Are there many socially engaged Buddhisms (SEB) or one unitary movement? Is SEB really Buddhism or just another mutation and appropriation of the western historical neurosis? What does SEB have to do, if anything, with modernity and modernism? Where does that leave the modernizing and pre-modern worlds? Are our concerns stereotypically western or are they universal?

This essay is a wrestling match with such questions, and the bout is far from over. It began as a response to the previous articles by Nelson Foster (the first) and Ken Jones. On first reading, these articles troubled me, but I couldn't pinpoint why. Questions were raised, assumptions and assertions were made (often hidden in questions), and summaries were produced that I felt left out much of Buddhist history and much of the current Buddhist world. While the articles both deal with similar issues and questions, my difficulties with them differ. In the end, I have only minor complaints with Nelson. I have rather more trouble with Ken's piece and respond to it at various points below, yet these troubles do not concern his main theme and direction. Rather, my objections ought to support his analysis and proscriptions by adding a few perspectives that he seems to have overlooked. We are discovering that SEB and its goals are quite complex. I hope to point out a few more aspects of that complexity.

As the wrestling match has dragged on, I came to realize that I am wrestling with disparate parts of my own life. I am American born, WASP, male, university-educated. I have spent all of my adult life in Siam and sometimes identify with life here more than where I was born. Yet I have become frustrated with some aspects of my life here and contemplate a return to my roots in the American Midwest. I am tired of the narrow-minded, self-serving, patriarchal monastic hierarchy that legitimizes my ordination as a Buddhist monk. I am still rather bitter about what I see, in my judgmentalness, as a selling out of the ideals and teaching of my beloved teacher Buddhadasa Bhikkhu at the monastery where I spent 14 important years and have only just left. I know many more activists in Siam, even in the Philippines, than I do in the West. I write occasionally but not much in the scholarly mode. I am more of a propagandist and preacher. The debates about modernity and its mutation or stagnation into post-modernity fascinate me, and the issues of rural life in Siam that the modernity debate largely ignores feel like my issues too. This reflection deals with concerns and questions of immediate and intense personal importance. These in turn, I believe, reflect the general confused and schizoid character of our times, from which SEB cannot escape unscathed.

Before going on, let me repeat that I am broadly sympathetic with Nelson and Ken's questions and explorations. Although my tone may be somewhat prickly, my objective is to broaden and diversify the discussion beyond what seems to me a very western approach and to include concerns from the part of the world I work in and the people with whom I work. Here, it is important that we be honest and clear about the fact that almost all the writers discussing modernity in this Think Sangha Journal are white men. This observation is necessary because the majority of Buddhists - whether they be pre-, post-, or intra-modern - still live in Asia and are women. And that will be the case for many years to come. Their lives, their concerns, their actions must not be marginalized just because the textual record on them is sparse. Most Asian writers are too busy writing in their own languages as part of the struggles in their own countries. Buddhist women writers still face too many unnecessary obstacles. It may be impossible to correct the balance in what gets published and by whom, but SEB can make a valiant attempt to break through the fortress of western and male intellectualism

Is It One Animal or Many?
I would like to begin by questioning the attempt to treat or describe SEB as essentially one coherent phenomenon. Is it one generally unified thing or a diversity of sometimes overlapping but often contradictory, and seldom coherent, ideas, beliefs, practices, agendas, and groups?

Ken Jones provides an interesting summary: "Engaged Buddhism has come to define itself as public engagement in caring and service, in social and environmental protest and analysis, in nonviolence as a creative way of overcoming conflict, and in "right livelihood" and similar initiatives towards a socially just and ecologically sustainable society. It also brings a liberal Buddhist perspective to a variety of contemporary issues, from gender equality to euthanasia."

