Practicing Peace: Social Engagement in
Western Buddhism
By Kenneth Kraft
Lehigh University,
Department of Religious Studies
ISSN 1076-9005 ; Volume
2 1995
Abstract:
This essay examines some
current concerns of socially engaged Buddhists in the West. How does one
practice nonviolence in one's own life and in the world? How can the
demands of "inner" and "outer" work be reconciled? What framework should
be used in assessing the effects of Buddhist-inspired activism? Today's
engaged Buddhists do not refer extensively to Buddhism's ethical
tradition, and some of their activities may not appear to be
distinctively Buddhist. Nonetheless, their efforts reflect a
longstanding Mahāyāna ideal -- that transcendental wisdom is actualized
most meaningfully in compassionate action. Buddhism in the late
twentieth century is affected by many of the same forces influencing
other religious traditions today. Increasingly, Buddhists in Asia and
the West are responding to contemporary issues in ways that may seem
unprecedented but are nonetheless grounded in Buddhism's past. Although
Buddhism is typically depicted as otherworldly, its present-day vitality
can best be seen in various forms of engagement -- social, political,
and environmental.
For those interested in
religious ethics, the emergence of a "Western" Buddhism offers potential
new sources of knowledge and insight. [1] This is so for Buddhist
scholars as well: until recently studies of Buddhist ethics were limited
to Asian Buddhist texts and communities. A premise of this essay is that
we can no longer overlook the experience of Westerners who are
attempting to unify Buddhism, ethical concerns, and social action in
their daily lives.
Because socially
engaged Buddhism is a recent movement (in its present incarnation at
least), its contours keep shifting: new causes are embraced or dropped;
new organizations are created or abandoned; new bridges to mainstream
culture are tried or rejected. A recent development of note is the
inauguration of the Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement (BASE),
under the auspices of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. During the spring
and summer of 1995, a pilot program in the San Francisco Bay area
combined social service or social action with Buddhist practice. Women
and men aged twenty-five to fifty worked as volunteers in various
settings: a hospice, a health clinic for the homeless, a shelter for
Asian women, a campaign for nuclear nonproliferation, and an urban
gardening project for at-risk youth. During evenings and weekends the
participants met for meditation, study, and other forms of training.
Supporters of the program endorsed it in historic terms: "Until now
there has been no full-time service organization with a Buddhist
orientation in the West." [2]
Although the forms of
socially engaged Buddhism in the West vary, and the Buddhist schools
that contribute to the movement are diverse, one aspiration is almost
universally shared by those involved -- the ideal of nonviolence or
peace. Accordingly, the theme of peace will be used here as a kind of
shorthand for the ever-expanding range of engaged Buddhist concerns.
An American Buddhist
scholar, commenting on a recent collection of writings by socially
engaged Buddhists, lamented that the contributors "argue about timely
ethical issues with deep sincerity and commitment, but with rarely a
canonical reference, almost never a footnote to Buddhist commentarial
literature." [3] It is true, as we will see below, that few Western
Buddhists attempt to ground their arguments in Buddhism's rich doctrinal
traditions. (For that matter, disciplines such as moral philosophy or
comparative ethics are similarly slighted.) However, even if historical
awareness or philosophical sophistication seem lacking, it may be
possible to identify characteristic Buddhist viewpoints, fields of
inquiry, and bones of contention. How do contemporary Buddhists assess
their own actions or lack of action? How does their experience of
practicing in the world shape their thinking about practice in the
world? What leads them to regard their activism as "Buddhist"? We will
find that time-honored Buddhist teachings about peace, ethics, and
related issues are being translated into new forms of discourse -- more
vernacular, more psychological, and more political.
As traditional Buddhist
understandings of nonviolence are filtered through new cultural settings
and historical circumstances, fresh interpretations emerge. First, there
is a renewed affirmation of the fundamental interconnectedness between
individual peace and social or political peace. From this standpoint
there can be no such thing as an "inner peace" that is separate from the
world. Real inner peace is the fruit of deep awareness, and deep
awareness includes a profound sensitivity to the suffering (lack of
peace) of other beings. Any "inner peace" that does not generate some
kind of response to the pain of the world is therefore considered a
false inner peace. Some Western Buddhists would even go one step
further, contending that unless one is working "outwardly" for peace,
one will not be able to experience real inner peace.
Once interconnectedness
is affirmed, it also follows that inner/outer peace is not separate from
a cluster of related issues: justice, economic fairness, human rights,
racial and gender equality, protection of the environment, and so on.
Accordingly, most Western Buddhists are convinced that one can
meaningfully work for peace by campaigning against the death penalty,
serving in an AIDS hospice, promoting animal rights, conserving water in
an intentional community, publicizing the effects of nuclear waste, or
practicing a few minutes of silence before a family meal. Patrick
McMahon, an engaged Buddhist who has taught in an inner-city school,
writes:
Unless I thought there
was a point to Buddhist peacemakers working in the schools, reforming
society from within, I wouldn't be there. . . How do you teach peace in
the war zone of present-day education?. . . How do you practice
mindfulness, much less teach mindfulness, in the rat cage of an
overcrowded classroom? How do you translate Buddhist teachings into the
various languages of class, color, and culture of an inner-city school?
Or, if yours is an economically favored situation, how do you address
the ways in which the privileged are estranged from diversity and
deprived of the knowledge of how things are on the street? [4]
Although most of the
examples that follow illustrate publicly visible forms of peace work, we
must also acknowledge the other realms in which Buddhist peace work
continues to take place. One such realm is individual practice, even
when narrowly conceived. In any branch of Buddhism the deepening of
insight and the cultivation of equanimity can readily be described in
terms of peace. A second domain in which Buddhists strive to actualize
peace is found in the personal relations and ordinary actions of daily
life. Like countless Asian Buddhists before them, Western Buddhists are
seeking ways to live nonviolently in their homes and places of work.
This daily-life arena can be distinguished from the primarily
intrapsychic realm of self-realization and the primarily public realm of
deliberate social action, although the boundaries between the three
remain porous.
