seventh world of chan buddhism - Zen Buddhist Order of Hsu Yun

Of greater importance to the person on the Path are ego-enhancing proclamations
which identify an individual with the pro or con of a social issue. "I am the kind of person
who defends the earth and its innocent inhabitants. Read my sign!"
We enter the religious life to remove ourselves from the damaging concerns of
society. It is another world we wish to enter, a world in which the Buddha looks with equal
eye upon the murderer and the hero, upon the polluter and the non-polluter, upon the
communist and the capitalist. We cultivate `holy indifference' by which we do not mean that
we do not care. Holy indifference means compassionate non-involvement. We sympathize
and support but do not become emotionally aroused by anyone's problems - not even our
own. This doesn't mean that if someone is drowning and we know how to swim we just
stand by and watch.
Right speech also means treating the telephone as though it were a loaded gun or an
instrument of torture. We should be as diligent in preserving the privacy of others as we are
in protecting our own.
Many monasteries have regular fund raising drives and assign monks or guest laymen
to telephone every Buddhist in Christendom in order to request donations. Direct verbal
solicitations are flagrant violations of Right Speech. When a monk with a begging bowl
comes down the street chanting and a householder, hearing him and calculating how much
rice he can spare, opens his door and gives the monk a spoonful, there is mutual benefit.
Likewise, when someone knows that the temple needs money and voluntarily makes a
donation, there is also mutual good. But when we actively pressure someone into giving us
what we want, we make that person feel as if he has been mugged. (And, really, he has
been.)
Meanwhile, back at the monastery, the person who weasels the most money out of
people is rewarded with much praise. It doesn't matter that the victims who made pledges
may be hard-pressed to honor them or that seventy cents of each dollar raised goes to pay for
solicitation and collection expenses - the other thirty cents is needed income. Of course, if all
the monks engaged in solicitation were to go out and get honest jobs and turn their salaries
over to their abbot, the monastery would actually do better. But who even considers this
alternative? A fellow quickly wonders what's the point of being a priest if he has to go out
and work like ordinary people... and then be required to be as generous with the fruits of his
labor as he, without compunction, requires others to be! Is this a violation of Church and
State, or what?
first.
Patriotism, Dr. Johnson noted, is the last refuge of scoundrels. Religion clearly is the
Right speech, as we have noted, sometimes means no speech. If family members or
friends whose call we welcomed in former days persist in calling us when we are on the Path,
CHAPTER 13 RIGHT SPEECH
S EVENTH W ORLD O F C HAN B UDDHISM
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