Changing Buddhist Practice in Burma - Online Burma Library

hence a Buddhist individual is thought of as a non-self individual. An
individual thus is seen as an autonomous and discrete atomic element, and in
their collectives they constitute a kind of 'atomic pluralism' 12 in which they are
bound together and linked to each other by collective moral responsibility in
accordance with the teaching of Buddha. Theoretically the Buddhist polity
state can be analysed in terms of a 'total phenomenon' (Tambiah 1976: 35),
consisting of elementary relationships between the individual (conceptualized
in Buddhist non-self individuality and meditation) and the prevailing law of
Dharma that governs social and political organizations (as conceptualized in
Buddhist cosmology). 13
Buddhist ideas about individual and society vested in its 'total' system have
significant implications in the symbolic function of the Buddhist polity state,
primarily involving the roles of king and monk. 14 Symbolically, the
'construction of social reality' of the polity state reflects a "Buddhist
cosmology - in terms of the periodical creations and resorptions of the universe
as an ordered set of events", which are in line with "the basic philosophical
propositions of the Four Noble Truths, in particular the suffering and its
removal" (Tambiah 1976: 35-6). This pivotal notion of suffering, embodied in
Buddhism, is exemplified within the polity in the 'pulsating' pattern of the
king's power, as the king alternatively expended his potency (merit), withdrew
into ascetic practice in order to recoup his power, and then "emerged from
solitude or from ceremony charged with potency only to demonstrate his
virility and to expend his potency in the harem or in war" (Bentley 1986: 293).
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