This summary is seductive. At first glance, it seems to say something and provides a useful description. Looking again, I wonder who is this EB that has come to define itself as such? For Ken, "EB" appears to be singular, as does "itself." In real life is there any such thing? Perhaps this is merely Ken's writing style. Or is it the illusion of "self" imposed upon what are really a bunch of aggregates (khandhas) that have never collectively defined themselves as anything. Or is it another vestige of the attempt to define "the real Buddhism"?1

Do the Buddhist charity workers really define themselves as "socially engaged Buddhists," let alone lump themselves together in the same boat as Burmese students involved in armed struggle or Dr. Ambedkar's "neo-Buddhists" trying to get out from under a despicable caste system? What about the small group of rural Thai monks who do not protest overtly, know little about what is going on in other countries and have no definitions, yet they are doing very strong grassroots work with an amazingly clear awareness of the structures they are up against? How do the small, fragmented Japanese groups supporting various projects in developing countries fit in with big, rich, and nasty Soka Gakkai?

Each aggregate makes claims to be "Buddhist" according to its understanding of the term; the same happens with "engaged Buddhist." In my experience, however, they do not mean the same things even when using the same terms. Most simply, the way most of my Asian Buddhist friends explain their being "Buddhist" is not the same as the western thing with meditation. The former don't venture definitions or textual arguments; they take it for granted. The same with engagement: "we are acting socially, isn't that SEB?" There are connections and overlaps, of course, but not enough for a coherent or unified movement. From the start, we fall into the trap of discussing something as "one" when in fact it is many, not an "it" but an "us."2

James Spickard provides another angle on this when he argues that "universalism" is one of the characteristics of the human rights movement as a quasi-religious phenomenon.3 It seems to me that claims to be universal have been inherent in the West's civilizing project since the beginning of the millennium that is now ending.4 Once the Papacy took over control of Western Christendom, its "Catholic" vision spread to all corners of the planet. The West continues to assume the universality of its values and institutions, generally overlooking the overtones of arrogance, lack of agreement in much of the world, and hints of neo-colonialism. Asian activists such as Chandra Muzzaffar, a Malaysian Muslim, critique these universalizing tendencies even when they are in broad agreement with the principles being asserted as "universal."5 That project is even more suspect now that the concepts, values, and institutions believed to be universal are facing a crisis (post-modernity) in their home territory.

In more tangible terms, we should not mistake the occasional meetings of various Asian Buddhists in international forums - often organized by Westerners or western sponsored organizations - as being a coherent movement, especially when few of those leaders actually work together on anything tangible. It seems to me that we have disparate local and national movements, but are far from one SEB movement. In Siam, we don't have a national movement, despite our famous SEB heroes. Furthermore, the International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB) is weak as far as international organization goes. If SEB is more unified and coherent than I think, it needs to be shown rather than merely assumed.

Some of the Pieces
In trying to sort out the issues, I had to acknowledge the legitimacy of the concerns of Nelson and Ken regarding their own contexts. However, they weren't always consistent in sticking within the limits that they acknowledged. To make matters more difficult, it is impossible not to speak of Asian Buddhisms. After all, despite numerous differences, Asian and Western Buddhisms are interrelated. Inevitably, generalizations creep in. In turn, shaky generalizations (even when phrased as questions) obscure the issues of socially engaged Buddhists in other cultures, classes, genders, and thinking modes. Most of all, the western parameters of the discussion blind us to the larger crisis of today. What appears to be a crisis of modernity in the West is something else in Islamic and other civilizations. And all of these particular yet interacting crises point to something bigger, including possible resolution (or revolution) for humanity.

To proceed, I broke the question down into three main pieces. The first piece concerns the quite narrow, limited historical sources that Nelson and Ken have considered. A second area troubling me is the concern with authenticity or legitimacy. The third area is the discussion about "modernity" and "post-modernity." I believe there are counter examples, perspectives, and ideas to be considered concerning all three.

1. Beyond Zen & Westernism
The first piece concerns the quite narrow, limited historical sources considered by Nelson and Ken. David Loy has already discussed the problems with their Zen and Northeast Asian focus in his own response to Nelson. Further, there is much more going on in the world, and that has gone on in the Buddhist world, than was covered in Nelson and Ken's articles. Ken, perhaps Nelson, and other writers see SEB as a modern phenomenon, largely western or in reaction to western colonialism, ideas, practices, hegemony, etc. Some point to Thich Nhat Hanh and friends' coining of the term in the 1960s. Others assume significant Western influence in Asian SEB. I would like to raise a few items that challenge this belief, which I think weakens us.

