Dharmic Economy: The Welfare in the World of Future
The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) provides a generous and firm look, by teaching a frank silence and the measure of humility facing the materialistic greed. Thus, the awakened present of the spiritual master shows the future of humanity, tirelessly fighting for a better world. Even though the Maitriyana does not win any medal, it assumes the battle for peace, social equality, education and ecology. But the Buddhist Socialism very modestly develops this Purpose (Dharma) of the Salvation of humanity, since the path of the Dharmic Economy banishes all kind of pride and converts the peoples into Companions-of-Way.
The correct livelihood is one of the main aspects of the sublime ethics of Detachment, so that the Maitriyana theorizes an economic vision that can revolutionize the future of the planetary society. This is due that the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas) have repeatedly expressed that their Purpose (Dharma) is to stay in the world, but always being faithful to the Analytical-Existential-Libertarian Discourse of Spirituality (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha). In this way the Buddhist Socialism does not perceive any conflict between the spiritual values and the economic advancement, since the analytical-existential health and the material well-being are not opposites in the Liberation Path of the individual. The Dharmic Economy teaches then that the ethics of Detachment is completely different from the non-attachment or the ascetical aversion. However, the humanity needs to transcend the capitalist Discourse by incorporating spiritual values by granting it a Sense of Purpose (Dharma) to its existence. Therefore, the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) proposes that the benefits of modern technology can be redirected towards higher aims, improving the quality of the mundane life without the cost of losing the essential.
The Maitriyana invariably means that the global economic development plan can be modelled according to the postulates of the Buddhist Socialism, advising to formulate libertarian policies which structure a Project of transcendental development. Just as the attachment and greed engender the evil of materialism, a lifestyle of Cure (Nirvana) makes a Dharmic Economy emerges whose main postulate is the Detachment towards capitalism. This not imply to leave the cities and go to the jungle, as the ascetics of the past did, but rather transcending the greed (tanha), and the thirst for dominion that the capitalistic cultural Discourse has.
Like most material scientists, the capitalist economists suffer from a type of metaphysical blindness which makes suppose that their discipline manages invariable truths without the conditionings of the context to which they belong, so that their economic laws are formulated and explained as if they were independent from the values of the cultural Discourse to which they belong, which is associated with selfishness, dualism and consumerism. In this way, their methodology and fundamentals are very precarious in the light of the point of view of the Buddhist economist.
According to the Maitriyana, the universal agreement that accepts the work as a source of material wealth is based on its perception as a necessary evil, since for the employer is simply a cost that must be reduced or eliminated, replacing it with automation, while for the worker it is a disutility which makes losing his free time in pursuit of the wage compensation for his apparent sacrifice. The ideal of this capitalist vision of work as something distinct from the Vocation or Purpose (Dharma), from the point of view of the employer it is being able to produce with no employees, while from the point of view of the worker it is respectively earning an income with no effort.
In accordance with Karl Marx, Buddhist Socialism states that the salary is the embodiment of the conflict between the capitalist employer and the worker.[1] The whole capitalist civilization is supported on the necessity for the worker does not succeed in this open struggle. Given that the employer usually can last longer without the worker than this latter without his wage, this conflict is really a dialectics between the Master and the slave. For that reason the union between the capitalist industries rules the world, while the association between the workers is usually explicitly or implicitly prohibited by the governmental Power. That is why inequality and social injustice are so high, by separating the work, land and capital in an abstract way.
The Dharmic Economy transcends the opposite poles of a production without employees and a tireless work by means of a far-reaching theory and practice. From the vision of the libertarian meditation, the ideal regarding the work does not aim to break free from it, but rather establishing a method which sublimates the weight of the energetic effort by giving it a sense, which avoids falling both in the automation and in the Smithsonian work division.
Consistent with E. F. Schumacher, the perspective of Maitriyana considers that the work function consists of three aspects: help the apprentice to liberate himself from selfishness, by reconciling him with other individuals within the framework of a common task; provide the possibility to use and develop cognitive faculties beyond dualism; produce necessary goods and services that are not derived from the consumerism of life. The consequences of this perspective of Buddhist Socialism is nothing less than a new civilization where work is organized in a way which becomes something with meaning, fun, knowledge and passion to the worker, indicating a greater concern by the people than by the merchandise. For the Dharmic Economy, capitalism is a diabolic lack of compassion and wisdom that leans towards the more primitive side of humanity and it destroys its spirit.[2] At the same time, the Maitriyana states that leisure as an alternative to work is misinterpreting the existence of human life, since the libertarian meditation shows that work and leisure are complementary elements of one same vital process. Thus the spiritual master states that when work and leisure are considered as separate parts, the possibility of commitment and happiness is destroyed. Therefore, from the point of view of the Buddhist Socialism, the mechanization of work should be avoided, since if the human being yields his ability and willingness to the machines, the humanity of the future will be in the position of having to serve to what really should only be a useful means. The machinery must be slave of the individual, and not vice versa, although the capitalist civilization leads to this latter scenario.
Just like A.K. Coomaraswamy, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is like an artisan who traces the delicate line between the tool and the machine. The technology is a tool, just a mechanism in order to hold the strands of the social fabric well related, but the machine that replaces human work is essentially a destroyer of Culture.
Evidently, the Dharmic Economy is an overcoming that purifies the viral capitalist economy, whose materialistic civilization has taken to the extreme the conversion of the values of Love and Liberty into mere objects of consumption that try fruitlessly to reach the satisfaction of the spiritual needs. Through the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) the apprentice can understand that the fastest means of communication do not lead to happiness of peoples but to a more agitated, complicated and unbalanced lifestyle.[3] The spiritual master then teaches that the Awakening (Bodhi) is the condition for the true welfare of society. Therefore, the ethics of Detachment is presented as the Cure (Nirvana) of the needs of the contemporary civilization, showing that the lack of Liberty is the only real disgrace for the subject. The model of libertarian civilization proposed by the Maitriyana banishes the artificial needs, eliminating the illusory needs which cannot be satisfied, because the commitment to the Pathway of Buddhist Socialism shows to the peoples a reason to stop their greed, hatred and delusion: that leads to Apocalypse.
Faced with a human being moulded by ties intended materialistic to utilitarianism, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) seeks that the peoples recover their True Purpose (Dharma) instead of continue adrift of capitalism. In the system of capitalist civilization the poor and oppressed people have little opportunity to achieve development, because their Liberty was curtailed. The mechanization of society leads to this loss of ability of spiritual vitality, this being the reason why the frustrated bourgeoisie constituted the core of the supporters of Nazism.[4] The political Power, oppressive and demagogic by nature, only uses the hope of those with an alienated economical and social situation in order to not impeding the capitalist development.
From the clear vision of the Dharmic Economy, the work carried out with a spiritual attitude represents the recovery of the Vocation of Being, by being a process of dealienation, whereas when the work is performed with the premise of the means of right livelihood, it promulgates conditions of dignity and liberty to the peoples.
The spiritual master teaches that if the work is properly appreciated and applied, then it will provide the spiritual faculties as well as the food supplies the body. According to the libertarian meditation, the work can nourish and revive the apprentice, encouraging him to produce his best abilities. The discipline of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) leads the free will towards appropriate and progressive conducts, being an experience that broadens the scale of values of the subject while he develops his being-in-the-world.
In accordance with Karl Marx, the Maitriyana states that the alienation of labour, under the mechanisms of poverty and social injustice, makes the worker feels that work is external to his True Self, which implies alienation towards the Self. This is the unhappiness of the human being who does not develop freely his physical, mental and spiritual energy, mortifying his body, mind and heart. Therefore, unlike leisure, the correct livelihood makes the worker feels reconciled with him again. Buddhist Socialism proposes banishing the forced labour and replacing it with volunteer labour. In the Dharmic Economy, the work is not a mere means to satisfy needs, but it is also an end in itself, generating that the peoples cease to considering it as a plague from which one must flee. The libertarian meditation makes the work is performed voluntarily and detachedly in pursuit of a higher goal, since the contemplative work does not alienate nor imply asceticism. In this sense, the apprentice must understand that work is a quality of his Self, being something that belongs to it.[5]
For the Maitriyana when the social system deprives an individual of the opportunity to have access to a work, not only it produces the desperate situation of not having the dignified means of livelihood, but it also hinders his self-realization and self-transcendence, since the work along with Love is the symbolic representation of the place in the world that a being occupies, being what makes him feel that he is important in life. While the capitalist economy can question the profitability of the sophisticated concept of Full Employment, from the perspective of Buddhist Socialism, the social ties should tend towards the Liberation from oppression which rules over all human beings. Therefore, the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas) assume an ethical life of humility and Detachment, even of marginalization, since its analytical-existential attitude is a libertarian denunciation of the materialistic relations prevailing in society and that promulgate the illusory satisfaction through the material consumption. In the future humanity, based on the Dharmic Economy of the Middle Way, the fundamental criterion of the economic success cannot be based simply on the total amount of the goods produced in a given period, nor can it be tolerated that poverty is deliberately established for the sake of the stability of opulent institutions that dominate the market. The non-conservative view of Maitriyana tries to maintain a standard of living in the world that respects the Essential Liberty of every apprentice.
From the economic vision of the Buddhist Socialism, not only merchandise should never be more important than beings, but, in addition, the creative activity is always perceived as far more important than consumption. This means shifting the emphasis of the work product towards the worker-in-himself.
Consistent with E. F. Schumacher, the true beginning of the Dharmic Economy is a planning for the Full Employment, although its Purpose (Dharma) is neither the maximization of employment nor the production of merchandise, but rather the maximization of the Liberation. However, the Maitriyana is a Middle Way that transcends both consumerism and asceticism, so it is not opposed to the physical well being as long as it exists without attachment, avidity and greed.
Buddhist Socialism, as a Path of the world Liberation, only opposes to the uncontrolled pursuit of pleasure. Therefore, the key of the Dharmic Economy is pacifism, redistributionism, literacy and ecologism. From the point of view of a Buddhist economist the marvel of the lifestyle that promotes the Maitriyana is the rationality and simplicity of its model of development: what is small is satisfactory.[6]
Precisely, meditation (zen) means showing simplicity, so that the teaching of the spiritual master is profoundly clear and concise. The revolutionary practice of contemplation (kakumei-zen) stipulates that all beings must exist in the peace and serenity of the Awakening (Bodhi), so that the subject must genuinely strive to live in the here and now. In this way, by being fully in the present, the mystical lifestyle makes the apprentice forget his Ego by immersing compassionately in his work and applying himself to the welfare of others. This is the Pathway of Buddhist Socialism. However, in the libertarian meditation one does not exists with a defined goal as a destination, because even when one helps others, the contemplative lifestyle implies forgetting the past and the future, doing each work with the aim of the work itself. Putting the whole heart into each activity is the lifestyle of the libertarian meditation. The existence of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is a lifestyle which performs the Purpose (Dharma) of being-peaceably-in-the-world, so that each activity can be called mystical. Then, the Pathway of the Dharmic Economy seeks that everything can truly be converted into Contemplation (Zen) and Purpose (Dharma). This is what the spiritual master calls the everyday spirit.[7]
The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) measures the level of life not through consumption because he does not supposed to an individual who consumes more is in better condition than those who consume less, but rather he measures according to the degree of self-realization and liberty of the people. The Maitriyana has an extraordinarily ethical approach, abandoning the irrational capitalist vision, thus propelling the conception of a wellbeing that does not happen through consumption. In fact, the end of the Cure (Nirvana) involves obtaining an essential Liberty that allows a maximum of spiritual well-being with a minimum of consumption. According to the Buddhist Socialism, the capitalist economy is inefficient because it uses most of the primary resources of the world but only for the benefit of a minority of the population, while it does not produce any detectable improvement in the level of peace, welfare, culture and happiness of the human beings.[8]
In this way, the aim of the Dharmic Economy is that there is no dilapidation, creatively using the smallest quantity of the natural resources. This pro-ecological and pro-creative stance is one of the pillars of the sustainable development of the model of the libertarian civilization of Maitriyana. Thus, the revolutionary orientation of Buddhist Socialism maintains the systematic study of the libertarian meditation about how to obtain the desired goals with the minimum of the property means and the consumption of merchandise.
The spiritual master considers that consumerism is a carcinogenic finality that oppresses the true Purpose (Dharma) of the economic activity, so it is left to consider the land, labour and capital as means or factors of production for the aim of consumption. While capitalist civilization tries to maximize the consumption through the optimal pattern of productivity, the Dharmic Economy seeks the maximization of satisfaction (sukkha) by means of a correct model of consumption,[9] being an ethical livelihood that transcends both the capitalist consumerism and the anti-capitalist ascetism. Obviously, the energy effort needed to maintain the lifestyle of Detachment, which is based in Middle Way that is the optimal model of consumption, is much less than the effort needed to sustain the trend of extreme consumption of the Capitalist Attachment.
In the Maitriyana, simplicity and pacifism are tightly related to the optimal model of consumption of the Ethics of Detachment, since these values produce a high degree of satisfaction and Liberty through a low relative consumption, allowing the apprentices are able to live without neurotic conflicts coming from the attachment to the mundane pleasure by complying with the basic principle of the teaching of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) which is the contemplative recognition of the Real as frustrating, impermanent and insubstantial. In addition, given that the natural resources are inevitably limited, the Detachment satisfies the needs of the individual by making a minimal use of the resources, unlike the violent and predatory situation of the peoples belonging to the capitalist Discourse. In the same way, the libertarian commune (Sangha) of Buddhist Socialism, being the only successful example of the communist system, is a local community highly self sufficient which never will be involved in an economical dispute, thus differentiating from the human being who is dependent on the multinational commerce system.
From the perspective of the Dharmic Economy, the sustainable production of goods covering the local requirements is a kind of rational economic system, while the dependency to the imports and exports system is uneconomical and little justifiable. Thus, for the Buddhist economist the satisfaction of needs based in the import of resources is an economic failure, instead of fostering the production of such resources at a local level.[10] In fact, a high consumption index of the transport system is often considered by the capitalist economy as a statistic of an economical progress, while for the Buddhist economist this same statistic indicates a highly undesirable deterioration in the standard of living. Another notable difference is that the capitalist economy manipulates statistics in order to show increased in the economic growth, such as the governments which often incorporate illegal activities to their gross domestic product (GDP), while for the Maitriyana an index of economic growth can be appreciated in the harmonious use of the natural resources. Instead, the capitalist economist does not consider the effort of nature and the wastage which the destruction of the living matter causes, not understanding that human existence is an entirely interdependent part of the ecosystems of the Earth (Gaia).
