Today the interpretation of Gross National
Happiness in Bhutan has been confined to the dominant views of a few
influential bureaucrats, academic scholars and researchers. What we have come
to accept today about GNH is akin to what His
Holiness Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, one of the greatest Buddhist Masters of the
twentieth century said: “When, in broad daylight, a group of
blind-folded people agree that it’s dark, the problem is surely their mistaken
perception. The attitudes that are current these days cut people off from their
inherent sanity.”
What we have today is a GNH approach that is too complex
and going-nowhere with various sophisticated domains, indexes and indicators instead
of guiding us to pursue the real and true happiness in life. Although I am in no
way qualified to judge about the right and wrong of what constitute real happiness,
as a concerned citizen, and as a way of participation to contribute whatever
little I can, if any, to our discussion and debates on GNH, I will use information of some spiritual figures to support my view and share
some of my concerns through the questions and points that follow.
- What is happiness?
This
is what Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche, who was also the root Guru of our fourth Druk
Gyalpo, had to say: “When you explain the Dharma these days, people say, What a
fool! He knows a bit about Dharma, but nothing about ordinary life. If you
explain how to achieve real happiness and how to escape rebirth in the lower
realms, people simply do not believe you. Because of their jaundiced views they
misinterpret everything you say.”
- How do we obtain real happiness?
About
how we obtain the real and lasting happiness, the great Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche
said: “Although we love ourselves so dearly, we have no idea at all where to
find real happiness. We are as capable of looking after ourselves as a lunatic.
We search for happiness in pleasure, fame and wealth, oblivious to the fact
that death will soon take all those things away. When we cross the threshold of
death, we will not be able to take with us even one of the possessions we have
worked so hard to obtain. The most we might have got from all our strenuous
exertions will have been a few brief moments of enjoyment – a small result from
such a huge amount of effort.
The only sure way to obtain the real and lasting
happiness we seek is simply to pray from the bottom of our hearts to our
teacher and practice the Dharma in the proper way. Through the natural law of
cause and effect and through the blessings of the Three Jewels, in all our
future lives, we will be born where the Dharma flourishes, we will always meet
spiritual teachers and we will continually make progress towards enlightenment
– a huge result from such a small amount of effort.”
- The Original concept of Gross National Happiness
Now,
even our fourth Druk Gyalpo, the great Sovereign of the land, took a spiritual
Guru from a young age. As mentioned above, Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche was his Root
Guru. When His Majesty stated that “Gross National Happiness is more important
than Gross Domestic Product” , being the Dharma King, His Majesty must have
surely used the phrase to indicate his commitment to building an economy that
would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values. Dasho
Karma Ura, in his book Leadership of the Wise, asserts that His Majesty the
fourth Druk Gyalpo “preferred to use the word contentment instead of happiness
or the newly coined Dzongkha equivalent of GNH”.
It
appears that the usage of the Dzongkha equivalent of GNH or contentment, Deki
(Wellbeing and Peace) would be more appropriate than Gaki (Happiness and Peace)
that we use presently. I propose that we use the phrase Galyong Deki Pelzom (Gross National Peace and Wellbeing) just as
His Majesty the fourth King preferred, than Galyong
Gaki Pelzom (Gross National Happiness).
- The Nationalization of GNH
The concept of Gross National Happiness slowly became known
to the educated Bhutanese populace after it appeared regularly in Kuensel,
though the interpretation was limited to personal views of what happiness constituted
and meant to each individual. In other words, the grandiose of the golden phrase
itself, as also coming from a grand and charming personality of His Majesty the
King was enough to gain place in the heart of every literate Bhutanese citizen.
The concept became clearer with the definition of GNH that it “suggests
beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual
development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other.”
Our beloved father His
Majesty the fourth Druk Gyalpo gave a perfectly enlightened direction for the
Bhutanese to pursue a development model that was in harmony with balancing Tradition
with Modernity, Material Pursuit with Spiritual Pursuit, and Body with Mind.
- Where GNH went wrong (in my opinion)
The
above definition of GNH was perfectly suitable for Bhutan to draw up a
development policy that warranted building a Buddhist Economy, but the concept took
a headlong deviation from its original meaning once the so called Four Pillars
of Gross National Happiness were identified. Whilst the formulation of national
development policies based on the four pillars took promisingly well on the
four tangible fronts of promoting sustainable development, conservation of the
national environment, promotion of culture, and establishment of good
governance, the subtle spiritual part, needed to “complement and reinforce
material development “ got increasingly neglected.
The
worst part came when the Centre for Bhutan Studies collaborated with an
international group of scholars and empirical researchers to further define the
four pillars of GNH through a complex and sophisticated set of domains and
indicators, and blowing up the concept of GNH as “transcultural” which said
that a nation need not be Buddhist in order to value sustainable development,
cultural integrity, ecosystem conservation, and good governance. The result of
the so called “de-Bhutanized” version of GNH was that the spiritual dimension
of GNH i.e. its Buddhist origin became totally neglected and the interpretation
of happiness by the CBS and its GNH scholars, as we can see it today, is
solidly based upon the empirical research literature of happiness, positive
psychology and wellbeing. In short, the interpretations are wholly academic and
scholarly in focus, which adds little to address the real happiness of our
people “to balance material development with spiritual development”; to balance
greed with contentment, to be precise. This brings us to the conclusion that
presently our country is trying to build an idealistic, complex and indefinable
GNH Economy based on the dominant paradigm of western economics, which leaves
out more subtle spiritual and social domains. Hence the loss of the original
essence of GNH and our people complaining about our present approach to GNH
which at its best, on the initiative of some ignorant bureaucrats, has but
introduced stupidity meditation in schools and colleges all over the country.