A starting point for my response to this belief is Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's insistence that Dhammic Socialism (his label for what we are here calling "SEB") is inherent in the Buddha-Dhamma. If that is the case, how could SEB evolve only in the last centuries of the West's "modernity"? What of popular reactions to social injustice lead by Buddhist leaders in Southeast Asia before the coming of western imperialism and mercantilism? What of grassroots activism by Thai monks who understand social structures on the ground, talk of them, yet have never read a modern sociology or political science text?

In Buddhadasa Bhikkhu's understanding, the Buddha-Dhamma, the Buddha's tireless efforts to spread the Dhamma, and the story of King Ashoka all reflect a fundamental Buddhist concern for society and the world. He did not see Buddha-Dhamma as "world denying," a label more reflective of the assumptions of western scholars who have de-contextualized Asian practices. Even ascetically minded meditation masters interacted with local communities in various worldly concerns. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu insisted that the Buddha's purpose always was and will be world peace. Buddhist practice need not mean withdrawal from social responsibilities. Buddhadasa encouraged Prime Ministers, senior bureaucrats, judges, businessmen, NGO activists, teachers, even politicians and soldiers to use their positions, duties, and educations to further Dhamma in society. This is not merely a legitimization game; he sincerely saw Buddhism in this light.

King Ashoka carried out basic charity works that would fall under Ken's blanket definition of SEB. Even if we regard his story more as legend than fact, it is a normative Buddhist legend that has influenced Theravada Buddhism since its inception. Ashoka's version of SEB may not be as radical and structurally oriented as some of us now espouse, but neither are some of the charity works included under Ken's definition.

Peter Gyallay-pap has described how Theravada Buddhism was accepted in Cambodia among the grassroots as a popular reaction to the distant, corrupt Brahmanism of the ruling class.6 This may not have been equally true in Thailand and Burma, but for at least one country the widespread acceptance of Theravada Buddhism was in part a structural phenomena. In this respect, SEB in the West is much less engaged than in old time Southeast Asia. Such an event has also happened in the reverse. Friends in Bangladesh have explained how Sufis were first successful in bringing Islam to Bengal because the people were weary of the corrupt and exploitative elite that followed a mix of Hindu and Mahayana tantracism.

In the 19th century, there were a number of popular rebellions in Isaan (northeast, Lao speaking region of what is now Thailand) against the Bangkok centered monarchy. Both the monarchy and the rebellions claimed to be devoutly Buddhist. They valued and justified their actions within a framework of Buddhist cosmology, beliefs, values, and teachings. These uprisings were led by puu mii boon (men with goodness), that is, charismatic virtuous men who were accepted as popular leaders because of their "goodness," conceived in Buddhist terms, and sometimes also because of their believed magic powers. They were not a reaction to the West and were very much an indigenous phenomenon. At most, part of the reaction may have been to western influences creeping in through Bangkok at that time. However, the development of a Thai nation state and the importation of western style bureaucracies didn't happen until after those rebellions.

Here, it might help to distinguish between the conscious SEB that its adherents contrast with the mainstream, unengaged Buddhism of today and the socially engaged activities of earlier Buddhists who did not draw a conscious contrast. Such conscious distinctions are a product of modernity, so we should not expect them in pre-modern times (Ashoka) or when modern influences were weak (Buddhadasa Bhikkhu). "SEB" is a modern term. The phenomena covered by it need not be modern.

One of the characteristics of SEB on the international level is its ecumenicalism. Therefore, we must be careful, in discussing SEB, to avoid biases toward any one school of Buddhism or toward the West. Ken deserves credit for a good attempt at covering the main highlights, yet nobody can keep track of all that is happening and the diverse cultural contexts in which they are happening. Only collective writing can approach the well-rounded comprehension, richness, detail, and diversity that we need in a full account of SEB.

2. Whose Authenticity? Why?
There seems to be a confused, even anguished struggle, with establishing the legitimacy of SEB. For many of my grassroots activists friends in Siam, this is not an issue. Why are western Buddhist writers so keen to explore this legitimacy business? Perhaps the answer is to be found within themselves and their cultures, rather than in a historical study of "Buddhism," whether Zen, Mahayana, or Theravada.