Since the capitalist civilization has established the illusion that the human life is the city life, the feeling of not belonging to the natural field of the environment is an everyday thing that results in the inconsiderate treatment towards that which the human being also is: Water, trees, birds and wind. Therefore the Buddhist Socialism prescribes a holistic and non-materialistic attitude towards the field of life, respecting and not interfering (wu-wei) with the life cycle of the Earth (Gaia), since the libertarian meditation understands it as a living Wholeness, coherent, self-changing, autopoietic and with a dissipative structure. The Dharmic Economy can easily demonstrate that from the global compliance with a harmonious relationship with the environment there would be a surprising result of a high rate of true economical development.[11]
Given that the capitalist economy does not differentiate the renewable materials from the non-renewable ones, its method equalizes and quantifies the objects of reality through the monetary values, by understanding them according to the relative cost per equivalent unit. This economic irrationality, which has jeopardized the very existence of the Earth (Gaia), has led that the contemplative gaze of the spiritual master is absolutely indispensable for the survival and evolution of humanity and the planet. According to the Maitriyana, the capitalist economy is an irrational system that oppresses the experiential aspect and scale of spiritual values, which can be verified at all levels of the industrial society, in which bureaucrats and traders ignore the ecological issues and the quality of life of the people.[12]
Buddhist Socialism, through its ethics of the Middle Way, then poses the need for a proper use of the non-renewable resources which can be used exceptionally and carefully in order to preserve them from their inevitable transitoriness. Although the majority of humanity uses the natural resources negligently, greedily and violently, the ethics of Detachment allows the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) be able to reach the ideal of the optimal consumption through an inescapable sense of Purpose (Dharma) and Responsibility towards everything what is done. Thus, the Dharmic Economy states that a people that bases its economic activity on non-renewable fuels is existing parasitically from the capital instead of living from a real income.[13] Such a lifestyle is completely unstable and only justifiable as a momentary solution, due that the natural non-renewable resources have a highly limited existence. Obviously, the disproportionate exploitation of nature is an act of violence against the existence of the Earth (Gaia), in addition to inevitably lead to wars between humanity. This simple fact shows that the socioeconomic reflection and implementation of ethical values of Maitriyana Spirituality are indispensable. Buddhist Socialism should not be rejected as a simple nostalgic utopia, since it constitutes a practical libertarian Discourse for the future of the human being. Thus, through the libertarian meditation, it may be perceived that the industrial society characteristic of the capitalist civilization is fundamentally unstable,[14] so that it must be given an evolutionary leap towards the detached society typical of the socialist civilization, providing the conditions of Liberty to all the people. This implies that the Dharmic Economy should avoid the control premises imposed by the rigid and totalitarian organizations. Certainly the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) examines all the difficulties which threaten the continuity of the capitalist civilization, considering that its very existence is incompatible with obtaining of the environmental stability and the preservation of Liberty. It is absolutely indispensable for the immediate survival of humanity that capitalist modernization -which has hardly produced positive results-, is purified under the consideration of the spiritual values of the practice of libertarian meditation. In the same way, the economical development also needs the analytical-existential-libertarian gaze of the Maitriyana, in order to cope with the disastrous results that capitalist materialism has generated, as the destruction of rural economies, the increasing unemployment in cities, the near extinction of the natural resources, the extreme pollution caused by industries, and the growth of bourgeois proletariat which is physically and psychologically starved. In the light of the immediate experience of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) and the long-term prospects from the Buddhist Socialism, the study of the Dharmic Economy may be recommended as a way of demonstrating that the economic growth does not necessarily go against spiritual values. The spiritual master transcends the choice between the opposite poles of the modern growth and the traditional stagnant, by finding the Way of the correct development. Thus, the Middle Way of Maitriyana overcomes the dualism between the materialistic negligence and the agrarian immobility, finding the Correct Means of Subsistence recommended by Siddharta Gautama 2600 years ago.[15]
Consistent with Richard Grossman, the Buddhist Socialism denounces that the capitalist corporations do not sell products but a selfish, dualistic and consumerist lifestyle that determines the mode of thinking of the apprentice and influences the vision of the history of the people. The individual must break free from these centuries of propaganda which taught him to think in a neurotic way. The Dharmic Economy is then a global education demonstrating to the apprentice that the great corporation is not something inevitable, indispensable or responsible for the progress in life, but rather it is a way of dominance and mandate just like any other totalitarian regime.
In order to understand the Maitriyana, one must understand the materialistic society from which it has marginalized and against which performs its libertarian protest. For the majority of the world, the capitalist lifestyle is a true religion in which money is their deity and the maximum increment of the gains is its liturgy. The banner of the Buddhist Socialism becomes the symbol of Detachment towards such a materialistic lifestyle, which is worshiped by many peoples with religious fervor. Capitalist society is fully oriented to selfishness, dualism and consumerism, so its aim is to have as much monetary gains as possible in order to maintain a standard of living based on waste and superficiality. Therefore, an individual who contributes to the expansion of the capitalist economy through the maximization of profits is simultaneously increasing the degree of continuing deterioration of the world. The Dharmic Economy states that gaining more and more money does not involve an increase of wealth, because the accumulation of monetary benefits impoverishes the humanity and the Earth (Gaia), destroying the environmental beauty and by damaging the health of people by polluting the air and poisoning the rivers.[16] The libertarian meditation is then a way to liberate the apprentice from this psychological, philosophical and political conditioning that deprives the human being to reach the Awakening (Bodhi) of his inner and outer world.
In accordance with Jacque Fresco, the Maitriyana points out that money have no real existence, since it is an invention to acquire scarce goods and services. But without the presence of the natural resources such as arable land, clean water and animals, the money is nothing. Therefore, the natural resources will be the true value in the future of humanity. Buddhist Socialism proposes a society based on resources and on the non-monetarism, so that all the human beings can have access to the satisfaction of their basic needs: peace, food, education and nature. The Dharmic Economy seeks that all what is necessary begins to be available without a price label. That means that the civilization must reach a level of redistributive production in order that the inequality and scarcity do not exist between the peoples again. But the basic needs of human beings would still be having motivations and incentives, although not in terms of material gains. In a dharmic civilization the maximum gain would be that the resources are available to everyone. Therefore, the Maitriyana teaches that even in a kind of dharmic civilization the necessities would continue to exist, but these would not be basic but rather of a higher order, due that the individual will always need something. This lack or absence is the Emptiness of Being (Sunyata); being the fact that it cannot be achieved perfection, permanence and substantiality. Given that the True Self is the Empty Dynamic Ground, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) teaches that the human being is condemned to be always in some form of imbalance, which makes he develops the Desire and the learning. With the elimination of poverty and social inequality, the essential incentive of the society would change and would cease to be the money to be now the resolution of the general problems of existence. For the Buddhist Socialism, when the peoples do not have access to the resources needed for survival, their behavior often turns into something inappropriate and aberrant, losing the mental balance because of the socioeconomic alienation. But when the apprentice is mentally liberated from servitude, then he can find new and unimagined horizons. The entire wonderful and amazing vision from the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) can be reduced to this Purpose (Dharma) of evolving the humanity to its highest spiritual potential. Although he knows that all the problems cannot be solved because the reality is imperfect, impermanent and insubstantial, the spiritual master has the goal of designing and building a better world in harmony with the environment, so that all the human beings can achieve the Cure (Nirvana). The option of the Dharmic Economy seems to be the next evolutionary step of the civilization because there are not many options, since the peoples have reached an inflection point in which if the wild capitalist system continues, everyone will destroy each other. Thus the Maitriyana proclaims that all the peoples should debate between the option of destruction and the option of evolution. In this sense, the Buddhist Socialism does not aim at a perfect society, since this would violate one of the three features of reality. Instead, the Dharmic Economy points out the Path to a better world, being a humanist utopia that can be achieved in the here and now. The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) wants and works in pursuit of living with warmth and harmony among everyone, because he knows perfectly well that if they do not live in the right way, the human beings will kill each other and they simultaneously will destroy the Earth (Gaia). Within the planetary body, humanity occupies an important function, being in a high evolutionary stage. However, the capitalist civilization breaks the necessary tranquility and serenity, behaving like a brain cancer within the Earth (Gaia). Therefore, according to Jacque Fresco, the spiritual master says that the peoples of the world are not really civilized, because as long as there is no unity and while the armies, war, poverty, social injustice, prisons, the illiteracy and pollution are not banished, then there will not even reached the beginning of a true civilization. Thus, the concept of capitalist civilization or industrial civilization is revealed as an illusion of the mind, a preliminary stage of the true civilization, talking about a static state that has already been obtained instead of speaking of a constant developing process. For the Maitriyana only a Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is a fully civilized person, because he thinks and behaves in the most constructive way possible. The Buddhist Socialism refers to this as spiritual intelligence or reconciliatory intelligence. Thus, the objective of the libertarian meditation is that the individual learns this type of high intelligence.
According to the Dharmic Economy, with the development of the capitalist civilization great cities and armies were built, but basically the system of slave civilization has not been eliminated, since there still exist beings oppressed and alienated by the materialistic sociocultural system, which is sadistic, aggressive and has a passion for the subjugation and destruction even greater than the primitive peoples.[17] The capitalist civilization is heading towards a precipice, because its political and economic system is destined to crash given that it has not built according to the laws of brotherhood and mutual support that characterize libertarian socialist civilization. This free falling, that the consumerism of all natural resources represents is something that the spiritual masters often perceive as visionaries that warn prophetically the things to come. The materialistic science not even seems to contradict the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) on this possible scenario of the human self-destruction and decline of all the living systems of the biosphere of the Earth (Gaia), which helps and nourishes the whole field of life. According to the Maitriyana, the capitalist industry is exploitative, abusive, linear and dirty, as their processes annihilate the self-regulatory capacity of the Earth (Gaia). Therefore, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is very concerned about the legacy that the future generations will receive, because the drastic decrease of the environment will be a death sentence for the grandchildren of all the peoples of the world. Buddhist Socialism struggles against intergenerational tyranny, since it is about a garnishment for the future generations.
In this way the Dharmic Economy it is about an alternative economic system that transforms the virality of the capitalist Discourse, by redirecting it towards the higher purposes of Liberation, so that the Maitriyana has the important potentiality to be a revolutionary thought of all the planetary life. The Buddhist Socialism fosters a pacifist economy cooperating with the Earth (Gaia), by proposing to stop the indiscriminate exploitation of its limited natural resources, because the true growth and expansion is the Awakening (Bodhi). In the face of the capitalist Discourse prevailing in the global culture, the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas) prophesy that the economical gaze of the future will be characterized by the abandonment of the quantitative measurement in pursuit of an analysis of the qualitative, thus underlining the importance of the ecological intelligence which is inserted in the quality of the True Being. In the dharmic civilization, concordantly, the humanistic technology will be a solid principle in the process of instrumentalization that will lead humanity to the next evolutionary step. The metapolitical nodal notion of the Dharmic Economy consists in explicitly introducing the transcendent values of Detachment within the socioeconomic thought. If every economic scientific theory is based on a Discourse which has its own system of human values, hence, when passing through the illusions of social institutions and change the perception of the existence it should also change the economic theories. In this way the Discourse of the Libertarian Spirituality is characterized by an economic theory based on the values and goals of the Cure (Nirvana). Abandoning the current materialistic system, which seeks to achieve the maximum consumption, the economic system of Maitriyana which the future humanity will display is based on the ethics of the Middle Way, whose finality is to achieve the maximum wellbeing with an optimal pattern of detachment from consumption.
When undertaking the analysis of the investigation of the libertarian meditation it is indubitable to intuitively and directly perceive towards where should go the next paradigm shift of the economic system, whose basic premises will have to be necessarily linked to the humility of Detachment, which is the transcendence of both the opulent capitalism and the ascetic communism. In fact, this vision is able to truly solve the problems inherited from the current scientific system, that is so fragmentary and reductionist, limited to a quantitative analysis that refuses to perceive the essential nature of the Real. Only with the Detachment from the avidity, the apprentice can be de-alienated from the lack of values provided by the social system, replacing it by the holistic and integral perception of life that characterizes the Buddhist Socialism.
The implacable critique of the Dharmic Economy then recognizes that the growth and expansion is an essential feature of the life drive (Yang), while the decline and contraction of the death drive (Yin) also are. Life and death, according to the paradoxical dialectics, are not opposite poles but rather interdependent forces that shape the only Way (Tao) of the existence, so that the disorders only happen when one aspect prevails over another. The decline, recession and death, in this sense, not only must be accepted as inherent processes of life but they must also be transited ethically and worthily as something very much valuable.
For the economic vision of the Maitriyana, the flourishing of capitalism is nothing but a form of growth which is pathological, unhealthy, disruptive, destructive and perverse that it should not be allowed. It is sufficient with a simple moment of revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) to become aware that it is a fundamental impossibility the search of infinite growth of consumption in a finite reality. For such reason the Buddhist Socialism considers that ecology must be one of the four pillars of the economic vision. In the system of the Dharmic Economy, the technology of capitalist civilization acts as a cancer or an extraneous element within the planetary body of the Earth (Gaia), from which multiple symptoms of rejection emerge.[18]
Consistent with Bodhidharma, the Maitriyana states that the mundane individual lives deceived because he is always longing for something. Instead, the apprentice who develops the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) achieves the Awakening (Bodhi) of Truth. The subject who abandons the cultural customs to follow the intuitive reason can set his mind in Sublimation (Nirodh) of Desire, letting that the life changes with the seasons without clinging to anything. Just as the Master Takuan, the Buddhist Socialism teaches that if the apprentice follows the contemporary world, then he turns his back to the spiritual Path, so if he wants to reach the Cure (Nirvana) he must not follow the world. In the same way that the Master Rinzai, the Dharmic Economy says that if the subject understands that there is nothing to search for, then all the matters of his life already have arranged.