Even among Buddhist
activists, there are many who affirm that awakening and its
actualization in daily life are authentic and often sufficient
expressions of the Buddhist path and therefore of Buddhist peace work.
They recognize that participation in the third arena -- wider social
engagement -- has rarely been regarded as obligatory in major streams of
the Buddhist tradition. Nonetheless, contemporary Buddhists often feel a
need to explore the possibilities of socially engaged Buddhism, not as a
distant ideal but as a vital part of their own lives.
Those practicing peace
"on the ground" today have diverse backgrounds and interests, as the
following introductions suggest. Joe Gorin is a psychologist who spent
several years working with the poor and homeless in western
Massachusetts. A practitioner of vipassanā (insight) meditation, he is a
former board member of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. From 1987 to 1990,
Gorin worked in Nicaragua and Guatemala for Peace Brigades International
and Witness for Peace, documenting human rights abuses, accompanying
people threatened by political violence, and confronting high-ranking
military officials. Maylie Scott is an ordained member of the Berkeley
Zen Center; since 1987 she has been demonstrating against international
arms traffic at the Concord Naval Weapons Station near Oakland,
California. Vanya Palmers, an Austrian living in Switzerland, trained at
an American Zen Center for ten years and founded a group called
Buddhists Concerned for Animals. Melody Ermachild, who works with death
row inmates in California prisons, is an active board member of the
Buddhist Peace Fellowship. Helen Tworkov is founding editor of Tricycle:
The Buddhist Review, a New York-based magazine with a national
readership. Alan Senauke, a resident priest at the Berkeley Zen Center,
works full-time as national coordinator of the Buddhist Peace
Fellowship.
Because the thoughts
and actions of these and other Western Buddhists will serve as our
source material, the discussion that follows inevitably has an anecdotal
quality. Someday there may be sufficient demographic and behavioral
information about Westerners who call themselves Buddhists for us to
make observations more systematically; in the meantime we must rely on
selective (and perhaps idiosyncratic) evidence. Nor is it possible here
to describe the various forms of Buddhism embraced by Western Buddhists
-- the single label "Buddhist" tends to disguise the variety of
affiliations and orientations found even within our own small sample.
THE DAILY PRACTICE OF
PEACE
During the past two
decades the possible interpretations of "Buddhist practice" have
expanded for Americans and Europeans. Initially, practice was narrowly
conceived: it generally meant meditating devotedly on one's mat,
followed (or preceded) by a few bows and perhaps some chanting.
Increasingly, practitioners are calling attention to the many ways that
practice can be extended to other facets of one's life. For politically
concerned Buddhists, this process also exposes points of convergence
between "practice" and "work for peace and justice." As the war in the
former Yugoslavia escalated, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship circulated a
discussion paper presenting a variety of possible responses. The handout
included a reminder that peace must also be practiced close to home:
In our discussions at
Buddhist Peace Fellowship, we agree that a most important lesson to be
learned from ethnic cleansing is our responsibility to oppose hatred
here, where we live. Bosnia-Herzegovina is by no means the only place in
this world where people are killing each other over national, religious,
and ethnic differences. If war in Bosnia were resolved tomorrow, the
killing would still go on in Burma, Sri Lanka, Kurdistan, and elsewhere.
Only a century ago the United States was "ethnically cleansed" of many
of its Native American peoples, with untold effects even today. [5]
Since Western Buddhists
see inner peace, world peace, justice, and economic equality as
interdependent, they are concerned about the implications of the
smallest acts, choices, and details. Robert Aitken Roshi, a leading Zen
teacher, notes that even if he attempts to practice nonviolence by not
buying shoes made from leather, the rubber soles on his canvas shoes may
come from a plantation that exploits its workers. So the recurring
question is: "How can I live nonviolently in this world?"
For those attempting to
practice peace in their daily lives, not taking certain actions may be
as crucial as taking certain actions. Examples, too numerous to cite,
range from carpooling (not driving wastefully) to vegetarianism (not
eating flesh foods). From one perspective, such concerns and activities
do not seem distinctively Buddhist -- there are undoubtedly many more
Christian carpoolers and secular humanist vegetarians than Buddhist
ones. Still, it is worth noting how some contemporary Westerners are
framing socially responsible behavior in Buddhist terms. Thus Stephanie
Kaza, who writes about environmental issues from a Buddhist perspective,
reinterprets the Buddhist virtue of restraint in a modern context:
To go deep with this
practice requires constant attention to the act of consuming. . .I keep
returning to the simplest of all Buddhist practices -- restraint.
Restraint against the pervasive values of consumption as the driving
economic force; restraint against mixing up needs and desires; restraint
as a practice of self-awareness and consideration for what I consume --
plants, water, fuel, money. [6]
Any discussion of
Buddhism in the West will necessarily include references to Asian
teachers and leaders like the Dalai Lama or the Vietnamese Zen master
Thich Nhat Hanh. Both men have exemplified and concretized the principle
of nonviolence in ways that can be readily understood by many
Westerners, Buddhist and non-Buddhist alike. Nhat Hanh teaches specific
methods of breathing, smiling, walking, eating, driving, using a phone,
and gardening, all offered as ways of "touching peace" in the present
moment. He also emphasizes "mindfulness," an undistracted awareness of
present reality.
In certain contexts,
mindfulness also means paying attention to distant or future
repercussions. A classic exemplar is the thirteenth-century Japanese Zen
master Doogen, who is said to have conserved water when washing his face
by using half a scoop rather than a full scoop. Today, the scope of
mindfulness extends from the immediate to the global.
An awareness of these
principles may affect the way one drinks a cup of coffee. For Buddhist
activists such as Joe Gorin, it is not enough to drink coffee in an
undistracted, Zen-like way: "I see that when we drink a cup of
Salvadoran coffee in the morning, we are affecting the coffee pickers
and the economy of El Salvador." [7] Within such awareness, it is
believed, are the seeds of potential change. If, for example, a coffee
drinker later learns of a way to buy coffee from non-exploitive growers,
he may change his purchasing pattern. Or, unable to find such an
alternative, he may eventually decide to stop drinking coffee
altogether.