Nelson seems to grant institutional Buddhism a legitimacy and authority that I, for one, question. Why should a particular version of Buddhism be taken as standard or paradigmatic just because it was backed, and usually corrupted, by the political and economic elite of its time? This makes no sense to me, especially from the perspective of Siam today where the central Buddhist institution is hopelessly out-of-touch, decrepit, insular, parasitic, and patriarchal. By accepting the perks and protection of a corrupt political system, it is losing its legitimacy. Similar problems exist in Burma, Sri Lanka, and elsewhere and have happened throughout Buddhist history.

From the old Ch'an and Zen texts I have read (in translation), it appears there were periods when the Chinese and Japanese courts supported and sponsored certain forms of Buddhism. Often, however, court or state sponsored Buddhism was the same as in Burma today or Siam in the decades of military dictatorship after WWII. Teachings that encouraged passivity, obedience, and the divorce of religion from social affairs were promoted. Anything that might challenge the State, including basic moral teachings like non-killing, were abstracted and spiritualized, if not downright suppressed. As consumer capitalism made inroads into Thai culture, teachings on moderation (mattannuta), non-indulgence in sensuality (nekkhamma), and satisfaction with what one has (santuthi) were discouraged. I hope these are enough examples to make the point that institutional Buddhism is a problematic authority and yardstick for Buddhist legitimacy. We must read its texts carefully.

Gary Snyder, in the first passage from Earth House Hold quoted by Nelson, mentions two forms of Buddhism found in almost every Buddhist society: elite meditative Buddhism and institutional Buddhism. Yet, Buddhism has taken other forms, most importantly that of the majority of the people. Popular Buddhism didn't make it into the history books very often. The royal chronicles didn't show much interest in what the peasants believed and practiced. If we find descriptions of popular Buddhism, it is usually a condemnation of what the elites didn't like. Nor were these things recorded in the official texts and commentaries that became the various Buddhist orthodoxies. Certainly, both of these more textually visible realms of Buddhist culture and practice influenced the popular, and were in turn influenced by it. Nevertheless, it is hard to sort out how strong the influences were and which direction was the stronger. It is beyond my ability to answer such questions.7 I merely plead that they not be forgotten or assumed to not matter.

While study of the old texts is valuable, true authority can never be found that way. Once, when I asked Ajarn Buddhadasa for the scriptural basis of a statement, he shot back "who cares? Look into your own experience to prove it." While the scriptural backing existed, it was beside the point, even a distraction from the real task. Scriptures are "Treasure Chests" in which we dig for priceless jewels. The polishing and proof is in our own practice and life today. If we conceive that practice as having a significant social dimension or not, we will prove it in our practice. Respect and love for our Buddhist roots are found by letting go and doing what we can to express the Dhamma in the unfolding reality of here-now.

The appeal to old authorities only makes sense to me when we are trying to encourage engagement among those who have imbibed the orthodoxies of the various Buddhist traditions. Still, my experience is that such appeals don't work very well. SEB must stand on the legitimacy of its own vision, rooted in particular times and places, and its ability to address the root causes of human suffering. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu was a master of playing the conservative's scriptural games. In his far reaching rereading of the Theravada tradition, he constantly referred back to key passages found in the Pali Suttas. For many Thais this didn't matter; they were already looking for a fresh approach. But the conservative monks had vested interests and emotional attachments to the orthodox line. Buddhadasa played the scriptures game not so much to convince them as to prevent them from interfering with his work.

In the end, "legitimacy" may be another typically Western concern. In its first modern appearance, used to identify a major political upheaval, "revolution" meant "a turn of the wheel back to an earlier system of government." Harold Berman in his Law & Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition points out essential characteristics of western revolutions, one of which is each has sought legitimacy in a fundamental law, a remote past, and an apocalyptic future.8 Compare this with our SEB writers. Nelson uses the term "revolution" in his article. Ken writes of "radical change." For their Buddhist inspired revolution they seek legitimacy in their ancient Zen masters and the fundamental Dharma law (cf. "natural law" in western legal history). All that is missing is the "apocalyptic future," or do Western SEBs have something equivalent?

