Culturally Engaged Buddhism

[Dharmavidya]

The expression socially engaged Buddhism was coined by Thich Nhat Hanh and developed by Sulak Sivaraksa and has become a widely used term referring to the activism and social work performed by some Buddhists either indvidually or as a function of their sangha activity. The Amida sangha has become well known for its commitments in this type of activity as a co-ordinated and committed sangha at the levels of resisting oppression, assisting the afflicted and demonstrating an alternative, in arenas as varied as the Balkans, India, Africa and city centre areas of the UK. All well and good. However, it goes further than this. I would like to float and advance the term Culturally Engaged Buddhism as a relatively more apt description of what we are trying to do here. I understand cultural engagement as including everything that might fall under the rubric of SEB and more, and all of it with a subtle shift of emphasis. Amida-shu is culturally engaged in that we are not only engaged in socially useful or politically implicated actions; we are also engaged in the arts and letters and performance; we are concerned about the kind of values that underpin society, and especially that conduce to community; we are concerned to generate the conditions that give rise to creativity; we are interested in friendship, co-operation and synergism, and in unleashing the energy of people who have something to offer, helping them to become both true individuals and contributing members of 'rightly resolute groups'. We are not just into service delivery - in fact, we are hardly into that at all - we are more interested in how to help people to become creative and helping people to help other people. I want to invite our members to think about how we can generate the kind of matrix of conditions, both locally and internationally, that nurture creativity of many kinds and that build the flowering of community at a more sublime level. This can include supporting social causes but it is not limited to it and we need to think carefully just what the Buddhist cause in society is. We should not simply jump onto bandwagons that are only tangentially related to our true values; but nor should we flinch from actions that will bring out the potential in a wide range of people yearning for spiritual liberation in a wide variety of ways, not limited to orthodoxly religious ones. Amidism is well placed to bridge cultures and to help generate the meta-culture (and 'metta' culture) by which the future of our world may be enriched. Let's do it.

[Dharmavidya]

Thank you, Robert. Yes. Agreed. This is in part why any spiritual venture becomes a project aimed, however, remotely, at creating a new world and why we have to collectively be the change we pray for. The manner in which we conduct our own community is a message to the world just as much as are the critical incidents in the bwider society that we address ourselves to.

[Robert McCarthy]

It would seem that actions within this culturally engaged buddhism are very constrained by the need to act compassionately and within precepts and that is not regrettable, but it makes all actions need to be considered carefully, and the outsiders perception must be considered and taken into account or discounted; more so for anyone who wears the robe. It seems there is a stereotyped perception of the buddhist monk and nun in the west, this will lead to the purity of any action being closely examined by the public, and can also draw enormous attention to any such action outside the stereotype. Thus the actions of the monks in vietnam torching themselves powerfully defines the twentieth century in so many ways. Monks could be seen fighting on thai streets earlier this year, in what is becoming a marxist type conflict between the rural poor and the city bourgeoisie. To me, the latter action is deplorable. The question of what amidists consider right action also begs the further question, what consideration is due to other schools with diverse views on right action. Consideration of perceptions and diverse views is a conservatising influence. Partisan actions seem to only become acceptable when the other side approaches a genocidal depravity, but so many beings are brutalised by the everyday actions of all governments and corporations.

[Dharmavidya]

When we are engaged in our local communities we work with others, often others of different cultures, and we encouter incidents some of which are traumatic that highlight the problems and dilemmas of our society. Such are commonly called critical incidents because they have an importance that goes beyond the impact that they have on the people immediately involved. Critical incidents reflect key problems and the manner in which they are responded to not only affects those involved but gives messages to society at large. The way that critical incidents are dealt with is itself a communication that is formative in relation to the culture. Culture is an emergent phenomenon. It is continually being remade by our significant actions. It is important, therefore, that we raise our consciousness somewhat about what messages we are in fact putting out. We might think that if a misfortune has occurred then what matters is to show compassion, and this is true, but what counts as compassion often depends upon the wider value system that one is operating from. Is compassion to give a service, to correct the system failure, to provide material benefits, to counsel, to take into one's care, to seek redress, to punish the miscreants, etc. etc? Further, the way in which the decision is made about what should be done is itself a cultural expression both in the manner it is organised ad in the language that is employed - is this a search for justice, empowerment, forgiveness, rights? All of the foregoing are, arguably, not Buddhist concepts. Are we conscious what are the meta-level implications of what we do and say? There has been a tendency for "engaged Buddhism" to mean actions based on Western liberal progressive agendas caried out by Budhists without there necessarily having been any great depth of analysis whether the agenda in question is expressive of Buddhist values and ethos. We need more reflection and discussion.