Many of the first Zen teachers in America taught not only Buddhism, but disengagement from activist politics. But in the last ten years, American students hove become less imitative and are finding their own voices, This anthology includes contributions from the Dalai Lama, Jack Kornfield, Thich Nhat Hanh, Joanna Macy, Robert Aitkin, a woman who was roped after a sesshin, and a British monk who ran for Parliament.
Contributors argue that there is nothing inherently Buddhist about social passivity.
It introduced me to traditional Buddhists, especially in the Theravadan traditions of Sri Lanka and Burma, who integrate religion and politics much as Gandhi did. Although Mahayana Buddhism has a grand vision of universal salvation, the actual achievement of Buddhism has been the development of practical systems of meditation toward the end of liberating a few dedicated individuals from psychological hangups and cultural conditionings. Institutional Buddhism has been conspicuously ready to accept or ignore the inequalities and tyrannies of whatever political system it found itself under. This can be death to Buddhism, because it is death to any meaningful function of compassion. Wisdom without compassion feels no pain.