There is nothing wrong with Western Buddhism being western. After all, the inculturization of Buddha-Dhamma through adaptation is standard operating procedure. In many Asian countries inculturization has happened to the degree that many forget the Buddha was born in India. We need not go that far in the West, nor should we feel ashamed at being Western. Here again the crisis of post-modernity creeps in and causes doubts. As the Buddha said, "the time for mindfulness is always," including when discussing these convoluted matters.

3. Modernity: What's the Big Deal?
The terms "modernity" and "post-modernity" are a major theme in this journal and I confess that they have interest for me, too. In discussing them, various assumptions must be unpacked. In Siam, socially engaged Buddhists don't use these terms, except when they are raised by foreigners. Instead, the terms of concern here are "globalization," "consumerism," and what Thais in the streets call the "IMF era," meaning the period of economic crisis in which the IMF has taken over a fair amount of this country's sovereignty. For much of the world, including most of the traditional Buddhist countries, modernity is still on its way in. For some countries - Laos, Cambodia, Burma, and significant chunks of Siam, Vietnam, Sri Lanka - modernity has arrived only for a tiny elite. It may impinge powerfully upon the lives of most people through economic and political structures, but they remain very far from the ideas, values, and overall paradigm of modernity that challenges western writers today.

In Siam, we are struggling to find a viable way of life as "traditional" and "modern" forces collide, entwine, blend, and keep changing. There are many non-modern elements in this culture. For one, the political system is still based on personal contacts and relationships. The formal, important democratic system is a veneer, often a fraud. The foundations of traditional societies - ways of life, values, and Buddhism - are being pulled out from under people. Maybe this is what scholars mean by "modernity," but it is not much of a conscious issue among Buddhists here. The new values like individualism and rule of law have not yet sunk in. The new paradigm has not arrived.

Ted Mayer, an anthropologist and supporter of the Songkhla Lake Dhamma Walks, points out that Siam has yet to go through the kinds of crises that have hit the West, whether the world wars of this century or the Vietnam era that turned his generation inside out. Without such a crisis, the Thai people have not had to re-examine their cultural assumptions. At the same time, massive contradictions have built up between cultural values and beliefs on one hand and real world behaviors on the other. The closeness of the family is a totem desperately affirmed as families sell daughters into prostitution and push their sons into dangerous factory work, even when the poverty is not so pressing. The Buddhist identity is hollowed out by the pursuit of money and a monastic system that can barely teach Buddha-Dhamma let alone practice it. Is this "modernity"?

Ken Jones writes, "At the other end of the engaged Buddhist spectrum is an activism directed towards radical social change. This is a much more challenging and controversial level of engagement. As a Buddhism of modernity concerned with the social transformation of that modernity, it is at the sharp end of our Buddhism/modernity convergence." Here he agrees with Berman (see below) that conscious projects for social change are an essentially modern project. This raises tricky questions, again, for socially engaged Buddhists working for radical change in those societies that have not fully modernized.

I have already alluded to European culture's historical fascination with universalism and progress. Time and history are accepted as real there in ways that Asian cultures have questioned. The notion of human perfectibility occurring in time has developed into all the trappings of modernity, including some of the more onerous ones, such as, human domination of nature, rationalism that denies feelings, and the religions of technology and markets. I suspect that we of the West will find it nearly impossible to think about Dhamma practice and social work without notions of progress. Is "progress" necessary? Is it Dhamma? In giving all this importance to "modernity," are we also stuck in it?

Since modernity is a big issue in the West, it is appropriate that Western Buddhists confront it. After all, we cannot really escape it. Further, it is fair to suggest to our friends in the less affluent parts of the world that they should check out what this thing called "modernity" is. But we must be careful to avoid forcing it on other Buddhists or over-looking their less intellectually glamorous concerns. What are the frameworks and terms of reference used by other manifestations of SEB around the world?