The Maitriyana operates in accordance with the nature of the Earth (Gaia) as a self-balancing, self-adjusting and self-cleaning system, as its techno-economic vision acknowledges the ecological principles of the Libertarian Spirituality. The Buddhist Socialism contains not only a scathing critique of the present, but also an alternative scheme for the future based on the spiritual vision of the libertarian meditation about the real values of life and death that are developed in the libertarian communities (Sanghas), where the apprentices can be genuinely and freely themselves because they think and live from the Middle Way of the Detachment. According to the Dharmic Economy, this change in the practice and vision requires a profound sublimatory reorientation from the academic Discourse towards the emerging paradigms of the Analytical-Existential-Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha) of the Reconciliatory Spirituality, since it demands the incorporation of the perennial knowledge towards the methodological approaches and structures of science. Thus the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) of Maitriyana orients the science and technology towards the natural, the peaceful, the elegant and the beautiful.[19]
In accordance with Jacque Fresco, the Buddhist Socialism is revealed as a contemplative science with an ability to predict the most probable future. The libertarian meditation is a method to perceive and evaluate situations, clearly differing from the opinion system. While the academic science has no special connection with the Truth, the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) is a superior way of perceiving things, by transcending both metaphysics and materialism. The mystical scientific method applied to the study of the society is something that is not usually practiced by people, although in its application the answer to complex solutions is found, such as those of the environment. The mystical scientific method of the Dharmic Economy points to the transformation of the social system, by routing the humanity towards the future. If the peoples use the scientific method of the libertarian meditation, then war, poverty, ignorance and pollution are things that tend to completely disappear around the world, because there is no basis for such things in the mind of the subject.
Consequently, this alternative economic approach of the Maitriyana is related to the emerging holistic vision of the Relativism or the Dharmic Physics, since they share the same Project of Awakening (Bodhi). This revolutionary approach, based on the analytical and existential experience of the great spiritual masters, enables developing a comprehensive and complex metapolitics of life. Given that the social and cultural institutions are unable to resolve the major crises and problems of the contemporaneity, by the fact of being attached to the mechanistic limited view of life, the Buddhist Socialism proposes a new kind of science within which the Dharmic Physics and Economy are found. This sublime perception, which will fully emerge in the future, emphasizes the interconnection relationships, the dynamic guidelines and the constant transformations of reality, providing a new underlying metapolitics that is consistent with the Future to come. This radical change boosted by the Maitriyana constitutes the only possible way to solve the problems that have left the social, economic and religious institutions, cautiously but openly confronting the prevailing cultural Discourse through a call to the global transformation.
Coming to the end of this contemporary era is that the experts on world politics perceive the need to a fundamental change that no academic science is able to carry out by itself, since only the Buddhist Socialism offers an orientation towards the Sense of Liberty. While the classical science of manipulation has based its purpose in the power and the thirst for dominion, the new science of the peak understanding bases its Purpose (Dharma) in the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña), Liberation and Cure (Nirvana) of the subject. The Dharmic Economy has intuited that the new scientific revolution will leave the thirst for power in order to become a perennial knowledge. The phasing out of the manipulative vision of the academic science allows that the knowledge itself ceases to be power in order to now become liberty, accumulating the sublime values of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) in pursuit of the ineffable and unaffordable Truth of life. The civilization of the future is then based on the metapolitical correction carried out by the contemplative science of the Maitriyana, by redirecting all its disciplines towards the genuine Purpose (Dharma) of Salvation. In line with the relativistic physics, the Buddhist Socialism agrees that, in a Universe composed of chaotic virtual particles, the only Purpose (Dharma) and meaning which can be discovered is the Liberty, so that the consequences of this mystical and transmaterialistic view are easily to detect.
Although the attitude of the spiritual master is modest, he perfectly knows that his utopian and revolutionary vision expresses an expanded and integrating model, since it comes from the peak understanding (Satori) that the Dharmic Economy is a component of a new perception of what is Real that is emerging in many fields gathered by the Maitriyana.[20]
The mystical science is not interested in those pseudo-knowledge that are useful in the manipulation of the nature and of the peoples, but rather its goal is undoubtedly the production of enlightening hypotheses which lead the apprentice towards the liberating self-realization of the Self, which is the problem essential of humanity. The passionate argumentation of the Buddhist Socialism impresses profoundly because it redirects the aim of the science of the materialistic manipulation towards the field of the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña), which is nothing but a libertarian meditation on the fundamental development of the human being. The obsession of science can no longer be the impossible dominion and control of the existence, but it must to give way to the future of spontaneity, creativity and freedom, by taking a holistic economic and ecological framework. The future evolution of the Dharmic Economy and physics demonstrates an absolutely metascientific framework, adjusting to the most advanced analytical-existential theories about The Mystical Real. As it is not based on mathematical models which are inert and devoid of any quality values, it is explicitly recognized the usefulness of the interrelationships and processual thinking that emphasizes the new mystical science of Maitriyana.
Consistent with E. F. Schumacher, the Buddhist Socialism puts into question the classical concept that reality can be addressed by mathematical models. The price paid for these quantitative models is precisely a loss of the qualitative aspect associated to the quality of life, which is indeed what matters most. This argument of the Dharmic Economy reflects the profound function which the experience and awareness of the values of the Being operate in the new contemplative science.
Like Relativism and Quantum, the Maitriyana abandons any vision of the reality as a set of isolated structures, in order to go after a systemic view of guidelines of relationships that is close to a qualitative concept of the Cosmos. Therefore, the Buddhist Socialism establishes that a science based on the study of imperfect, impermanent and insubstantial networks of guidelines is concordant to what the Dharmic Economy calls science of understanding.[21]
The orientation that is needed to solve the problems of the contemporary era can be found in the mystical science of the Analytical Existential Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha). In this sense, the physics and economy of Maitriyana can exert a philosophical and political impact because they are able to assimilate the qualitative conception of the levels of Being. With the libertarian meditation a free ethics emerges which can lead the individual towards a new horizon beyond good and evil, towards the ontological discontinuity of the Ultrahuman (Uebermensch) representing the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) as a product of the reconciliation and dealienation.
This fundamental point of view truly encompasses all the dimensions of the Real, by perceiving and analyzing the interconnections and interdependencies from its unique complexity. The methodology of contemplative observation declassifies the reality, previously divided into objects and levels, understanding it as an interrelated Whole which also depends on the observer himself. The spiritual master opens the doors to the science of the future as a way of dealing with the entire range of the cosmic phenomena of an integrative way, by using different concepts to unitedly describe the multiple aspects and levels of the Real in a reconciliatory way.[22]
Particularly, the specific example of this new mystical science promoted by the Buddhist Socialism is its emerging theory of complexity and the system of life, by describing the unified field of the Real where matter; life, consciousness and emptiness converge. This synthetic approach of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) respectively implies a position of libertarian meditation which promulgates the intense discussion about the future of the human being, besides teaching the glimpse of a new conceptual framework allowing resolving the economic, political and ecological problems of the world. This revolutionary system is the Analytical-Existential-Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha) within which the Dharmic Economy is inserted, whose overcoming comprehension comes directly from the experimentation of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen).
For the spiritual master, after the sudden Awakening (Bodhi) the apprentice must gradually advance to cure the reduced and fragmentary knowledge of consciousness. But this process of advance is eternal, since it leaves space for the non-knowledge, always remembering that there is much compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) in the simplicity and the smallness.[23]
Therefore in order that the intermediate technology of the mystical science is at the service of the society, in principle the subject must ethically and spiritually evolve, by deploying all the potential of the Empty Self. Only there the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) of the science of comprehension will be able to be deployed fully and not-necessarily. Although the Real cannot be completely described, the intermediate technology of the libertarian meditation indicates its specific situations.[24]
The Maitriyana never was nor ever will have extraordinary conceptual designs since their metapolitical theories come from a concrete practice which is a contemplation of the action, whose clear set of values and spiritual principles are creatively applied to solve the analytical and existential problems underlying the socioeconomic disorders.
The secret of the popularity that the Buddhist Socialism will have in the future world lies in that it is a message full of optimism and hope, ensuring that the basic needs of the peoples can be satisfied simply and efficiently. In order to do this it is essential to follow the example of the libertarian communes (sanghas) of apprentices, working on a small scale, without harming the nature and with a minimal capital. The Dharmic Economy develops its praxis under the premise that people matter, so it is a technology with a human face that is available to all people, [25] teaching them what actions must be taken immediately in order to Save the world.
Throughout the history of Spirituality it has been insisted on the interdependence of all the phenomenal through an immensely complex Middle Way in which the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is immersed. In this way the Maitriyana is a reconciling spiritual Way that produces an economic-ecological awareness through the perception of the concept of complementarity, which is the dialectical union of the opposite poles, which is fundamental to the understanding of life. This mystical vision of dynamic synthesis, present in all the ecological cyclic processes, demonstrates how the growth and decadence -the death and life- are indispensable functions of the emblem of being-in-the-world.
In accordance with E. F. Schumacher, the essence of the lifestyle of the Buddhist Socialism and the Dharmic Economy is its constant need of a living reconciliation of all opposite poles, by teaching to society how to attain the stability in the change, the order in the liberty, the tradition in the innovation, the Purpose (Dharma) in the spontaneity. In short, for the spiritual master, health and happiness depend purely and exclusively on the search for synthesis between activities or opposing objectives.[26]
While the mundane Power concerns the world of the illusions and disorder, the Spiritual Authority receives its principle from a higher order by which the Universe is integrated. According to the doctrine of Maitriyana, in all the conflicts that exist between the mundane Power and the Spiritual Authority, beyond appearances, the latter always has the last word.[27]
Furthermore, the Buddhist Socialism indicates that the apparent irresolvable polar conflicts in the socio-economic life can be transcended by compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) of the human understanding. The overwhelming ignorance and blindness of the capitalist politics can only be overcome by the Dharmic Economy that the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas) teach at the libertarian communes (sanghas), where the situation is much more hopeful and even utopian. Only when the society admires and learns from the spiritual values that the sublimatory structure of Liberty involves, the politicians of the day sincerely will be able to lead the nations-without-state towards the next evolutionary step that will end with the Ascension of the human being, which is the emergence of the Transubject or Superhuman. The future politicians -open to the consciousness of the Earth (Gaia) and to the holistic thought of the Maitriyana, then will schedule active and creative measures always according to the Advent of Liberty, as the cultivation of trees instead of harvests. According to the Buddhist Socialism, the trees keep in harmony the environment and the lives of countless species of living beings, by producing seeds, oxygen and nurturing the animals and people.[28]
In the inspiring and stimulating encounter with a spiritual master it may be perceived that his approach is always consistent with the existence, by teaching not only a harmony between the commitment to the work and the pleasures of life, but also that consuming less is to live better. The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) always has a natural Mindfulness, because while eating, playing, talking and swimming, he is meditating in a libertarian way at the same time he enjoys the sensory pleasures, which leads to live with a spontaneous happiness.[29]
The brilliant thought emanating from the Detachment has a creative and penetrating global perspective, whose profound compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) is imbued with a great kindness and spontaneity, at the same time it provides optimism and a great sense of humour. In the conversations with the great spiritual masters, the inherent fundamental link between the ecological understanding and the Spirituality is discovered, being the vision of life of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) the very embodiment of said sublimatory link based on an interlaced thought and on a non-hierarchical perspective.
Concordantly, the Libertarian Spirituality has developed a broad and flexible metapolitical framework, always in contact with the spiritual. The compendium of this brilliant vision of the existence is nothing more than the Middle Way of Detachment, the guide so that the humanity perplexed by the male vision is incorporated into the aesthetically feminine liberation movement. The Dharmic Economy will be acclaimed in the future as the most surprising and subversive political manifesto, since the Maitriyana is a new, exciting and radical social movement: the second wave of the Buddhist Socialism. Undoubtedly, the feminine aesthetics of the Dharmic Economy opens the eyes of the subject to the countless issues that this one was unconscious before. The movement for the Liberation of human beings, through the Economy of Detachment, has as one of its causes the overcoming of the widespread discrimination against the poor, the critique of the daily injustices and the complaint against the continued exploitation of the beings alienated by a chauvinistic society obsessed with the material domain. But the eloquent and incisive language of the Maitriyana goes vigorously beyond by questioning the basic and masculine assumptions of the culture itself in which it is inserted, which demonstrates the reason why the Buddhist Socialism is the only existing counterculture able to liberate the world. In addition, the Dharmic Economy demonstrates how the subjectivities has been conditioned so that they unconsciously accept stereotypes and roles of themselves, by perceiving the whole of their femininity -their body, their sexuality, their intellect and their emotionality- from the male perspective of the social Discourse. This relentless conditioning distorts the Real field of the apprentice, castrating him and alienating him to an imaginary phantasmatic (Maya) vision of himself. Therefore, the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) of Maitriyana produces anger in the traditional societies, proclaiming that the first duty of every subject is not with his State, nation, culture or religion, not even with his family, since his original Duty is with the care of himself which is the development of the essential Liberty, thus exhorting the apprentice to achieve the Cure (Nirvana) by means of the aesthetic and feminine Way of the self-discovery and self-realization of the True Self.
For the Buddhist Socialism, Spirituality and the State are antagonistic, so that the idea of a spiritual government is nothing more than an illusory idea from materialism. All the great ages of Spirituality are times of political decline. What is always sublime of the Spirituality is that it is apolitical, anti-political or metapolitical, the latter being the case of that which is the Dharmic Economy. For the spiritual master, when someone comes to the mundane Power pays the expensive price of stultification, since the traditional politics kills all profound interest in the Truth of the spirit.[30]
The main strategy of this radical challenge is the Middle Way of Maitriyana, by inspiring to live detachedly and to realize that the Liberation of the subject is also the liberation of humanity and of the Earth (Gaia). So that the apprentice experiences that the struggle for the Liberation of the world is a scary and exciting thing, because otherwise it would be the wrong struggle.[31]
The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) participates actively and in a libertarian way in the countercultural movement of the Buddhist Socialism, even though he never establishes violent antagonisms in his discussions, since he is limited to happily share his libertarian meditations about the evolutionary future of the human being. Thus, the Dharmic Economy solitarily explores new ways of thinking, new values and new systems of intersubjective links through the liberating power of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) from which the ethical and feminine respect for the existence of the Earth (Gaia) comes from. Therefore, the plans of the mystical research cannot be restricted to the mere paradigm change, as they produce a total transformation of the cosmovision of the dominant social Discourse. This new metascientific research provides a fresh and fascinating perspective which revolutionizes the history of thought, in addition to producing far-reaching consequences for physics, economics and the set of other social disciplines. The investigation conducted by the libertarian meditation is also related to the role of Siddhartha Gautama in the change of objective from the science of manipulation to the science of wisdom, recognizing his practical and theoretical work as an important avatar of the future superhuman thinking. The Maitriyana shows that in the ancient spiritual texts it is glimpsed how Siddhartha Gautama personified a transcendental link between the two main branches of the next metaparadigm: the holistic and insubstantial concept of reality and the ethical detachment for the obsession with the domination and control over the culture. According to the Buddhist Socialism, Siddhartha Gautama was the first to formulate a clear theory of the meta-scientific approach, by transcending the limitations of the empiricism and rationalism through his exciting and overwhelming method of contemplative research. While the materialistic science inherited from Bacon is proposed to head off the processes of nature, by torturing it, enslaving it and forcing it to serve humanity to extract from it its secrets, on the other hand, the aim of the mystical science seeks to intuitively and synthetically understand the Real in the very Happening of the subject-object encounter. If materialistic science was founded over male values that attempt to violently penetrate the femininity of nature through the Baconian orientation,[32] clearly the methodology of the mystical science of the Dharmic Economy -based on a feminine aestheticity- is spiritually understand the nature and non-interfere with its deployment.
