The socially engaged Buddhist, American Soto Zen priest, and resident abbot of Berkeley Zen Center in California, Hozan Alan Senauke, died on December 22 after an extended illness.

Senauke was a prominent Buddhist activist and a vocal advocate for social change and equality, founding numerous initiatives and developing impactful Buddhist-rooted resources for social change in Asia and the United States, including support for the Dalit community in India.

Below is an excerpt from the introduction to his book, The Bodhisattva's Embrace, on the meaning of engaged Buddhism.

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…It is hard to define engaged Buddhism. But I think it has to do with a willingness to see how deeply people suffer; to un­derstand how we have fashioned whole systems of suffering out of gender, race, caste, class, ability, and so on; and to know that interdependently and individually we co-create this suf­fering. Looking around we plainly see a world at war, a planet in peril.

Some days, I call this engaged Buddhism; on other days I think it is just plain Buddhism - walking the Bodhisattva path, embracing the suffering of beings by taking responsibil­ity for them. In almost every religious tradition there are simi­lar ways and practices integrating faith and activism. Across religions and nations we are each others' sisters and brothers and allies. Our effort is to be more truly human.

The first step on the Buddha's Eightfold Path is Right View. This means at once seeing what is right in front of us, and see­ing to the bottom of things. It was the same in Shakyamuni Buddha's time. In an early Pali sutra, a seeker inquires:

The inner tangle and the outer tangle
This generation is entangled in a tangle.
And so I ask Gotama this question:

Who succeeds in disentangling this tangle?

The Buddha responds: "It is the wise person, established in virtue, having cultivated consciousness and understanding who can disentangle this tangle." Even if I fall short, I'll keep working at that tangle. If you want to sit down next to me, I welcome your help.

Coming back to Right View, I would add that each step on the Eightfold Path includes and implies the other seven. In that sense, Right View is Wisdom manifest. Right View is, as Shunryu Suzuki Roshi said, simply seeing "things as it is."

Wisdom is inseparable from Compassion, the active principle. This brings to mind the "Three Tenets" as developed by Bernie Glassman for the Zen Peacemaker Circle.

Not-knowing, giving up fixed ideas about our­ selves and the universe.
Bearing witness to the joy and suffering of the world.
Loving actions towards ourselves and others.

Not-knowing means approaching people, community, and society without fixed ideas or belief systems. It reminds me of Suzuki Roshi's epigraph to Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

Bearing witness marks the subtle and often rapid shift from perception to conceptualization to action. In the space of Buddhist practice, mindfulness intervenes one step ahead of reactivity and habit. Having come fresh to a new reality, we begin to form ideas, compare them with our experience, and share these ideas with others. The tradition of bearing witness has two intertwining implications. First, it means to see what is right there for us to see. Second, it means to testify, to carry our witness to other people and places.

This naturally leads to loving action, compassionate action. Witness calls forth responsibility. That responsibility is to ourselves, and to all other beings - who comprise the vast reality I call my self. The circle of engaged Buddhism is unbro­ken…