At most, those, like Ken who attempt to define SEB in Western categories, can argue for a western, post-WWII conception of SEB. This SEB recognizes its antecedents in other parts of time and space without making false claims about them. If they claim more, they do a disservice both to those whose efforts they have overlooked, to the engaged Buddhists operating with other mental maps and frameworks, and to the growing, messy, and not very unified movement that we broadly and vaguely call "socially engaged Buddhism." We would do well to recall Nietzsche's remark: nothing that has a history can be defined.9

On Modernity & Revolution
Reading Berman's Law and Revolution, I get closer to the nexus of my problems with this modernity and post-modernity discussion. Berman explains the West as the peoples whose legal traditions stem from the revolutionary events of the period 1050-1150, culminating in what was called the Gregorian Reformation and Investiture Struggle (1075-1122). For Berman, this period gave birth to the West and all of its modern institutions. Modernity further developed through a series of revolutions: the German Protestant, the English Puritan, the American, the French, and the Russian Soviet Revolutions. Finally, the revolutionary impulse and energy has run out. Berman asserts that "we (the West) are at the end of an era," which allows us to look back and see its beginning, an impossibility as long as we were fully participating in it (preface, v).

The West has taken the best part of a millennium to get from pre- to post-modern. These millenniums seem to really mean something to the West. But what of the rest of the world, places like Siam? If Berman is right, the revolutionary habits of the West distinguish it from the rest of humanity, including Buddhist societies. In other words, the roots of Western SEB are found in the Papal Revolution as much as in Buddhism. Asian SEB doesn't share those Christian roots, nor is it modern in the same ways as its Western counterpart. The different SEBs have different sources and assumptions. A more thorough study of the different cultural histories is needed.

A quick comparison between the primary institutions born of the West's modernity and their current status in Siam (a rough stand in for all of Southeast Asia) reveals that we are still struggling to give birth to those institutions here. They have been imported for the most part, to some degree grafted onto older institutions (themselves imported mainly from ancient India), and are still quite shaky. Listing a few of the key developments of Western modernity will illustrate the disparity:

1. Centralization and legalization of religious authority in the Roman Pope.
2. The "de-legalization of the church" and the state conceived as a purely secular, morally neutral order.
3. Growth of individualism: sanctification of individual conscience and will, leading to civil rights and liberties through the Lutheran and Calvinist reformations (Continent).
4. The reduction of religion to a personal matter through the Puritan revolution (England).
5. Appearance of secular religion - liberal democracy and radical socialism - through the American and French revolutions.
6. Bureaucratization and socialization of society, whether in communist or liberal democratic forms.

While Thailand has the trappings of most of these, only the fourth has happened to any great and pervasive degree. Further, the universities are a mixture of rote memorization and status hoop-jumping, falling far short of what a modern western education provides. The legal system functions as if it exists to do the bidding of the ruling classes or to convince Thais and foreigners alike that "we are modern too." There is little faith in the courts, laws, or rule of law. Electoral politics is really just patronage and vote buying. We find trappings without the thinking, values, and paradigm of modernity. In short, Siam is still struggling to develop modernity and has a long way to go before these institutions are mature here. Until that happens, has post-modernity any relevance here? How can people here talk about what is not yet happening here?

If my assessment is true enough, many more questions follow. Can Siam and the rest of the pre-modern and modernizing bits of the planet simply import the characteristics of modernity and graft them onto the already existing social values, beliefs, customs, and structures? The Thai elite has tried to do so, but if Berman and Kuhn's descriptions of how revolutions come about are accurate, the answer must be "no". First, revolutionary change is never merely top-down or imposed from above through coercive power. It must also correspond with rumblings from below. The bottom, top, and middle of Thai society wants many of modernity's trappings, but none of them is ready for major disruption, rethinking, reformulation, and refounding. Second, each society or civilization (grouping a number of societies) must make a break with its past, usher in new radical norms, and then re-integrate the past within the new paradigm. Elements can be imported but each society must go through the process by itself. Are there shortcuts? Can the process be accelerated through learning from the West's dead-ends and errors? Perhaps, but other parts of the world will surely create their own dead-ends and errors.

