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Social Engagement and Religious Practice Volunteering and social engagement can be undertaken for many reasons. Some Volunteers who come to Amida see their involvement as part of their Buddhist practice. Others are not even Buddhist. So long as the volunteer is open to our Buddhist way of life and willing to engage with aspects af it, there is no probelem and no pressure to take on a Buddhist path. At the same time, for some, the aspect of Buddhism in socially engaged practice is important. If this is something that concerns you, you may be interested in the following comment that appeared on Dharmavidya's question and answer blog site at Questions in the Sand

Do Social Engagement and Practice Conflict? QUESTION: From the looks of things, the Amida Trust does a lot of work devoted to thinking about issues of engagement, social issues and Buddhism, and so forth. What are you learning and discovering about how notions of monasticism might be reshaping in the 21st century. Similarly, what have noticed about new trends in thinking about engaged Buddhism? Is anything apparent to you in terms of what distinct, new energies/ideas Westerners can offer these two areas? As far as you understand my dilemma, do you have any thoughts? What wisdom might your tradition have to offer in terms of thinking about work in the world and the priestly/monastic vocation? DHARMAVIDYA: Thank you. Good question. First, the issue of monasticism. Buddhist renunciant practitioners might be called monks, but the original concept was not that of a cloistered person following a rule of stabilitas (staying in one place) which is the definition of monk in most western traditions. Buddhist monks were really friars. They are mobile (homeless) in basic concept. This is certainly our concept at Amida. Full renunciation implies freedom to go wherever one is needed in the service of other sentient beings. That is what faith and practice mean. Our monastery is, therefore, the mother ship for expeditions. People go forth and return. There is then a synergism through sharing. We all learn from one another and grow in faith together. As for the internal style of monasticism - the liturgical life, the community, the roles and relationships, the day to day work - they should all be shaped to help people learn how to be errant bodhisattvas able to handle responsibility, work in harmony with other, remain established in deep faith even in the midst of adversity, trust one another and so on. The monastery is a training ground for character, a spiritual power house where people can come and recharge, a mirror for each of us in which we see all the crinkles of our foolish nature. This is where we find out what we are, abandon some of our more glaring pretentions and antisocial quirks, and grow up a bit. Pratice is about doing something about oneself - which means no longer spending all one's time reprocessing one's delusions. Second the question of Western Buddhism and social engagement. Even today Western (and quite a few Eastern) approaches to Buddhism seems to me to be fundamentally at odds with engagement and, in my view, therefore, at odds with what Buddhism is and should be about. I do not see Buddhism as a quest for personal enlightenment that is somehow the property of an individual and I fear that Western Buddhism has taken Buddhist practice and commodified it. Far from understanding non-self ever more deeply and growing in faith, Western Buddhists are all too often just making practice into a personal indulgence and support for introspective rumination. They think that the more disengaged they become the more spiritual they will be and this is a fallacy. An activist friend of mine said: "You see good activists become Buddhists and then you never see them again." In other words, the Western approach is still strongly implicated in quietism. Despite the fact that many people think that Westerners are more world-oriented and extavert than Asian people, broadly speaking, in Asia Buddhism is a social force as much as a personal one whereas in the West it is not. In Pureland, I do feel that there is a different outlook - in fact, there is OUT-look rather than only IN-look. For us there is no basic conflict between practice and enagement - they both tend in the same direction and are difficult to distinguish from one another. Practice is faith and faith is tested and strengthened through encounter. Engagement is, therefore, a strong and essential part of our practice. Another strong part is encounter with each other. This yields communnity, fellow feeling and team spirit, which are all expressions of faith. We have quiet periods as part of the natural rythm of life, but we would not think that silence matters more than communication, say. We have developed a system of different forms of commitment and ordination baed upon people's availability, which is a function of their degree of renunciation. The more renunciant people are the more engaged they are likely to be. It is the flly renunciant people who are likely to be sent to India or Africa. Others might support them, but they are not free to go. It is important to ask, do I have the aith to do Buddha's work? Do I have the faith to respond to what the universe puts in front of me? Or am I too busy with my own plans for my own salvation to listen to the suffering in the world? What would Buddha have one do? One might need extra contemplative time to recuperate or digest experience after particularly challenging assignments, but we do not see a conflict between engagement and deepening of practice - they are synonymous. If one really is not free to go forth abroad, then one can go forth locally. Whatever the details, engagement is practice, even if it is engagement with one's housemates or the lants in the garden. The majority of Western Buddhists seem to be caught in a concept of what Buddhism is that is essentially antithetic to engagement and yet still feel from first principles that engagement must be necessary or right and so finish up in a conflict. I suggest this is a misunderstanding of Buddhism. All Buddha's disciples are bodhisattvas. Bodhisattvas are those who have th faith to do the Buddha's work. Doing the work strengthens that faith. It all points in one direction. If one thinks that practice is something done when one disengages, one misunderstands practice. If one is seeking something for oneself from the practice, one misunderstands practice. So I would say: Just have faith and go forth in Buddha's light and it will all take care of itself. A path will unfold. There are people - there are certainly some here - who will be companions for you on the Way and together we (even though we are and remain deluded beings in many ways) become the Buddha body collectively. Buddha lacks for nothing, yet needs something - you. Don't keep him waiting too long.