The Maitriyana demonstrates the existence of a fundamental and vertiginous link between the new mystical science and the feminine values, having a tremendous impact on the analytical-existential spirit of the global development of the post contemporary science. In contrast to the scientific, technological and industrial classical attitude, the releasing objectives of the Buddhist Socialism are the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) and the peak comprehension (Satori) of the order of life that is implicit in the aesthetic harmony of Chaos. From the perspective of the spiritual master, from Bacon the goal of the materialistic science has been the dominant and controlling knowledge of life, so that the technology is often used with threatening objectives, harmful and antiecological.[33]
Paradoxically, the consequences of the Dharmic Economy reveal Siddharta Gautama as the refounding father of science, by linking the holistic and ecological vision of reality with the aesthetic and feminine ideal of the sublimated individual, whose creativity and spontaneity are the expression of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva). When banishing the exploitation of both nature and women, the socioeconomic vision of the Maitriyana constitutes the source of the interrelationship between ecology and femininity, which is a fundamental aspect of the cultural transformation that the Libertarian Spirituality proposes.
Thus, in the Buddhist Socialism, the next phase of development of the apprentice then consists in the acute awareness of the radical importance of the Earth (Gaia). From this point of view, the spiritual master is an artistic activist, a sublimated being who introduces the silent inner revolution to later transmit this evolution to the others. By means of the Mindfulness the establishment of an attitude and detached and free conduct pattern emerges, by being a process that completely transforms the perception of the sociocultural Discourse since it reveals the basic illusoriness of its institutional pillars.
Certainly, it is very difficult emerging as a Self-Awakened (Samyaksambuddha), reaching the Awakening (Bodhi) alone by himself without needing anything or anyone. From this supreme kind of Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is that the Dharmic Economy was founded as a Pathway to detach from the own and others ties, living a totally lucid existence. This kind of individual is the incarnation of Maitriyana in the world, so he cannot be pigeonholed or used by any scheme, ideology or organization. That is why the Power often discards the libertarian vision of the spiritual master as a utopia or a poetic conception. Since the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) cannot use others nor be used by others, spontaneously breaks all the plans and schemes of the social and cultural system, even being far beyond the great futurist theories which objectively analyze his consciousness and behaviour. In this way the spiritual master is revealed as a new species of human being. The Buddhist Socialism then claims that a Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is the extraordinary event of the apprentice who dealienates himself from Power, so that he represents the biggest revolution that the human being can experience. Thus, the Dharmic Economy states that the Cure (Nirvana) is the only true revolution of society, since the Awakening (Bodhi) of the inner world is the skilful means (upaya) to transform the external world, which is the result of subjective impulses. In this sense, the spiritual master warns that when only occurs the outer revolution, even though the planned modification of the social environment is necessary, this is not enough for the Salvation of the world because it only changes the superficial functions of consciousness and does not profoundly transform the whole human being. Therefore, when feeling dissatisfaction before greed, hatred and delusion of society, the practitioners of libertarian meditation are seekers of possible utopias which can be performed in the here and now, so that the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) constitutes in itself an integral revolution. The libertarian meditation helps the individual to change his interiority in order to then be able to emanate a transforming influence on the relationships with others.[34]
When carefully analyzing the Purpose (Dharma) of Maitriyana it is possible to systematically compile essential passages that enable the deployment of this change in the state of consciousness. The perception of life has been conditioned by male and oppressive stereotypes, so that the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) radically broadens the ethical review towards the whole of the human condition, by covering with a passionate erudition the discussion about the lack of Liberty of the social organization, the family dynamics, cultural history, the economic ties and religion. Revealing its essential self-contradictions, the counterculture of the Buddhist Socialism is served from the ethics and the art in order to deploy all the force of Spirituality, which is nothing more than the Pathway of Liberation.
According to the Dharmic Economy, the capitalist Power is based on the familiar, ideological and political system of patriarchy, where the man determines subjection over the women through the force of law, the pressure of the rites, the tradition of the customs, language, work or education.[35] When profoundly examine the bases of the social Discourse, the apprentice experiences a radical change in his perception of the linkages, immersing himself into an intellectual and emotional swirl that sublimates his whole existence and which redirects him towards the Detachment and Liberty. This peak comprehension (Satori) is extremely difficult because the social Discourse of capitalism is practically omnipresent and it influences the most basic ideas about the human being and his relation with existence. Openly discussing the validity of this dominant system, whose doctrines are universally accepted by almost all the peoples as if they were laws of nature, is what the revolutionary movement of Detachment implies, which is the Maitriyana, being the advent of the singular event of the Real.
Concordantly, if the Buddhist Socialism puts in crisis the perception of human nature, of the society and of the culture, it needs also the theoretical developments of the Dharmic Physics and Economy, which vividly questions the basic assumptions about the material reality. This process of exploration of the libertarian meditation is a multidimensional questioning that has enormous direct repercussions for the individual, positioning him closer to the Emptiness. Thus, as the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) involves a perception of the aesthetic dimension of Being, it also forces the apprentice to critically examine both the essential subjectivity and his role in society and in the cultural tradition. Although initially the subject may experience insecurity and irascibility against the libertarian perceptions of meditation that reveal the illusions of the institutional, momentarily taking a stance of ascetical aversion in the face of the oppressive social system, then the apprentice gets to be aware that ultimately he is who chooses their own values and conducts, being already a Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) from the beginning of the essential life. At the same time, the radical critique of the Maitriyana exerts a powerful fascination on the subject, which persists until the end of the spiritual journey.
Buddhist Socialism produces a special fascination over the apprentice, since this one meets a completely new research: the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen). This is similar to what is experienced by students of philosophy and sociology when they begin to read Plato and Marx.[36] But for the Dharmic Economy, the discovery of the libertarian meditation perspective is the greatest experience of depth that the comprehension can reach, producing an unrivalled attraction by taking on the challenge of redefining the Sense of the human being. Upon approaching the dimension of the Real Being, the subject experiences an emotional and intellectual exaltation of ineffable magnitudes, while the new way of contemplative thinking reveals the ancient ideological systems as repressive and partially inadequate, because they have been created by a male rationality lacking the feminine intuitive aestheticity of the spiritual.
For the Maitriyana, indeed, the true Liberation of the peoples means changing the own thinking, reintegrating the repressed unconscious in order to develop a subjective structure of Reconciliation (Maitri) between the emotional and intuitive with the intellectual and rational.[37] Consequently, the primary goal of the Buddhist Socialism is to reintegrate the True Self into the consciousness in order to femininely liberate the apprentice from the alienation produced by the social Discourse. The spiritual master affirms that the vital experience of the body, as the process of respiration, indirectly points to the Purpose (Dharma) of Liberation, so the libertarian meditation is often an experience which is felt to a visceral level: the world thought through the body, linking what is often cruelly disorganized.[38]
The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) finds extremely easy to accept the aesthetic perspective, socially manifesting himself as a female subject, sublimated and without sexual repression, whose spiritual guide has harmoniously and effectively eroded the archetypal stereotypes of what it is a man and a woman. In the decisions concerning the Purpose (Dharma) of existence, obviously both the Ego and the male rationality play a second role facing the huge power of female intuition.
When the apprentice practices revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) all his personal mental burdens, that are worries and neurotic thoughts, can be banished so that life peacefully elapses while a better world is constructed. In this way the individual is able to inter-relate his intuition with the reason when making decisions, ethically and spontaneously acting while he overcomes selfishness, dualism and consumerism.
Upon slowly absorbing, over the years, the broad framework of the radical critique of the Dharmic Economy exposed on the vigorous practice of libertarian meditation, the apprentysand gradually matures his awareness-raising of the Real future of the ecological and socio-economic ties. The idea of detachment profiled in the contemplative practice acquires a greater meaning and development in the subjectivity of the individual until becoming the key aspect of his cosmovision of reality. Realizing the increasingly important relationship between femininity, ecology and Spirituality, the apprentysand emerges to the new Analytical-Existential-Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha) of the spiritual master. Only there he will be able to recognize the socio-economic role of Maitriyana as a fundamental force of cultural transformation, being the ethics of the Middle Way a catalyst for the reunification of various movements of revolutionary orientation working in pursuit of Liberation. The overcoming understanding of the Cure (Nirvana) will greatly influence the most outstanding theoreticians by redirecting their work towards the feminine and ecological Spirituality. From the study of the libertarian meditation, the experiential knowledge of the feminine allows the subject to be able to become the avatar of the new thinking. Evidently, the inevitable decline of the institutions of the social Discourse, within which lies the State and religion, will allow the culture to be able to evolve in a dissipative way towards the forms of the post-capitalist Spirituality.
The Libertarian Spirituality of the Buddhist Socialism emphasizes the harmonious union between the organization of the people and the cycles of nature, being a precursor movement that points the Path to a new civilization. Thus, the Dharmic Economy is deeply rooted in the female experience of interrelation with the vital processes of the Earth (Gaia). Therefore, the Maitriyana is essentially ecological and very close to the values of the Aboriginal Spirituality. The Buddhist Socialism is then a spiritual tradition that ratifies life and is oriented towards the care for the nature.
In his first contemplative works, the apprentysand explores the ancient perennial wisdom, as well as the consequences of its implementation for the peoples of the world. The scholarly findings of the remarkable work of the Dharmic Economy contain a concise and noticeable study of the beauty of life, meticulously reconstructing their original forms from their Empty Dynamic Source. The libertarian meditation convincingly argues, along with the support from numerous references of the metapolitical literature of the Maitriyana, that religion and capitalism are unnatural. Preceded by the matriarchal and patriarchal forms, the anthropological theory of the Buddhist Socialism notes that the upcoming global evolution of human culture will be based on the link form of the detached subject, leaving the pillar of the family to approximate a dharmic civilization where relationships are grounded in the essential Liberty of the True Self. However, in order that this future society is fully deployed the humanity shall pass through the dissipative structures of the Earth (Gaia), with which the human being who learns in a sublimatory way from the existential conflicts of contemporaneity can become part of that Transhumanity. The new Spirituality of the Dharmic Economy then will reflect a new social order, being a system that incorporates the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) proper of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) in pursuit of spontaneous and detached links. The different metapolitical disciplines, approaching the Analytical Existential-Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha) of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) shall be considered in turn as forms derived from the great Maitriyana Spirituality which will be the supreme ethics for many millennia in the most parts of the world. The clarity of the analytical ideas and the strength of the existential arguments will begin to develop the crucial point of the Buddhist Socialism, also recognizing the similarity of its respective libertarian approach with that of the Perennial Philosophy, which serves as confirmation and encouragement to continue collaborating with the Project for Liberation of the world.
When the spiritual master describes the mystical experience of femininity, the apprentice understands that this is a form of transcendental ecological awareness-raising. The Dharmic Economy is the result of an intuitive understanding of the oneness and interdependence of all life, embracing its multiple features of imperfection, impermanence and insubstantiality. In fact, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) considers the Libertarian Spirituality as a vital link between ecology and femininity. For such reason, the Maitriyana is a synthesis of both perspectives that brings to light the profound implications of the ecological and feminist awareness-raising for the new paradigm of the Buddhist Socialism.
The Dharmic Economy has responded the challenge posed by the contemporary era, exploring in detail the economic and political meanings of the ethics of the Middle Way through the ability to thinking the world through the libertarian meditation. The ecological and feminine ethics of the spiritual master talks about experiences inherent to the sublimated sexuality as physical parables of the essential connection of all life, by demonstrating the immersion of the spiritual in the cyclical processes of existence. The Middle Way of Maitriyana also analyzes the contemplative perceptions and interpretations regarding the differences between discourses, quoting the recent researches concerning the true difference between the vision of the female and the male life. By synthesizing the contextual perception, the integration capability and the rational analysis, the intuitive thinking is recognized as a manifestation of a holistic and experiential knowledge, which is the main source of the emergent economic and ecological metaparadigm of the Buddhist Socialism.
By being aware of the depth and amplitude of the consequences of the aesthetic perspective of the libertarian meditation, the apprentysand intuits a non-hierarchical order of life, starting to see the need for an advice from the anarchist ideology in the political and economic field. By being someone who can transcend the technical jargon of this discipline, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is able to unmask the illusions of the mainstream economic thought and thus exposing alternatives based on solid spiritual principles, applying the ecological and feminine perspective to the political, economic and technological analysis. Naturally every individual who consults the radical vision of the Buddhist ecological economist must learn to flow with the intuitive, systematically seeking the spiritual advisory with ears and eyes wide open. Indeed, the apprentysand must displace his consciousness from the neurotic conflicts towards the concentration on the change of paradigm from his entire cosmovision about the physical, social and economic reality.
Consistent with Chögyam Trungpa, the spiritual master teaches that acting ethically implies the absence of repressions and inhibitions, because the moral leads the individual to fear of being and living. The Dharmic Economy is a way of educating spiritual warriors who assume the Purpose (Dharma) of working for a better world, since this kind of subject is not afraid of being or living, being as free as the tiger in the jungle.[39]
The extraordinary subjectivity of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) revolutionarily challenges –like a tiger in the market– to the institutions and the political, economic and corporate leaders, through radical critiques of the basic concepts and values ruling the society. Nevertheless, any pessimistic doubt is dispelled by observing that his thinking is quite enthusiastic and hopeful, since when creating alternative futures where optimal socio-economic values rule, the spiritual master opens a portal into a reality where the peoples have the serene sensation to find what they wanted: Liberation.
