VIDEO from "Who Speaks?": David Loy

Take a gander at the first of our four videos from the recent BPF event in Oakland: thoughts from David Loy, professor, Zen teacher, and author of Money, Sex, War, Karma: Notes for a Buddhist Revolution and The World Is Made of Stories.=====================I think I am going to change a little bit what I am going to talk about. Actually two things, first of all I would like just like to follow up and reinforce [Donald Rothberg's] comments about the general role of engaged Buddhism. In other words, he is really asking this important question, not just who speaks for engaged Buddhism in terms of whether its white male privilege or not, but just what is the role of socially engaged Buddhism within this community, within the United States and the world in general. And I think, as someone who has finally moved back here after thirty years in Asia and has traveled quite a bit within the United States and observed how things are developing, my sense, which does not so much include the bay area, I mean, I really haven’t spent enough time here. But for most of the rest of the country I see very strongly this tension, between, on the one hand, people who look upon and practice Buddhism and often think of themselves as serious Buddhist, and yet for them it is a kind of self help, their primary concern is to find some relief some peace of mind within a very difficult job situation or difficult social situation and they are not interested in social engagement.I am reminded of this ah Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek very interesting guy, doesn’t know anything about Buddhism, but he is a very acute cultural critique, he has said, that in his opinion Buddhism is the perfect ideology for twenty first century consumer capitalism (camera woman noises in agreement) right (guy in background, hehe) so there is a real tension between that attitude toward Buddhism and I think it is often included in the kind of mindfulness movement which is something to rejoice given that this is how Buddhism is actually starting to penetrate in a very important way mainstream American life in a way that that is largely invested of social engagement, and that’s the scary thing, I mean there is a tension, and lets be honest, in that tension or that struggle, socially engaged buddhism is not winning or it is not flourishing. The fact of the financial difficulties of BPF the fact of the financial difficulties of Zen peacemakers, they are not just a reflection of our difficult economic times, they are reflection of the way that engaged Buddhism is developing in this country.And the second aspect of that, even for those who accept and see themselves as socially engaged Buddhist, I see another tension that we have to highlight between on the one hand, the way that most people tend to look at socially engaged Buddhism, which is Buddhism in service, or, as some people have said, serving the under served. In other words helping homeless people, help prisons dharma, helping people who are in prison, none of which I would want to minimize in anyway whatsoever, that is extremely important. Nonetheless I see that as one end of a spectrum that also has to include much more critically engaged Buddhism. Economically engaged Buddhism. We not only have to be asking how can we help the homeless people on the street, we also need to be asking, “What is it about our social political and economic system that is creating more homeless people?"So this is another tension we need to be really clear about in asking ourselves, and what is really exciting I think with the occupy movement in the last year is how I think this starting to bring things to more of a head in so far as Buddhism has been very involved in that as well.But here is my third and last point, and I’ll say it very briefly uh, I’m not sure Im the best person to do it given my role in the little drama that we had, given my white male, educated, heterosexual, but, nonetheless I will say it anyway, I think it is extremely important that we not confuse the issue of who speaks for socially engaged Buddhism and think therefore that we are not talking, to think therefore that we might be talking about a completely decentralized movement that does not have leaders.  I, speaking quite personally, I think leaders are essential. The problem isn’t getting rid of leaders, the problem is how do leaders develop and how do they lead. And I think we can see this very clearly in the Occupy movement.I have been involved with the Occupy movement in Boulder and how it floundered and nearly ended up going nowhere because they had this extreme concern to make sure that everyone’s voice that everyone’s opinion would be shared equally to the result that the whole meetings were spent in everyone saying what they wanted to do and nothing ended up done. I mean this is a serious issue that we can not avoid.And also I think if we say for example that Buddhism is against hierarchy, that’s true, but it’s only a half truth. In the sense that yes we all have the same Buddha nature, but it is also the case that within most of our sangas there is distinction being between teachers between people who are more advanced in their spiritual practice than others. And without those differences, without that kind of teaching, with out the difference between the teacher and the student, Buddhism doesn’t really work very well either.So we need to understand the two sides of it.  We need to really appreciate the need for leaders who realize in an important way that they are not all that different from anybody else. But nonetheless, there is a need for that to happen, for particular people to function for helping us to understand more clearly than other people can sometimes do, where we need to go and what the possibilities are. Sorry I probably talked to long, but that’s what male, white male privilege will do right (crowd laughs, hands microphone off).