All Men are Born Equal?: A Discussion on Kamma

Post updated: 30th Aug 2011 (See note under comments)

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

~ United States Declaration of Independence

All men are created equal. This is a very powerful statement and it embodies perhaps the single most potent idea that has captured the imagination of modern civilisations. The idea of equality of all men (and women) has wide ranging influence on and is very entrenched in our modern civilised world, particularly in western societies. It serves as one of the fundamental principles of any democratic institutions and is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The appealing idea expressed by this statement seems pretty obvious and self-explanatory. But let us explore its meaning a bit further in order to try to understand it better. Here of course we are looking from the perspective of one who is a Buddhist. Therefore we have to leave aside the idea of creationism which is implicit in the statement because Buddhists do not subscribe to the idea that the universe and all lives that exist in it was created by a supreme almighty being. Be that as it may be we can still approach a discussion of its meaning generally by replacing the expression created equal with born equal. So instead of saying all men are created equal we can say all men are born equal.

But, when we look at this statement that all human beings are born equal the first question that immediately comes to mind is this: But are all human beings really born equal?