[Buddha-l] Dissent or Service?

[Richard Hayes]

On Thursday 05 October 2006 09:56, Jon Weaver wrote:

> I think that at this point in time, American sanghas are too fragile  for
> public dissent. So perhaps the question is: what qualities need to  be
> cultivated by American sanghas, so that they can publically engage  in
> dissent?

My mother used to say "If anyone waited until they were ready to have 
children, no one would have children." By extension, I think that if any 
community waited until it was strong enough to engage in dissent, there would 
be no dissent. This is especially true, given that most dissent is against 
the strong. The Quakers were dissenters from the outset. They were anything 
but strong in numbers and economic resources, but they were willing to go to 
jail and lose their jobs as a consequence of the stances they took. American 
Buddhist sanghas are much stronger in numbers and in affluence now than the 
Quaker meetings were for the first several centuries of their existence, but 
American Buddhists as groups do not seem to be manifesting the courage to put 
their collective values on the line. But perhaps I'm just not seeing it.

>   However, here in Santa Fe New Mexico, sanghas are engaged with service 
> through hospice projects, soup kitchens, prison outreach, etc. It is 
> intimate and immediate service. Does anyone have ideas on how to make  big,
> distant problems like the Iraq invasion and ideas like peace, more 
> immediate? How can non-violent dissent "bring the war home?"

It may be that the kinds of activities you talk about are more in keeping with 
Buddhist values. After all, the Quaker impetus to be engaged in the world is 
common to a wide swathe of Christian outfits who have followed some form of 
social gospel. Involvement in the affairs of the world is part of the 
heritage they acquired from the Hebrew prophets, and most Christian groups 
have as part of their practice some kind of meddling and protesting or what 
Jewish tradition calls healing the world (tikkun olam), whether it's 
campaigning tirelessly against unnecessary military engagements and working 
to abolish slavery and achieve universal suffrage, or campaigning tirelessly 
against abortion and same-sex unions (between anyone but a Republican 
congressman and a congressional page). 

The Buddha offers a different sort of model than the Hebrew prophets, and 
maybe it's the old Indian sramanic tendency to renounce the world that still 
informs Buddhist practice, even in environments in which people are 
habituated to the fiery prophetic voice of the Abrahamic religions. It could 
also be the case that it is the destiny of many (perhaps most) Western 
Buddhists to be deeply conflicted about both the prophetic model and the 
ascetic model, and we just flop around uncomfortably no matter what habitat  
we find ourselves in. Perhaps I am projecting my own deep sense of never 
having felt at home anywhere, but my guess is that quite a few Western 
Buddhists feel the same dis-ease.

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes