On Engaged Buddhism and the Bodhisattva Path

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The bodhisattva does not practice in order to escape the world but in order to serve it. Zazen is not a retreat from suffering—it is the ground from which compassionate action arises. When you truly realize that self and other are not two, then the suffering of the world becomes your own suffering, and you cannot help but respond. This is the bodhisattva path: wisdom and compassion together, not one without the other. A Zen that ignores social justice is only half alive.

license: fair_use

Attribution

• Attributed To
  Robert Aitken

Lineage: Sanbo-Zen

By Robert Aitken

• The Precepts Are Aliveproverb
• Intimate with All Thingsproverb
• On the Practice of Precepts as Koanssaying
• Mind of Cloverproverb
• Precepts as Practiceproverb

Sources

• contentWikisource — English-language free library

  Teachings of Robert Aitken Roshi

  Teachings of Robert Aitken: On Engaged Buddhism and the Bodhisattva Path