dwellings: Being behind Transphobia,’ paper given at the conference Fear and Loathing: Phobia in Literature and Culture, 9-10 May 2014, University of Kent, U'K. Available at the Queering Paradigms blog, https://queeringparadigms.coni/2014/08/ll/crossings-and-dwellings-being-behind-transphobia/ (accessed 12 April 2016).
Susanne Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies: The Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2007).
B. Scherer, “Karma: The Transformations of a Buddhist Conundrum,” in Vajrayana Buddhism in Russia: History and Modernity, edited by Chetyrova, L.B. et al. (St Petersburg state University: St. Petersburg, 2009), 259-285.
David L. McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism (Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2008).
Scherer, ‘Karma’, 265 and 277-8.
dukkhanceva pannapemi dukkhassa ca nirodham M 22 I 140. Pali texts referred to are the editions of the Pali Text Society, London. Abbreviations follow the Critical Pali Dictionary (see the Epilegomena to Vol. 1 and online at https://pali.hum.ku.dk/cpd/intro/voll_epileg_abbrev_texts.html, accessed 12 April 2016).
Mahavagga Vin I 71 i 91; cp. IX, 4, 10-11 i 322; Vin I 76 i 93-95 adds leprosy, boils, eczema and epilepsy.
For the parallels on ‘cripples’ in the other four early Buddhist vinaya traditions see the references in Erich Frauwallner, The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature (Is.M.E.O.: Rome, 1956), 77.
Vin I 61 i 85-86; see Bee Scherer, “Variant Dharma: Buddhist Queers, Queering Buddhisms” in Queering Paradigms VI (Oxford: Peter Lang 2016).
Vin IX, 4,10 i 322.
Vin IX, 4, 11 i 322.
andhe jinne matapitaro M. 81 ii 48 and 51-52.
For example, the Lesser Chronicle of the Buddhist rulers of รท Lanka, the Culavamsa, mentions such charity for the 4th century CE king Buddhadasa (Mhv 37. 148 and 182); the 7th century CE ruler Aggibodhi (Mhv 45.43) and the 8th century CE king Udaya I (Mhv 49. 20).
Balapandita-sutta,M. 129, iii 167-178.
dubbanno duddasiko okotimako bavhabadho, kano va kuni va khanjo va pakkhahato va, Vin II 90 ร I 194 AI 107, II 85, III 385 Pug 51; the Balapandita-sutta M 129 III 169 substitutes khanjo ‘lame’ for khujjo ‘humpbacked’.
E.g.Mill 169; SI 194AI 107, II 85, III 385 Pug 51. Additionally, parts of the stock phrase occur separately throughout the Pali canon.
Sanskrit varna (Pali vanno) denotes both color and caste.
durvarno durdarsano avakotimako ‘medhyamraksitagatro durgandhas ca Av 50 i 280; p. 125 Vaidya (abbreviations and editions of Sanskrit texts refer to Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary (1953) with occasionally relevant alternative or newer editions added by editor’s name only).
Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies, Ch. 4.
pandaka and intersex; see above Scherer, Variant Dharma.
itthibhava (cp. Mrozik, Virtuous Bodies, 70-71). See, for example, the list in the para-canonical verses in the Jataka commentary ( J-a 144) and the statement in the Milindapanha Mil 93 PTS on the inferiority (ittarata) of woman (itthi, note the wordplay!).
Suttanipata commentary Sn-a i 50 and Apadana commentary Ap-a 141.
See Toshiichi Endo, Buddha in Theravada Buddhism: A Study of the Concept of Buddha in the Pali Commentaries (Buddhist Cultural Centre: Dehiwala, รท Lanka, 2002), 160-164, andMrozik, Virtuous Bodies, 71.
jatyandhas ca jadas cajihvakas ca candalas [caj {na} jatu I sukhito bhavaty abhyakhyanabahulas ca sandakas ca pandakas ca nityadasas ca I stri ca bhavati sva ca sukaras ca gardabhas costras ca asTvisas ca bhavati tatra jatau I Siksasamuccaya Siks p. 69; all translations are my own unless indicated otherwise.
kanas ca khanjas ca vijihvakas ca I virupakas caiva bhavanti ragat Candrottaradarikapariprccha, Siks p. 80.
bhavanti nanavidhadosabhajas carantiye kamacanm jaghanyam (ibid.)
Elere denoted by the term visamjna cp. above jada.
jatyandhabhava vadhira visamjna I [...] bhavanti nityam khalu kamalolah 11 Siks p. 80.
Saddharmapundanka-sutra SP 3 verses 122; 129ab; 132 a-c: purusatmabhavam cayada labhante te kunthaka langaka bhonti tatra I kubjatha kana ca jada jaghanya asraddadhanta ima sutra mahyam 11 122; na capi so dharma smoti balo badhirasca so bhoti acetanasca I 129ab; manusyabhavatvamupetya capi andhatva badhiratva jadatvameti parapresya so bhoti daridra nityam 3.132a-c.
dubbannam duddasikam okotimakam yebhuyyena bhikkhunamparibhutarupam Ud VII 5, 76.
