Uniting Wisdom and CompassionSocially Engaged Buddhism

at the Alice Project School

By

Andrew Pond Davis

Senior Thesis

Religious Studies – Standford University

May 2001

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Table of Contents

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Preface and Acknowledgements

Chapter 1 : Socially Engaged Buddhism, an Introduction

Chapter 2 : The Universal Education Alice Project School, Tracing an Idea

Chapter 3 : Madhyamika Philosophy

Chapter 4 : Nagarjuna’s Presence : Madhyamika’s Influence on the Alice Project School.

Chapter 5 : Nagarjuna’s J ewel Garland

Chapter 6 : The “Buddhism” of Socially Engaged Buddhism

Source Cited.

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Chapter 2

The Universal Education Alice Project School: Tracing an Idea

The Alice Project School seeks to unite Buddhist wisdom and

education in an ecumenical style. In this introduction to the school I

will trace this idea from its origin to its development and current

manifestation in Sarnath, India. This description of one socially

engaged Buddhist movement will afford a detailed analysis of what

it can mean for a socially engaged movement to be Buddhist.

The Origin of the Idea

The history of the Alice Project School is inextricably linked to

the life of Valentino Giacomin, co-founder and director of the Alice

methodology. Valentino was born in 1944 and raised in Italy. After

graduating from university with a degree in psychology, Valentino

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worked as a journalist and a teacher in government primary schools

for ten years.

At the age of thirty he experience what he describes as a "mid-

life crisis" in which he began "to think about life and its meaning"

(8/30/00). At this point he became interested in yoga and other

eastern traditions. Coincidentally through his interest in yoga he

began to study Buddhism. Expecting a lecture on yoga, Valentino

attended the teachings of the Mahayana Buddhist Lama Songa

Rinpoche.

During Songa's teaching on the hell realms and a subsequent

conversation with a monk, Valentino was told to ignore the doctrine

itself and to "look at the nature of your mind." At this moment he

recalls seeing "a light" and realizing that the concepts of "heaven

and hell are creations of the mind" (8/30/00). Realizing the

importance of understanding the mind turned Valentino's interest

toward the teachings of the Buddha and soon dedicated himself to a

Buddhist practice. His commitment to Buddhism and desire to

spread the dharma were further solidified when he founded a

Buddhist center in Italy with two friends.

As in the case of many other Western Buddhists, Valentino's

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commitment to Buddhism did not entail a rejection of his Christian

heritage.

For several years he searched for ways to unify Christianity

with the Buddhist teachings that intrigued him so much.

His unwillingness to renounce Christianity nearly drove him to

give up Buddhism. During a conversation with Lama Zopa Rinpoche,

Valentino asked whether he could think that Jesus Christ is a

Buddha. Lama Zopa told him he could but that Christianity had lost

a lot of the teachings on subjects such as emptiness.

This reply satisfied Valentino who told me that if Lama Zopa

had said no, he would never be a Buddhist (8/30/00). Living as a

self-proclaimed "Christian-Buddhist," Valentino searched for

universal wisdom between Buddhism and Christianity.

When Valentino returned to teaching in the late 1970's he

began to consider how to "use the wisdom of Buddhism that I had

discovered in practical ways in an Italian school" (8130100). By

uniting his love of Buddhist wisdom, his Christian heritage, and his

profession of education, Valentino gave birth to the idea that would

become the Alice Project School. One of Valentino's teachers, Lama

Yeshe, was also very interested in the project of joining Buddhist

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insight and education in a universal or ecumenical manner-a project

Lama Yeshe called Universal Education.

With his partner Luigina DeBiasi, Valentino developed a

curriculum that would embody both his and Lama Yeshe's vision.

While Lama Yeshe shared the initial vision of Universal Education,

Valentino makes it clear that he and Luigina were the first "to

practically join Buddhist wisdom with traditional curriculum"

(8/30/00).

The Development

With the ambitious goal of uniting Buddhism wisdom with

education in a traditionally Christian Italian school environment

firmly in his mind, Valentino set out to make this idea a reality. The

curriculum was first tested informally in two government schools in

Treviso, Italy, for five years in the early 1980's. When parents

complained about the curriculum, Valentino followed the advice of a

famous Tibetan teacher, Gomo Tulku, and gave up teaching

Buddhist wisdom in the classroom.

This initial defeat did not stifle his project but rather forced him

to appeal to the Italian Government's law 219, which supports

experimental education projects, for permission to teach in this

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innovative way. In 1986 he received permission to experiment with

his curriculum in a classroom.

He and Luigina practiced the Alice methodology in Italian

5chools for six years. In 1989 Valentino turned much of the teaching

over to Luigina and gave conferences on the Alice Methodology

throughout Italy.

Following the Advice H.H. Dalai Lama, Valentino did not give up

his efforts as an educator. After the program in Italy closed in 1991,

Valentino spent three years further developing the curriculum and

making it applicable to cultures other than his own. In 1993

Valentino and Luigina sought a' place where they could not only

teach according to the Alice method but also test it in a more

scientific manner. Faced with high costs in Italy, Valentino

considered both Brazil and India.

The final site, Sarnath, India, was chosen with the advice of yet

another spiritual teacher. At the end of 1993 Valentino used his

pension to purchase land in Sarnath and began building the Alice

Project School.

The Current School

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The Place The Alice Project School is located in Sarnath, India, a

small town comprising five villages and around 8,000 people located

10 kilometers north of Varanasi in the state of Uttar Pradesh. The

center of the town is Deer Park, an archeological preserve where the

Buddha gave his first teachings.

Because the Buddha met his first disciples in Deer Park and

taught the four noble truths, it has been one of the four major

Buddhist pilgrimage sites for over 2,000 years.3

The first physical monument in Sarnath was a stupa that the

great Buddhist ruler, Emperor Asoka, erected in 260 BCE (Singh,

236). Sarnath continued to thrive as a Buddhist pilgrimage site and

cultural center known for its artwork in the Gupta period (4th-6th

centuries BCE) until Buddhism was driven out of Northern India

during the 11th and 12th centuries and most of the physical

structures were destroyed (Singh, 236-237).

Dr. A.K. Jain, a prominent Sarnath resident and owner of two

bookstores and a guesthouse in Sarnath, told me that, while 150

years ago Sarnath was an area dominated by agriculture, the town

is now economically dependent on the tourist industry.

This transformation began when interest in Sarnath's history was

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revived in the early 19th century with the discovery of the

archeological remains of a stupa. Over 100 years of excavation by

numerous parties culminated in the opening of an archeological

museum in 1912. With the establishment of the museum and a

growing tourist industry in India, in the 1950's the government of

Uttar Pradesh began to dedicate a large amount of money to the

development of Sarnath as a tourist attraction (Jain, 8/30/00).

This financial support included millions rupees to beautify Deer

Park, the site or the Buddha's first teaching. This revived interest in

Sarnath, triggered by the government of UP, was shared by many

Buddhist countries that began to set up monasteries and temples in

Sarnath (Singh, 252-253).

Currently there are temples and monasteries erected by people

from Burma, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tibet, China, Japan, and Korea.

Since the opening of the Tibetan Institute in 1967, a university

dedicated to the preservation or Tibetan culture, there has been an

even larger Buddhist presence in Sarnath. As Singh's 1990 maps

reveal, the modern landscape of Sarnath is covered with tourist

attractions and the supporting infrastructure.

Sarnath residents have adapted to this shifting economy by

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trading the field for the tourist shop. 100 years ago a single man,

the Zamindar, owned all the land in the area.

The land was tilled by villagers who worked under him.

However, with India's independence, the system was abandoned

and the land was divided among the residents of the villages. For

about fifty years agriculture, now decentralized, remained the

primary industry.

The UP's investment in Sarnath's tourism, however, drove land

prices up resulting in many people selling their land and setting up

shops near the tourist sites. Currently agriculture is a very small

element of the economy with small farms that feed the local villages

(Jain, 8/30/00). The main industry is tourism with many shops,

restaurants and guesthouses.

The people of the villages work in these shops, as guides, as

sari makers (Sarnath and Varanasi are famous for their fine silk

saris) or as masons and other professions that sustain the tourist

infrastructure. Observing this large cultural and economic shift,

Valentino writes in his book The Philosophy of Alice Project about "a

loss of identity and values related to religion and tradition, due to

what here is called 'westernization': materialistic model of life" (13).

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The Alice Project School has responded to the changes brought

about by the tourist industry in three ways.

First, Valentino's curriculum directly addresses the perceived loss of

religious ideas and values through stories and religious texts rooted

in the students' Hindu traditions, as well as philosophical principles

based on Buddhist Madhyamika4. Second, he addresses the issues

of materialism through moral stories along with the school's ethos,

which promotes a notion of success that is not material but rather

spiritual. Last, the influx of tourists has brought increased religious

diversity in Sarnath.

While there are Buddhist, Hindu, and Jain temple in Sarnath, tourists

bring the beliefs of all the world's religions. Valentino has seized this

diversity as an opportunity to teach comparative religion.

All of the students I interviewed were very much aware of religious

traditions other than their own and were skilled in pointing out the

similarities between differing belief systems. While the tourist

industry is rapidly changing the small town of Sarnath, the Project

Alice School is making the students marc aware of their own

culture's stories and traditional values as well as those of other

cultures.

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The school is situated 300 meters off the main road to Sarnath

on the border between the villages of Guroopur and Singhpour. A

dirt path lined with simple one-story brick and earth houses leads to

the school's blue gates. Within the gates, salmon red buildings with

bright blue interiors encircle a center courtyard.

