A History of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship: The Work of Engaged Buddhism
Chapter 2: BPF Today

BPF posits the necessity of grassroots transformation ˜ society transforming itself from the bottom up, just as the Buddha insisted we transform ourselves, trusting our own Dharma eye.

 

Robert Aitken and Sulak Sivaraksa

In Buddhism, we often speak of kalyana mitta, good friends. We must understand and help each other. If we want social justice, one village must be linked with other villages. One country has to be linked with other countries. The Third World has to be linked with the First World. Poor fishermen must help working women, and working women must help industrial workers. We must all start relating to each other.
— Sulak Sivaraksa, Seeds of Peace

The seat I occupy at BPF's national office is a journeyman weaver's place, trying to grasp the pattern and weave together the jewels of Indra's net with the thread of friendship, kalyana mitta. Spiritual friendship binds all our work. We began as a circle of friends with common concerns. Eighteen years later, the network is much wider, the organizational forms — BPF members, chapters, affiliates — more various, but guiding principles are the same. The trick is to keep finding ways that people can work effectively with each other, to change the suffering world, and to see our growing, shifting network clearly enough to put people in touch with each other.

Socially engaged Buddhism includes millions of people and great movements in Thailand, Cambodia, India, Sri Lanka, Japan, Tibet, Burma, Vietnam, Korea, and on across Asia. Through BPF and our sister organization in Thailand, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), we've had opportunities to work with rank and file and leaders of many of these movements. Back at home we share news of their work with Cambodia's Dhammayietras, we are grateful for those who have wealth to share. But we are wary of our own culture's blindness about class and consumption, its way of turning talent and leadership into a commodities, selling them back to us at the price of self-reliance. BPF posits the necessity of grassroots transformation — society transforming itself from the bottom up, just as the Buddha insisted we transform ourselves, trusting our own Dharma eye. If we give away this power to others, they will become distorted by the power and we will be manipulated by it. Friendship becomes idolatry, and poisons our best dreams.

BPF's base has generally been among Euro-American Buddhists like myself. Why that has been the case and what difficulties exist in opening to ethnic Buddhists and to people of color who take up Buddhism is an ongoing discussion. For me the critical matter is to recognize the priceless gift we have been given by Asian traditions and teachers, and to set aside any arrogance. Our relationship with INEB and others enlightens us about the needs and the gifts of different cultures and species. We tend to learn about our own insensitivity the hard way. Respectfully we extend ourselves and make connections with the different Asian sanghas. The full effect of our friendship and our work — completely apart from particular successes and failures — cannot be calculated. So we just keep on weaving.