Being Benevolence: The Social Ethics of Engaged Buddhism

1 Introduction

1 Introduction In the Buddhist Compassion Relief General Hospital in Hwalien, Taiwan, a large mosaic in the lobby greets visitors. The mosaic depicts Shakyamuni Buddha treating the illness of a sick monk, an event recorded in Buddhist scripture. Visitors to this Buddhist hospital are told that this image ‘‘represents the policy of this hospital . Besides treating the illness, the staff must, as Buddha did in the mural, also show compassion towards the individual.’’ The founder, Master Cheng Yen, states that ‘‘illness is one of the many unavoidable sufferings between birth and death, and that we should do all we can to help the sick feel less miserable—if it is at all possible.’’1 When I read this passage, I was strongly struck by the juxtaposition of three things: the words, ‘‘illness is one of the many unavoidable sufferings between birth and death,’’ calling to mind the first of the Four Signs that led Siddhartha Gautama , the future Buddha, to renounce his life of wealth and ease to seek answers to the problem of the human condition; the image in the mural of the same man, now Shakyamuni Buddha, treating with compassion and skill the sickness of an ailing monk; and, finally, the existence of the Buddhist Compassion Relief General Hospital , founded by the nun Master Cheng Yen. In the juxtaposition of these words and images is a response to those who feel that Engaged Buddhism is somehow inappropriate or un-Buddhist, the product of Western influence. It is often pointed out that the kind of suffering that Shakyamuni Buddha was concerned to eliminate is the kind that is intrinsic to the human condition, inherent and ineliminable; the paradigm of this kind of suffering, in fact, is represented by the first three of the Four Signs: illness, old age, and death. As Master Cheng Yen says, illness is one of the ‘‘unavoidable’’ forms of suffering. There will always be illness, just as there will always be birth and death, as long as there are human beings. But to those who say that the Buddha, in response to his dismay over the human condition and the first three of the Four Signs, sought and discovered a way to end the human condition as such and that this and only this is the end of Buddhism, one may point to Master Cheng Yen who, in turn, points to the Buddha as not only the Great Physician, the one who shows the way to cure the inherent ills of humankind, the human condition as such, but also the one who, in the meantime, bends to help a sick man here and now with his skill 2 • Introduction and compassion. One does not preclude the other. Indeed, for Engaged Buddhists, each necessarily encompasses the other. In short, to those who say that Buddhism’s cure for ill, for suffering, for duḥkha, is to leave the world of samsara altogether, to leave behind a condition of being that is unfixable, one may point to the example of the Buddha, who did indeed teach a way of leaving samsara altogether, but who also, as the record shows, was concerned to heal that part of the suffering of samsara that could be healed within samsara. As for Western influence, the Buddhist Compassion Relief General Hospital is again instructive. The hospital was fundamentally born out of the dedicated compassion of Master Cheng Yen. This compassion was guided by two events. The first occurred when Master Cheng Yen visited a friend in a hospital. While leaving the hospital, she saw a pool of blood on the floor of the entrance hall. When she inquired about it, she was told that the blood was from an aborigine woman suffering from a miscarriage who had been refused admittance to the hospital because she was unable to pay the required entrance fee (at the time such fees were required by all hospitals in Taiwan). The second event came from the visit of three Catholic nuns to Cheng Yen. They pointed out to her that ‘‘there are all sorts of Catholic hospitals and schools and charity organizations, but never any Buddhist ones. They told the Master that, in the eyes of the world, the Buddhists are but a passive group of people contributing nothing to society.’’2 The combination of these two events determined Cheng Yen to found a hospital that would care for everyone with compassion and skill, regardless of...