The school's bright colors, in contrast to the earth tones of the

surrounding village, create a special atmosphere. While it initially

appears out of place, experience at the school reveals how

appropriate these vibrant colors are; for the students, Valentino's

school is a bright haven from the poverty and other difficulties of

their villages.

There are now three buildings, and with the recent purchase of

an adjacent plot of land there are plans for a fourth. Each or these

two and three story buildings houses nine to thirteen classrooms

that are set up in a traditional manner with students facing the

teacher. There are also spaces for meditation and karate, guest

rooms for visiting teachers, a library, and dormitories.

The roof of the largest building is utilized as the morning yoga

studio. In a school with growing numbers and such a diverse

curriculum, no space is wasted.

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The academic buildings surround a brick courtyard that is the

social center of the school. There, assemblies and singing take place

and students relax and play during their free time. In the middle of

this courtyard and at the center of the school is a twenty-foot high

Buddhist stupa which covers almost one tenth of the ground. In front

of the stupa are seven bowls that are filled every day with water as

an offering to the Buddha.

Despite the stupa's large size and white color it does not

dominate the community space. It is surrounded by low trees that

provide shade and relief from the often blistering heat. Mark

Singleton, a visiting teacher, says of the stupa, "you would have to

look to know that it was there" (8/25/00).

The stupa's large and yet non-dominating presence is an

appropriate symbol of Buddhism's role at the Alice School.

Buddhism is fundamental to the Alice School, but it has a subtle

presence. Buddhist inspired wisdom is offered to rather than forced

upon the children.

The Students

Every morning at around 5:30, 300 students ages six to fifteen

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walk or peddle through the gates of the Alice Project School wearing

dark blue shorts or skirts and sky blue shirts.

Most have traveled several kilometers from their homes in the

villages by foot or bicycle. Though the school started with only 80

students in five classes, it has expanded in its seven-year history to

over 300 students in classes one through eight. Each year a new

class will be added until the school serves students in classes one

through twelve. Approximately 30 new students are admitted each

year with preference given to girls.

All the students live in what many would consider poverty-level

conditions. Sarnath is a very disadvantaged part of the state of Uttar

Pradesh, the second poorest state in India. While in Sarnath I visited

two students' homes.

Both were single-story earthen buildings with dirt floors; they

had one main room and in one case a smaller adjoining room. In one

home the young boys of the family slept on cots outside the house.

Animals wander throughout the streets and human waste is a

common sight under trees and on the side of the roads. It did not

surprise me that the students spend over 12 hours a day at school.

Despite the shared level of poverty there is uncommon

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diversity among the students. With both boys and girls of all castes

enrolled, the Alice Project stands out from other Indian schools.

Beyond diversity there is equality.

Unlike many schools in India, there is no discrimination

according to caste or sex. In my first student interview, a 14-year-

old student who is a Brahmin pointed out that his friends are of all

castes. His assertion "I do not care about caste," is significant in a

part of India where discrimination according to caste is still present

(Shukla, 8/27/00).

In addition to caste equality, there is also gender equality at

the Alice Project School. The 1996 Public Report on Basic Education

(PROBE) in India revealed a vast discrepancy between the education

of males and females. While on average boys receive 2.9 years of

schooling, girls receive only 1.8 (PROBE, 9).

Even more telling is the fact that over 40% more women are

illiterate than men (PROBE, 9). Valentino is very much aware of

gender discrimination in traditional Indian schools and for this

reason gives priority to girls who apply. In observations, both the

boys and girls were treated equally, both participating in class and

working on the board. These differences do not go unnoticed by the

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students.

When I asked two girls, ages 14 and 15, about the differences

between the Alice Project School and other schools they had

attended, they both commented that at most schools the boys

segregated themselves from the girls.

One said, "Here we are like brother and sister" (Patel, 9/71.00).

With caste and gender discrimination virtually non-existent, a space

of open interaction is created, a space unique to this part of India.

One of the major problems with the current Indian school

system, according to the PROBE report, is the cost of schooling a

child. Though free education is a constitutional right in India, the

average North Indian parent spends 366 rupees on fees, textbooks,

uniforms and other expenses. For an agricultural family with two

children this amounts to 30 to 40 days' wages (Primary Education,

70).

These costs greatly affect the education of girls who, because

they arc married away from the family, are not seen as worthy of

the investment in education. Valentino directly counters these two

problems by charging a minimal fee according to what each student

can pay. He also provides a uniform, daily food, and basic

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healthcare to keep these hidden costs to a minimum. He is

particularly sensitive to the status of women's education and for this

reason does not charge any fee to poor girls (8/29/00).

Because Valentino collects minimal fees, the school is largely

dependent on outside funding. While Valentino and Luigina's

personal money primarily support the school, there are also several

private donors including one large group from Belgium.

Interestingly, this funding does not come from Buddhist groups but

rather from Christian donors who believe in the universal nature of

the Alice Project teaching.

The Faculty

Watching over and educating these 300 students are around

20 teachers and several foreign volunteers. The teachers, about

fifteen men and five women, range in age from their mid twenties

through their fifties.

All of the teachers have completed high school and some

higher education. While several of the younger teachers have

university degrees from self-study programs, one female teacher

has completed her Ph.D. in sociology. The entire faculty either lives

in the nearby villages or at the school. Beyond these full time faculty

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there are many foreign volunteers teaching at any given time.

When I was researching there were up to five other volunteers

teaching English, comparative religion, a special class on the atomic

bomb, kindergarten, yoga, and games. Most of these foreign

teachers stay for at least one month and some for much longer. The

volunteers quickly become attached to the school and the students,

often making repeated visits. During my month at the school Mark

Singleton, a teacher from England, was visiting the school for a

second multi-month stay in which he both teaches and helps with

administration.

Beyond their academic training all teachers receive extensive

training in the mission and methodology of the school. In 1994

Valentino selected 50 teachers from the Sarnath and Varanasi area

for six months of training. Every Sunday for eight hours, Valentino

and Luigina taught the prospective teachers about the spiritual and

philosophical goals of the school.

In these six months the faculty reviewed the basic

philosophical and psychological underpinnings of the school

including Madhyamika philosophy and meditation. While many

teachers had heard of meditation, a practice at the heart of the Alice

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pedagogy, one young teacher guessed that 90% of those teachers

had never practiced (Misra, 9/7/00).

A second important aspect of the training is an emphasis on

innovative teaching methods.

The teachers were all educated in settings where copying and

memorization were the method, and fear of physical punishment the

motivation. The teachers I interviewed emphasized the violence in

their childhood classrooms. The PROBE study suggests that this is

still the norm, citing several students who "have been frightened

away from the school by violent teachers" (Primary Education, 72).

In their six months of training the teachers learned to replace

memorization with creativity and the stick with love. One teacher

said, "They [Valentino and Luigina] have ideas about Western

schools and they know about Indian teaching. They explained that

we have to teach not with force but with songs and games-to play

with children and love children" (Misra, 9/7/00).

This development of classroom creativity was the hardest part

of the training for Valentino and Luigina as the teachers had all been

raised in classrooms where an essay was graded according to the

number of lines it had rather than its creativity and content

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(Giacomin, 9/1/00).

After the six months of training, all the teachers wrote several

essays about what they had learned. From these essays and the

training time experiences Valentino and Luigina selected 25

teachers. Valentino is proud that after six years more than 80% of

the original teachers are still working at the school (9/1/00).

These teachers continue to receive training in the Alice

Methodology both formally and informally as they sit in on classes

that Valentino or Luigina teach. Other teachers receive special

training for particular subjects. Arun Shukla, a young faculty

member who teaches. yoga, Sanskrit, Hindi, and English, has been

sent to several vipassana meditation retreats and has done a four

month yoga class (9/5/00). Clearly Valentino recognizes the

importance of not only teaching students but teaching teachers.

Valentino spends the majority of the year watching over the

faculty, students, and every other aspect of the school.

He is a teacher, administrator, healthcare provider, and father

to all his students. Between classes and meetings Valentino spends

countless hours developing the Alice Project curriculum and writing

new books of moral stories. His year round dedication to the school

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and love of his students is the glue that binds the Alice Project

School together.

While Valentino is clearly essential to the running of the school,

he is training young faculty members to take over his role and

carryon the Alice Project mission

The Curriculum

The academic program at the Alice Project has both traditional and

non-traditional components. As a state-recognized school it is

required to teach math, science, Hindi, English, social studies, and

history. The primary medium of these classes is Hindi, though some

upper level classes and all English classes are taught in English.

Even these "traditional" subjects are taught in a somewhat non-

traditional way. In math classes, I observed a remarkable amount of

student-teacher interaction. In a class for 13 to 15 year olds the

teacher, Vinit Misra, explained the concept of a triangle's three

internal angles equaling 180 degrees and then had students at the

board working out problems.

He welcomed questions and worked out answers on the board with

student participation. In a math class for the youngest students

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another teacher used diagrams of mangoes being put into baskets

to explain the concepts of subtraction and division.

Throughout both classes students expressed great interest in what

they were learning. While the oldest students eagerly asked

questions, the youngest would hold up their workbooks to show off

their successful work. Thus the traditional curriculum is taught,

devoid of the traditional pedagogical practices of memorization and

punishment.

What makes the Alice Project curriculum so innovative and sets

it apart from every other school is its incorporation of non-traditional

studies. Each day students are taught yoga, meditation, karate, and

flute.

The day begins at 6:00 with a half hour of "karma yoga."

During this practice that is framed in traditional Hindu religious

notions of selfless action, students clean and prepare the school for

the day. After this the student body is divided into three groups for

an hour of yoga, meditation and prayer.