Buddhist activists
accordingly attempt to change their lives in various ways. Maylie Scott
spends as much time as she can beside the tracks of the Concord Naval
Weapons Station, bearing witness to the continuous arms traffic there.
Her aspiration is not to withdraw from the world but to engage it
religiously: "My dream is to, little by little, leave my private
lifestyle and belong full-time to a spiritual activist community." [8]
Occasionally, Western Buddhists are confronted with clearcut choices.
When these occur in the context of a career, they become an opportunity
to practice the classic Buddhist principle of "right livelihood." Actor
Peter Coyote, a Buddhist, was making television commercials for General
Motors when he learned that GM was treating animals cruelly in crash
tests. In protest, he wrote a letter to the GM chairman and resigned.
FINDING A BALANCE
Lay Buddhists in the
West commonly struggle to balance worldly demands of family and work
with a yearning to maintain a strong spiritual practice. They recognize
that (ultimately speaking) practice is not a domain separate from family
or work, but this understanding does not necessarily solve the dilemmas
that occur on a practical level. Actual choices are quite concrete. For
example, the morning routine in a household with working parents and
school-age children may not easily accommodate a half hour of quiet
meditation. When some wider form of social engagement is added to this
mix, challenges multiply. Alan Senauke, national coordinator for the
Buddhist Peace Fellowship (and the father of two young children), writes
candidly about the pressures he faces:
Meanwhile, the daily
work of Buddhist Peace Fellowship expands with each new friend and
connection. . . There are funds to raise, pleas to answer, urgent
concerns to address. . . My wife Laurie is incredibly busy. . .[W]e try
to balance our formal zazen [meditation] practice with the rigors of
work and family life. Then there are the necessary pleasures of making
music, seeing friends, or just going away for a few days. It seems like
too much. [9]
Senauke's situation may
not seem to differ much from the lives of other busy Americans,
including observant followers of other religious traditions. But his
predicament is nonetheless worth noting in a Buddhist context. In a
tradition that began with an emphasis on monasticism, few canonical
sources dwell upon the varied demands of lay life. A monk in a monastery
must learn to handle many roles, easy and difficult. Yet the roles are
circumscribed for fixed periods (the cook does not receive guests), and
a monastic community is a relatively defined, stable context. In
contrast, a typical layperson in the West fulfills diverse roles: family
member, worker, practitioner, local citizen, global citizen. Although
Buddhism has ample precedents for practice in the world, the Asian
contexts of those models seem distant in time and place to most
Westerners.
The sensation of
juggling constant and excessive demands elicits various responses. Some
practitioners choose, often reluctantly, to address certain needs in the
present and put off other desired goals until conditions change. There
are as many trade-off strategies as there are Buddhists, but some
general approaches are evident. The four areas that Western Buddhists
most often feel the need to prioritize are family life, formal practice
(usually meditation), work in the world, and social/political
engagement. Several types of Buddhists can be identified by the area (or
areas) in which they are least involved. No judgment is implied here:
the factors underlying a lack of involvement in a particular domain may
include personal preferences, a deferral of effort, conscious
sacrifices, and/or circumstances beyond individual control.
Some Western Buddhists
seem to be fully extended by their family, work, and practice
commitments. They have steady jobs, stable families, and a strong
personal practice. But they are not drawn to social activism, and they
do not seek to introduce an identifiably "Buddhist" element into the
workplace, the community, or a wider political arena. Engagement is
therefore the area in which they are least involved. Long-term
practitioners who live close to an established Dharma center often fit
this pattern.
Other Western Buddhists
place great emphasis on practice, personal relations, and social
engagement, but they have not developed careers that meet the usual
worldly standards of success. Rather, they have chosen a somewhat
countercultural stance in relation to mainstream society, living
frugally and changing jobs frequently. In order to carry on political
work or participate regularly in meditation retreats, they sometimes
turn to friends or sponsors for financial assistance. In this category
one finds activists and volunteers committed to a wide range of causes.
A third group
demonstrates a relative lack of emphasis on formal practice. Typically,
they have had some exposure to Buddhist teachers, workshops, or books.
But they do not see themselves as belonging to one of the sects
transmitted from Asia, nor do they place spiritual practice close to the
core of their identity. However sympathetic and respectful their
attitude to formal Buddhist practice, they rarely meditate themselves.
In the other three areas (family, work, engagement), they may be quite
active and committed. In this category one might find a social worker
drawn to Buddhism by the example of the Dalai Lama, or a Buddhist
scholar concerned about the plight of Buddhism in Cambodia.
Finally, we can also
identify Western Buddhists who are strongly committed to work, practice,
and engagement but relatively less involved in family life. For example,
in order to train in a monastic community or volunteer for an
international Buddhist organization, an individual may forsake a
long-term relationship with another person. Or a married couple deeply
committed to practice and engagement may indefinitely defer having
children. Regardless of one's definition of family, one can find
numerous examples of people who have given up something in this domain.
The above typology is
only a heuristic device. No individual would perfectly fit a category,
and distinctions between the various commitments are rarely clear-cut.
Moreover, from the standpoint of a traditional Buddhist culture this
typology would have little or no meaning: in the relatively seamless
life of a pre-industrial community it would be unimaginable to treat
family, work, practice, and social engagement as separate domains. For
scholarly purposes we see the need for more information, even some kind
of database that could be interpreted sociologically. Some normative
issues (i.e., who qualifies as a "Buddhist"?) are lurking offstage, but
this is not the place to examine them.
The lives of Westerners
are so full, there seems to be little space for a spiritual practice
that regularly requires "time off" from daily duties and year-round
responsibilities. In these circumstances Western Buddhists are
especially eager to explore possible ways of combining practice and work
in the world. Buddhist Peace Fellowship coordinator Senauke has openly
solicited advice on this subject from fellow practitioners:
I try to remember to
breathe, to find my feet, to stay physically and mentally flexible --
these are core practices. Yet there must also be a Bodhisattvic way to
regulate our lives and our workplaces to complement our awareness. What
is a Buddhist work style? One person says to practice mindfulness in all
activities; another reminds me of the Zen admonition to practice as if
one's head were on fire, to do each activity completely. . .Each day I'd
like to cultivate a grove to shade the many beings, and cultivation
usually involves plain hard work. Any suggestions? [10]
A "Buddhist work style"
has been pondered and implemented many times before in the history of
Buddhism, but for Senauke and others the past is not always a sufficient
source of guidance.