The contemplative look of Maitriyana allows understanding the political and economic problems that are roundly a consequence of the materialistic paradigm of capitalism, whose inadequate vision of reality has endangered the existence of life through social institutions characterized by a masculine style of domain and appropriation.
Like Ray Anderson, the Buddhist Socialism accuses and calls Earth looters to the industrial companies because they do not perform a sustainable development, establishing a capitalist civilization which is defective, dysfunctional and erroneous. The Dharmic Economy is the way to go towards a meta-industrial revolution, since the libertarian meditation visualizes that the purification of the mind is the way to organize the peoples at around the commitment to the Purpose (Dharma) of doing good and doing the least possible damage. The Maitriyana is a movement that has not cut the umbilical cord with Earth (Gaia), so that it takes care of its natural resources and promotes the use of renewable energies. The Buddhist Socialism plan is to achieve a sustainable civilization. That goal is even higher than the Awakening (Bodhi) of the apprentice, being much more difficult to perform because it points to the Cure (Nirvana) of evils. For the Dharmic Economy, this is to leave no traces in the world. The path of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is represented by the symbol of the bird, leaving no traces on the sky: no one knows they have been there.[40]
Concordantly, the point of view of Maitriyana suggests that the paradoxical situation indicating the limit of the capitalist economic concept plays the same role as the paradoxes discovered by contemplatively analyzing the psychic reality. Thus, according to the Buddhist Socialism, the environmental, urban, demographic and energetic crises are rooted in an incorrect perception of reality,[41] since the limited and inadequate visions from egoism, dualism and consumerism are what really generate all these types of crises. The basic thesis of the Dharmic Economy is that the main problems of the capitalist world are distinct facets of a structural crisis of the system and that is essentially a crisis of perception of the existence.[42]
Therefore, the spiritual master is led by the inspiring intuition of the systematic investigation of the change of discursive paradigm in diverse fields, by approaching the main points of the crises from a critical view that is consistent with the Middle Way of the Maitriyana. Effectively, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) criticizes the fragmentation of the traditional economic thinking, the absence of ethical values, the capitalist obsession with the economic growth and the indiscriminate oblivion of the interdependence of society with the nature. Thus, the Buddhist Socialism recommends a profound reorientation of the economic, political and technological systems, by basing on the optimal use of renewable resources and in the Mindfulness to the Purpose (Dharma) of life. The Dharmic Economy goes beyond the traditional academic approaches, providing both an analytical-existential criticism and a libertarian scheme of possible social alternatives, by offering a rich combination of anarchist theory and spiritual activism. Each point of the revolutionary critique from the Maitriyana is substantiated by numerous illustrations and experimental data, suggesting future alternatives for the deployment of the Liberation of the peoples who are accompanied both by case narratives of ancient spiritual masters as well as of bibliographical references to the texts from leftist theoreticians. Each story of spiritual conversion of a subject into a Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is somehow the prototype of the future transformation of the old humanity to the evolved suprahumanity proposed by the Buddhist Socialism, passing from the attachment to capitalism to the event of the Dharmic Economy, whose vision is sustained by the experience of the Awakening (Bodhi).
The political-economical manifesto of every spiritual master is the Project of Liberty, being a goal supported by the activities of the base organization of the libertarian commune (Sangha). That is why the Maitriyana does not focus exclusively on psychological and philosophical matters, but rather it deliberately and consciously includes a political and economical approach as a way of world transformation. For the Buddhist Socialism, the science of libertarian meditation is an admirable and incisive analysis of the deficiencies of the conventional political economy, producing a profound awareness of the wide ecological and feminine perspective of the Spirituality. At the same time, the unique style of the mystical language of the Analytical-Existential-Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha) baffles any traditional position of the economics and politics.
Although the discourses of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) are often short, they are saturated with compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña), so that his statements are juxtapositions of forceful and powerful revolutionary contemplations (kakumei-zen). In its effort to create a new world, the Dharmic Economy shows it is fundamental the interdependency between the economic, social and ecological views,[43] constantly aspiring to go through the form of linear thinking with an ethical virtue that uses linguistic metaphors.
For the spiritual master, the economic system must not pursue an intellectual line, but rather intuitive of the implicate order of the Real, by dedicating to implement a full detachment towards the expired triumphalistic policy prevailing in the capitalist financial community. Thanks to the linguistic genius and the complexity of the mental patterns of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva), the Maitriyana fosters a reconceptualization policy of the capitalist Discourse. By dedicating quite some time to Mindfulness of the psychic and social reality, in order to understand the amplitude and depth of the new economic ideas that can save the world, the Buddhist Socialism presents an ideal opportunity for the socio-political future of humanity. Extracting compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) from the practice of the libertarian meditation, the Dharmic Economy structures the theoretical arguments of the paradigm shift in the contemporary economy and politics. In the solitary work of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen), the apprentice can glimpse the edge of the precipice to which the capitalist civilization is approaching, at the same time he perceives the becoming of the beautiful and ethical next socioeconomic system. As the spiritual master sets a meticulous and arduous multiple interconnection between economy, politics, ecology, technology and spiritual values, his synthetic understanding opens new possible dimensions for the profound rediscovery of the true Project towards which the human being tends, given that humanity is not an end in itself but a bridge to the superhuman enlightened by the Liberty and Cure (Nirvana). In this way the libertarian meditation allows to clearly and unequivocally affirm that the governmental administration is not only incorrect by the management inability of the economists and politicians, but also the basic concepts of contemporary economic thought are illusory. The observation of Maitriyana clarifies issues that the capitalist economists are not able to cope with, even though these are conflicts that threaten the entire citizenry, such as the endemic poverty, the structural ignorance and the destruction of the environment.
Putting into question the very values which have founded to social institutions, through abundant evidence that support this affirmation, included the theoretical postulates from several outstanding economists, the Buddhist Socialism contemplatively recognizes that the capitalist civilization has reached a crossroads, an inflection point that compels it to choose between two possible paths: persisting in its assumptions and approaching the social cataclysm of its system, or reformulate its foundational pillars by incorporating a new Sense of Purpose (Dharma) much more libertarian and revolutionary. Somehow, the Dharmic Economy proposed by the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is the theoretical product of the sublimation of capitalism, transforming it through the ethics of the Middle Way which transcends the extremes of the neoliberal capitalism and the authoritarian communism. This demonstrates that the Maitriyana is not really anti-capitalist but rather it is decidedly post-capitalist, thus avoiding falling in the antithetical position of the dictatorial communism through a synthesis of both polar systems.
According to the Buddhist Socialism, the fact that the Capitalist Discourse is at a blind alley is due to it is rooted in a false ideological system, being extremely antiquated facing the new perspectives and challenges of the contemporaneity, so it is obvious that a profound revision of its structure of domain and consumption values is needed. The Dharmic Economy shows in detail that the current theoreticians talk about mathematical abstractions, controlling quantitatively a wrong vision of life by using variables and very obsolete conceptual models to describe a socioeconomic reality that, inevitably, is in process of extinction. The fundamental basis of the mystical critique from the spiritual master constitutes the inability to adopt an ethical perspective on the part of most of the economists and politicians. According to the metapolitics of Maitriyana, the economic system is only one aspect of the socio-ecological fabric of the Earth (Gaia), which is a living system that the capitalist economists tend to fragmentarily analyze, ignoring the essential interdependence of reality. Under the capitalist Discourse all the goods and services are reduced to its virtual monetary values, ignoring the environmental and relational costs that the economic activities generate, which are considered as external variables outside the theoretical models of the corporate economists. This viral and selfish vision of life not only consumes the ecosystem reserves as free merchandise, but it also seriously affects the complex web of social ties because of the continued economic expansion. According to the Buddhist Socialism, the private benefits can no longer be based on the detriment of the health of the environment and the general quality of life of the peoples, so it is imperative to sublimate the capitalist thirst and attachment to the material consumption. Thus, the Dharmic Economy claims that while the rivers and lakes are not cleaned up from pollution, all cities of the world will be poor. Therefore, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) insists that, in order to endow the civilization of solid ecological basis, the capitalist economists will have to perform a profound ethical review of his basic ideas and concepts, redirecting the very aim of their practice towards the Liberation and Awakening (Bodhi).
The Maitriyana analyzes with many real examples how the economic concepts are often totally unlinked with their socio-ecological context. According to the Buddhist Socialism, the gross domestic product (GDP) that calculates the richness of a country is obtained by summing all the economic activities involving monetary values, such as car accidents or even illegal activities, while those non-monetary valuable activities that are aspects of the economic system are ignored.[44]
Just like the economist Loretta Napoleoni, the spiritual master points out that this contemporary civilization makes the criminal economy grows. In fact, the development of the criminal wealth is in the very basis of the industrial society,[45] because poverty tends to the need for money and the organized crime. Therefore, the Capitalist Discourse makes the local mafias remain and even grow in times of economic recession of the State. Even, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) affirms that the banks are nothing more than a legalized usurious activity, while the political parties have been perverted into representatives of the illegal and illegitimate economy that is managed by the organized crime.
Facing the inevitable decline of the capitalist system, the Dharmic Economy proposes to replace the gross domestic product (GDP) by measuring the gross product of popular happiness. Although the liberal, progressive and communist groups often rule out the metapolitical approach from the Buddhist Spirituality as something that is simply religious,[46] the Maitriyana is the advent of an opportunity for change for all the humanity, even demonstrating that its distinct look also performs a critique of religion for being the opium of the people.
According to the forecast of the Buddhist Socialism, energy will become a fundamental variable for the measurement of the economic activities, in which the optimal and unattached consumption will be a symbol of true wealth, knowledge and freedom.
While in an equitable society the human beings are distinguished from each other by the knowledge, in the discriminatory society parentage, material wealth and external appearances are considered as a sign of superiority.[47] Consistent with Democritus, the Dharmic Economy claims that the true wealth does not consist in the possession of goods but rather in the wise and compassionate use of them, so that the confusion between the concepts of wealth and money is one of the biggest problems that the capitalist civilization suffers.[48] Hence, like Hazel Henderson, the Maitriyana establishes that the conception of wealth must be de-identified from their capitalist connotations associated with material accumulation, being redefined as a process of enrichment of the entire humanity. This implies that the Buddhist Socialism redefines the concept of benefit, by showing that actually means the creation of an authentic richness available to the people instead of representing the economic gains that are acquired through the social and environmental exploitation.[49]
Concordantly, the Dharmic Economy demonstrates how the capitalism distortedly understands the concepts of efficiency and productivity, due that in the wide non-corporate perception of Maitriyana the efficacy always is referred to the welfare, by understanding this state as the Liberty and Cure (Nirvana) of human beings. In this way the greater the effectiveness exists, the greater the degree of Liberation in the relation of the subject with the society and the ecosystem of the Earth (Gaia). The critical analysis of the libertarian meditation of the spiritual master about the basic economic concepts concludes that a new framework of more socialist, anarchist and ecumenical values is urgently needed, in which the concepts, variables and economic theories go according to peace, social justice, education and ecological harmony. By outlining the new socio-economic framework, the Buddhist Socialism is not limited to its conceptual aspects, since it also applies its depth look to the review of the underlying value system of the economic models. Only then, when the world is understood from an analytical-existential-libertarian perspective, it will be perceived that the ecological and socio-economic problems emanate from a lack of spiritual values.
The capitalist economy endows its discipline of scientific rigor at the same time it persistently refuses to analyze the value system that underlies its materialistic models. Thus, the Dharmic economy is an awareness of the set of unbalanced values dominating the social institutions of the world culture.[50] Thus, like Hazel Henderson, the Maitriyana indicates that the capitalist economy puts the most noxious predispositions on a pedestal, such as pride of egoism, the limited vision of dualism, the thirst for competition and the acquisitive eagerness of consumerism.[51]
According to the Buddhist Socialism, it is highly ironic that the great TV companies distribute some knowledge about the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas), by using them when they are against everything that capitalism represents. Many companies and governments give voice to the spiritual masters when they do nothing but oppose everything that the international financial system believes. But the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) reveals that television companies transmit this knowledge because they know they will make money, because this is their only aim. This is the incredible failure of capitalism: greed. This poison represents the paradoxical situation of the world, which sells the rope with which will be hanged in order to obtain monetary gain. This rope undoubtedly represents pollution, but it can be also a metaphor of the revolutionary social activism. So, when people hear the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) suddenly extraordinary things begin to happen, because people ceases to be with the mind numb by the technology and they stand to do something politically revolutionary. Although the capitalist economy is convinced that it can dominate the world through greed, hatred and delusion, the Dharmic Economy is entirely convinced of the opposite: there is hope that the apprentices reach the Awakening (Bodhi) and become a force of libertarian social action, doing something to recover the world. Even some activists like Michael Moore know this.