After the day's classes all the students practice Vipassana

meditation, a form of Buddhist insight meditation, for a half hour

and then spend one hour in karate and flute lessons.

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Finally, there is another half hour of karma yoga in which all the

classrooms are cleaned. In total the students spend three and a

half hours engaged in these non-traditional subjects of

meditation, yoga and prayer.

Non-traditional subjects are also taught in the classroom.

Valentino, Luigina, and two of the younger teachers regularly

give lessons in psychology, philosophy and religion. During

these classes students are challenged to think about concepts

such as perception, relativity, and self from a Buddhist inspired

perspective.

Valentino has produced several books of "moral stories"

that encourage discussion of subjects such as anger, friendship,

and relationships and give the students examples of Buddhist

responses to difficult situations (more on this in Chapter 4).

The traditional and non-traditional curricula are not

completely separate. The most obvious manifestation of their

union is the five-minute period of meditation that ends every

class. During this time the teacher guides the students in some

sort of focus or insight practice such as listening to the ring of a

hell or simply observing the breath.

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In the classes that I observed the teachers were very

skilled at using meditation to steer the direction of a given

class. During a math class for seven and eight-year-olds, the

teacher calmed boisterous students by drawing a large dot on

the board and having the students concentrate on that dot for

two or three minutes. I was amazed at how this simple

meditation drastically altered the atmosphere of the classroom.

The non-traditional curriculum is very well received by the

students. Every student I interviewed spoke enthusiastically

about the yoga and meditation practices. Beyond enthusiasm

the students have a good grasp of the significance of these

practices. When asked to define meditation one student wrote,

"Meditation is to look with insight, to know our self, to know

who I am. To be aware, to concentrate, to know mind, body,

thoughts, emotions etc" (Kumar. 8/31/00). The students also

realize the benefits of meditation and yoga. A 14-year-old boy

who has been at the school since it was founded believes that

yoga and meditation allow him to be "peaceful and healthy"

and to "concentrate well" (Naress, 9/4/00).

Like many other students, this same boy felt that he is

negatively affected when he does not practice: "On days I do

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not do yoga I feel very boring and painful in my body. Yoga

gives me more energy" (Naress, 9/4/00). I attended a vipassana

meditation class in which a student lead us through a half hour

meditation with ease.

This experience solidified my belief that the students of

the Alice Project School are not just hearing these non-

traditional teachings, but absorbing them and living by them.

Other Programs

After tire school day another group of around 80 students who

work during the day and are therefore unable to attend the day

school come for three hours of class at night.

The students in this program have extremely busy lives,

working around ten hours a day and then spending three hours

at school. For these students, however, the time commitment is

a small price to pay for the education that they would otherwise

be without.

Valentino has also recently opened a new school outside of

Bodh Gaya, India, the place of the Buddha's enlightenment.

While intra-Buddhist politics have left the building mostly

26

unused for the past year, when I was leaving in September,

Valentino was preparing to send his first group of students to

this new campus. He hopes to use the Bodh Gaya campus as a

school for either street children of Varanasi or children who are

currently in the harsh Indian prison system.

Valentino is also developing a program to work with young

Tibetan Buddhist monks, supplementing their traditional

monastic education finally, Valentino has submitted a grant

proposal to the Indian government to establish an educational

research institute at the school in order to bring in research

scholars to test and document the Alice Project theories and

methods.

The constant now of traffic in and out of Valentino's office

cum bedroom is the best evidence of the energy and time that

he and others put into keeping the Alice Project School not only

running but also expanding. From a local Tibetan doctor to a

university psychology professor, scores of Indians and

foreigners are dedicated to the success of Alice Project School.

Daily, both in the classroom and in development

27

meetings, Valentino and others are uniting Buddhist ideals and

education in ways that they envision as universal-continually

transforming ideas and ideals into practical and effective

realities.

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Chapter 3

Madhyamika Philosophy

Though influenced by diverse sources, pedagogy of the Project

Alice School claims to he grounded in Madhyamika Buddhist

philosophy. While it is impossible in the span of this paper to

fully elucidate Madhyamika philosophy, it is imperative to both

locate Madhyamika in its historical context and to give a

concise introduction to it. After briefly considering the

development or the Mahayana and its philosophical sub-school

Madhyamika, I will describe the philosophy in a negative mode,

as a reaction against

Abhidharmic thought.

Next I will paint a broad four-stroke picture of the positive

philosophical stances that Madhyamika philosophers such as

Nagarjuna held : 1. All phenomena and matter are dependently

arising and lack any independently existent matter. 2. The

source or our misperception about existents is found in our

misuse of language. 3. There are both the conventional reality

of language and the ultimate reality of voidness.

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4. All teaching happens according to skillful means. While such

an introduction can hardly do justice to the brilliant and

intriguing complexities of Madhyamika philosophy, these four

broad principles give a general introduction to the philosophy

and represent the working understanding of Madhyamika that I

observed while teaching and researching at the Project Alice

School.

The Historical and Cultural Background

The history of Madhyamika begins with the development of the

Mahayana or "great vehicle" tradition between 150 BCE and

100 CEO. In his chapter on the rise of Mahayana, Peter Harvey

claims that there were three main catalysts that contributed to

its development and separation from the "Hinayana": 1) The

emergence of the ideal of the Bodhisattva path; 2) A new

cosmology that incorporated a transcendent and glorified

Buddha; and 3) new understanding of Abhidharma and the

emptiness of phenomena (Harvey 89-90). Hinayana Buddhist

soteriology included three goals of the Buddhist path: the

sravaka arhant, the pratyeka Buddha, and the fully awakened

Buddha.

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While early Buddhists aimed at the level of the sravaka arhant,

the Mahayana accepted only the fully awakened Buddha as the

goal of their practice.

According to Mahayana belief, one should sacrifice

enlightenment in the present as a sravoka and dedicate all

one's future lives to helping others and developing virtue in

order that they become fully awakened Buddhas in the far

future (Robinson and Johnson, 83-84). It is this eternal

dedication to the salvation of all sentient beings and attainment

of fully awakened Buddhahood, the Bodhisattva Path, that

became a highlighted ideal in the Mahayana period and is the

first major division between the Hinayana and Mahayana.

The second major historical influence on the development

of the Mahayana was the encounter with other cultures' theistic

beliefs. From the cult of Vishnu to Hellenistic and Zoroastrian

savior cults, Buddhists were exposed to many religions that

held up a lively and glorified deity.

While it is unclear how exactly Buddhists picked up these

cultic elements, the emergence of a transcendent Buddha and

many other colorful and cuhic Buddhist deities reflects this

31

cross cultural influence (Robinson and Johnson, 82-83)

The final catalyst of the Mahayana's rise and the focus of

this introduction is the reaction against the Abhidharmic

thought that had become a part of the established corpus of

Buddhist teaching and became further entrenched with the

establishment of written canons.

Many religious virtuosos and philosophers wrote new

pseudepigraphic Sutras to counter the tenets of the

Abhidharmic philosophy and the belief that the Abhidharma

was the final teaching of the Buddha (Robinson and Johnson,

82). It is in this philosophical critique and debate that the new

schools of Mahayana philosophy, including Madhyamika,

developed.

Before I turn to the details of this philosophical

development, it is important to note that the split between the

Mahayana and Hinayana occurred over several hundred years

and was not a sudden or violent schism.

Abhidharma and the Philosophical Context

As the Mahayana drew away from the Hinayana, specific

schools such as Madhyamika developed their anti-Abhidharma

32

views.

Abhidharma is defined by Robinson and Johnson as the

“systematic analysis of component factors of experience, based

on teachings in the Sutras, explaining physical and mental

events without reference to an abiding self" (320). Wanting to

destroy self-centered attachment, Abhidharmists faced the

difficult task of describing how matter and phenomena exist in

the world without being independently existent. They did so by

positing the existence of basic building blocks, dharmas, that

constitute each phenomenon.

There is no independently existent matter, a critical

Buddhist belief, because all matter depends on the dynamic

and constantly changing interactions of these dharmas. For a

later comparison with Madhyamika philosophy, it is helpful to

understand Abdhidharma in the language of physics: no matter

exists in itself, but rather matter is an aggregate or product of

particles and forces that are interacting and depending on one

another.

The Mahayana critique of Abhidharmic thought centered

on these elemental dharmas. Mahayana philosophers wanted

33

to deny the existence of even these 'Dharmac' particles that

compose matter.

Because Abhidharmists posited the existence of essential

dharmic building blocks, Mahayana philosophers argued that

there was still a subtle sense of self and independent existence.

According to the Mahayana, whether building blocks or

not, Abhidharmic dharmas qualified as independently existing

phenomena and therefore did not conform to the fundamental

Buddhist teaching against independently existing matter.

This analytical breakdown, they also argued, promoted a

subtle form of intellectual grasping because the philosopher

believed that he "had 'grasped' the true nature of reality in a

neat set of concepts" (Harvey, 96).

Therefore Abhidharmic "dharma-analysis, developed as a

means to undercut self-centered attachment, was seen as

having fallen short of its mark" (Harvey, 97).

Before moving to the positive philosophical system that

anti-Abhidharmist Mahayana philosophers offered we must note

that the Hinayana Abhidharmist positions described above are

depicted as Mahayana philosophers envisioned them.

34

There was much debate between the two schools and by

no means did the Mahayana completely undermine the

positions held by the Hinayana. Rather, it is the case that the

Mahayana, influenced by new cultural forces, offered a new set

of philosophical tenets. To this day both Hinayana Abhidharma

and Mahayana philosophy still thrive in different parts of the

Buddhist world.