The experiences of
women are also being reinterpreted and revalued in spiritual and
specifically Buddhist terms. If it seems impossible to care for young
children and at the same time maintain a strong meditation practice,
then perhaps there is a way to treat childrearing as an authentic
spiritual path of practice in its own right. Scholar-activist Charlene
Spretnak has declared that boundary-dissolving experiences such as the
postorgasmic state, pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding, and
menstruation can be used by women as "body parables" to reveal vital
dimensions of interdependence. [11] Rather than reject Buddhism because
of its patriarchal patterns, Spretnak and others seek to reform the
tradition from within. As in the search for a bodhisattvic way of
working, the intention of Buddhist feminists is to break down the
dualistic separation of "spiritual" and "worldly" life.
Those who are not
familiar with Buddhists or Buddhist thought sometimes reductively
misinterpret the thrust of practice in daily life. They may surmise, for
example, that these Buddhists have decided just to skip the whole
struggle for enlightenment and work instead toward their chosen secular
goals, hoping that their civic objectives might in some way encompass
their religious ones. To accept such a view one must reject the truth
claims of the practitioners.
Some engaged Buddhists
renew themselves periodically through contact with a master and
attendance at retreats. Sulak Sivaraksa, the seemingly tireless Thai
activist, outlines a model regarded by many as a desirable ideal:
Even those of us who are
in society must return to these masters from time to time and look
within. We must practice our meditation, our prayer, at least every
morning or evening. . .At least once a year we need to go to a retreat
center to regain our spiritual strength, so we can return to confront
society. [12]
For others, it is
sometimes possible to experience a sense of balance and peace right in
the midst of political action. For Maylie Scott, vigils at the Concord
Weapons Station meet this need:
I get to feeling stifled
in my life, in the middle-classishness of it. I go out there and just
take a deep breath. It's partly the place, and partly the people who are
so dedicated to freeing themselves and our society from our various
addictions. [13]
DEALING WITH COMPLEXITY
Aside from the
difficulty of balancing worldly roles and spiritual practice, Western
Buddhist peace activists are sensitive to (and sometimes dismayed by)
the complexities that accompany social engagement. As soon as one enters
the realm of human affairs, one confronts most of the same questions
that perplex other concerned citizens, whether their outlook is
religious or secular. Buddhist social thinker Ken Jones concedes: "In a
particular situation we may not be focusing even upon the real problem,
let alone the real question, let alone the real answer." [14] A Buddhist
Peace Fellowship discussion paper lamented, "Like most people, we in
Buddhist Peace Fellowship are in a state of painful confusion about the
war in Bosnia." [15]
Whether the issue is
disposal of nuclear waste, oppression in Burma, or human rights abuses
in Central America, Westerners recognize that a Buddhistic approach
(whatever form that may take) does not magically sweep away obstacles
and resolve ambiguities. For example, the Buddhist-inspired Nuclear
Guardianship Project, founded in California in 1990, has proposed
several imaginative schemes to keep radioactive materials out of the
biosphere. A guiding premise is that nuclear waste must be stored in a
monitored, retrievable manner, because current technology cannot
guarantee the long-term safety of underground burial. However,
Guardianship Project leaders recognize that their preferred policy
raises other difficult questions: Could a storage site be protected in
the midst of a war? Can human societies be expected to safeguard
materials that will remain toxic for tens of thousands of years?
The concept of peace
has its own complexities. One soon realizes, for example, that the first
Buddhist precept, "Do not kill," cannot be interpreted absolutely (i.e.,
not killing any living thing for one's food would be to kill oneself).
During Joe Gorin's years in Nicaragua and Guatemala, he found himself
reexamining the principle of nonviolence and his relation to it. On some
occasions his personal convictions were painfully tested: "I felt in my
gut that if I had seen them torturing Rolando, and if I had had a rocket
launcher, I might not have hesitated." At other times he had doubts
about the rightness of nonviolence in response to violent, systematic
oppression: "The afternoon session was a basic nonviolence training,
during which I avoided using the word nonviolence even once." Gorin
experienced a difficulty that often arises when First World peace
activists encounter Third World freedom fighters -- a reluctance to
"preach" nonviolence from a position of privilege. He writes:
I want to explain this
alternative [nonviolence] to Guatemalans, but whenever I feel the desire
to do so, I see myself as just another proselytizing gringo who is
trying to tell Central Americans how they should do things. . .Until
they are my children who are dying from malnutrition, I don't feel that
I have the right to tell those whose children are dying how they should
wage their struggle for a better world. [16]
In early Buddhism,
ethical precepts ("sīla) were primarily addressed to monks, as
individuals and as members of the Sangha (monastic community). In their
personal behavior monks were supposed to refrain from killing, stealing,
lying, sexual misconduct, and intoxication, but the possible social
applications of these injunctions were not emphasized. Today, in
contrast, Buddhists interpret the precepts globally as well as
personally, and that compels them to confront the complexities of large
political and economic systems. Not to kill, for example, may also mean
working for the extension of the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. When
contemporary Buddhists ask, "How can I live nonviolently in this world?"
they are conscious of their participation in systems that may, by their
very nature, perpetuate violence.
Among the many factors
that make it difficult to honor the precepts on a planetary scale is the
seeming intransigence of governments, multinational corporations, and
other large systems. For example, Americans involved in international
peace work eventually direct their attention to Washington D.C., and
their initial encounters with the Washington establishment can be
sobering. A few meetings with harried Congressional aides can dispel any
lingering tendencies to romanticize peace work. Recent efforts by
American Buddhists in Washington have yielded some sharp
disappointments: the well-intentioned International Burma Campaign
disbanded in less than a year. But other groups remain active and have
scored some modest successes. Notable among them are the International
Campaign for Tibet and the Institute for Asian Democracy, which have
demonstrated an ability to affect Congressional legislation.
