Western Buddhist Social Engagement

In the past two hundred years West society has undergone a more fundamental transformation than at any period since Neolithic times, whether in terms of technology or the world of ideas. While this complex revolution is undercutting traditional Buddhism in the east, it is also stimulating oriental Buddhism. In the West, it is creating problems and perceptions to which Buddhism seems particularly relevant. Throughout its history Buddhism has been successfully reinterpreted in accordance with different cultures, whilst at the same time preserving its inner truths. Buddhism has thus spread and survived. The historic task of Buddhists in both East and West (in the twenty-first century) is to interpret perennial Buddhism in terms of the needs of industrial man and woman in the social conditions of their time, while demonstrating its acute and urgent relevance to the ills of that society. To this great and difficult enterprise, Buddhists will bring their traditional boldness and humility. Clinging to dogma and defensiveness is certainly against the spirit of the present age.

In the modern Western society, humanistic social action, with its variety of forms, is seen both as the characteristic way of relieving suffering and enhancing human well-being and, at the same time, as a noble ideal of service and of selfsacrifice, by humanists of all faiths.

Buddhism, however, is humanism as it rejoices the possibility of true freedom as something inherent in human nature. For Buddhism, the ultimate freedom is to achieve absolute liberation from the root causes of all suffering: greed, hatred and delusion, which are also the root causes of all social evils. Their grossest forms are those which are harmful to others. To weaken, and finally eliminate them in oneself, and, as far as possible, in society, is the fundamental objective of Buddhist ethics. It's on this ethical bedrock that Buddhist social action takes place.

The experience of suffering is the starting point of Buddhist teaching and also that of any attempt to define a distinctively Buddhist social action. Notwithstanding, misunderstanding can arise at the start, because the Pali word dukkha, which is commonly translated simply as "suffering," has a much wider and more subtle connotations. There is, of course, much gross, objective suffering in the world (dukkha-dukkha), and much of this arises from poverty, war, oppression and other social conditions. We cling to our good fortune and struggle at all costs to escape from our bad fortune.

This struggle may not be so desperate in certain countries which enjoy a high material standard of living spread relatively evenly throughout the population. Nevertheless, the material achievements of such societies appear somehow to have been "bought" by social conditions which breed a profound sense of insecurity and anxiety, of restlessness and inner confusion, in contrast to the relatively stable and ordered society in which the Buddha taught.

To live thus, in developing countries, "in the context of equipment," has become the great goal for increasing numbers of people. They are watched sadly by Westerners who have accumulated more experience of the disillusion and frustration of perpetual non-arrival.

Obviously, from the experience of social conditions there arises both physical and psychological suffering. But more fundamental is still that profound sense of unease, of anxiety or angst, which arises from the very transience (anicca) of life (viparinama-dukkha). This angst, however conscious of it we may or may not be, drives the restless search to establish a meaningful self-identity in the face of a disturbing awareness of our insubstantiality (anatta). Ultimately, life is commonly a struggle to give meaning to life—and to death. This is so much the essence of the ordinary human condition and we are so very much inside it, that for much of the time we are scarcely aware of it. This existential suffering is the distillation of the various conditions which we have referred to above—it's the human condition itself.

To the individual human being Buddhism offers a religious practice, a way, leading to the transcendence of suffering. Buddhist social action arises from this practice and contributes to it. From suffering arises desire to end suffering. The secular humanistic activist sets himself for the endless task of satisfying that desire, and perhaps hopes to end social suffering by constructing utopias. The Buddhist, on the other hand, is concerned ultimately with the transformation of desire. Hence, he contemplates and experiences social action in a fundamentally different way from the secular activist. This way will not be readily comprehensible to the latter, and has helped give rise to the erroneous belief that Buddhism is indifferent to human suffering. One reason why the subject of this pamphlet is so important to Buddhists is that they will have to start here if they are to begin to communicate effectively with non-Buddhist social activists. We should add, however, that although such communication may not be easy on the intellectual plane, at the level of feelings shared in compassionate and collective experience of social action, there may be little difficulty.