The Positive Philosophy: Nagarjuna's Madhyamika

Accompanying and incorporated into the anti-Abhidharmic

writings, new schools of Mahayana philosophy developed a

positive philosophy to replace the Abhidharma. One of the most

prominent of these schools was the Madhyamika school

founded by the Indian monk and mystic, Nagarjuna, circa 150-

250 CE (Harvey, 95). While Nagarjuna did not refer to himself

as part of the Mahayana tradition, his students and followers

including Aryadeva did so (Harvey, 96).

At the heart of Nagarjuna's philosophy is a belief in the

voidness or emptiness of all matter and all phenomena. This

belief that is also at the heart of the Project Alice School's

pedagogy, and thus I will attempt to sketch the principal tenets

35

of the Madhyamika in four broad strokes.

Each of these strokes will later be analyzed as a source of

educational philosophy and innovative pedagogy at the Project

Alice School.

The First Stroke: Dependent Arising and Matter as

Voidness

Like the Abhidharmist philosophers before him, Nagarjuna

desired to prove that all matter and phenomena (the two will

be used interchangeably) are void of a substantially existent

nature. Nagarjuna does so through an argument of dependent

arising. In Chapter 15 of the Madhyamika school's foundational

text, the Mula-madhyamika-karika (Verses on the

Fundamentals of the Middle Way) Nagarjuna offers a proof that

all matter is void of independent existence.

Harvey summarizes Nagarjuna's complicated philosophy

into a three-step argument (97). The first step is a proof that

phenomena lack their own nature.

Nagarjuna starts with the claim that all phenomena arise

according to conditions that Abhidharmists, who understood all

matter as conditioned by the dharmas, would agree with. It

36

follows from this premise that what a phenomenon is depends

on what conditions it—what an object appears to be is a

product of the components that constitute it, an aggregate of

interacting elements. From this Nagarjuna concludes that we

have no own-nature. This first step of Nagarjuna's reasoning

closely follows that of the Abhidharmists.

Where Nagarjuna departs from his Abhidharmic

predecessors is in the assertion that because nothing has its

own-nature, there can be no other-nature. This second step of

his logic is best understood as follows: there cannot be some

phenomenon X that depends on some other phenomenon Y

where Y has its own-nature. This is a logical argument because,

according to the conclusion of the first step, Y cannot have its

own nature.

This second step is Nagarjuna's main attack on

Abhidharmic philosophy. By denying other-nature he is denying

the substantial existence of the dharmic building blocks at the

heart of the Abhidharmic philosophy.

The third and final step in Nagarjuna's proof is the claim

that if matter cannot have its own-nature and there is no other-

37

nature, then no matter can have an independent and

substantially existent nature (Harvey, 97).

At the root of steps one and two, and thus also at the root

of Nagarjuna's conclusion, is the view that all phenomena

depend 011 other phenomena for both their arising and

existence. For this reason Nagarjuna's argument is termed an

argument of dependent arising.

Robert Thurman of Tel's a second way to understand this

first principle of Madhyamika thought.

Explaining Madhyamika philosophy in the introduction to

the Vimalakirti Sutra, Thurman emphasizes the term "relativity"

in his translation of the same word that means dependent

arising, pratityasamutpada.

He claims that the centrality of this term in Madhyamika

philosophy "means that all finite things are interdependent,

relative, and mutually conditioned and implies that there is no

possibility of any independent, self-sufficient, permanent thing

or entity" (Thurman 1976, 1).

The existence of the words on these pages depends on

the ink, my thoughts, the reader's eye and mind and hundreds

38

of other causes that have brought the page to look as it does.

Thunnan goes on to argue that this relativity and

interdependence are fundamental to our perception of the

world (1976,1-2). When one views an orange she enters into a

relation with that orange. There is a dependence between the

orange and the eyes that brings the orange into the existence

that is perceived. Such an example makes it clear that

dependent arising is at the root of our human understanding.

This relativity and the claim that there is no enduring

entity quickly elicits objections of nihilism.

The Madhyamika response to this charge is that relativity

and dependence do not rid us of existence but rather explain

how matter and phenomena exist in the relative world of our

perception (a distinction between the relative and ultimate

world will be drawn in the third stroke).

In his famous work "Wisdom," Nagarjuna quotes such an

objector: "If all this were void, then there would be no creation

and no destruction..." and to this he replies, "If all this were not

void, then there would be no creation and no destruction..." (in

Thurman 1976,2). In this passage the term "void" means "void

39

of a substantial independent existence."

Nagarjuna's response is that if things did have an

independent nature then they would be eternal, immutable and

therefore not subject to creation or destruction. However,

because phenomena are subject to dependent arising, they arc

created and are destroyed and hence function as we know

them in the world of our perception.

This response and defense against nihilism is made even

clearer in a second classic objection and response.

Nagarjuna's critics argued that if all phenomena were void

of inherent existence, then the Four Noble Truths, the essence

of the Buddha's teaching, was also void—a clear undermining

of the Buddha's teaching. Nagarjuna's reply in Chapter 24 of

the Mula-madhyamaka-karika is that if phenomena were not

void then suffering would be eternal and impossible to alleviate

(Harvey, 100). Thus the goal of the Buddhist path, the

cessation of suffering, depends upon the fact that phenomena

such as suffering are void of inherent independent existence.

Ultimately, while the teaching of dependent arising and

the voidness of matter appear to be nihilistic, they accurately

40

describe the world as we perceive it and as it is.

The Second Stroke:

Language as the Source of Our Mistaken Understanding

At the heart of the Buddha's teaching is the assumption

that we are all suffering and the source of our suffering is the

grasping belief that phenomena, including the self, are

independent and permanent entities. What is the source of this

wrongful grasping?

Even though Nagarjuna proved that our understanding of

the world is deluded, the vast majority of unenlightened beings

continue to believe in such self-sufficient and independent

entities.

Madhyamika philosophers were aware of this confusion

and explained that it is linked to and perpetuated by our

misuse of language.

Language properly functions to describe the world as we

perceive it. When we see an orange sitting on a table we call it

"an orange" and tell our friend that it is a good source of

vitamin C. Language lets us describe something that we

41

recognize as an orange.

Above, however, we proved that according to Madhyamika

philosophy there is not an independently existing orange. There

is, rather, dependently arising and existing matter that we eat.

Nagarjuna docs not deny that we should call that matter an

orange and eat it, but he warns us that our use of language has

the potential to delude us. This delusion occurs when we forget

that a name is only a name and attribute independent reality to

that which we name.

When we use the word "orange" or "self' out of deluded

habit we think not of the interdependent matter but rather

posit an' independently existent phenomena. It is this mistake,

the confusion of name with reality, that is the source of human

delusion.

One important element of this explanation is that our

perception of the world is incomplete. As I stressed above,

language is properly used to name things in the world as we

perceive them. Our perception, however, is limited. When we

say "orange" we think not of all the infinite causes that provide

its dependent arising, but only of a few characteristics that are

42

apparent to us.

When we think of an orange we consider its color, shape,

texture, smell, and maybe a few other components, but never

its composite makeup, the water that fed the tree, the hand

that picked the fruit and endless other factors which

contributed to the dependent existence that we see before us.

Thus language confused as reality not only causes our

delusion and subsequent suffering, but also blinds us to the

total interdependent reality of all existence.

The Third Stroke: Ultimate and Conventional Reality

While Madhyamika philosophy does criticize such misuse

of language, Nagarjuna believes that language has its place.

The proper role for language is in describing the world as we

know it, the world of conventional reality that we, as

unenlightened beings, perceive. This reality or truth can be

understood as the non-nihilistic reality.

Though all matter is void, there are still people, there is

still food to eat, and being hit by a train will actually kill us. For

this reason conventional reality allows us to explain the way we

act. Because I have a conventional sense of self and other, I

43

can interact in the world and do not see everything as void of

existence. In order to navigate the world, I name things and live

according to conventional truth.

The world of conventional truth does not exist in an

absolute sense but exists rather "only in a relative way, as a

passing phenomenon" (Harvey, 98). The ultimate reality is

completely devoid of name and grasping. This is the world in

which all matter is recognized as being void of inherent

existence, where matter truly is voidness.

Very little can be said about the ultimate reality as no

word's can describe it and it resists all attempts at reification,

for once named it is no longer ultimate. Perhaps it is best to say

that ultimate reality is the reality known in the experience of

enlightenment.

The Madhyamika Buddhist teaching of two worlds or two

truths appears dualistic, which is a problem for a philosophy

that tries to destroy all dualism. This is resolved by the doctrine

that both the ultimate and conventional reality exist in the

same place at the same time in every moment. When one

comes to realize this, she can experience both the ultimate and

44

conventional reality simultaneously.

The Bodhisattva who has realized ultimate truth yet

remains in the world of conventional truth in order to liberate

sentient beings reveals that one can act in both the

conventional and ultimate realities simultaneously.

The division of ultimate and conventional realities yields

an important distinction in the Madhyamika and other

Mahayana teachings of wisdom and compassion.

Describing the unenlightened human situation of living

within conventional reality while seeking the ultimate reality,

Robert Thurman writes, "We are left with the seemingly

contradictory tasks of becoming conscious of its ultimacy on

the one hand and, on the other hand, of devoting our energies

to the improvement of the unavoidable relative situation as

best we can" (1976,3). The Buddhist solution to this dual task is

wisdom (prajna) and sell1ess or great compassion

(mahakaruna). Through wisdom we go beyond the experience

of naming and beyond conventional experience, thus gaining

"direct awareness of the ultimate reality of all things" (Thurman

1976,3). While we live in the world of conventional reality we

45

are to live with a selfless great compassion.