All of these
considerations -- the paradoxical aspects of nonviolence, the unyielding
nature of large systems, the knotty practical-level decisions --
contribute to the moral complexity that attends peace work in the modern
world. As Ken Jones has observed:
Moral perplexity is more
commonly experienced nowadays not, I suggest, so much because moral
precepts are less observed, but because it is more difficult to see
where they point in the ambiguous, obscure, and interconnected
situations in which we increasingly find ourselves. [17]
An example that has not
yet been mentioned is the issue of abortion. A Buddhist vows not to
kill, yet sometimes there are compelling arguments -- also based on
Buddhist principles -- for early termination of a pregnancy. In a
thoughtful essay entitled "Anti-abortion/Pro-choice: Taking Both Sides,"
Tricycle editor Helen Tworkov writes:
When it comes to
abortion, however, dharma teachings can be used to validate either
pro-choice or anti-abortion politics. For this very reason, abortion
places American Buddhists at the crossroads of Western and Eastern
perceptions of the individual, society, and what liberation is all
about. [18]
When Westerners turn to
Buddhism in such situations, they expect that its teachings about
nonviolence and peace will illuminate matters in some meaningful way,
but answers do not always come easily.
In the early stages of
spiritual seeking (at least in the meditative traditions favored by
Westerners), most of a practitioner's attention and energy are devoted
to the path that leads inward. Although each person must find his or her
own way, helpful signposts have been left by countless previous
travelers. Eventually, when a degree of spiritual insight has been
achieved, the practitioner is able to embark on a new "outward" journey
back into the world. Actually, at this stage the outward and inward
journeys can proceed simultaneously, nourishing each other. Yet the
challenges of a more mature and diffuse practice can equal the trials of
the initial search. Even though most people tend to think of the
external realm as familiar, signposts to guide spiritual action in the
world are often hard to identify.
The Zen tradition has
the well-known ten oxherding pictures, which trace the stages of
deepening insight into True-nature; of the ten, only the last points
back out to the world. Maybe today's socially engaged Buddhists will
develop another set of ten oxherding pictures as a sequel or companion
to the first, illuminating the progressive stages of practice in the
world. At what point in the traditional sequence would a second set of
metaphorical images come most fruitfully into play -- at the outset,
midway (as nondual insight is deepening), or only after the rarely
attained tenth stage has been actualized?
Though spiritual
discipline is no cure-all, contemporary Buddhists report that practice
does help them deal with the complexities of social engagement. Those
who have been exposed to genuine training and have tasted some of its
fruits find that they (usually) can bring added clarity, patience, and
centeredness to their work. Someone who can periodically reconnect with
a unitive realm beyond complexity tends to be more adept when operating
amid complexity. From the standpoint of awakening, Buddhists further
assert that practice is indeed a powerful antidote to the dilemmas of
the world: through prajñā wisdom one sees that the most intractable
problems fully manifest Buddha-nature just as they are.
INTENTIONS AND MOTIVES
In classic Buddhist
formulations of the rationale for compassionate action, the stated
justification is usually compassion itself. Because compassion is
considered self-evident as a foundational value, further explanations
are rare. When a Mahāyāna Buddhist recites the first bodhisattvic vow --
"I resolve to save all sentient beings, infinite in number" -- he or she
is not expected to defend that aspiration on other grounds. Saichoo,
founder of the Japanese Tendai sect, wrote:
Buddhists with
Way-seeking minds (bodhi-citta) are called bodhisattvas in the West and
gentlemen in the East. They take the bad upon themselves in order to
benefit others. This is the height of compassion. [19]
In this view, ethical
behavior is not a means to enlightenment or a means to karmic benefits;
it is an end in itself. [20]
Although Buddhist
tradition suggests that loving-kindness requires no ulterior motive,
contemporary Buddhists nonetheless wonder about the wellsprings of their
own altruistic behavior. [21] Sometimes the question "Why am I doing
this?" will erupt acutely right in the midst of some form of engagement,
as one steps up to a microphone at a public hearing or sits down in
protest on a railroad track.
For many Buddhist
activists, the starting-point is a deep-felt experience of the suffering
of another being. The intensity and duration of empathetic
identification may vary, but the direction of the response does not --
there is a natural impulse to try to alleviate pain. The impetus for
socially engaged Buddhism may be as close to home as a dying parent or
as far-flung as refugees on the Thai-Burmese border. Joe Gorin describes
a daylong walk with some Salvadoran peasants under a blazing sun;
because his companions were unable to afford a bus ride or even a cold
drink, Gorin also went without:
In that moment, when my
strong visceral needs went unsatisfied, I had a taste of what life was
like for these new friends -- often wanting or needing some basic item.
. .and knowing it was not within their means. [22]
Vanya Palmers is moved
to action by the pain of animals:
Factory farms are hell
realms for billions of suffering beings. . .Can we honestly claim to be
concerned with the suffering in this world while not only overlooking
but -- with our food choices -- directly supporting this large-scale,
institutionalized abuse? [23]
Countless sensitive
people have comparable perceptions and feelings; here we note that
Buddhism gives these activists a meaningful context in which to
cultivate empathy with others' suffering. Within this context,
compassionate action is not simply a matter of relieving the pain of
others seen as outside oneself. Buddhists believe that the misery of the
world and one's own personal troubles are intimately related; the two
contribute to each other, and sometimes it is difficult to distinguish
between them.
