The bodhisattva vows to help others to wake up by working diligently towards enlightenment. This spirit of service to others is a large part of being a Buddhist — cultivating an open heart and practicing not only “random acts of kindness” but committing yourself to social and environmental good.

In Peace Is Every Step, Thich Naht Hanh writes, “When I was in Vietnam, so many of our villages were being bombed. Along with my monastic brothers and sisters, I had to decide what to do. Should we continue to practice in our monasteries or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs? After careful reflection, we decided to do both — to go out and help people and to do so in mindfulness. We called it engaged Buddhism. Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting. Otherwise, what is the sense of seeing?”

So, engaged Buddhism is getting out there and making the world a better place; it's connecting with other people and forming relationships. Once a Buddhist, through diligent practice, sees clearly that everything is interdependent, it becomes difficult to sit back and do nothing. “If anyone is hurting, I too am hurting” becomes the philosophy of the engaged Buddhist.

You can also practice engaged Buddhism by working toward promoting peace in the world. Buddhist Peace Fellowship is the oldest socially engaged Buddhist nonprofit organization in the United States. There is an environmentally aware group called Earth Sangha that encourages the practice of Buddhism as an answer to the global environmental crisis.

There are as many ways to help as there are varieties of people in the world. Celebrate life by improving the quality of someone else's life. You might find a happiness you never imagined in the joy of serving others.

What Can One Person Do?

Isabel Losada, author of the Beginner's Guide to Changing the World, asks this question and wonders how Buddhists should be engaged in the cause of Tibet. She has noticed protests against China that are angry and very “un-Buddhist” and bereft of Buddhist practitioners. Where are the Buddhists, and what are they doing?

Buddhists, like anyone, can get engaged in the political process, lobbying their members of parliament or congress to inform them on the situation and to urge action. These meetings or letters should be suffused with loving-kindness and wisdom, not polemics or anger. This reflects the Dalai Lama's strategy of nonviolence in his efforts to reconcile with China.

Taking an approach of nonviolence does not equate with non-action. Sitting on the cushion and meditating is not enough. Losada urges you to ponder this question, “How can I engage in this with joy?” This reflects the wisdom that it is through generosity, loving-kindness, and wisdom that change occurs rather than greed, hatred, and delusion disguised as a righteous cause. Indeed, when you can set aside preoccupation with your stories of fear and trying to protect “I, me, and mine,” a space opens up for action that helps others. As Losada points out, this action can be joyful.

Liza Smith speaks to the relationship between the practitioner and the rest of the world: “I don't think Buddhist practice would be relevant to me if it weren't engaged with the rest of the world. It just doesn't feel useful to me if it's always inwardly focused. The Buddhist principle of making friends with yourself, with our own mind, seems to have a parallel in the work that I do, where we need to make friends with the so-called enemy.”

Fernando De Torrijos, an inner-city Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction teacher, speaks to his experience helping others: “The thing I can do is to help people to allow their self-esteem to come back up, to lift — little by little — the deep depression that many of these patients have become accustomed to.”