Some Secular Buddhist Network (SBN) members are active in various political and social justice movements. Along with several other SBN members, I helped to initiate and am currently part of the leadership team of the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy (BCD), which aims to bring together a broad range of Buddhist practitioners to resist the ongoing destruction of democratic norms and rights by an increasingly authoritarian Trump administration. In addition, I’m involved with my union, which represents adjunct lecturers at Rutgers University, Jewish Voice for Peace, the Working Families Party, and the Democratic Socialists of America.
Others have their own list of groups they support. In this article I’d like to explore the relationship between our secular Buddhist practice and political engagement. In the various movements in which we participate, how do we, as secular Buddhist practitioners, connect our practice with our political activism? What do we bring to our political engagement that is uniquely secular Buddhist? In what ways is a secular Buddhist approach more likely to sustain political activism than traditional forms of Buddhism?
A Focus on Flourishing in This Life
I’ll begin with what I think is a crucial difference between traditional Buddhism and secular Buddhism in the context of political engagement. While adherents of traditional or ancestral forms of Buddhism have made important contributions to social and political movements, I believe that a secular approach to the dharma fits better with a politically engaged stance. As Karsten Struhl has noted in an article on this website, by putting aside the traditional notions of rebirth, karma, and attaining nirvana in a transcendent realm, secular Buddhists are better able to focus on the urgency of reducing suffering and promoting flourishing in this life. If there is no rebirth based on one’s karma and if there is no nirvanic end state in which one is free of all suffering, our spiritual path will more likely be centered around the effort to improve the one life we have. This creates a strong motivation to be politically engaged, to participate in movements for social justice, and to create a society in which all people can have a decent, meaningful, and rich life.
Although not a Buddhist, Martin Hägglund, the author of This One Life, makes this same, basic point. It is precisely because our own and others’ lives are finite that we find value in this life and seek to improve it. If we reject the notion of nirvana or heaven as a permanent escape from our mortality, then our focus will be on how we can flourish during the time that we have. This recognition and embrace of our finitude is the basis for what he calls a “secular faith,” a determination to care for ourselves, others, and the world, which is, in part, manifested in political movements.
Aside from its emphasis on making this life better, I believe that a secular Buddhist approach offers three other important resources to political activists:
- A view of human beings as complex, embodied beings with a wide range of potential for both good and bad actions. Our focus is on shifting the balance in human beings from being dominated by problematic, negative human capacities to cultivating positive, life-affirming capacities.
- As part of an overall life path committed to flourishing, we highlight the role of meditative practices in cultivating the positive capacities of human beings, including mindfulness and compassion.
- We retain a Buddhist ethics rooted in care and non-harming but add a set of contemporary ethical values which have emerged in the struggles against exploitative and oppressive social institutions: equality, justice, inclusiveness, and democracy.
A Realistic, Complex View of Human Beings
Buddhists recognize that human beings experience various forms of suffering — from a mild sense of unease to horrific trauma. In a world constantly changing and interconnected, human beings are unable to avoid life’s difficulties. Instead, as limited, vulnerable beings within a complex web of causes and conditions, we experience sickness, aging, death, and the loss of those we love, as well as all the other disappointments and vicissitudes of our mortal existence. While we experience many joys, we are vulnerable, limited creatures who inevitably suffer.
Human beings respond in a variety of ways to life’s ups and downs, reflecting our multifaceted human nature. Unfortunately, our default way of being in the world — based on our biological evolution, psychological development, and social norms — is dominated by our tendency to crave and cling to what we want (greed) or react with aversion to what we don’t want (anger). These two basic forms of reactivity are underpinned and reinforced by a delusory or false understanding of who we are. We tend to view ourselves in narrow, egoistic terms, as an “I” who is a permanent, separate self when we are, in fact, changing, embodied beings interrelated within a web of causes and conditions. These “three poisons” of greed, anger, and delusion are a major cause of harm to ourselves and others.
These tendencies coexist with other human capacities, notably mindfulness, compassion, and our ability to gain a better understanding of ourselves, others, society, and the world. These capacities enable us to respond creatively and skillfully to the ups and downs of life.
Unlike traditional Buddhists, secular Buddhists accept and embrace our complexity, limitations, vulnerabilities, and potentials. We don’t view the unskillful and negative capacities of human beings as imperfections which cover up our essential goodness or Buddha-nature, as many traditional Buddhists believe. We see human beings as complex creatures, shaped by our biological evolution, family upbringing, and cultural and social institutions. We believe that we can shift the balance in our thoughts, actions, and speech toward more positive human capacities, like mindfulness and compassion, but we can never become perfect, enlightened beings. We will never be arahants.