For the Maitriyana, the fundamental socio-economic problem of capitalism is the result of the lack of ethical, ecological and spiritual values, by being obsessed about the illusory unlimited growth in a notable pathological attitude of narcissistic attachment. The satisfaction which the permanent economic growth would entail is accepted as a feasible option from the limited viewpoint of the traditional politicians and economists, who believe that such path of attachment to material wealth leads to a decrease in poverty, ignoring not only that such satisfaction is impossible but also the features of the Real are frustration, impermanence and insubstantiality. In this way the Buddhist Socialism shows that the model of capitalist growth is entirely illusory, since the apparent high growth rates do not contribute to the alleviation of the social and humanitarian problems, because they often accompany the deterioration of the general living conditions. The Dharmic Economy also notes that the result of this compulsive attachment for the material growth is a feature from both the capitalist economy and the communist economy, so it is clear that the metapolitical model of the Maitriyana, proposed by the Pathway of the Buddhist Socialism, is a synthesis that dialectically transcends the two polar systems. Consistent with Hazel Henderson, the Dharmic Economy demonstrates that the sterile antagonism between liberal capitalism and authoritarian communism is something lacking any sense for building a better world, because both economic systems are materialistic, dedicating to industrial and technological growth through a bureaucratized and centralized control.[52]
Evidently, the Maitriyana is aware that growth is important for life, both in the economy and in any other instance, but it insists that in a finite reality such growth must establish a relationship of dialectical balance with the antithesis of degrowth so that the change is driven from a perspective of quantitative growth to an idea of qualitative growth. The spiritual master teaches that when certain elements need to grow and live, others must decrease and die, in order that the constitutive can be released and recycled by the Becoming of existence. From a libertarian meditation on the organic and ecological processes, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) applies his introspection to the sublimatory analysis of the social institutions. The Buddhist Socialism, as a form of human rights communism, promulgates that the institutions of the capitalist civilization inevitably will decay and will decompose so that their constitutive components -capital, land and human resources- can be used in the creation of organizations of a new civilization, such as leaves serve as fertilizer for the new growth of other plants.[53]
As a result of the narcissistic attachment to the economic and institutional growth, the self-destructive technological development is also inseparably related to the Capitalist Discourse. By being dominated by a male perspective, the fruitful actual technology is characterized by a predilection to the control, domination, manipulation, self-assertion, competition, expansion and central direction, being seriously unhealthy, viral and anti-ecological. Therefore, the Analytical-Existential-Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha), establishing a Dharmic Economy and politics of global human rights, will be able to transform the current models by new technological forms incorporating principles and ethical, feminine and ecological values. This technological alternative, following the Middle Way of Maitriyana, shall have the profound characteristics of Detachment, cooperation, integration, humility and pacifism, by being applied locally and at small-scale, being in charge of small groups. By being designed to increase the self-sufficiency, this technological alternative pathway will be fully decentralized, at the same time it minimally will impact on the environment thanks to the continuous recycling and use of renewable resources such as the solar energy production. In this sense, the Buddhist Socialism ensures that a central aspect of the economic, political and ecological transformation is constituted by the displacement from the capitalist industrial era, sustained on the consumption of fossil fuels, towards a new Solar Age, based on a new technology that accompanies the emergence of a wise and compassionate culture, whose Purpose (Dharma) is the fulfilment of the meaning of existence. This future Solar culture driven by the Dharmic Economy shall include a spiritual movement whose Sense will be Art, femininity, ecology, pacifism, revolutionary politics, the emerging counter-economy and the Liberation based on a detached lifestyle and in harmony with the Earth (Gaia). All these values are something that is not working in the corporations of the capitalist economy.[54]
The spiritual master, through the method of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) indicates that capitalist technology is something that disperses the attention of peoples, so it goes against the global cultural revolution that Maitriyana seeks. Precisely, the practice of libertarian meditation makes that the capitalist economy -pillar of the development of the contemporary civilization- is transformed and redirected towards a form of solidarity economy whose destination is the Cure (Nirvana) of the world.
The Maitriyana points out that the decline of the capitalist civilization is an economic and political epidemic symbolically began in 2001 with the simultaneous happening of the bankruptcy of Argentina and the attack on the Twin Towers of USA. The economic and political consequences were spread rapidly in Latin America, giving rise to populist governments that collided with the aristocracies of Capitalist Empire, which began to be publicly condemned as the responsible for the economic Apocalypse of many nations.[55] Then, this same epidemic affecting the capitalist civilization arrived in Europe and infected many nations, evidencing that the main economic and social evil that afflicts the humanity is the rogue, illegal and criminal economy of capitalism, because this system promotes the injustice and social decontrol. Thus the Maitriyana delineates the concept of the Buddhist Socialism as a political and economic system in favour of the people, so that the Dharmic Economy is based on the democratic participation and the social exchange, being the best possible strategy in order to survive the crisis of the decline of the capitalist civilization and, in addition, transform the society into a collective system of sharing. In this regard, in the Maitriyana, the key word to the new politics and economy is compassion. It can be said then that the Buddhist Socialism and the economy of compassion are synonymous. The central aspect of the Dharmic Economy -or economy of the Purpose– is related to the survival of the humanity and the Mother Earth (Gaia), equally sharing the resources so that it is possible to exist better. On this idea, emerged from the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen), it is present the aspect of the emergency where most of the peoples are found.
The metapolitical concepts of Maitriyana, although they can be implemented in the here and now as an antidote for the suffering of the world, they certainly point to a long-term project. This implies that the Buddhist Socialism not only presents itself to solve the economic crisis, but rather it exists because the survival of humanity is at risk due to the unbridled exploitation of the natural resources of the planet. Therefore, the Dharmic Economy is a macroeconomic vision that denounces capitalism as a system based on the exploitation of the nature to which the latter illusorily considers as a source of unlimited resources. This is something evident not only in the teaching of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) about that all the elements of reality are imperfect, impermanent and insubstantial, but also in the phenomenon of overpopulation. Although the problem lies not in the number of human beings, the spiritual master warns that if it continues living with the capitalist lifestyle that is essentially selfish, consumerist and dualistic, then, all the enormous resources of planet Earth (Gaia) will not be enough. Therefore, the Maitriyana proposes a model of economic development that transcends the traditional capitalist economy, by elaborating the Buddhist Socialism as a practical and theoretical structure which transforms the existence of the whole society to make it perfectly coexist with nature. This is the Awakening (Bodhi) of the ethics of Detachment at a global level.
The Dharmic Economy is the conclusion of a libertarian meditation in the medium and long term, teaching the apprentice to stop moving impulsively according to his most immediate needs, in order to be able to establish a superior reflection. These kinds of problems have always existed, since the Discourse of survival has been present from the beginning of the history of the Homo Sapiens. The humanity has survived due to a strategy addressing the problem of the natural resources and the environment. Since the nature cannot be conquered, the individual should start to open his eyes by contemplating the tangible problems of the here and now, given that the environmental destruction and pollution is not something with intangible effects in the immediate, but rather it is really a problem which is in the face of the human being. Indeed, the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) perceives that the waste that pollutes the cities and rural areas is a symptom of this global problem that requires a future project that is only provided by the Cure (Nirvana), which paradoxically is the true human nature. For the Maitriyana, given that the danger of the destruction of humanity is an imminent fact and not something which will be presented in hundreds of years, it is necessary a change of paradigm that impels the human evolution. Thus it is that the Maitriyana emerges as a historical necessity of a non-biological and non-technological evolution.
Buddhist Socialism elaborates this practical and theoretical structure that is necessary so that the Dharmic Economy becomes the model of the future of the world, by establishing a cultural revolution that leads the apprentice to understand that the purpose of life is not the monetary gain but rather the Salvation of the human race and the Earth (Gaia). This Purpose (Dharma) of the evolutionary survival is a transcultural revolution which is being carried out by the Maitriyana at the present time. The world needs the practical and theoretical structure of the Buddhist Socialism, because this Pathway is based on the libertarian meditation on the things that do not work in the system of capitalist civilization, as the problem of the lack of equitable redistribution of the income which is not something acceptable from the point of view of the ethics of Detachment. That towards which the Dharmic Economy points towards is not associated with the exploitation and profit, but rather with the survival and evolution of the human race and nature. The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) teaches that in the practice of compassionate wisdom (prajna-karuna) there is not only one way to share in order to coexist on the planet without destroying it, but there is also a way to nourish the world. This metapolitical vision is a complete change because it is sustained on the idea of generating a high index of well-being and spiritual wealth. Therefore, the metapolitical aim of Maitriyana is not making money or sharing financial resources but create a cultural revolution to meet the necessities related to the Purpose (Dharma).
Despite the fact that the contemporary subject is often aware of the dysfunctionality of the capitalist economy through the experience of job insecurity, the finding of the Buddhist Socialism is that it propels an awareness-raising that goes beyond the Mindfulness of problems: it involves perceiving and develop solutions. Differing from homo capitalist economicus, the apprentice who practices revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) purifies himself from selfishness, dualism and consumerism, so that spontaneity, Liberty and altruism are what define him. Thereby the Dharmic Economy that the spiritual masters have started is a Project in order that humanity to survive and evolve into a Homo Spiritualis. Certainly the Maitriyana demonstrates that Spirituality is a principle or law from which one can relaunch the politics and the economy of the peoples, by making the subject reconquers the social space with actions of direct democracy. Just as Elinor Ostrom, the Buddhist Socialism teaches that the local communities are able to work properly when their management is headed by their own inhabitants and when they rely on the common good.
The capitalist economic system results in the illegal, criminal and rogue economy which is managed by the interaction and cooperation between the politicians and the organized crime. Thus, the Dharmic Economy denounces that, at the root of capitalism, it is found greed, whose fundamental manifestation is the accumulation of money. But, the authoritarian communism usually also resorts to illegitimate resources. Thus, the Maitriyana establishes that the liberal capitalism and the authoritarian communism are two faces of the same system: materialism. In the two opposite poles it is present the fact of the great masses managed by a caste or higher elite. Therefore, the vision of the Buddhist Socialism points towards other side: direct democracy for all the citizens of the world, considering that the real wealth of the society is nothing more than the welfare, Liberty and the Awakening (Bodhi) of the community, always working in pursuit of the common good and not in pursuit of monetary accumulation of a few individuals.
The Dharmic Economy abandons the possession of goods and the mere accumulation of money, by identifying with the ethical use of the resources and the satisfaction of needs of the people. It is not about a mere way to deal with the economic recession, but rather it is a proposal that builds the economic model of the future. The Maitriyana is a transcultural revolution that brings the global society to maturity, saying that solidarity is the only thing that can trigger the Cure (Nirvana) of the imminent dangers. Precisely, the libertarian meditation is a way to make the apprentice can realize what is necessary in the world, by creating a solidary and revolutionary consciousness. The spiritual movement of Buddhist Socialism is a transcultural revolution that can transform society, as it is a revolution in the lifestyle, spending hours contemplating about how to build a world of peace, equality, knowledge and harmony. This is the libertarian message of the great spiritual masters: the unity of all humankind. Thus, the Dharmic Economy is a substrate for a social revolution that goes beyond the immediate economic problems. However, the capitalist technology goes against the global cultural revolution of the Maitriyana, by dispersing and distracting the attention of the peoples through the illusory connections coming from cell phones and the internet which do nothing but hide the loneliness and emptiness of the human heart.
The Buddhist Socialism announces that, thanks to the inevitable decline of the capitalist civilization that, at the same time, will be the end of the traditional economy, new groups and coalitions aimed at developing new political, economic and technological forms will be formed considering the spiritual values and alternative lifestyles as fundamental. Not because of his robes but by being responsible for the discovery of these revolutionary ideas, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) sharply contrasts with the rest of the population, since when contemplatively crossing to the dimension of the Real he can return to the social life, but in a detached way and dealienated from the prevailing cultural Discourse, expressing his disidentification through a radical, poetical and non-linear language which uses organic and ecological metaphors. The paradoxical dialectical logic of the spiritual master is a direct way of breaking the limitations of the linear thinking.
Ultimately, before the event that someone claims that the Dharmic Economy is not properly an economic system; it could be defined correctly as a form of free and enlightened futurology. Despite the fact that he usually contributes to the foundation of organizations and movements, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) is distanced as much as possible from the institutional field with the aim of performing a libertarian meditation on the future, profoundly observing with no attachment to a particular angle and without concern for the interests of any organization. Through the revolutionary social activism the Maitriyana becomes a Libertarian Spirituality which is not limited to only talk about social transformation, since it constantly puts into practice all its teachings. In fact, it is very important for the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) to check what it theorizes. Thus the metapolitics of Buddhist Socialism is organized around social, economic and ecological issues, proposing new revolutionary ideas that are felt in flesh and bones by the spiritual master. Consequently, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) announces that there is something structurally wrong with capitalism, whose wrong view leads to consider that the Liberty or Awakening (Bodhi) of the people are something uneconomical.
Even though the Dharmic Economy starts from an intense analysis of the economic problems, its studying is branched into other fields such as philosophy, history, sociology and political science, as it is a true paradigm of cultural transformation. Due to its extraordinary dowries for serenely presenting the radical ideas of the spiritual master, the Maitriyana is highly respected by the scholars. Thus, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) comes to the conclusion that what is needed to arrive at the future is a synthesis that dialectically balances the male and female values towards the clarification of the Purpose (Dharma) of humanity, which is nothing more than the self-realization and Liberty of the peoples. By understanding the main points of the critique of the spiritual master about economics, politics and technology, it is outlined the basic scheme of the perception of an alternative future to capitalism and its economic system. According to the Buddhist Socialism, the capitalist economy is just a valid or appropriate discipline for the accounting and the analysis of micro-areas,[56] while the methods of the Dharmic Economy are the most suitable to deeply analyze the macroeconomic processes. Just like the analysis of mental health, the macroeconomic guidelines must be analyzed by multidisciplinary teams, working on a broad framework of social and environmental ethics whose approach covers the multiple aspects of wellness and Awakening (Bodhi).
Consistent with Hazel Henderson, the Maitriyana shows a Path to the Cure (Nirvana) of the economy, since the political, economic and social system is seriously ill and urgently needs to attain the health that the subject who practices libertarian meditation has. The Buddhist Socialism will play an important role in the future of the world, by achieving that the peoples stop paying the huge social and environmental cost that the economic activities entail. Thus, the Dharmic Economy proposes that private and state companies donate a large percentage of their income to the welfare of the society as one of the most necessary measure to implement in the here and now. Another important step would be to declare as illegal and unhealthy to the production of cigarettes and alcohol.
The vision of Maitriyana is a proposal extraordinarily realistic and politically feasible of performing, since the legislation of the future will be compelled to demand to the industries a new type of ecological-social accounting, when the alternative model of the Buddhist Socialism is the Path that the humanity chooses to exist in the world. Just like Jean Jacques Rousseau, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) claims that the contemporary controversies will be perceived as something weird in the future age of humanity, such as the dilemmas of Neanderthal seem strange before the eyes of the human being.
The intense contemplative exploration of the Dharmic Economy opens a completely new field, since through the confirmation that the structure of the economic-political system is profoundly mistaken and even illusory, it penetrates into the difficult territory of the Real. During the libertarian meditation the apprentice acquires a gradual transparency of the social ties, by developing an understanding that clarifies the basic economic problems of the capitalist Discourse. Thus, the surprising contemplative analysis of the economic situation discovers the falsity of the government or corporatist economy, which covers up unjustified budgets through a point of view limited by selfishness, dualism and consumerism. As the socio-economic understanding of the subject is solidified, many new questions emerge that are patiently answered through the guidance of the spiritual master, who reveals an extraordinary ability to provide clear and concise explanations by focusing all thematic from his wide Analytical Existential Libertarian Discourse (Buddha-Dharma-Sangha). The conversations with the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) not only help the apprentice to be able to greatly understand the psychological, philosophical and political problems, appreciating the full extent of the socio-economic dimension, but also they allow the subject to develop the new paradigm of the ethical and ecological vision of reality, by discovering the profound relationship between the ecology and Spirituality in the mystical communication with the Earth (Gaia).