Peace work, inner or
outer, invites continuous introspection, and the process of
self-examination yields doubts as well as certainties. For example, the
coexistence of "pure" and "impure" motives is often acknowledged. Gorin
admits, "I was disillusioned to discover the extent to which my behavior
is motivated by the need for recognition and not just pure humanitarian
ideals." [24] Further reflection on one's own motivations may disclose
less-than-enlightened psychological mechanisms. Lewis Lancaster cites
psychological studies that suggest why "helping others" can be a complex
matter:
The psychologists tell
us that if in giving help one shames the recipient, that may be far more
destructive to the individual than the original need. . . Many who
become caretakers are doing so out of personal need. That may include a
need to create situations in which another person is seen as inferior,
so that shame can be transferred to them. [25]
Tricycle editor Helen
Tworkov goes one step further -- she believes that some engaged
Buddhists already manifest unhealthy "do-gooder" tendencies:
This movement [socially
engaged Buddhism] also harbors Cub Scout and Brownie Buddhism -- where
the self-cherishing identification as one who does good deeds takes
precedence over the slow, often painful, process of cultivating an open
heart. [26]
Few Western Buddhists
are willing to comprehend their own intentions exclusively in
psychological terms. Whatever psychological compulsions remain
operative, there are also transcendent impulses that deserve
recognition. Buddhist scholar-activist Joanna Macy, for example, argues
that "the pain we feel for the world" is "not reducible to individual
needs and wants. It cannot be reduced to the personal ego." For Macy, an
empathetic response to others' suffering signals "that we belong to our
world, that we are deeply interconnected, like cells in a larger body."
In an interview, Macy rejects psychological reductionism:
The pop psychology of
our time tries to reduce these concerns for our world to a private
pathology, to a personal craziness. So you have to face that one down,
you have to unmask that, you have to free yourself from that kind of
reductionism. . . The pain for our world is not the only way that we
discover our wider dimensions, the wider reaches of our true nature, of
ourselves, but it's the one that we tend to believe. [27]
From one perspective,
Buddhism attaches overriding significance to intention/motivation. A
traditional view holds that "it is the motivation which precedes an act
that determines its rightness." [28] From a different perspective,
Buddhism also offers a radical critique of all intentions. Nearly
everyone believes that he or she is doing good -- even Hitler was
convinced that eliminating the Jews would greatly benefit humanity.
Stated in extreme terms, all self-conscious intentionality contributes
to suffering; in the course of human history more suffering may have
been caused by well-intentioned people than by people who did not mean
well. Experienced Buddhist activists are among the first to concede that
their convictions are no less conditioned than the convictions of
bombmakers and polluters. Is is possible to be passionate about a cause,
recognize attachments as they develop, and yet work in a way that keeps
relinquishing those attachments? The antidote, according to certain
streams of Buddhism, is an insight into emptiness ("sūnyatā), a
realization of nonduality amid and beyond duality. In many East Asian
disciplines, a person who truly masters a field is also expected to
perceive its empty aspect. This does not mean that an activist stops
marching for peace; rather, she recognizes -- even while marching --
that she is not taking a single step.
Ultimately, fundamental
motives may be beyond the reach of any explanation. Even as Buddhists
strive on one level to purify their intentions, many of them also
recognize that there is something unknown about their deepest
motivations. The answer to the question "Why am I doing this?" may
remain a mystery, but in the spirit of Buddhist practice such mysteries
are welcomed rather than shunned.
ASSESSING RESULTS
While other belief
systems may begin by positing the ultimate perfectability of human
nature and/or society, Buddhist social thought acknowledges suffering as
an inescapable component of conditioned existence. Any results, actual
or desired, will be assessed in that light. Here we are primarily
concerned about results in the sociopolitical realm rather than
spiritual outcomes, though engaged Buddhists point out that such a
distinction is provisional. When a sociopolitical goal is successfully
achieved, feelings of personal satisfaction and accomplishment are
usually augmented by gratitude for assistance received from "all the ten
directions." More interesting, perhaps, are patterns of response to an
apparent lack of results, an inability to achieve a goal. Reactions
include philosophical resignation, persistent hope, and spiritual
affirmation.
There are times when
one's best efforts come to naught. Buddhist Peace Fellowship board
member Melody Ermachild, who works with inmates on death row, befriended
prisoner Robert Alton Harris over a period of years. As the date for
Harris's execution approached, Ermachild's anguish intensified: "You
knew it would happen, you knew you couldn't stop it, but you tried
anyway. It began to make you sick." [29] Ermachild was not immobilized
by despair, however. She went with her family to the gates of the prison
to bear witness to the execution; she submitted op-ed articles to local
newspapers; and she continued to practice "mindful breathing and looking
deeply." Several months after Harris's execution she reflected:
For me, the principle
for moving forward out of that kind of despair is not to use meditation
to avoid or look away from the painful reality, but to use meditation to
calm oneself enough to be able to look right at the reality. If we look
and continue to look, perhaps we can find something redemptive in it, or
at least reach something like acceptance. [30]
Somewhere between (or
beyond?) despair and hope is a determination to do the best one can.
Emotions aside, if one strategy does not work then another will be
tried. Zen practitioner and animal rights activist Vanya Palmer seems to
exemplify this approach. He recently reported from Europe:
In spite of three years
of activism, the conditions for pigs on factory farms in Austria and
Switzerland haven't changed much, and it doesn't look as if they will in
the near future. So our new focus is to urge people to eat less meat and
dairy products, and we do this by educating them as to the destructive
effects of eating meat on their health and the health of the whole
planet. [31]
If one looks at such
statements in isolation there is nothing especially Buddhist about them,
but to expect to find distinctive Buddhist elements at the level of
tactics may be to expect too much.
Even if results are not
immediately visible, cautious optimism sometimes arises from the faith
that seeds have been planted. Maylie Scott never hesitates to speak with
the commander of the Concord Weapons Station because she believes that
each encounter may have unseen consequences:
I doubt that he's being
stirred in his own opinions, but in these nonviolent actions you don't
know; you really don't know. Seeds get lodged, but you can't really
measure the result. There's a kind of cognitive dissonance that gets
planted. [32]
In a similar spirit,
many believe that any step toward alleviating suffering in the world has
a real effect, and the cumulative outcome of such actions will
eventually prove to be of utmost significance. "I know this sounds
grandiose," writes Gorin, "but I do really see the work here as a drop
of water in the wave of history that is rolling inexorably towards
liberation." Shifting metaphors in a later passage, he adds, "Our work
may take lifetimes, but with each grain of sand, we are building a new
world." [33] As Buddhist social thought develops, such sentiments may be
examined more systematically: from a specifically Buddhist standpoint,
is there a way to assess the relative significance of "small" versus
"large" acts?
