[Buddha-l] Reaching out to others in charity

[Evelyn Ruut]

Hello Richard and fellow list members,

I really don't know why American Buddhist organizations seem to be somewhat deficient in areas of offering charity to others who are less fortunate than ourselves.   It is an excellent question.   

I live near a large Tibetan Buddhist dharma center, and I see a great many pleas to help this or that order of nuns or to help Tibetan refugees, but very little community outreach, and even less to help people in the rest of the world, yet we are practitioners of a belief system that teaches lovingkindness to all living beings!

Since this has always been something I personally regard as important, (perhaps from my WASP background) I have long maintained a membership in the Rotary Club, which exists solely for the purpose of helping others in the community and in the world.  Through them I have been a part of many efforts, that on my own I would never know where to begin, or what charity would be honorable and genuinely altruistic, perhaps even taking my money for the personal gain of a handful of administrators.   With Rotary I am safe in knowing that money and efforts are administered with no other agenda than to truly help others, and through the very best and finest members of a particular culture or society of like mindedness throughout the world.   Rotary is in almost every country and in cities and towns all around the world.

Although buddhist philosophy is supposedly to help other living beings to have all they want and need, most often monies collected are used for building new facilities whereby dharma might be propagated, maintaining them, and various related activities.   Teachers need money to travel, to teach, to have places to teach in.   New students continue to fuel this agenda as well, and it is one I also feel good about, but outreach in a more practical way is seldom mentioned, or it is left up to the individual.

So in my life I have had to keep "church and charity" separated to this degree, maintaining membership in both organizations, one to learn dharma and help living beings spiritually, and the other to help other beings in a more practical sense with food, medical care, schools, inoculations, surgeries for deformed faces, digging wells, and too many other projects to mention..   For me it has been a very good arrangement, and I know that there are no confusing agendas that way.   I feel really good about it.

In case anyone thinks that Rotary is an organization of businesspeople for the purpose of networking or furthering business agendas, allow me to correct that;  One is not allowed to speak of business matters during meetings, and over the thirteen or so years I have been a member, I can tell you that those who join for that purpose are soon disappointed and they either realize that they are there to help others or they leave.

I am respected in my Rotary Club as a buddhist and actually I am not the only buddhist in the club, though it is seldom mentioned.   We know what we are there for.   We are too busy inoculating children against polio and other diseases, raising money and having fun doing it, to help people in innumerable projects all over the world.

Aside from that, I can tell you that I have heard that the Zen center in Mount Tremper NY has a program for people suffering from addictions that is excellent (so I hear) and that the KTC in Phoenix had a program where their members helped the homeless in their city with a regular effort.   But for me the solution has been to keep my membership in Rotary as well as my membership in a dharma center.   I highly recommend it.   There are no confusing agendas that way. 
 
Best Regards,

Evelyn
 
"Since everything is but an apparition, perfect in being what it is, having nothing to do with good or bad, acceptance or rejection, one may well burst into laughter."    -Longchenpa
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