Through this mahakaruna we can allay the physical and

mental suffering that pervade the conventional world. Thurman

writes that prajna and mahakaruna "are the essence of the

Great Vehicle, and of the Middle Way," and we will later see

that they are inseparable, like two sides of the same coin, and

also the essence of the Project Alice School (1976,3).

The Fourth Stroke:Teaching Ultimacy through Skillful

Means

The Buddha and subsequent great teachers do not teach a

single doctrine to all students but rather tailor their teaching to

the level of understanding of their students. This ability to

reach and challenge every student, no matter what their

mental disposition is termed upaya or skillful means. While

Madhyamika is a powerful and important philosophy, it is a

difficult teaching. Robert Thurman summarizes the pedagogical

paradox that Madhyamika presents: "It is clear that this subtle,

profound, yet simple teaching can be inaccessible or even

frightening to those either intellectually or emotionally

unprepared, while the gem-like being properly prepared need

46

only hear it and all mental blocks are instantly shattered"

(1976,4).

Because Madhyamika is not suited to all students, the

Buddha and other great teachers taught according to the level

of their students' understanding. It is here that Madhyamika

recognized the importance of the Hinayana and Yogacara

schools. The more limited goal of arhantship was prescribed for

the student who could not comprehend the Bodhisattva ideal

and sought liberation as escape from the relative world.

The Yogacara teaching, which posits the existence of pure

mind, was taught to students who could not conceive of the

emptiness of absolutely all things. These teachings, however,

were not considered complete and were thought to bring a

student only up to a certain level of understanding.

The belief that Hinayana and Yogacara are true, but non-

comprehensive and lesser teachings is common among modern

Madhyamika teachers.The doctrine of skillful means suggests

more than just reaching out to all students. Upaya also

suggests that all teachings are just that, a skillful means to

drive the student to a new understanding. The arhant ideal is

47

the means by which people begin to comprehend the Buddha's

teaching. Ultimately even Madhyamika is considered a means

to an end, a provisional device. Upon realization of

inexpressible truths, the teaching, that which catapults you

towards those truths, loses its meaning and is no longer

necessary. Thus, according to the Buddha' s doctrine of upaya:

1. A true Buddhist teacher tailors his teaching to the level of

understanding of his student, and 2.

A true Buddhist teaching is one that only temporarily aids

you and prepares you to make the leap to the insight of

inexpressible truths (Harvey, 100).

48

Chapter 4

Nagarjuna's Presence:

Madhyamika's Influence on the Alice Project

School

Having given a description of the Alice Project School in

Chapter 2 and laid the groundwork of Madhyamika philosophy

in Chapter 3, this chapter will explore the main question of this

paper: how does the Alice Project School conceptualize the

Buddhist nature of its social engagement?

By studying how Buddhist philosophy and social activism

are united at the Alice Project School, we will see how Valentino

grounds his social activism in the Madhyamika Buddhist

thought that he claims is the primary influence on his

educational project.

This chapter, besides examining how Buddhist philosophy

influences the school, will describe how Buddhist ideals are

translated into social theory and action. We will see that

Madhyamika informs both theory and action through an

49

analysis of the four most apparent ways that Madhyamika

influences the school:

1. The overt Madhyamika curriculum

2. The claim that Madhyamika philosophy is a universal and

ecumenical teaching

3. The interpretation of Madhyamika as supporting a critique of

modern education

4. The Alice Project's unique theory of social change.

In each of these sections I will explore those elements of

Madhyamika that are at work, making reference to the four-

part picture offered in the previous chapter, and explaining how

the philosophy is manifested daily in the classroom.

The Curriculum

In the overt Madhyamika curriculum that Valentino and

Luigina have developed, students are slowly introduced to

Madhyamika teaching in the form of classroom exercises,

stories, and informal interaction with Valentino; they are also

given daily mediation time to internalize this wisdom.

50

Valentino, Luigina and two other young faculty members,

Arun and Awanesh, following the Buddhist practice of upaya or

skillful means, work the students through a slow progression

from one basic concept to the next.

Rather than trace each step in this involved path I will

highlight how dependent arising and the problem of language,

two key Buddhist concepts, are taught to Alice Project students.

Examples are taken from both classroom and informal

interaction that I observed and from one of Valentino's

instruction manuals and they represent the three ways that he

teaches: didactic teaching, stories, and informal interaction.

Throughout the Alice Project methodology there arc

lessons to teach the concept of voidness and dependent

arising.

One of the greatest challenges that Valentino faces is

translating the concept of voidness into a lesson that a child

can understand. How does one teach Robert Thurman's

definition of pratityasamutpada, "all finite things are

interdependent, relative, and mutually conditioned and... there

is no possibility of any independent, self sufficient, permanent

51

thing or entity," to a 10 year old child (Thurman 1976, I)?

In his The Philosophy of Alice Project, Valentino uses a

drawing of a tree to introduce the concept. Starting with a

sketch of a tree, he asks students if it is a complete drawing of

a living tree and makes them realize that the tree needs the

earth.

Then he asks what else the tree needs. Students reply

that the tree needs air, the sun, soil and other elements.

Valentino leads them to the realization that these cannot exist

without the universe and everything it contains.

Thus the student begins to see that something that

appears to be independently existent relies upon the entire

universe (Giacomin 1997,31-34). The tree is clearly relative and

all its components arc mutually conditioned. This simple lesson

is taught to a class by drawing the tree on the board and

guiding students through a series of questions.

I watched Valentino teach several of these lessons and

was impressed with his ability to get all the students involved

with the thought experiment and to reach even those who

seemed most confused.

52

Valentino also teaches about language and the mistaken

understanding that results from our use of language. According

to Madhyamika philosophy, language describes the world as we

perceive it, not as it actually is.

Language is beneficial in that it allows us to communicate

and exist in the conventional world. However, when we believe

that the thing that we call an orange is an independently

existent phenomenon, then we begin to be deluded.

In order to counter this delusion the Alice Project

methodology must teach the students that names are just that,

n_D1es and not realities-that when we call that thing on the

table an orange and distinguish it from the apple we arc not

drawing an ontological distinction but rather one of

convenience suitable for the world we inhabit.

Several times I watched Valentino explain this concept to

his students in an informal setting.

One day a boy came into Valentino's kitchen that serves

as a living room and office for the volunteers, looking for a

snack. As the boy ate some curd Valentino asked him what his

name was and then asked the boy to point to where his name

53

was. The boy looked shy so Valentino pressed on with yes and

no questions. "Is your name in your foot?" "Is your name in your

arm'?" "Where is your name?" The boy pointed to his chest.

Valentino put his ear up against the boy's chest and proclaimed

"I do not hear your name!" The boy laughed. "So where is your

name?”,6 One of the older students and a friend of the boy

being questioned replied, "In his mind!" "Oh! So he does not

really have a name that we can point to, it is just something we

call him! It just helps us distinguish one person from another!"

(9/l/00).

Throughout the day Valentino capitalizes upon these

"teachable" moments, slowly imbuing his students with

Madhyamika wisdom. Beyond such informal teaching Valentino

also has lessons that help students understand that even the

notion of "self' or "I" is just a name that one gives to

phenomena that truly are interdependent and void of

independent existence. One of the best lessons directed at this

point is the story of the ocean and the wave. This story is

presented to the Alice Project students as follows:

54

55

The story focuses on the problems that stem from naming and

language. When the wave questions what she is, she is forced

to "discover a name which would distinguish her from all other

forms around her" (Giacomin 1999, 68).

Naming and the implicit process of distinction force the wave to

conclude, "I exist separately independent from the Ocean"

(Giacomin 1999,69). This conclusion leads not only to conflict

with the ocean and other waves, but also to a fear of death.

Thus, in this story we see that the process of naming implicitly

draws borders, fosters a belief in independent existence, and is

the root of suffering.

The power of this story is that it points to the most problematic

case of naming, the reification of the self. Because, like the

wave, we name ourselves and distinguish ourselves from

others, we suffer and fear death.

Through this simple story the students of the Alice Project are

introduced in a comprehensible fashion to the complex

Buddhist notion of reification and the subsequent problems of

such naming and distinction.

Through stories, formal teaching, and informal interactions, the

56

students of the Alice Project begin to view the world through a

Buddhist-inspired lens.

When asked whether his students understand what they are

taught Valentino told me that it is through informal dialogue

that he ascertains the success of the teaching: "Laughing and

conversation are very important because I can test [their

understanding]. They have no fear because it is friendly"

(Giacomin, 9/3/00).

From my interviews and informal interactions with students I

can attest that the .students have a firm grasp on the language

and concepts of interdependence, language, and thought

awareness. With such a handle on the terms and theories and

daily meditation practice to bolster the philosophy, it is

probable that the Madhyamika philosophy is affecting the

students' lives in some manner.

"Universal Education": Madhyamika’s Ecumenicalism

The second way that Madhyamika influences Valentino's

social activism is reflected in his belief that Buddhist wisdom is

beneficial for all people regardless of religious background—

that Buddhist wisdom is "universal."

57

Even when teaching Madhyamika concepts, Valentino

rarely speaks in Buddhist terms. While stories like the ocean

and the wave appear to make no specific religious reference,

other stories are couched in the mythology and religious

discourse of his students.

In a conversation on August 25, Valentino told me that he

was considering teaching in New Mexico and wanted to know

about Native American mythology. He stresses the importance

of creating a "link to ancestors" and respecting his students'

culture.