- What is the right GNH model for Bhutan?
The
answer inarguably is building a Buddhist Economy. What is a Buddhist Economy? The
best answer would come from the Buddhist Economist, E.F. Schumacher who coined
the term in 1955. According to Schumacher, Buddhist Economics is a spiritual
approach to Economics that is based on the premise that when people understand
what constitutes desire; they realize that all the wealth in the world cannot
satisfy it. As is evident, the term is not suggestive of a Buddhist theocracy
but that of building an Economy based on Buddhist values, which are perfectly
in line with Bhutan’s GNH principles.
How
does Buddhist Economics differ from Western Economics? Buddhist Economics
states that while western economists give importance to maximizing profits and
individual gains, the underlying principle of Buddhist economists is to
minimize suffering (losses) for all living or non living things. Buddhist Economics
give importance to simplifying one's desires. According to Buddhist economists,
apart from the basic necessities like food, shelter, clothing and medicines,
other materialistic needs should be minimized. While Western Economists believe
that bigger is better and more is more, Buddhist Economists believe that small
is beautiful and less is more. From the point of view of a Buddhist economist,
the most rational way of economic life is being self sufficient and producing
local resources for local needs. According to Buddhist Economists, depending on
imports and exports is uneconomic and is justifiable only in a few cases and on
a small scale. Thus, Buddhist Economics believe in economic development that is
independent of foreign aid.
Are we doing enough to minimize Prado
Land cruisers? Are we doing enough to produce local resources to meet local needs?
Are we doing enough to minimize dependency on foreign aids?
The first international conference on GNH
saw some genuinely caring GNH scholars like Sulak Srivaraksa, Dharmachari
Lokamitra and Buddhadasa Hewavitharana, whose views reflected the Buddhist
origin, and who made appropriate recommendations for the operationalization of
GNH and development in Bhutan. But alas,
the Centre for Bhutan Studies, it seems, cared less about the texts of these
scholars and instead became lured by the contexts of researchers associated
with some big name Universities of the Western world, and instead went on to
complicate GNH through its successive international conferences held in various
parts of the world.
Sogayal Rinpoche once stated (in an
interview with Kuensel) that the greatest source for Bhutan’s strength comes
from the country’s rich spiritual heritage. Doesn’t the Buddhist Economy model
for GNH define our own measure of happiness and contentment more accurately
than the present version that has lost its essence in its attempt to
accommodate the international context?
- Where GNH stand
today
Last month our Honorable Prime
Minister and his delegation took their version of GNH to the Global stage which
stirred a lot of criticism here in Bhutan. Frankly speaking, what do we have
that is worth sharing with the world save for the rich spiritual heritage that
has kept our country blessed and protected?
While our GNH scholars so eloquently
repeat the underlying principle of GNH that it “suggests
beneficial development of human society takes place when material and spiritual
development occur side by side to complement and reinforce each other” in the
numerous speeches they give, the truth remains that little or no concrete
effort has been made to address the spiritual spectrum of GNH and the claim of
the above definition has literally remained an empty talk at the superficial
level with no proper understanding or conceptual grounding of the underlying
principle of what really constitute happiness that is worth the pursuit in
one’s life .
The great Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche said: “If
you examine closely the ordinary values that underlie your urge to pursue
worldly goals, and try to discover where they come from, you find that their
source is a failure to investigate things properly. Normally we operate under
the deluded assumption that everything has some sort of true, substantial
reality. But when you look more carefully, you find that the phenomenal world
is like a rainbow – vivid and colorful, but without any tangible existence.”
Someone rightly observed: “The evil that is
in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as
much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.”
Instead of waiting to see where the
de-Bhutanized and international versions of GNH take us and our country, I
propose that we work towards “Bhutanizing” the concept and keep GNH to our
local context, define it clearly in line with our Buddhist values, and practice
it on our own term, here at home, in Bhutan.
There is no better source of inspiration to
draw in this regard than from our young and kind Dharma King His majesty King Jigme
Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck, who explains GNH as “the bridge between the
fundamental values of kindness, equality and humanity and the necessary pursuit
of economic growth”, adding that he viewed Bhutan as “a jewel on the earth” and
“a spiritual land” where “the qualities of a good human being” are treasured. His Majesty's interpretation of GNH echoes that of his Father's intended message of building an enlightened Bhutanese society.
The pursuit of GNH and happiness doesn’t
look any sophisticated and enigmatic at all in our simple and localized
Buddhist version, as some of the GNH scholars and institutions make us to
believe otherwise.
