By HUỆ KHẢI (Dũ Lan Lê Anh Dũng)
RELIGION Publishing House (Hanoi
2015)
Few phenomena in the modern
history of Asia can have been so completely misunderstood by Westerners as the
Vietnamese religious (and political) movement known in European languages as “Caodaism”.
(…) To some extent Western ignorance about Caodaism is the responsibility of
the Caodaists themselves.
Prof. RALPH B. SMITH (1939-2000)
“An Introduction to Caodaism” BSOAS. Vol. XXXIII, London 1970
I. INTRODUCTION
As far as I know, religion in public life is one of the contemporary
fields being carefully studied and well instructed at various universities in several
countries today. Unluckily, I have not been trained in this academic realm;
therefore, I am afraid that I lack a qualified voice to join our present talk,
which gathers many specialists or professionals like you all, who can speak
with authority. When I am invited to attend this workshop, in other words, it
is my honor to have a good chance to learn from your presentations.
However, part of the first issue suggested for discussion by the
organizers of this event reminds me of a few basic concepts I have learned from
my faith, namely Caodaism. So, I think that maybe I should share my perception
here and I do expect that if my thinking does not satisfactorily meet the
demands of the organizers, you all will generously pardon me. I am grateful to
all of you.
As used by the organizers, and as
implied in the second and the third issues suggested for discussion, the term
“public life” likely refers to social life which is simultaneously affected by
two forces. The first force is governmental policies or rulers’ interference;
the second one is activities of those who are targets of policy makers or
rulers.
If you willingly accept such an interpretation,
then may we regard public life as a euphemism for politics to some extent? If yes,
by saying “religion in public life”, are we indirectly talking about the mutual
relations or the interactive effects between religion and politics?
II. WHAT DOES CAODAI TEACHING SAY ABOUT RELIGION IN PUBLIC LIFE?
1. Recovering the true meanings of religion and politics
The meaning of “religion” is often
distorted due to certain reasons. That is why in some cases Caodai spiritual
messages replace it with “morality” (đạo
đức). For instance, Her Holiness Quan Âm Bồ Tát (Guanyin Bodhisattva) at a Saigon séance on March 02, 1969 said, “đạo đức là siêu chánh trị” [1] − morality is
super politics.
The term politics is often regarded
as a taboo by most religionists because it normally relates to “manoeuvres” or
“deceptive plots and deeds”, etc. Therefore, at the above-mentioned séance, Guanyin
Bodhisattva recovered the true meaning of politics (chánh trị) as follows:
Chánh means uprightness,
straightforwardness, honesty, righteousness, benevolence, love for living
beings. Trị means security, order
maintenance, harmony between superiors and inferiors.[2]
Correcting the definition of politics
like that, and saying morality [religion] is super politics, the Bodhisattva
indicated that the role of religion is to contribute to building a society so
that people can enjoy such values or benefits as uprightness, straightforwardness, honesty, righteousness, benevolence,
love for living beings, security, order maintenance, harmony between superiors
and inferiors.
What should religionists (executives
of morality) do to execute the role of religion or “super politics”? In the
same spiritual message, the Bodhisattva explained:
Executives
of morality [religionists] are those who execute politics in loving, educating, and maintaining
living beings.[3]
2. Showing the equivalence between a country’s rulers and religions’ leaders
Thánh
Huấn Hiệp Tuyển (An Anthology of Holy Teachings), Volume
One, includes a message by His Holiness Lý Thái Bạch, the Spiritual Pope of
Caodai religion. His message reads as follows:
A country’s rulers should
treat their citizens as of importance. Religions’ leaders should treat humans
as of importance. Building a country involves citizens; without them, who will
be governed or ruled? If religions have no humans, who will be guided and
helped?
Therefore, religions and
humans are only one. When humans become perfect, religions’ values can be
justified. If humans become worse, religions must degenerate.
Likewise, if a country’s
citizens fail to perform their duties, and if superiors (rulers) and inferiors
(citizens) do harm to each other, how can that country prosper?
Thus, in both secular and
religious domains, humans are always to be esteemed…[4]
What should be drawn from the above Caodai message?
(a) As for religions’ leaders, they must not ignore humans’
benefits, physical and spiritual. True humanistic values of any religion cannot
be justified only in its religious literature or scriptures. The best
justification needs to be made right in our everyday life.
(b) As for a country’s policy makers
or rulers, they should keep in mind that followers of any religion existing in
their country are also their own citizens; so there should be no discrimination
between religious citizens and non-religious citizens. Moreover, whenever
making and carrying out policies toward religions, they should be really fair
or equitable, giving priorities to none of religions.
What is just expressed in (b)
indirectly and partly refers to the third issue suggested for our discussion. By
the way, I would like to insert an opening parenthesis here:
Before the mid of the 1990s, Caodai
communities experienced uneasy conditions. Later, during the years 1995-2000,
many state’s policies toward Caodaism were carried out and gradually bettered
the said situation. Right policies will always bring about good effects, indeed.
Mentioning this fact, I expect that the
religions existing in our motherland will soon enjoy more favorable conditions
to lessen the critical situation of our current society. Why so? As frequently reported
through means of mass media, almost every corner of our present society has
been facing frightening challenges when the majority of our people are eagerly
pursuing material values and mercilessly throwing away our ancestors’ noble
norms of ethics. Thus, our traditional fame of a morality-loving nation is now
being pitifully ruined when even lots of persons like physicians and educators are
proved to be pharisees by the public. I just mention only physicians and
educators here but I think you yourselves may name more than these two types of
occupation.
Today our society is facing lots of
problems. In order to cure it, do you think that religions with their
humanitarian nature should have more opportunities to best exercise their role
in public life? I dare not convert this place into a Caodai pulpit, but before inserting
a closing parenthesis, I would like to read two verses by Caodai Spiritual Pope
Lý Thái Bạch:
Due
to rivers, boats are built
Due
to sinful persons, religious ways of
self-cultivation
are transmitted.
III.
SUBSTITUTION FOR A CONCLUSION
Certainly, I am neither a scholar of
religious studies (religiology) nor an authority on political issues. I am
merely a simple follower of Caodai faith. The name Caodaism sounds quite familiar
but, in fact, it remains strange because it still lacks lots of credible books
to interpret itself, both in Vietnamese and other languages. So, today, I am
very happy to offer you all a number of my Vietnamese-English booklets on my
faith. I sincerely thank everybody for receiving my humble gifts as a token of
our getting together, and again, I especially thank you for giving me a good chance
to come here and learn from your brilliant ideas on this interesting issue:
religion in public life.
HUỆ KHẢI
December
29, 2014