M 63 i 429.
38 sallakato anuttaro รท 560; Mil 215.
39 For Buddhism and Healing see [Paul Demieville], Buddhism and Healing: Demieville’s Article “Byo ’’from Hobogirin, translated by Mark Tatz (University Press of America: Lanham, 1985); Raoul Bimbaum, The Healing Buddha (Shambhala: Boston, 1989); Tadeusz Skorupski, ‘Health and Suffering in Buddhism: Doctrinal and Existential
Considerations,’ in Religion, Health and Suffering, edited by J.R. Hinnells and R. Porter (Kegan Paul International:
London, 1999), 139-165; andAnalayo, ‘Healing in Early Buddhism’ Buddhist Studies Review 32nl, 2015, 19-33.
40 Suvarnaprabhasottama-sutra Sv 8-9 sarve casmimstrisahasramahasahasralokadhatau sattva buddhanubhavena divyasukhena samanvagata babhuvuh I jatyandhasca sattva rupani pasyanti sma I vadhirasca sattvah sattvebhyah sabdani srnvanti I unmattasca sattvah smrtim pratilabhante ‘viksiptacittasca smrtimanto babhu-\ vuh I nagnasca sattvasclvaraprdvrta (Bagchi 5) babhuvuh \jighatsitdsca sattvah paripurnagatra babhuvuh I trsitasca sattva vigatatrsna babhuvah I rogasprstasca sattva vigataroga babhuvuh I hmakayasca sattvah paripurnendriya babhuvuh
(I have omitted [... ] ‘Beings whose senses were incomplete became possessed of all their senses’, which is most likely
an interpolation duplicating the concluding sentence quoted and only found in the Tibetan and Chinese versions, but not
in the Sanskrit manuscript^ Nobel conjected and added this passage as aparipurnendriyah sattvah sarvendriyasamanvagata babhuvuh).
41 Ronald E. Emmerick, The Sutra of Golden Light: Being a Translation of the Suvamabhasottamasutra (Pali Text Society: Oxford, 2001), 4.
42 See in particular Siks 341-2.
43 Sv verses 3.81-83 (p. 39 Nobel) andhascapasyantu vicitrarupan vadhirasca srnvantu manojnaghosan 11 81 nagnasca vastrani labhantu citra daridrasattvasca dhanamllabhantu I 82ab ma kasyaciddhavatu duhkhavedana sudarsanah sattva bhavantu sarve I abhirupaprasadikasaumyarupa anekasukhasamcita nitya bhontu 11 83
Emmerick, The Sutra of Golden Light, 16.
Bodhicaryavatara BCA 10.19ab andhahpasyantu rupani srnvantu badhirah sada (ed. Minaev 1889; the tenth chapter is missing in Prajnakaramati’s commentary ed. by de la Vallee Poussin 1904-1914).
McMahan, The Making of Buddhist Modernism, 45-57.
Cp. Christopher Queen, ‘Introduction: From Altruism to Activism, ’ in Action Dharma: New Studies in Engaged Buddhism, edited by Christopher Queen, Charles Prebish and Damien Keown, pp. 1-35 (RoutledgeCurzon: London, 2003), 18.
See Sally B. King, Socially Engaged Buddhism (University of Elawai’I Press: Elonolulu, 2009).
See King Socially Engaged Buddhism, 163-164.
See, e.g., Jon Kabat-Zinn, ‘Some Reflections on the Origins of MBSR, Skillful Means, and the Trouble with Maps’, Contemporary Buddhism, 12nl, 2001, 281-306.
For example, see Darla Y. Schurnm and Michael Stoltzfus, ‘Chronic Illness and Disability: Narratives of Suffering and Elealing in Buddhism and Christianity \ Journal of Religion, Disability & Health, 11:3, 2004, 5-21 andKampol Thongbunrrum, Bright and Shining Mind in a Disabled Body (Friends of Morak Society: Bangkok, 2007).
See Susan Squier, ‘Meditation, Disability, and Identity’, Literature and Medicine 23nl, 2004, 23-45.
David R. Loy, Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution (Wisdom: Boston, 2008), 61.
‘Inter-being’ is a term coined and popularized by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen teacher who also is credited with coining the term ‘Socially Engaged Buddhism’.
George Lakoff, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal about the Mind (University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London, 1987).
Scherer, ‘Crossings and Dwellings’.
Anthony Giddens, Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modem Age (Polity Press: Cambridge, 1991), Ch. 2.
Bee Scherer, ‘Overthinking Religion: Queering Religious Paradigms’, Scholar & Feminist Online 2016 (forth.).
Ibid.