Interconnectedness --
as doctrine and as experience -- is a source of comfort and inspiration
for most Buddhist activists. If all things are related to each other,
then work on behalf of one worthy cause often supports work on behalf of
other worthy causes. Joe Gorin kept asking himself where he could
contribute most effectively; eventually he concluded that "each struggle
for justice is a part of every other one, so it makes little difference
where I go after my time in Guatemala is over." [34] In practical terms,
saving rainforests may not help to save whales, but saving rainforests
may indeed help to protect indigenous peoples. The task for globally
oriented activists is to identify the meaningful connections.
For veteran
practitioner-activists there is a steady current of "results" in one's
inner life, however external outcomes are reckoned. When all else fails,
the sense of forward movement on the path can provide sufficient
justification for continuing one's work in the world. Alan Senauke
articulates this assuredness:
Often I feel discouraged
by the overwhelming tide of violence, nationalism, racism, and all
painful divisions we create between and among us. But the work of kind
words, nonviolence, mindful breaths, and quiet sitting has its own core
of steel. [35]
Maylie Scott describes
one of the ways that her presence at the Concord Weapons Station has
contributed to her spiritual understanding:
From the first time I
went out -- Christmas of 1987 -- it was very clear to me that the
community there was not really based on results, although it was
dedicated to stopping the weapons from being exported. The site is the
basis of a community witness. . Ṣeeing
the trucks pass and knowing what's happened -- both on the site and as a
result of the weapons themselves -- you fall into a meditative response;
you recognize something. [36]
Since the boundary
between "inner" and "outer" is porous, any achievements in the inner
realm yield benefits in the outer realm. Whenever Scott or others
"recognize something," they are somehow changed; and they further
believe that in changing themselves they also transform the world.
The sense of efficacy
in the spiritual realm is not experienced merely as a compensatory
source of solace for political frustration or failure. Spiritual power
is believed to achieve its own results in its own ways. Thus a group of
Buddhist demonstrators bearing witness at the Nevada Nuclear Test Site
recited a ritual dedication as part of a ceremony they created. It
concluded:
All merit and virtue
that may have arisen through our efforts here, we now respectfully turn
over and dedicate to the healing of this beautiful sacred land and to
all beings who have been injured or harmed by the weapons testing on
this place, so that the children of this world may live in peace free
from these profane weapons, and thus may have their chance to realize
the Buddha's Way. [37]
CONCLUSION
The material presented
here raises a number of questions that cannot yet be answered. (This is
not surprising -- Western Buddhism is a comparatively recent
development, and socially engaged Buddhism in the West is even newer.)
It may be too soon to sort out, for example, the relative weight of
Western and Buddhist influences in the lives of practitioner-activists.
Are self-described Buddhists just adding a veneer of Buddhist forms and
concepts to predominantly Western modes of belief and action? Or are we
witnessing the early stages of a fresh synthesis of Asian spirituality
and Western political thought? Some observers may conclude, from this
small sample or from other evidence, that distinctively Buddhist
elements are scant, and therefore it would make little difference if
these same activities were instead labeled "Judeo-Christian" or "secular
humanist." My own sense is that -- in some cases at least -- Buddhist
elements are being incorporated in a genuine way. But more evidence and
more time may be required before the authentically Buddhist aspects of
this fledgling movement can be demonstrated conclusively.
In a recent essay,
Helen Tworkov pointedly raises a related concern -- that a Westernized
Buddhist ethics will lose its connection with the essential experience
of awakening. She fears that Western Buddhists' interest in lay
practice, ethical issues, and social action has been accompanied by a
tendency to downplay enlightenment. Tworkov adds:
If the essential
emptiness of one's own Buddha-nature is not plumbed as the source for
ethical action and compassion, and if ethics is separated from
realization, then what is called "Buddhist ethics" offers nothing new to
a predominantly Christian society. [38]
At this stage it may
indeed be difficult to identify the signs of realization in the actions
or the ethics of engaged Western Buddhists. Yet one should not conclude
too hastily that such a dimension is entirely missing. It remains to be
seen whether Buddhism's indigenization in the West will yield an ersatz
(essentially Western) Buddhist ethics, an attenuated Buddhist ethics
(lacking enlightened awareness), or a robust Buddhist ethics that brings
the essentials of the tradition to bear upon contemporary conditions.
The fifteenth-century
Tibetan Buddhist master Tsongkhapa (following Kamala"sīla, who was
following "Sāntideva) stated:
Even if a bodhisattva
investigates highest wisdom (prajñā), one is not a proper bodhisattva
unless one applies skillful means (upāya) to benefit other sentient
beings. [39]
If we were to rephrase
this passage without technical terms, we might say, "The most highly
developed Buddhist practitioners are not only enlightened, they also
strive in every way possible to relieve the suffering of other beings."
The context of Tsongkhapa's assertion is a longstanding issue in
Buddhism: What is the relation between personal salvation
(enlightenment) and moral behavior (compassionate action)?
Whether or not Western
Buddhists are aware of it, they too have become part of this debate. In
Damien Keown's recent study of Buddhist ethics, he cites two widely held
assumptions associated with Theravāda Buddhism: "first, that true moral
conduct is only possible after enlightenment; and second, that Buddhist
ethics is motivated basically by the self-interested pursuit of karmic
merit." [40] The Buddhist activists surveyed here, in their words and
their actions, reject both of these assumptions. (Keown, through
doctrinal analysis, also rejects them.)
Articulated or not, the
understanding of most socially engaged Buddhists is that transcendental
insight and moral maturity inform and reinforce each other. One is not a
precondition for the other. So the search for ethical, compassionate
responses to present-day dilemmas can be a way to move ahead on the path
to enlightenment. And the deepening of one's spiritual awareness can
lead naturally to increased sensitivity to the problems of the world.