This shift from one religious discourse to another,

substituting one term of art for another, is not haphazard.

Valentino argues that such shifts not only better engage

students but are also warranted by the "universal" quality

implicit in Madhyamika philosophy.

While the term "universal" has recently become suspect in

academia, Valentino uses the term to suggest applicability to

all people. Thus the "universal education school" is a school

whose teaching is applicable to all people.

Perhaps the reader will find it helpful to read "universal"

58

as "ecumenical."

It could be argued that Valentino's claims of universalism

are a means of disguising Buddhist doctrine in the dogma of

another religion.

He counters this argument with the claim that all religious

traditions point to the same conclusions, the same wisdom that

Madhyamika does: "If we go very deep, to the heart of

religions, you can find this [Madhyamika] wisdom there"

(9/5/00). Valentino used the image of a ladder to a summit to

explain this: the realization of all religions, the summit, is the

same, but the path that each religion offers to the believer, the

ladder, is different.

Of course many dispute the validity of this metaphor-they

say the "summit" is not the same in different religions.

While Valentino does make strong ecumenical claims, he

also suggests that not all ladders arc created equal. He

describes the Madhyamika ladder as logical and easy to climb

while claiming that "in other traditions we really have to make

an effort" to arrive a realization of emptiness.

When asked about the path offered by Christianity, he

59

criticized the tradition for having suppressed the mystical

elements that meet the needs of "introverted" believers. He

specifically objected to the decrees of Vatican II, which he said

expunged the esoteric, thereby obfuscating the higher rungs of

the Christian spiritual ladder.

Through his "universal" teaching Valentino hopes to help

Christians discover the wisdom that is latent in their own

tradition: "I am not saying that in the Church there is not

wisdom. My goal is to help Christians to discover the wisdom

they have" (9/5/00).

Valentino claims that universal wisdom manifests itself in

all religions as selflessness and a meditative "silence of the

mind" (Giacomin 1999, 79). He cites passages from the Bible in

which Jesus tells his followers to "renounce the self and follow

me," and Hindu statements about the dissolving of ego

grasping along with the Madhyamika philosophy of destroying

the notion of self to support this claim.

According to Valentino, at the pinnacle of any religious

experience are a destruction of any dualism or division and the

resultant "silence" of the non-distinguishing and non-reifying

60

mind. While Valentino's claim to universality is not grounded in

a rigorous study of comparative religion, it is supported by

Madhyamika, specifically by its philosophy of language.

Inherent in the philosophy of the Madhyamika is the belief

that its wisdom is universal. According to the teachings of

dependent arising and voidness, there are no independently

existing phenomena and hence there is no independently

existing Madhyamika philosophy.

Thus, ultimately any attempt to draw a boundary between

Madhyamika wisdom and other religious wisdom would be self-

contradictory. At this point we can identify one of the most

interesting aspects of Buddhism's philosophy, its self-

deconstruction.

When the Madhyamika philosophy is fully realized, then

even the distinction of 'Buddhism' is lost, the religion destroys

itself. This self-deconstruction of boundaries found in

Buddhism, and particularly in Madhyamika, allows Valentino to

ground his claims of universality in a religious philosophy that

at its moment of realization sees everything in a universal, non-

divided manner.

61

The introduction to Abhidharma and the philosophical

context of Madhyamika in the previous chapter make it clear

that, despite this inherent universalism, Madhyamika

philosophers were very concerned with differentiating their

philosophy from that of their Abhidharmic counterparts. Their

apparently self-contradictory desire to hold Madhyamika

teachings above other philosophies can be explained by the

third point, the distinction between ultimate and conventional

reality. The belief that 'Madhyamika' is a false distinction and

that all wisdom is universal is true in ultimate reality.

However, in the conventional world that we inhabit,

distinctions between Madhyamika and Yogacara or some other

philosophical school help us to discern the most beneficial

spiritual path. Nagarjuna would claim that while eventually

"Madhyamika" disappears, for our life in conventional reality,

for our spiritual path to a realization of ultimate reality, we

need the teachings that it provides.

While the 'names of conventional reality do help one to

navigate the conventional world, they are also the source of our

misunderstanding. As suggested in the second stroke of

Madhyamika philosophy above, too often people forget that a

62

name is just that, and they attribute independent reality to that

which is named. Valentino perceives this problem of language

as the heart of religious conflict and as the major roadblock to

religious pluralism.

Using the famous Buddhist metaphor of a finger pointing

at the moon, the teaching pointing at the realization, he argues

that religions too often argue over what the finger looks like:

"for more than one thousand years we have been arguing over

the shape and color of the finger." The result of this is not only

religious conflict but more importantly, "We have lost the

beauty of the moon" (9/5/00).

Valentino believes that because people are overly

concerned with the form of teaching, they are unable to attain

the realization of wisdom. The image of the finger and the

moon allows a summary of Valentino's claims to universalism.

He believes that the moon, the wisdom, is the same in all

religions because ultimately all distinctions and divisions

disappear. The finger, the teaching, is beneficial in that it points

the student to the wisdom: "I do not care what kind of finger is

pointing, if it is black or white or Hindu or Muslim..." (9/5/00)

63

Valentino believes that problems arise when people argue

over the finger, lose themselves in technical language trying to

describe the finger, and hence forget to look at the moon.

Ultimately the moon is the same; we follow any finger that

points to it, and even the moon disappears in the moment of

realization.

A Critique of Education

Beyond the overt curriculum and claims to universalism,

Valentino interprets Madhyamika as providing the grounds for a

critique of modem education and inspiration for the Alice

Project School.

At the heart of Madhyamika wisdom, stemming from the

doctrine of voidness and dependent arising is a destruction of

all division and separation. Whether they are as apparently

trivial as distinctions between an orange and an apple or as

fundamental as a division between self and other, the act of

drawing boundaries leads to conflict and suffering.

Quoting transpersonal psychologist Ken Wilbur, Valentino

argues that education is a major contributor to this habit of

division: "To receive an education is to learn where and how to

64

draw boundaries and then what to do with the bounded

aspects" (Giacomin 1997, 16).

When considering a typical school curriculum this

statement rings true. One of the first lessons that students

learn in an elementary science class is taxonomy, the process

of categorizing organisms. Even in the humanities a student is

trained to have a strong thesis statement which tells the reader

that Shakespeare's poetry is one thing and not another.

While classes at the Alice Project School are divided into

subjects, a necessary part of an education in the conventional

world, the philosophy and meditation teachings help the

students to problematize such boundaries. Valentino argues

that the greatest separation we create is between the inner and

outer world:

"The first separation starts within ourselves, in our

intelligence" (Giacomin 1997, 16). In conventional education

the student is taught to value the world outside her. If she can

distinguish between poetry and prose, if she can do long

division, if she can write a strong paper, she is seen as a

successful student. She is never asked to look inside her mind,

65

to see how her mind works, to calm her mind or watch her

thoughts. Because of this emphasis on the external and

disregard of the internal, the student is left divided, her

external knowledge valued and internal realization ignored.

Following the educational critiques of the Indian spiritual

leader, J. Krisnamurti, Valentino posits that a student's divided

mind results in, "competition, ambition, conflicts, violence, fear,

and comparison" (Giacomin 1997, 17).

Seeking an education free of these corrupting forces,

Valentino argues for a new definition of intelligence in which

the whole mind, in both external and internal aspects, is

valued. Valentino's assessment of modern education includes a

critique of teaching methods. Though this springs largely from

his experience with modern European styles of education, his

critiques of educational philosophy and pedagogy are not

unrelated.

As described in Chapter Two, many Indian teachers rely

heavily on memorization and copying, which are seen as the

best way for a student to learn the facts necessary for an

"education." At Valentino's school, however, the whole student

66

is educated. Traditional subjects meet the needs for external

education while the daily meditation and classes on Buddhist

philosophy meet the need for inner development. The two

aspects of education are united through the use of meditation

in a math or Hindi classroom.

Valentino's criticism also reaches to the aims of education.

When asked about the education of monks in Tibetan Buddhist

monasteries, the home of Madhyamika philosophy for the last

1000 years, he quickly criticized their methods.

Drawing parallels between the educational methods of a

typical Indian school and a monastery, he targeted the Tibetan

heavy reliance on memorization, saying that young monks

should "use all the faculties of the mind.

Memorization is only one!" (9/12/00). Valentino also

criticized (some people from) Tibetan government for being

overly concerned with exam scores and the jobs that students

take after schooling.

When a Tibetan education inspector assessed the Alice

Project School by a simple twenty-question test and showed

overwhelming concern with the jobs that students received

67

after graduation, Valentino concluded that "they are completely

bound to this material way of thinking and are focused on

results" (9/12/00).

This points to a greater problem that Valentino has with

current education reforms.

He argues that if we judge a school by its test scores and

the jobs its students get, then we are judging only the external

part of a student, not the whole student.

According to Valentino, these tests and standards reflect

an inherent bias that favors external education over a unified

education in which external and internal knowledge are equally

important.

This critical assessment of educational testing and

standards points to a different notion of success held by

Valentino and the Alice Project School.

In many conversations Valentino stressed that his

definition of success does not revolve around the test scores or

the jobs that his students take after graduation: "My target is to

create free persons, not professionals."

68

His desire to create a "high official of the mind" rather

than a political "high official," reflect this dedication to spiritual

achievement rather than traditional manifestations of "success"

(8/29/00).

After espousing the importance of mental training he

assured me that "the students will get the high post [in

society], but they will not strive for it," suggesting that he

believes that such inner "success" will produce worldly success

as well (9/13/00).