Because we understand that humans are complex, limited beings, secular Buddhists can help activists in democracy and social justice movements gain a fuller, more realistic understanding of the needs, motivations, and tendencies of human beings, and how that plays out in a political context. An awareness of our limitations, complexity and vulnerability enables us to have more compassion toward each other in political settings. We are all imperfect; we all have strengths and weaknesses. We all suffer in various ways, not just from social institutions but from the unskillful ways with which we relate to our experience. Recognizing these basic facts of human existence leads to a more accurate perspective on what we can accomplish together and how we can help each other. Such recognition also helps us to empathize with others and to see each other as suffering beings who deserve to be treated with respect and dignity, not as objects to be used.
At the same time, understanding that we are limited, vulnerable beings who lack complete control over life’s events points to the importance of practices of self-care to sustain our political activism. In the political realm, we will be faced with all sorts of challenges, disappointments, and frustrations. To maintain a long-term commitment to political change, we need to balance our intensive efforts as political activists with restorative and contemplative practices that enable us to regroup, become more centered, and regain a broader perspective on our efforts.
Meditation as the Cultivation of Skills and Virtues, Not a Path to Nirvana
For secular Buddhists, meditation is not a gateway to ultimate reality and attaining a nirvanic state, as it is for many traditional Buddhists. We practice meditation to help us become more mindful and compassionate in this life. Meditation enables us to limit the impact of greed, hatred, and delusion while cultivating positive skills and virtues (compassion, equanimity, wisdom, etc.). These aspects of human nature are crucial for our own flourishing and are essential to engaging in political activism. Unfortunately, the destructive poisons of greed, anger, and delusion are quite evident even within progressive political movements; our meditation practice can help us reduce these factors within political movements.
Through meditation, we cultivate the ability to become calmer and more mindful in experiencing our internal life and the world. We become less reactive and more capable of responding creatively to all we experience. We recognize we are limited, vulnerable beings within the web of causes and conditions. We come to understand the value of keeping an open mind, given the contingent and changing nature of reality. And most important, we realize our deep connection with all other beings; we become less ego-focused and more capable of orienting toward ourselves and others with an attitude of loving friendliness. These understandings enable us to be open to new perspectives and to avoid being unduly too attached to any one point of view.
Given the long history of internal conflicts within progressive movements over who has the right or correct “line,” a recognition of our limitations and a sense of open-mindedness is essential for promoting productive and healthy relationships among political activists. Rather than view those who have different views as enemies, we can focus on our common goals while having vigorous debates and discussions among political comrades.
Ethical Values
These beneficial effects of meditation are integrally connected to the ethical values which all Buddhists embrace. The ethical stance of Buddhists highlights the ways we connect with each other and that we all suffer yet seek happiness. To reduce suffering and promote flourishing, Buddhism prioritizes the values of care and non-harming as the basis of an ethical life. These values need to be integrated into all aspects of our lives, including our political activities. They provide an antidote to some common ailments in political movements: the unfortunate tendency to use any means to attain an end; the widespread internal conflicts in political groups based on excessive egoism and the pursuit of power over others; and the common practice of labeling those we disagree with as an enemy.
Secular Buddhists valorize care and non-harming but contend that they need to be complemented with ethical values that have emerged in our contemporary world in the context of mass movements challenging the harms caused by social and political institutions: the economic exploitation of working people and the poor; the oppression of various groups, manifested in racism, sexism, homophobia, etc., and the use of violence to settle disputes.
The political and social movements that have arisen to fight against these social sources of suffering have developed and articulated a set of ethical values and political ideals based on the notion that all human beings, irrespective of their country of origin, social class, racial and gender identity, etc., deserve the opportunity to have a decent life and to fully participate in the co-creation of social institutions. The contemporary ethical values that have emerged from these liberation struggles include equality, inclusiveness, justice, and democracy. Secular Buddhists embrace these values and see them as essential as caring and non-harming in creating a society in which all people may flourish.
To transform unjust social institutions and processes, it is not enough to analyze how and why social institutions cause harm, the changes that are needed, and strategies to effectuate the changes. Movements for social change must also be based on a set of ethical values that guide and sustain our actions and keep us focused on our basic purposes and ideals. As political activists, secular Buddhists can help the movements that we participate in to be clear about and stay true to this ethical foundation.
This is not a call for secular Buddhists to create their own political groups or to act as an organized caucus within the broader political movement. Instead, in each of the movements in which we participate, we, along with other like-minded people, can help to create a healthy and sustainable culture of activism. It is by bringing into political movements the valuable insights and practices of the secular dharma that we can make an important contribution to social change movements.
Some of the material in this article is adapted from my book, Mindful Solidarity: A Secular Buddhist Democratic Socialist Dialogue and a recent blog post for the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy.
