Buddhism - “light on community compassion”?
Filed Under Commentary, Buddhadharma | Posted on June 2, 2007
Tyson Williams, in a strange little post entitled The Dalai Lama Down Under, cites some criticisms of contemporary Buddhism that he allows to stand unanswered. I thought I’d answer them.
Buddhism has been accused of being the religion you’re having when you’re not having a religion. Some argue it is a philosophy, not a faith. And more pointedly, a religion that is light on community compassion but very heavy indeed on individual happiness.
Depending upon your definition of “religion”, the first point may or may not be correct. Lama Surya Das, perhaps the most visible and popular Western writer in the Tibetan tradition, calls Buddhism a “psychology” in his book Awakening the Buddha Within. “Philosophy”, “practice”, “way of living”, “worldview” are other terms that may just as easily be substituted for “religion” in a description of Buddhism. If your definition of religion includes “a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe as considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies“, Buddhism arguably doesn’t fit the category; if your definition is simply, “a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects”, then of course it does.
The point that I would argue with is the assertion that Buddhism is “light on community compassion but very heavy indeed on individual happiness”, at least as that assertion applies to Mahayana Buddhism. Mahayana Buddhism is, of course, all about community compassion; the bodhisattva ideal forsakes individual liberation out of an overwhelming sense of compassion for all sentient beings. Atisha, in his Lamp to the Path of Enlightentment emphasizes the point:
One who puts life’s pleasures behind
And turns himself from deeds of sin,
Yet cares only about his own peace,
That person should be called Mediocre.One who wholly seeks a complete end
To the entire suffering of others because
Their suffering belongs to his own [conscious] stream,
That person is a Superior.
His Holiness the Dalai Lama is the world’s great spokesman for compassion:
The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. This helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the ultimate source of success in life.
…
Thus we can strive gradually to become more compassionate, that is we can develop both genuine sympathy for others’ suffering and the will to help remove their pain. As a result, our own serenity and inner strength will increase.
Back to Williams’ post:
[As opposed to Buddhism’s individualism], Christianity, on the other hand, involves getting your hands dirty; being involved with people you might not want to associate with,” [Peter Jensen, Anglican Archbishop of Sydney] says.
What a strange thing to say. If you surveyed social activism among Buddhist organizations, you would probably find the greatest involvement (outside of the Tibetan freedom and human rights movements) in hospice work and in prison ministries. If most of us made a list of people we want to associate with, I doubt that dying people and death-row inmates would be near the top of the list; and yet, Buddhism teaches that all beings should be viewed with equanimity, compassion, and respect. For the Buddha, there are no people one might not want to associate with. From the Metta Sutta:
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
Should one cherish all living beings:
Radiating kindness over the entire world
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
One should sustain this recollection.
And the final comment from William’s post that I’ll address:
British commentator and avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens in his provocative new book God is Not Great accuses Buddhist converts of simply being bored by conventional “Bible” religion. “They may think,” writes Hitchens, “they are leaving the realm of despised materialism, but they are still being asked to put their reason to sleep and to discard their minds along with their sandals.”
Of course, the easiest way to sell a lot of books is to make controversial statements and piss off as many as people as possible; Hitchens has taken that approach to a new height. If he could just get the Ayatollah to put out a hit on him, he’d have it made for life.
I suppose there may be folks calling themselves Buddhist who have put their reason to sleep, but that’s not part of the religion (or philosophy, or psychology, or whatever you want to call it.) In fact, it’s directly opposed to the teachings of Buddhism. In the Kalama Sutra, the Buddha said:
Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing;
nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture;
nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning;
nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over;
nor upon another’s seeming ability;
nor upon the consideration, ‘The monk is our teacher.’Kalamas, when you yourselves know:
“These things are good; these things are not blamable;
these things are praised by the wise; undertaken and observed,
these things lead to benefit and happiness,”
enter on and abide in them.’
And in the Udumbara Sutta, the Buddha advises:
I am not teaching you to have you as my pupil.
I am not interested to make you my pupil.I am not interested in breaking you from your old teacher.
I am not interested even to change your goal,
because everyone wants to come out of suffering.Try something that I have discovered,
and then judge it for yourself.
If it is good for you, accept it.
Otherwise, don’t accept it.
Seems pretty reasonable to me.
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