One aspect of society, say the economy, doesn't go through revolutionary change without it effecting and being effected by changes in other areas of society, that is, politics, legal systems, education, religion, etc. The West's history of revolution was largely generated from within and drew on its own resources. The revolutions of Asia have been largely influenced by the West and the massive changes taking place today are still influenced, if not determined, by the West. The crisis hitting Asia is thus closely related to the one hitting the West, but they are not identical. Understanding the connections and the distinctions is necessary. Missing them will generate massive contradictions, conflicts, and suffering, which I think are revealing themselves in Thailand's "trickle down corruption", the breaking up of Indonesia, the political salvaging of Anwar in Malaysia, and China's uncertain progress. Concurrently, "post-modernity" gives off other signs in the West.

Middle Way Thinking
In its modernizing revolution, the West diverged from the civilizational patterns that it shared with other parts of the world. It later exported (and still is exporting) these to as much of the world as it could. It itself has seen this as progress, but that faith has been shaken as the era draws to a close. Almost everywhere is desperately trying to catch up in one way or another, whether following the West's path directly or reacting against it but still taking much from it, such as the fundamentalisms that claim roots in the past but are actually only a generation or two old.10 What is the way ahead?

Might there be a Middle Way between retreating into a lost past and charging ahead into an unknown future? Can the West re-integrate with the rest of the world not on its own post-modern terms nor on the old pre-modern or even modern terms, but in some new inclusive transcendence? Perhaps this sounds like more of modernism's universalist project, but that is not quite the way either, though it tempts. Rather, a Middle Way is needed, one that balances and better integrates the ongoing tensions of the world - universalism versus particularism (tribalism), individualism versus collectivism, externally oriented materialism versus inward subjectivism, and so on.11

Can the West explore these questions in ways that support the rest of humanity in coming to terms with their own modernization processes? I would like to think so, but much creativity will be needed to discern the how of it. I, and most of my Asian friends, do not seek any return to the feudal lords, serfdom, patriarchal hierarchies, and authoritarianism such as still linger here in Siam. Women appreciate the perspectives of feminism; it helps them to regain status and power lost through earlier mis-modernization. The workers squeezed off the land into factories want their rights too. The language of human rights is being used, even as the supporting cultural infrastructure needs building. Democracy activists and environmentalists campaign to keep the government honest regarding the latest constitution. Constructive partnership with a mindful West will be necessary for modernization to continue in a way that integrates with Asian and other cultural roots.

I think I see a great opportunity for SEB in the dilemma posed by modernity's crisis in the West and its ongoing conquest elsewhere. Buddhism is arguably the most significant influence of the East on the West. Given the general flow of ideas and institutions from West to East, there is little flowing the other way (besides the plunder of resources and wealth). While the West has borrowed much from the rest of the world - Arabic numerals, Chinese paper and gunpowder - that has always been an appropriation that transforms those imports into the West's way of doing and thinking. What of Buddhism? Could this be the first major import that maintains its "otherness" and impacts the West significantly without merely being appropriated? The possibility is more real while the West is itself in unprecedented crisis and uncertainty.

Here lies a vital role for SEB. SEB is the aspect of this flow of Buddhism from Asia to the West that stops to consider such questions as we are asking here. SEB attempts to build bridges between the post-modernizing West (including Japan?) and semi-modern Asia. SEB looks more carefully at what is happening in Asia that just what retreat centers are where and which teachers are cool. Identifying and mapping out these roles is an important task for Think Sangha. We can do so by taking it as a path, a Middle Way approach to all the modernity business.

Conclusions?
Nelson says we must "examine how (our dharma ancestors) understood their vow to save all beings and why they did not act on that vow by organizing for social change in ways that seem important or even imperative from our perspective today." To respond most simply, people then and there did not think like we do today. Berman points out that many of our post-modern questions could not even be asked a few decades ago because modernity's assumptions were not yet seen as such. Those Ch'an masters and their counterparts in other Buddhist lands did not have the revolutionary heritage of the West. The Western Christian Church centralized under Pope Gregory VII; Asian never had anything like this, nor has Buddhism. Is that a failing of theirs, or merely a difference?

After quoting Yasutani Roshi on "seeing through the dualistic premises of modern ethics, economics, law, and so forth ," Nelson concludes:

That is, society can create charity programs, reduce or expand welfare, or implement income-redistribution schemes ad infintum, but if greed and delusion remain intact, even the most affluent nation on earth will not find a solution to poverty.

