[Rasklad]

We, Buddhists, are interested in cultivating our inner qualities. We may not want to engage in worldly affairs. Before helping others, we need to develop capacity to cope with our own sufferings skillfully, but when will we be ready to help others? Should we wait until we are enlightened? People are suffering at the present moment. I guess the we here refers to western Buddhists, in which case I think Bhikku Bodhi's essay is right (including the part about the mainstream Left, something which I'm sure applies to me):

Seeing the immensity of the world’s anguish has raised in my mind questions about the future prospects for Buddhism in the West. I’ve been struck by how seldom the theme of global suffering—the palpable suffering of real human beings—is thematically explored in the Buddhist journals and teachings with which I am acquainted. It seems to me that we Western Buddhists tend to dwell in a cognitive space that defines the first noble truth largely against the background of our middle-class lifestyles: as the gnawing of discontent; the ennui of over-satiation; the pain of unfulfilling relationships; or, with a bow to Buddhist theory, as bondage to the round of rebirths. Too often, I feel, our focus on these aspects of dukkha has made us oblivious to the vast, catastrophic suffering that daily overwhelms three-fourths of the world’s population.

An exception to this tendency may be found with the Engaged Buddhist movement. I believe this is a face of Buddhism that has great promise, but from my superficial readings in this area I am struck by two things. First, while some Engaged Buddhists seek fresh perspectives from the dharma, for many Buddhism simply provides spiritual practices to use while simultaneously espousing socio-political causes not much different from those of the mainstream Left. Second, Engaged Buddhism still remains tangential to the hard core of Western interest in Buddhism, which is the dharma as a path to inner peace and self-realization.

If Buddhism in the West becomes solely a means to pursue personal spiritual growth, I am apprehensive that it may evolve in a one-sided way and thus fulfill only half its potential. Attracting the affluent and the educated, it will provide a congenial home for the intellectual and cultural elite, but it will risk turning the quest for enlightenment into an private journey that, in the face of the immense suffering which daily hounds countless human lives, can present only a resigned quietism.

By way of contrast, take Christian Aid and World Vision. These are not missionary movements aimed at proselytizing but relief organizations that provide relief and development aid while also tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. Similarly, the American Jewish World Service doesn’t aspire to convert people to Judaism but to express Judaism’s commitment to social justice by alleviating “poverty, hunger, and disease among the people of the developing world regardless of race, religion, or nationality.” Why doesn’t Buddhism have anything like that? Surely we can find a supporting framework for this in Buddhist doctrine, ethical ideals,archetypes, legends, and historical precedents. You can read the whole thing at http://www.bodhimonastery.net/bm/ima..._Buddhists.pdf

If you look at forums like this, you find an almost total absence of critical engagement with social structures and the reality of daily life for the people of the world. We live in a world where (roughly) the richest 500 people are as wealthy as the poorest 500 million; 30,000 children a die because they're too poor to buy the necessities of life (and, I believe, they're too poor because we're too rich); the horrors which climate change is going to unleash on the world are at the edge of human imagination, they are so awful. So why, or how, can this, and the 10-mile-long list of similar or worse facts, pass by without comment?

On the subject of Christian aid (as opposed to Christian Aid!), I'm not and have never been a Christian but I went to a (very expensive) school run by Benedictine monks, who, in addition to training the sons of the rich to take their place at the head of the social pyramid, also worked in the slums of Peru and in a particularly grim part of London in a remarkably selfless way. They did what was right (education and medical assistance) and whist I've never been able to understand how they could support, through their school, such an unjust social system, they did work hard to ameliorate some of the worst consequences of that support without making any attempts to proselytize.