Valentino is confident, however, that the successful Alice

School student who achieves wealth and political power will not

forget his upbringing and will repay and change society

(8/25/00). This connection between inner wisdom and social

change is the subject of the next section.

Before moving on it must be noted that Valentino's

critique of modern education, which he grounds in Buddhist

philosophy, is also a source of inspiration for his school.

Valentino does not just criticize education from a Buddhist

perspective but also implements these Buddhist changes in his

own school.

69

Where a traditional school separates the inner and outer

worlds and values material success over personal realization,

Valentino, through the use of meditation and the non-

traditional curriculum, strives to foster a unified student and a

notion of success that places little value on material wealth and

test scores. Thus we see that Buddhist philosophy and the

critique of modern education that are thought to spring from

Madhyamika are the main inspirations for Valentino's social

engagement.

A Theory of Social Change

Finally, the Alice Project School's social engagement is

grounded in a particular theory of social change that develops

from Madhyamika's view of enlightenment and the unity of

wisdom and compassion.

Central to Valentino's plan for social action is the belief

that giving students "wisdom"—a Madhyamika-inspired

understanding of existence—is of the greatest importance. This

emphasis on wisdom is reflected in various statements of

educational goals: "to drive students beyond the dualistic

70

mind" (9/12/00) or to create "non-self-centered people with an

open mind both to themselves and others" (9/13/00).

Valentino's emphasis m(inner more than outer success is

further evidence that developing students' "wisdom" is the

primary goal of his teaching.

With "wisdom" or a change of mind, Valentino argues that

one can change the world. In a conversation about Dalit

Buddhists and Dr. Ambedkar, Valentino disapproved of

Ambedkar's stress on legal and political activism claiming that

the "only tool that can change their oppressed peoples'

situation is wisdom. If you look inside, you have the power to

change yourself" (9/12/00).

In that same conversation he stressed that when one

gains wisdom the things that previously were oppressive or

negative are no longer a problem.

It took me a long time to come to grips with what

Valentino meant by changing the world by developing wisdom

or changing one's mind.

Studying Thomas Kasulis' article "Nirvana" and several

Mahayana descriptions of the world from an enlightened

71

perspective helped me to understand Valentino's point. Within

the Mahayana, when one achieves enlightenment, they do not

escape from the world as we know it but view it in a new way

(Kasulis, 397).

For the student who has fully realized the Madhyamika

"wisdom," the categories and distinctions that characterize our

understanding of the world disappear and one is able to exist in

the world free from the suffering that is a product of our

grasping. For this reason, that which was oppressive or

negative is no longer given any label and is seen in a new non-

judgmental perspective. This understanding is ret1ected in

Buddhist texts in which the world that we live in is described as

a jewel laden shining palace.

While wisdom allows a person to experience the world in

this non-judgmental way, to experience ultimate reality, it also

gives the enlightened person the tools to affect the

conventional reality through the greatest compassion for all

sentient beings. In our very first conversation about the

philosophy of the Alice Project School, Valentino stressed that

wisdom and compassion are inextricably linked.

72

Madhyamika wisdom destroys all distinctions including

that between self and other (8/25/00). With no delineation

between self and other, an enlightened person treats others as

she would treat herself-she treats others with mahakaruna,

selfless or great compassion.

Thus, wisdom allows us to achieve the realization of the

ultimate reality while reducing the mental and physical

suffering that pervade the conventional world. These two

elements, wisdom and compassion, should not be understood

as cause and effect, but rather as two sides of the same coin,

for it is impossible to develop wisdom without great

compassion and vice versa.

This development of compassion that is inextricably linked

to the development of wisdom is what makes Valentino so sure

that, while social change is not the goal of the Alice Project

education, it is the result.

As suggested above students who develop the

Madhyamika wisdom will also necessarily develop a

compassion that Valentino argues will make them socially

responsible citizens (8/25/00). Though Valentino rarely talked

73

about the social effects of his teaching, preferring to talk about

the motivation and "wisdom" behind the teaching, on a few

occasions he stated that the "result would be kindness and less

competition" that would manifest in such ways as "respect for

the environment" (9/13/00).

Valentino explained this relationship between compassion

and social change using a metaphor of making roads safer to

drive on. The best way to change the situation is to teach

people how to drive well, rather than drive for them. While the

goal is to teach people how to drive, the result will be safer

travel. Likewise, instead of changing social conditions for

people, Valentino strives to give people the tools of wisdom and

compassion that will necessarily result in better material and

social conditions (9/12/00).

Thus far my description of Valentino's social change

theory sounds linear: develop wisdom and social change will

follow. Political activists would argue vehemently against such

a view claiming that any change in our world requires political

and economic skillful means. Valentino, however, understands

this: "If you know cases of injustice, as a human, you react. If a

house is on fire put it out with water, not philosophy!"

74

(9/13/00). Because the Alice Project School is located in a part

of the world where conventional reality is filled with poverty,

Valentino is developing social service projects alongside the

teaching of wisdom.

Though his philosophy of social action emphasizes

wisdom, hl: recognizes that "if you open your eyes you will see

children starving and dying and you cannot turn your eyes

away" (9/13/00). For the students he provides food, clothing,

health care, and shelter if needed. He is also interested in

opening a health clinic and other means of reaching the

Sarnath community.

Even in these cases of material aid, Valentino stresses

that proper social action should include wisdom: "only charity is

nonsense!" (9/13/00). Clearly Valentino's vision of a proper

socially engaged movement is one that is motivated by

wisdom, that teaches wisdom, and whose primary aim is

wisdom. Valentino goes so far as to say that a social movement

that does not have wisdom as its goal is harmful. Dr.

Ambdekar's Dalit Buddhism is a good example of one such

movement.

75

The Dalit movement, motivated by a desire for class

power and recognition, uses Buddhist ideas to attain such

political ends. Valentino vehemently argues that Ambedkarites,

"do not understand the fundamental teaching of the Buddha,

that we are the cause of samsara. It is not the BJP the Brahmin

or some other political power" (9/12/00).

He fears that because the Dalits have political power

rather than wisdom as their goal they will create a Buddhist

fundamentalism where Buddhism provides the grounds for

"fighting, the opposite of compassion" (9/12/00). While it is

impossible to assess the legitimacy of the Dalit movement in

this paper, Valentino's strong reaction against what he sees as

Dalit tactics further reveals his emphasis on Madhyamika

wisdom at the heart of any social engagement.

Thus Madhyamika philosophy appears throughout the

Alice Project School pedagogy and philosophy. While at times

Madhyamika is clearly the explicit inspiration, most often the

philosophy is intertwined with other ideals of education that are

not exclusively Buddhist.

One of the most prominent non-Buddhist influences is J.

76

Krishnamurti, an Indian spiritual guru of the 20th century.

Though Krishnamurti was not Buddhist, Valentino claims,

"Through him I understand many Buddhist teachings"

(9/13/00). In our discussions Valentino regularly explained

Buddhist concepts through Krishnamurti's work. For example, in

my very first interview with Valentino, he referred to

Krishnamurti in his explanation of how compassion follows from

wisdom (8/25/00).

He also quotes Krishnamurti directly when providing his

Buddhist critique of modern education. Tints we see that even

when Valentino attempts to ground his social activism in

sources other than' Buddhism, he cannot help but to return to

the Buddhist qualities of their teachings. Clearly, whether

explicitly stated or not, Buddhism is at the heart of Valentino's

social activism, providing both the motivation for education and

the subject of that education.

77

Chapter 5

Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland

While Valentino has successfully translated Buddhist

philosophy into social action, many of his claims about Buddhist

social activism may appear questionable on historical and.

scholarly grounds.

Valentino has been a practicing Tibetan Buddhist for over 25

years, but he lacks scholarly training and thorough textual

knowledge to support his radical ideas about education and

social change. In this chapter I will provide scholarly support

through an analysis of Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland of Royal

Counsels and Robert Thurman's article "Guidelines for Buddhist

Social Activism Based on Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland of Royal

Counsels."

Thurman offers an excellent distillation of Nagarjuna's lengthy

Jewel Garland and a vision of how Nagarjuna's plans for society

78

could be realized in our modern world.

While Thurman's interpretation does go beyond what is literally

written in the text, the fact that he is both a well recognized

Tibetan Buddhist scholar and student of Madhyamika

philosophy, studying with such figures as H.H. Dalai Lama,

lends substantial credibility to his extrapolation from

Nagarjuna's words to modern plans for social change.

The striking similarities between Thurman's and

Valentino's independent constructions of a social activism

theory from Madhyamika philosophy lend academic support not

only to Valentino's focus on education as the medium for social

change, but also to two of his most contentious positions:

1. Social change is achieved through personal,

transcendent change and

2. Buddhist wisdom is universal in nature.

Finally, underlying Nagarjuna's text is the assumption that

wisdom and compassion arc incxtricably linked and that

all positive social action is inspired and guided by wisdom.

79

Thurman's article, the subject of this chapter, is based on

Nagarjuna's Ratnavali or Jewel Garland. Scholars suggest that

the text, a book of advice on living and ruling, was written for a

King with whom Nagarjuna had a close relationship, in the late

first to mid-second centuries C.E. (Hopkins, 22).

According to Jeffrey Hopkins the text is an integral part of

Nagarjuna's work, included in either his "Collections of Advice"

or "Six Collections of Reasoning" (22). Though it is not nearly as

well recognized as his Wisdom Verses, the Ratnavali and

Santideva's Guide to the Bodhisattva's way of Life are

considered the foundational texts describing the Bodhisattva

way of life.