I, for one, conceive of SEB as aiming beyond charity programs and the like, which are not the best alternative to passivity. They merely respond to the effects of suffering and not its causes. SEB ought to aim for influencing the causes of suffering, both in the ego structures operating within individuals and in their parallel structures within society. This will keep the onus on practice, mindfulness, insight, and awakening (as Nelson suggests) but doesn't shy away from social involvement. This is a tough path, though; one that requires looking deeply into the natures of these minds and their concoctions both internal and external. Then there must be letting go of these concoctions and structures so as to live and act in ways that allow them to flow more Dhammically, less dominated by greed, hatred, and delusion.

Nelson quotes Abe on placing "our trust absolutely in the Dharma." That should be a sound SEB mantra, but why should it preclude social action? Isn't the Dhamma manifested in the world around us as much as within? Without creating expectations for a utopian future or some "end times" paradise, we can express the Dhamma in all the ways that human beings live and act, including through social relationships and political activity. Traditional Buddhists have sunk massive resources into temples, hierarchies, customs, art, and other expressions of their understanding of Dhamma. None of these are less worldly than grassroots organizing and creative revolutionary ferment. What matters is the degree that Right Understanding and Right Living are applied to them.

I cannot answer many of the questions asked throughout this essay. To even attempt doing so will require massive cross-cultural research into the development of non-western cultures. We must ask, as Berman has, what caused "the revolution"? Which is to also ask, why didn't it happen elsewhere? Still, I suspect that no definitive answer will be possible. The pioneering SEBs of Asia - Dr. Ambedkar, Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, A. T. Ariyaratne, Sulak Sivaraksa - have drawn on a mix of Asian and Western wisdom and practices. I think we have no other choice.

As Buddhists, I suggest that we stick with the Middle Way in this and in all things. Dualisms and comparisons are useful in the analysis, but can be harmful when seeking the path. SEB will find its way as Asian, as Western, and most of all transcending both. SEB will find its way not only in modernity or post-modernity, but in sorting out the contradictions between them. SEB must be revolutionary, but we won't know exactly how until the time arrives. It should be fun!

NOTES:
1. Donald S. Lopez, ed. Curators of the Buddha : The Study of Buddhism Under Colonialism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995).
2. For details in the Thai context, see Kamala Tiyavanich's Forest Recollections (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1998). She shows that Thai Buddhism is actually, far from singular, many Buddhisms. The idea of a unitary Thai Buddhism was brought in as a tool for centralizing the nascent Thai nation-state. The illusion has been used to fabricate an identity for the nation. Both are now falling apart in post/intra-modernity. Kamala is working on a second book that highlights the many Buddhisms existing in Siam as modernity struck.
3. Spickard, James V. "Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalization. Ultimate Values in a New World Order", MOST Journal on Multicultural Societies, vol. 1, no. 1, (1999) <http://www.unesco.org./most/vl1n1spi.htm>.
4. For example, see David Loy's "The Spiritual Roots of Modernity" (in this journal) and "The Spiritual Origins of the West" (forthcoming in the International Philosophical Quarterly, June 2000) and David Noble's The Religion of Technology (Penguin, 1997).
5. See articles on the JUST World trust website: http://www.jaring.my/just.
6. Peter Gyallay-pap, "Buddhism as a Factor of Culture and Development in Cambodia," Cambodia Report, Vol. II, No. 2, Mar-Apr 1996.
7. Kamala Tiyavanich is working on some of these questions in terms of 19th century (pre-nation-state) Siam, where records can be found.
8. Harold J. Berman, Law & Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1983).
9. Mentioned in Berman, Law & Revolution, p. 1.
10. Spickard, "Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalization".
11. Spickard, "Human Rights, Religious Conflict, and Globalization".

Besides residing at Suan Mokkhabalarama for 14 years serving as the English translator for Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, Santikaro Bhikkhu has been active in numerous social activities in Siam such as Phra Sekhiyadhamma, the nationwide network of socially concerned monks, and the annual Dhamma Walk for the preservation of Songkhla Lake.