The Maitriyana establishes that the ecological awareness-raising is a practice of libertarian meditation because it is convinced that ecology is a form of Spirituality equivalent to the eastern mystical tradition,[57] being one of the four pillars of the Buddhist Socialism along with pacifism, the communism of human rights and literacy. In this way the Dharmic Economy opens the eyes of the apprentice to the political and social dimension of the ecological values. Consistent with Siddharta Gautama, when he took the Earth (Gaia) as a witness to his Awakening (Bodhi), the Maitriyana comes to the conclusion that the libertarian socialist design of an ecological framework for politics, economy and technology is an urgent mission to the contemporary era.
Precisely, these implications confirm the choice of the metapolitical term to characterize the new and emerging Buddhist Socialism. In addition, the meta-paradigm of the spiritual master is both holistic and ecological , since it perceives an object or phenomenon as an integrated whole and not as a mere quantitative sum of parts, at the same time their approach analyzes the life system from which all the organisms depend and to which they must belong harmoniously. On the spiritual approach of the Dharmic Economy it is essential to understand how the health of the subject is related to both his body and mind as well as with his society and environment. Thus, the focus of Maitriyana understands that the economic activities must be in harmony with the cyclical processes of nature, in the same way that the cultures have to be attuned to the spiritual values of human being.
Although the apprentysand takes several years to recognize the implications of the spiritual ecology, thanks to the contemplative guidance of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) he is able to explore the paradigm change in the disciplines of economics, medicine and psychology through an appreciation of the analytical-existential-libertarian perspective which constitutes the fundamental part of the process of the Buddhist Socialism, which is nothing but the deployment of the ethics of Detachment.
The same place where a spiritual master lives is a cultural centre whose gothic beauty emanates a special ecological ethics and a respect for the flowing of the system of life which hosts the emergence of the revolutionary ideas of the Dharmic Economy. In fact, the Libertarian Commune (Sangha), founded and directed by the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva), is a public centre of practical and theoretical exploration of libertarian meditation, being deliberately small and humble, because its purpose is to examine the alternative future of Liberation and the Cure (Nirvana) in a social context. This spiritual community is sustained by the effort and collaboration of individuals who have left the capitalist life, making this chamber of reflection their new home. Thus, this lifestyle promulgates the elegance of spaciousness and recycling, silently denouncing that the satisfaction is not related to the possession of material wealth, but rather to the detached and sublime artistic creativity of the apprentice who is spontaneous and parallelly works on theoretical and social activities. This type of commune is an initiatory organization whose form is based on the contemplative exercise on a work, remaining in the ethical purity of the artisanal life instead of being affected by the intrusion or degeneration of bourgeois elements.[58] The mystical lifestyle profoundly shows the ingenious ways with which the spiritual master integrates the alternative system of ethical and ecological values that he teaches at his talks and writings in his daily life. In addition, by practicing what he preaches, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) confirms the marxist-existentialist intuition that defines Being as a praxis. Therefore, the stay at a spiritual community (Sangha) has a warm and friendly welcome, the same time as the spiritual master is discreetly kept at a distance in order to provide the apprentysands the necessary space for his libertarian meditations, which is a free encounter with themselves and the gradual detachment from the materialistic society and culture from which they come. In this way, the subject starts to leave the social incentive of the individual earnings coming from economic activities, by transcending the very idea of profit and selfish interest.
After the birth of the capitalist civilization, it began to exist the idea of economic phenomena that are isolated from the contextual framework of life, as the system of monetary markets and the private ownership. Obviously, before there were local markets based on barter, but from the capitalist civilization the markets were sustained purely on the artifices of money. In addition, the Dharmic Economy indicates that the private ownership is a way that deprives and strips the people from the communitarian property. In this sense, the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) is a way to return to a vision in which the human being cannot possess the earth, since it belongs to a common good.
The Maitriyana then remembers that with attachment to private property the empirical and individualistic reasoning historically became the dominant value of society, orienting itself in a secular and materialistic manner towards the obsessed production of mundane articles that characterizes the manipulative science of the capitalist industrial era. These activities of greed culminated in the foundation of social and political institutions whose sole aim was the expansion and growth of the whole of the capitalist economy. From the perspective of the spiritual master, clearly the values and vision of the reality of materialism created the contemporary economic thought, replacing the words and arguments with figures, weights and measurements. These current economic activities of production and distribution are highlighted as rationalist, because the capitalist economy has been influenced by Newton and Descartes through the work of Sir William Petty.[59] According to the Buddhist Socialism, the indispensable ingredients of the theories of Adam Smith -true father of capitalist economy- and the later economists are no more than simple derivations of the Newtonian materialism, whose concepts of quantity of money and velocity of circulation continue up to the current monetarism. Just like Smith, the materialist causalism of John Lock also served as a basis for the precarious capitalist economic analysis, by posing that the prices of a product are objectively determined by the supply and demand, elevating this concept to a category of law of nature. In the interpretive model of curves of supply and demand that appears in the elemental texts of the capitalist economy, it is assumed that the participants of the market will gravitate automatically and without friction towards the equilibrium determined by a supposed intersectional point of the two curves, by illustrating perfectly and evidently the Newtonian style of the capitalist economy. This materialist perspective attempts to pervert the social economy by reducing it to an exact science, only attending to variations of virtual quantities by means of mathematical techniques. In accordance with Hazel Henderson, for the Dharmic Economy, the capitalist law of supply and demand is related to the mathematical method of the differential calculus of Newton, being this a problem since the variables used are defined from basic assumptions which often convert the mathematical models into something illusory.[60] The Maitriyana analyzes the basic assumptions underlying to all the economic theories, within which Adam Smith is the most influential of these, in order to reveal their erroneous foundation and clear the Path towards the realization of the next metaeconomy of the Buddhist Socialism. The Dharmic Economy does not accept the idea that the prices of products should be determined in a free market through the effects of balance of supply and demand. So the Maitriyana does not base its economic theory on Newtonian materialistic concepts of balance, movement and objectivity, denouncing as illusory the expectation that the market has stabilizer mechanisms which operate almost instantly and without friction. The libertarian meditation perceives that the conflict between producers and consumers are a proof of this. Therefore, the Buddhist Socialism proposes that the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) is that which guides the individual interests in pursuit of the harmonious improvement of the community, by equating improvement not with the accumulation of money but rather with the production of Liberty and Awakening (Bodhi) in the people. This idealistic image of the Dharmic Economy will be what the future humanity widely will use if they want to survive the fall of the capitalist civilization, providing free education and social equality for all the workers and unemployed persons. The basis of the economic theory of the Maitriyana is the concept of Community market, redirecting the industrialized society towards a wise and compassionate world, completely free from the corporate institutions control over the supply of resources. This implies that the apprentice must become aware of the decisive influence that the corporations exert over the people, both through the advertising and through the bribery of national politicians. Actually, the Buddhist Socialism discovers that the major powers are not governed by their respective presidents and ministers, but rather by these giant corporations that impregnate every facet of the capitalist life. That is why the existence of the representative democracy or a free market balanced by the supply and demand is nothing more than a conceptual construction completely non-existent in the real world: it may only be observed the existence of virtual presidents who follow the decisions of the dark capitalist Power.
In accordance with Howard Zinn and Michael Moore, the Dharmic Economy establishes that there was a significant help coming from the great capitalist corporations towards the emergence of fascist governments in Europe, even supporting the Nazi regime. This is what the Maitriyana, as a critical thinking movement, denounces that is happening in the contemporary stage: the confabulation of the government and industry, working together to keep the people oppressed.
The Buddhist Socialism makes an inexorable correction to the father of economics Adam Smith who stated that, in the competition, the individual ambition serves the common good. Thus, the Dharmic Economy theorizes that if each individual operates on his own, this one will come out of the intrinsic Liberty -which involves responsibility with a Purpose (Dharma)- to approximate to the Disorder. The Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) states then that if the human beings are launched into the reality through the materialistic attachment (tanha), in order to operate on said reality with no Sense, they will be mutually blocked to one another and they will never reach the object of their Desire, condemning themselves to an everlasting existential dissatisfaction and frustration (dukkha). But if the Detachment prevails and no apprentice clings to the object of the capitalist craving, none will be mutually hindered and then will be capable of respecting their pairs as autonomous beings. Only in this way the humanity may earn a future, cooperating all together towards the same Purpose (Dharma) of life. Therefore, the Maitriyana affirms that the position of Adam Smith is incomplete when he says that the best result is a product that each subject in a group does his best for himself, because according to the regulatory dynamics of the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) the true superior result is a product that everyone in the group understand that doing what is the best for the group is to do the best for themselves. Thus the Buddhist Socialism puts the peak knowledge (Satori) to which Gautama and Jesus reached into practice: loving others is to reach the own Cure (Nirvana). The libertarian meditation is precisely a global ethics which understands that there is a competitive advantage in the compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña): it is the One Vehicle (Ekayana) of the Salvation of humankind and the survival of the Earth (Gaia).
The Dharmic Economy, although it is an effect of the overcoming synthesis which the Maitriyana is, it is clearly away from the capitalist economic thesis of the Cartesian-Newtonian science and more closer to the antithetical later development of Karl Marx. Nevertheless, the true transforming process, far from being a class struggle or a proletarian dictatorship, it is rather about the Middle Way of the Buddhist Socialism which will liberate the alienated human being in order to approximate him to the apprentice of the Awakening (Bodhi), by seeking to achieve the Cure (Nirvana) through the ethics of Detachment.
The fascination with the experience of the Real impels the spiritual master towards a vivid contemplative perception that promulgates a postcapitalist emergence, which is a revolutionary ecological and systemic vision that converts the economic into a metapolitical and metascientific discipline as a part of the Dharmic Economy of the future. This well-intentioned effort which characterizes the powerful socio-institutional critique from the Maitriyana avoids falling into an unreal utopianism, since the Buddhist Socialism is a system implemented for thousands of years by the Free and Enlightened Beings (Arhats-Bodhisattvas). In fact, this socioeconomic modality developed by the ethics of the Middle Way is the next evolutionary stage of the economic thought in a cultural context more global, by relating the new ideas of the libertarian meditation with a critique of the capitalist economic practice. By not worrying about resemble a materialistic science the Dharmic Economy formulates its theories in a non-materialistic language, since the wide contemplative perception of the spiritual master about the social phenomena allows him to significantly transcend the Cartesian-Newtonian framework. Instead of adopting the illusory materialist scientific position of the objective observer, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) fervently underlines the role of observer participant of the existence, claiming that his social analysis is inseparable from a dialectical-paradoxical criticism. Abandoning the technological determinism accepted by the materialistic scientific theories, the Maitriyana is also characterized by being a profound understanding of the interconnectedness of all phenomena (dharmadhatu), by perceiving the society as an organic whole in which the ideology has as much or more importance than the technology. Differing from the traditional capitalist thinking, the Buddhist Socialism is not abstract, being considerably linked to the humble realities of the local production and respecting the spiritual significance of the rural life through the ecological socialist proposal, in a clear act which confronts the intellectual elite obsessed with the industrialization and modernization. The Dharmic Economy, being consistent with an ecological socialist model, transcends the basic concepts of classical capitalist economy, abandoning both the idea of the scientific objectivity and the self-balancing effects of supply and demand, since the economic balance of the States is more an exception than a real rule, by being the imperfection, impermanence and insubstantiality the most remarkable characteristics of the economic cycles.
While the economic theories of John Maynard Keynes are consistent with the Maitriyana in the fact that it must be discarded the illusory ideal of the objective observation, certainly the Keynesian economic theory goes in a contrary line to that of the Buddhist Socialism, because it has influenced decisively in the contemporary capitalist thinking through its approach centralized in simplified relations between economic variables such as the gross domestic product and the volume of employment, in order to promulgate short-term economic changes on which it can be influenced with governmental political interventions. The economic model of Keynes, assimilated by the main branch of the capitalist economic thought, procures applying surface remedies such as the money issuance and the increase or reduction of taxes and interest rates. Instead, the Dharmic Economy is a much deeper and systemic model because it analyzes multiple variables in order to avoid falling into a curious short-termism. In addition, the capitalist economic thought of the contemporary civilization is eminently schizophrenic, since it tends to completely reverse the postulates of their classical theories, creating financial cycles through policies and predictions of a market conducted by governmental and corporate actions that have little to do with real economic activities. Thus, the libertarian meditation perceives that the economic methods of Keynes are dysfunctional because they only comprise the surface structure of the economic field and they ignore the qualitative aspect of the world problems related to social equality and the redistribution of income. The economic model of Maitriyana is much more appropriate because it does not ignores the amount of the psychological, social, political, and ecological factors that are fundamental to the peak understanding (Satori) of the economic field. Consistent with Hazel Henderson, the Buddhist Socialism claims that the economic approach of Keynes it only facilitates the solution of a few domestic short-term scenarios, but it is not able to formulate advanced forecasts in time.[61] Like most of the capitalist economic ideas, the utility of the model of Keynes is outdated as compared to the Dharmic Economy.
Thus, the economic model of the Maitriyana avoids concentrating only and exclusively on the domestic economy, as it is extremely incomplete and illusory try to dissociate itself from the global economic network and dispense with the international conventions. The holistic and systemic approach from the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen) allows the subject to perceive that in order to attain the full deployment of the social Liberation one must become aware of the political conditions, of the power of the multinational corporations and of the social environmental costs of the economic activities. The clear perception of the spiritual master on the socio-economic problems within a broad analytical-existential-libertarian framework enables him to explain the current global economic situation in a lucid and illuminative way, always in line with the ecological and spiritual interests of humanity and the Earth (Gaia).