This is the Mahāyāna Buddhist approach, consistent with the statement by
Tsongkhapa cited above. As Keown rightly observes, "The Mahāyāna was
critical of the failure of the Small Vehicle [Theravāda] to recognize
the importance of ethics in soteriology." [41]
As we attempt to clarify
the ethics of Western Buddhists, we will continue to examine those
ethics comparatively within the Buddhist tradition. If this process is
fruitful, the most recent manifestations of Buddhist ethics may also
prompt a reconsideration of Buddhist ethics in other cultural and
historical contexts. For scholars and practitioners alike, this is a
subject that invites further exploration.
NOTES
An earlier version of
this essay was presented at the Sixth International Seminar on Buddhism
and Leadership for Peace, November, 1993, in Honolulu, Hawai'i.
[1]. "Western Buddhism"
now seems as apt as "Buddhism in the West": over a hundred years have
passed since a Zen master addressed the Parliament of the World's
Religions in Chicago; major American Zen Centers are approaching their
thirtieth anniversaries; an estimated million Americans identify
themselves as Buddhists; Buddhist publications are flourishing; and so
on. The geographical contours of Western Buddhism are necessarily
unfixed; in this essay the term refers primarily to Buddhism in North
America and Europe. As in the past, the interchange with Asian Buddhism
remains a vital part of Western Buddhism. Return
[2]. Letter to members,
Buddhist Peace Fellowship, December 1994. Return
[[3]. Charles S.
Prebish, "Buddhist Ethics Come of Age: Damien Keown and The Nature of
Buddhist Ethics," Buddhist Studies Review 10:1, 1993, p. 106. Return
[4]. Patrick McMahon,
"The Practice of Education," Turning Wheel, Fall 1991, p. 14. Return
[5]. Buddhist Peace
Fellowship, "How might we as Buddhists respond to war in the former
Yugoslavia (and elsewhere)?" June 1993, p. 1. Return
[6]. Stephanie Kaza,
"Waterwheel Keeps on Turning," Turning Wheel, Summer 1991, p. 13. Return
[7]. Joe Gorin, Choose
Love: A Jewish Buddhist Human Rights Activist in Central America
(Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1993), p. xvī. Return
[8]. Denise Caignon,
"Owning the Disowned: A Conversation with Maylie Scott," Turning Wheel,
Spring 1992, p. 27. Return
[9]. Alan Senauke,
"Coordinator's Report," Turning Wheel, Fall 1992, p. 43. Return
[10]. Ibid., p. 43.
Return
[11]. Charlene Spretnak,
States of Grace: The Recovery of Meaning in the Postmodern Age (New
York: HarperCollins, 1991), p. 138. Return
[12]. Sulak Sivaraksa,
"Buddhism in a World of Change," in Fred Eppsteiner, ed. The Path of
Compassion: Writings on Socially Engaged Buddhism (Berkeley: Parallax
Press, 1988), pp. 11-12. Return
[13]. Caignon, "Owning
the Disowned: A Conversation with Maylie Scott," p. 27. Return
[14]. Ken Jones, The
Social Face of Buddhism (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 1989), p. 175.
Return
[15]. Buddhist Peace
Fellowship, "How might we as Buddhists respond to war in the former
Yugoslavia (and elsewhere)?" p. 1. Return
[16]. Gorin, Choose
Love, pp. 7, 196. Return
[17]. Jones, The Social
Face of Buddhism, p. 173. Return
[18]. Helen Tworkov,
"Anti-abortion/Pro-choice: Taking Both Sides," Tricycle: The Buddhist
Review 1:3, Spring 1992, p. 67. Return
[19]. Paul Groner,
Saichoo: The Establishment of the Japanese Tendai School (Berkeley:
Berkeley Buddhist Studies, 1984), p. 17 (modified slightly). Return
[20]. See Damien Keown,
The Nature of Buddhist Ethics (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992), pp.
74-75 and passim. Return
[21]. Although certain
branches of law and philosophy distinguish between motive and intent,
here the terms are not being used technically. Return
[22]. Gorin, Choose
Love, p. 53. Return
[23]. Vanya Palmers,
letter to the editor, Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 3:1, Fall 1993, p.
9. Return
[24]. Gorin, Choose
Love, p. 11. Return
[25]. Lewis Lancaster,
"Buddhism in the Contemporary World: The Problem of Social Action in an
Urban Environment," in Charles Wei-hsun Fu and Sandra A. Wawrytko, eds.,
Buddhist Ethics and Modern Society: An International Symposium
(Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1991), p. 350. Return
[26]. Helen Tworkov,
"Editor's View," Tricycle: The Buddhist Review 2:3, Spring 1993, p. 4.
Return
[27]. "Spirit in Action,
with Joanna Macy," taped interview (San Francisco: New Dimensions Radio,
1992). Return
[28]. Keown, The Nature
of Buddhist Ethics, p. 178. Return
[29]. Melody Ermachild
and Susan Moon, "Non-refundable Tickets," Turning Wheel, Summer 1992, p.
15. Return
[30]. Personal
correspondence, October 1993. Return
[31]. Vanya Palmers,
"What Can I Do?" Turning Wheel, Winter 1993, p. 16. Return
[32]. Caignon, "Owning
the Disowned: A Conversation with Maylie Scott," p. 26. Return
[33]. Gorin, Choose
Love, pp. 110, 198. Return
[34]. Ibid., p. 54.
Return
[35]. Alan Senauke,
"Coordinator's Report," Turning Wheel, Spring 1993, p. 44. Return
[36]. Caignon, "Owning
the Disowned: A Conversation with Maylie Scott," p. 25. Return
[37]. Tenshin Reb
Anderson, "Dedication for Buddha's Birthday at the Gate of the Nevada
Nuclear Test Site," April 10, 1994. Return
[38]. Helen Tworkov, Zen
in America, rev. ed. (New York: Kodansha America, 1994), pp. 258, 263.
Return
[39]. Masao Shoshin
Ichishima, "Realizing Skillful Means in Future Buddhist Institutions,"
in Fu and Wawrytko, eds., Buddhist Ethics and Modern Society, p. 335.
Return
[40]. Keown, The Nature
of Buddhist Ethics, p. 74. Return
[41]. Ibid., p. 163.
Return
Copyright 1995
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Source: http://jbe.gold.ac.uk/
Update: 01-12-2004
