[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist Charities

[jkirk]

From: "Eric Nelson" <esnels at gmail.com>

> What do people think of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship? My experience
> has been that they are active in issues of peace, war, and social
> justice as well as charitable activities in response to events such as
> the tsunami disaster. They also publish Turning Wheel: The Journal of
> Socially Engaged Buddhism, which I have found to be relevant in
> relating Buddhism to social ills.
>
> Eric
====================
Good question. Perhaps the "public," whoever they may be, would view the
Peace Fellowship as a public policy and ethics organization rather than as a
typical charitable one, such as an orphanage, a hospice, a soup kitchen, a
nursing home for the aged, financing education scholarships, and the like,
all of which different Christian and Jewish organizations do. Perhaps
Buddhist membership, in the US at least, is just not numerous enough to be
"seen" at all, except when some right-wing group takes a public swipe at
it/us.
I hope y'all have noted recently, since the changing of the Pope guard
happened, that the network TV people pay sole attention to anything
Christian. Other religions (for lack of a better general term) get ignored.
It's as if "we" don't exist, "we" don't do anything of any significance,
etc. Exception:  HHDL's marketing and communication machinery, which manages
to do very well to get their concerns into public view.
I'm beginning to think that questions about "our" public image are solely a
matter of what happens or does not happen in the corporately controlled
media, rather than a function of some institutional differences.
Joanna