A Buddhist/Vedantic Reading of the Brothers Karamazov
Slavic 155, Dostoevsky, Harvard University
Jacob Cole
|99% complete|version 1.2 (6:30am, 1/7)
1.|99% complete| Introduce the concept of avidya as a framework for understanding human motivation and show examples of how avidya is a good model for the behavior of the characters in The Brothers Karamazov
When the 14th and current Dalai Lama spoke at MIT in October 2012 on global systems, one of the panelists asked him: "We know the kinds of changes people need to make to achieve the sustainable well-being of the world. But how do we actually get them to make these changes?" The Dalai Lama gave a surprising response: "We must tell them to be selfish." He then added that in doing so, however, we "must be wise-selfish, instead of foolish-selfish." What he implied by this was that often, when we deeply reflect on our own desires, they change, and indeed become very reasonable. Thus, in order to live lives that are both individually fulfilling and globally harmonious, we must care for ourselves, but do so with cognizance of the deeper truth of our motivations. We must be selfish in a larger sense. Generally, in Vedic philosophy, this clear perception of what one actually wants -- the truth that remains when wrong thoughts roll off, is called vidya, meaning "right knowledge" in Sanskrit. The opposite of vidya is avidya, meaning unclear perception. These concepts are the basis for a very powerful framework for understanding human behavior.
The fundamental concepts about the nature of human motivation that the Dalai Lama’s simple statement encodes within it make the forces guiding the lives of characters in The Brothers Karamazov strikingly apparent. By reading the text through the lens of Buddhist and Vedic philosophy, we can come to understand the potent cultural forces that drive them to take many seemingly irrational actions and personally relate to what they actually mean by their often metaphysical Christian philosophical claims.
Background on Avidya and Buddhist/Vedic Philosophy
The founding texts of Hinduism, the Vedas, derive their name from the Sanskrit word vidya, meaning “right knowledge.” Vidya is placed in contrast with avidya, which is “knowledge other than right knowledge,” mistaken beliefs. A closely connected concept is that of yoga. The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit word “yuj,” meaning to yoke, or to bring together. One meaning of yoga is to unite the mind and body, to unite thought and action. To practice yoga is to be fully present in every action. A person can be giving a lecture, but his mind can be elsewhere, perhaps thinking about what he is going to have for dinner; this is disunion. But if our thoughts are not elsewhere but here, if we take action with the whole mind, with awareness and energy -- “like we mean it” -- we can do things with sensitivity, joy, and creativity, and do them better each time. We can question why we are acting, pause, and come to a full understanding. We can reduce avidya. We can relax out of the strange rut of reactivity -- taking knee-jerk, meaningless actions -- that many of Dostoevsky’