NYZ: Engaged Buddhism – Duty to the Universal Sangha

Third Wednesday of each Month | 6:45 – 8:30 pm EST

Facilitated by Yuki Eric Michels

Over 2,500 years ago, Siddhartha Gautama gave specific, novel, and powerful forms to the Dharma, eventually manifesting in the tenets of Buddhism as we know and practice it today. Throughout the many eras of Buddhadharma, countless more Buddhas have worked tirelessly to share the Dharma in the face of systemic barriers — whether caste systems, feudal systems, or capitalist systems. These systems have existed and evolved both distinctly from us as individuals and interdependently with us as communities.

At the root of the Buddhadharma are the teachings of emptiness, no-self, and dependent origination. Common between them is the foundational principle that nothing exists in and of itself, and all things coexist interdependently. This applies to us, and to our society. 

We see today that the three poisons — greed, anger, and delusion — continue to thrive prosperously, not only within us as persons, but within our systems. Our economies and our governments feed off them, with endless capacities to devour. 

Buddhist principles oblige us to address the ways that our societal structures directly oppose the fulfillment of our Great Vows:

1. If we vow to save all beings, then we must ensure that all beings are guaranteed their human rights to clean air, food, water, shelter, healthcare, and education.
2. If we vow to extinguish all delusions, then we must acknowledge and relinquish all identity-based prejudices.
3. If we vow to master all dharmas, then we must intently explore how Buddhist teachings and other pedagogies—from across eras and cultures—require us to relate to one another, to enter into community with each other, and to ground our political and economic systems.
4. If we vow to follow the Buddha’s way, then we must proceed on this path endlessly, in all the directions available to us—onward, onward, onward to other shores.

For those who benefit from and adhere to the Dharma, it is our duty to renounce conceptions and systems which are founded on, and which violently enforce, the dogma of separateness between beings, nations, and our environment  — and to envision what a world that reflects our values could look like. 

In this space, we trust in the Dharma as a boundless fountain of compassion, freedom, resilience, and imagination. We will investigate what these obligations require of us, through questions such as:

• What does dependent origination reveal about the structural causes of suffering in our political and economic systems?
• How do we fulfill the vow to save all beings when systemic barriers prevent access to basic necessities like food, shelter, and healthcare?
• ​​What is to be done with political and economic systems that constantly breathe new life into the poisons of greed, anger, and delusion?
• What does Right Livelihood require of us in economies structured around exploitation and harm?
• How do the precepts against harming and stealing apply to systemic violence and the extraction of resources?
• What world do our Four Great Vows demand we build?

Together, we can illuminate the ways in which the personal, the communal, and the systemic intertwine, envisioning what a world that reflects our values could look like and working towards collective liberation.

Learn more about Engaged Buddhism at the Zen Studies Society.