According to the Buddhist Socialism, the disconcerting economic issue of inflation grows spectacularly while also unemployment increases by the indifference, the endorsement and ignorance of the capitalist politicians and economists. The inflation is a phenomenon caused by multiple reasons, its main source being the total set of the psychological, social and environmental variables that are excluded from the capitalist economic models.[62] Despite the deliberate ignorance of the capitalist economists, one of the variables lies in that the wealth is based on natural and energetic resources, which increase potentiality and liberty of societies. In the absence of this basic source of economic power, the raw materials and energetic must be extracted from other distant places, forcing the importation of such resource or the investment of greater capitals for their extraction, thus creating an endless vicious circle of impoverishment. Therefore, the inevitable transitoriness of the ecological resources is accompanied by an equally unavoidable increase in prices of energy resources, becoming one of the main forces of inflation. For the Dharmic Economy, the fact of the capitalism addiction to the energy consumption and to the natural resources are evidenced in the fact that this economic system is based on capital and not on workmanship, despite the fact that the capital is only a labour potential extracted from the exploitation of resources, which are continuously decreasing. However, the Maitriyana observes a strong tendency from the capitalist economy to replace the workmanship by the capital, by reducing employment through the automation of productivity. The selfish aspiration of the financial community permanently aims to achieve investments tending to the disappearance of workmanship, by increasing their material gains to the extreme despite the enormous social cost involved.
Buddhist Socialism establishes that capital does not generate real wealth, so that a capitalist economy is highly inflationary and it voraciously consumes the energy and natural resources, thus creating bread for today and hunger for tomorrow. According to the wisdom of the Dharmic Economy, the inflation and unemployment are an intrinsic characteristic of all the capitalist industrial societies, rather than being aberrations of the equilibrium state of the free market.[63] The capitalist civilization tends to the excessive attachment to the consumption of natural resources and capitals, instead of investing in renewable energies and workmanship, so that its effect is inevitably the inflation and mass unemployment. In addition of the ecological variables dependent on natural energetic resources, another cause of inflation is the uncontrollable unlimited growth to which the capitalism tends, generating enormous social costs through the growing complexity of technological-industrial systems. In their eagerness and greed for maximizing the monetary profits, the capitalist enterprises exclude the social and environmental costs of their activities, causing that the nature and the future generations pay the price of materialism. The activities of the capitalist economy are generally contributing to the accumulation of money and inflation, but not to the real production of wealth and welfare. For the Maitriyana, the capitalist system cannot be modelled neither properly directed, because its uncontrollable thirst for domain generates a complex increment of social and environmental costs, such as cleaning up pollution, caring for the criminals, hiding the marginalized ones, treating drug addicts, attend car crashes and fix the technological malfunctions. These phenomena are the psychological, philosophical and political limitations of the economic growth, being the symptoms of lacking a correct functioning involving the capitalist urban life, dedicating more time and energy to the maintenance and regulation of the monetary system instead of working in pursuit of providing necessary goods and services. Therefore, all the bourgeois concerns are inflationary.[64] The exciting contemplative review of the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) shows that inflation is far more than just a socio-economic problem, since it must be interpreted as a symptom of the crisis of the Capitalist Discourse. Thus the Buddhist Socialism is erected as a possible model while it deals with the social and ecological variables ignored by the current economy. From the libertarian point of view of the Dharmic Economy, the Keynesian methods of the contemporary economy can no longer solve the socioeconomic problems of the world, since they are limited to repress and displace the symptoms of the inevitable fall of Capitalism. In accordance with Hazel Henderson, the Maitriyana affirms that the capitalist economists apply Keynesian methods to artificially inflate or deflate the economic field, thus creating short-term oscillations that hide the psychological, ecological and social oppression which is really happening. In the best case scenario, even if it can momentarily reduce inflation through the Keynesian methods, the result will be a budget deficit, a lack of payments or an increase in the banking interest rates. These indicators are not controlled simultaneously because the capitalist system is composed of vicious circles (samsaras) that preclude a proper adjustment of the economy.[65] Buddhist Socialism raises then that the only genuine solution consists of transforming the system itself, by restructuring the economy so that it is not regulated by the private or state corporatism. This process of decentralization proposed by the Dharmic Economy involves developing sustainable technologies, directing the economic system towards the full employment and not towards the currency speculation. The Maitriyana then demonstrates a horizon towards a green economy based on full employment and the sustainable development of resources, which would cure the ill of inflation and poverty at the same time it would be in ecological coherence with the Earth (Gaia).
The subsequent development of the Buddhist Socialism will become true the forecasts of the libertarian meditation of the spiritual master about the Liberation and the Awakening (Bodhi) of the peoples, which is the announcement of the Cure (Nirvana) from the pathological capitalist economy. The Dharmic Economy complains that the capitalist civilization is a cancer whose symptom is the huge deficit in the budget and in the balance of payments, turning the phenomenon of foreign debt into the maximum verification of the lack of functionality of the capitalist system. In response to the crises of the world, the Maitriyana ignores the traditional economic indicators, trying desperately to apply the conceptual and methodological antidotes against the disease of capitalism.
The epidemic shaking the world consists of war, social injustice, ignorance and contamination, so that the Buddhist Socialism is a counterculture that helps humanity to understand that all the peoples are interconnected and they need each other to survive and evolve. Therefore, the Dharmic Economy uses the language of systems to indicate the profound interconnectedness of the economic, the social and the ecological thus using the framework of the paradoxical dialectical logic over the system of the Earth (Gaia). The systemic language is the ideal framework for the metascientific formulation of the ecological socialist system of the Maitriyana. The systemic approach of the Buddhist Socialism is essential for a deep understanding of the social and economic problems of the world. In this way, the Dharmic Economy is an approach that extracts order from the chaos that characterizes the current global economy and politics, since the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) agrees with Mao Tse-Tung in stating that the higher the degree of chaos nearer the solution is. The spiritual master explores the potential of the systems approach in the socioeconomic and ecological sciences, by stimulating the discovery of new ideas through the revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen), such as introducing the notion of the economic field as a living system, which is organic and composed of individuals, social organizations and surrounding ecosystems permanently interacting. Through the libertarian meditation one can learn a lot about economic situations, finding that the activities are cyclically circulating around the economic system in the same way that the ecosystems, which cannot be described by linear models of cause and effect, operate. Thus, the nonlinear dynamic of the system of life compels the Maitriyana to think contemplatively about the importance of the sublimatory recycling.
The compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña) of the Buddhist Socialism informs that many things which are good for the capitalist system does not necessarily make humanity better, because the strategies that are successful at this stage of the civilization will be totally inadequate in the stage of the future civilization. For the same reason, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) teaches the apprentice that there is no greater spiritual failure than the material success. Another consequence of the nonlinear dynamics of the Dharmic Economy is the question of the optimal size for each structure and organization, demonstrating that when it maximizes any of its variables, the system to which it belongs inevitably is destroyed, just as a virus makes sick or kills the host body. This is what the spiritual master denominates as the carcinogenic aspect of capitalism. Thus, the libertarian meditation is a vision that considers the economic field as a living system composed of a multiplicity of interrelated fluctuations. The Maitriyana establishes that when the capitalist civilization seeks to maximize their monetary benefits or GDP, this makes the health of the economic field get sick and induces social tension and environmental imbalance. In contrast to Keynes, the Buddhist Socialism studies long-term economic cycles, which are ignored by the capitalist manipulations. The Sense of Purpose (Dharma) or long-term Project is something that is difficult to assimilate for the governmental politicians or corporate executives, who are incapable of understanding that the Truth discovered by the individual who practices revolutionary contemplation (kakumei-zen): the deterioration and death of all living system are a condition preceding the renaissance.[66] This paradoxical dialectical logic can overcome the hard times of the existence. So that the Dharmic Economy knows that the decay of the capitalist civilization will involve the growth of something different, as there is always a cyclical movement between life and death. The libertarian meditation is a way of observing the new process in which one should participate. But this revolution to come, which is the libertarian socialist civilization, entails allowing that some capitalist corporations die, leaving the opportunity in order that new institutions grow. Ultimately, absolutely the entire reality is constantly changing, since the cycles of the living beings are nothing more than one of the states of the cosmic cycles of the existence.[67] That disintegration or decomposition of capitalism is just one of the numerous examples proposed by the Maitriyana as a movement of cultural renaissance attuned to the cycles of nature of the Earth (Gaia).
Concordantly, in the contemplative position of doing-nothing (wu-wei) or non-interference, the Free and Enlightened Being (Arhat-Bodhisattva) teaches the greatest discovery of the synthesis of the Way (Tao) of the Awakening (Bodhi) where the ancient paths join to the new ones. The economic introspections from the libertarian meditation are rooted in this kind of ecological awareness-raising which the Libertarian Spirituality performs by inspiring in the profound compassionate wisdom (karuna-prajña), whose social orientation is active, dynamic and optimistic having a planetary scope.
Buddhist Socialism contemplatively analyzes the employment hierarchy of the materialistic culture, where in its lowest stratum the work tends to be cyclical, by functioning without leaving a significant and lasting trace on the world. In this type of entropic work its effort is transitory or intangible, being rapidly assimilated by the disorder. Within the capitalist civilization the entropic work is delegated to the minority groups, as it is a work to which is given a low salary and low value.[68] However, from the Dharmic Economy, the most economically profitable works, which are the professions of a high category that lastingly impact in the world, are frequently negative and destructive for the health of the social, ecological and psycho physiological fabric, while the forgotten impermanent work of repair and maintenance is socially devalued even if it is essential to the health and the daily life, by being able to be transformed into a spiritual practice due that the apprentice works it as if it were his very existential Purpose (Dharma). Unlike the work associated with a technological footprint, the cyclical and daily work is fundamental in the teaching of the spiritual master, who often shows to the individual the profound value of performing simple tasks like doing the dishes, sweeping the floor or cut the grass. In this simple teaching a whole critique of the capitalist system of greed and growing eagerness is present. Thus, the tradition of the Maitriyana considers the daily work as an integral part of the mystical training of the apprentice. The libertarian meditation attaches importance to the cyclical work because it is a work based on the recognition of the natural cycles of birth, growth, deterioration and death, helping the individual to become more aware of the Empty Dynamic Ground of the Universe. This contemplative introspection demonstrates the profound connection between the economic, the ecological and the spiritual that converge on the Buddhist Socialism.[69]
The Dharmic Economy considers that the vision of Karl Marx valued the function of nature in the process of economic production, so that the respect for the Earth (Gaia) was part of his revolutionary vision of reality. Although the possible destruction of the environment was not a fundamental problem in XIX century, the Maitriyana acknowledges that Marx was aware of the enormous ecological impact of capitalist civilization, in addition to emphasizing that nature plays an important role within the social, economic and political fabric.[70] Consistent with Marx, the Buddhist Socialism states that although the worker is unable to create or produce something without the material from nature,[71] the progress of the agriculture of the capitalist economy is an art in stealing the worker and the Earth (Gaia).[72] Therefore, the Dharmic Economy is in favour of the organic agriculture, in which less energy and natural resources are consumed to make products of a higher quality and health, using own seeds and abandoning the use of fertilizers or pesticides that attack the environment. The Maitriyana supports this kind of holistic production that takes place within the framework of natural cycles, by respecting and conserving the Earth (Gaia). Thus, the Buddhist Socialism criticizes the agricultural industrial system of the capitalist civilization for favouring the profitability with the cost of monoculture and the greater consumption of energy and natural resources.
The Dharmic Economy establishes that the communist revolutionary movements must sincerely face the ecological problems, admitting that the authoritarian communism usually also produces an environmental impact albeit with a lower level of consumption. The Maitriyana affirms that the peak knowledge (Satori) of the ecological ideals is somewhat subtle, but it should be used as the basis for the mass movement of the future in their quest for the transformation of social institutions. Forests and rivers are as important as the situation of oppression of the workers. According to the Buddhist Socialism, the organic thinking of Karl Marx is so subtle that most of the revolutionary social activists prefer to ignore this complex issue, organizing themselves around simpler issues.[73] Given that most of the communist movements tend to violate the revolutionary vision of Karl Marx, he himself stated that all he knew is that he was not a Marxist (tout ce que je sais, c’est que je ne suis pas marxiste).[74]
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[2] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
[3] René Guénon, La Crisis del mundo Moderno.
[4] Erich Fromm, El amor a la vida.
[5] K. Marx, Manuscritos económicos y filosóficos de Marx.
[6] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
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[8] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
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[10] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
[11] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
[12] Stanley Krippner y David Feinstein, Mitología Personal.
[13] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
[14] Harrison Brown, El desafío del Futuro del Hombre.
[15] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso (capítulo La Economía Budista).
[16] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[17] Erich Fromm, El amor a la vida.
[18] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso.
[19] E. F. Schumacher, Lo pequeño es hermoso.
[20] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
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[26] Citado por F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
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[30] Friedrich Nietzsche, Cómo se filosofa a martillazos.
[31] G. Greer, The Female Eunuch.
[32] C. Merchant, The Death of Nature.
[33] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[34] Armando Clavier, Aproximación a Krishnamurti.
[35] A. Rich, Of Woman Born.
[36] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[37] A. Rich, Of Woman Born.
[38] A. Rich, Of Woman Born.
[39] Chögyam Trungpa, El Mito de la Libertad.
[40] Alan Watts, La vida como juego.
[41] H. Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures.
[42] F. Capra, El punto crucial.
[43] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[44] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[45] Biagio Simonetta, Los dueños de la crisis: Cómo la recesión nutre a las mafias.
[46] David Loy, La economía de Midas: Reflexiones budistas acerca de la crisis financiera.
[47] René Guénon, Iniciación y Realización Espiritual.
[48] Alan Watts, La vida como juego.
[49] H. Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures.
[50] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[51] H. Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures.
[52] H. Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures.
[53] H. Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures.
[54] H. Henderson, Creating Alternative Futures.
[55] L. Napoleoni, El contagio: Por qué la crisis económica revolucionará nuestras democracias.
[56] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[57] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[58] René Guénon, Iniciación y Realización Espiritual.
[59] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[60] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[61] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[62] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[63] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[64] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[65] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[66] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[67] René Guénon, Los Estados Múltiples del Ser.
[68] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[69] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[70] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[71] K. Marx, Manuscritos económicos y filosóficos de Marx.
[72] K. Marx, El Capital.
[73] F. Capra, Sabiduría insólita.
[74] F. Engels, Carta a Konrad Schmidt, Londres 5 de Agosto de 1890.
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