While some scholars have questioned the authenticity of

the text, I will assume that the Ratnavali is an authentic work of

Nagarjuna, as Gregory Schopen does in hi_ "The Mahayana

Through a Chinese Looking Glass," published in 2000. Thurman

summarizes Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland in terms of four

principles which Thuman relates to Buddhist social activism.

The first, "individualist transcendentalism," emphasizes

the importance of each person's cultivating wisdom, dissolving

80

the processes of grasping and reification, and ultimately

transcending notions of "I" and "mine" (1983, 31-35).

The second principle is "self-restraint, unpacked as

detachment and pacifism," in which the enlightened person no

longer seeks to fulfill his passions (1983,35-37).

Though Nagarjuna does address this principle, it is the

least applicable to the Alice Project School and therefore I will

not give it a thorough treatment in this chapter.

"Transformative universalism," a dedication to

"enlightenment-oriented" education for all people, is thc third

principle of a Buddhist social activism (1983, 38). The final

principle is a "compassionate socialism"-which Thurman

suggests is perhaps the earliest description of the welfare state

(1983, 37-38).

"Individualist transcendentalism," the individual's

realization of non-grasping and selflessness, is obviously

central to the Jewel Garland. Thurman notes that two thirds of

the text, "contain personal instructions on the core insight of

individualism, namely subjective and objective sell1essness"

(1983, 32).

81

Furthermore, the format of the text as a whole and the

prominent position given to individual transcendence highlights

the importance of personal realization. The work opens not with

instructions as to how the king should act, as we might expect

in a text formatted as counsels for a king, but rather with a

description of the path to transcendence (verses 25-147).- A

major part of this path to transcendence is the destruction of

egoistic grasping and the concept of 'I' introduced to the king in

verses 28-30:

"I am," and "It is mine,"

These are false as absolutes.

For neither stands existent

Under exact knowledge of reality.

The "I"-habit creates the heaps,

Which "I"-habit is false in fact.

I low can what grows from a false seed

Itself be truly existent?

Having seen the heaps as unreal,

The "I"-habit is abandoned.

"I"-habit abandoned, the heaps do not arise again

(Thurman, 983,33). Thurman argues that Nagarjuna places

82

such great emphasis on personal realization because he wants

to cultivate a king who acts not according to rules, but rather is

capable of enlightened decision-making: "A liberated and

compassionate king will himself choose the right path of action

and be more effective. than' a merely obedient, unliberated

king who must depend slavishly on Nagarjuna's or someone

else's ideas" (1983,35).

As we will see -in Nagarjuna's focus on education, this

emphasis on personal liberation is indeed egalitarian and not

restricted to the leaders of a society as it is with Plato's

philosopher-king.

Thurman concludes on this point: "In sum, the fact that

the majority of the Garland is devoted to the transcendent

selflessness, the door of the liberation and enlightenment of

the individual, is clear evidence that the heart of Buddhist

social activism is individualistic transcendentalism" (1983, 35).

Implicit within the importance given to individual

transcendence is a theory of both suffering and social change.

At the heart of Madhyamika philosophy is the belief that

suffering is a mental creation.

83

Santideva, an important Madhyamika philosopher, wrote

in his Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life, "The suffering that I

experience does not cause any harm to others. But that

suffering (is mine) because of my conceiving of (myself as) “I”

(in Thurman 1983, 24). Santideva tells us that suffering is not

correlated with any objective fact, but is rather a product of our

deluded reification and ego grasping. Thus, if a person is able

to transcend this notion of the ego and the process of

reification, she will no longer suffer-no matter what the

circumstances. With such a conception of suffering, the

cessation of suffering can only be achieved through a

transformation of people's minds.

For this reason, Thurman argues, "The root of good, of

positive social action, is the individual's realization of this

subjective selflessness" (1983, 34). Because the individual is

the focus of social change, "the necessities and will of the

collective, the 'business of society' is just not that important"

(Thurman 1983, 32).

Valentino's understanding of suffering and social change is

similar to that of Nagarjuna as painted by Thurman. The goal of

Valentino's social engagement, to "drive students beyond the

84

dualistic mind" (9/2/00), or to create "non-self-centered people

with an open mind both to themselves and others" (9/13/00), is

obviously congruent with Thurman's understanding of

Nagarjuna's aim to achieve an "individual's realization of this

subjective selflessness" (1983,22).

Using the word "wisdom" where Thurman uses

"transcendence," Valentino aligns himself with Thurman and

Nagarjuna: "the only tool that can change their [an oppressed

person's] situation is wisdom. If you look inside you have the

power to change yourself." Thus, Nagarjuna's Precious Garland

supports Valentino's unconventional notion that social change

is only achieved through individual change.

While Valentino's social change theory might appear

ignorant of political and economic forces, Thurman explicitly

acknowledges this unconventional approach: "Such advice flies

in the face of all worldly political wisdom, ancient or modern,

but it is at the heart of Buddhist politics and ethics" (1983,

31).8

While personal transcendence is of the utmost importance

in Nagarjuna's social activism, he, like Valentino, does not

85

forget about the needs of people in conventional reality. In

verses 201-265 of the Precious Garland, Nagarjuna outlines an

aggressive plan to meet the needs of everyone in society.

"Always care compassionately/ For the sick, the

unprotected, those stricken! With suffering, the lowly, and the

poor/ And take special care to nourish them" (Nagarjuna, 126)

—such verses make it clear that Nagarjuna is concerned with

even the most powerless members of society. In order to

facilitate such care Thurman notes that Nagmjuna prescribes "a

socially-supported universal health care delivery system" in

verse 240: "To dispel the sufferings of children, the elderly, and

the sick, please fix farm revenues for doctors and barbers

throughout the land" (Thurman 1983, 37-38).

Nagarjuna also advises economic policies that protect the

small farmer and specific plans for the care of guests traveling

through the kingdom (Thurman 1983, 38). Even more

remarkable is the ecological implication in verse 250, which

includes "dogs, ants, birds, and so forth" within the community

that receives care (Nagarjuna, 250).

Summarizing Nagarjuna's plans for social uplift, Thurman

86

describes compassionate socialism as "generous compassion

dedicated to providing everyone with everything they need to

satisfy their basic needs so that they may have leisure to

consider their own higher needs and aims" (italics mine,

1983,38-39).

This statement underlines the purpose of Nagarjuna's call

for social equality—to allow individual self-cultivation and

transcendence. Thus, social change, as we traditionally

understand it (health care, economic equality, etc.), appears to

be merely a tool that allows the fundamental personal change

to occur.

Though such comprehensive social plans are only a means

to foster enlightenment, the attention Nagarjuna gives to them

suggests that they should not be undervalued.

The Alice Project School is a great example of such a

philosophy in practice. Beyond giving the students teachings

that foster self-cultivation, Valentino meets his students' basic

needs in order that they can be dedicated to their studies.

Every day I and other teachers provided food and health

care while students with need received clothing and shelter.

87

Meeting material needs in order to support each student's

study and self-realization clearly applies the principle of

compassionate socialism that Thurman attributes to Nagarjuna.

One might wonder how Valentino can be so supportive of

the material uplift of poor people and still object to the work of

Dr. Ambedkar and the Dalit Buddhists who have reinterpreted

basic Buddhist principles to support their campaign for socio-

political structural changes.

The source of Valentino's opposition to Ambedkarites rests

not in their provision of basic material needs; he recognizes

that untouchables are treated very poorly in Indian society and

material change needs to occur.

Valentino opposes what he understands the primary goal

of Dalit Buddhism to be, namely political change. For Valentino,

and arguably Nagmjuna, the aim of any social or political

change should be the advancement of every individual's path

towards enlightenment, not the new political system.

If a Dalit Buddhist proposed political changes in order that

each person would have a better opportunity to achieve

enlightenment, Valentino would fully support such a

88

campaign.9 Clearly, within both Nagarjuna's and Valentino's

theories of social change, the only material aid that makes a

difference is that which facilitates personal, transcendent

change: "The foremost type of giving is, interestingly, not just

giving of material needs, although that is a natural part of

generosity. That of greatest value to beings is freedom and

transcendence and enlightenment" (Thurman 1983,41) and

Valentino's "Students need wisdom. Only charity is nonsense!"

(9/13/00).

In the final section of his essay Thurman translates

Nagarjuna's Counsels into a plan for social activism in the

modern day. Throughout this section there are striking parallels

between Thurman-cum-Nagarjuna's social plans and the

philosophy behind Valentino's Alice Project School. This last

section of Thurman's article not only provides support for the

notion of a Buddhist education as a whole but also for the

notion that there can be a "universal" Buddhist teaching

couched in ecumenical terms.

Within a social activism theory that stresses transcendent

change over material giving there is no better institution for

activism than education. The students receive the skills they

89

need to provide for their material needs while, more

importantly, developing the spiritual skills to attain freedom,

transcendence, and enlightenment.

Nagarjuna recognized the importance of education and

wrote explicitly about it in the Jewel Garland: "Create

foundations of doctrine, abodes/Of the Three Jewels-fraught

with glory and fame/That lowly kings have not even/ Conceived

in their minds" (Nagarjuna, 135) and "Hence while in good

health create foundations of doctrine/Immediately with all your

wealth, for you are living amidst the causes of death! Like a

lamp standing in a breeze" (Nagarjuna, 136).

Nagarjuna's sense of urgency in the latter quotation

reveals the importance of establishing a Buddhist inspired

educational program. Like Valentino, who says, "My target is to

create free persons, not professionals" (8/29/00), Thurman is

interested in a system of education that leads students to

enlightenment: "Therefore, the educational system of a society

is not there to 'service' the society, to produce its

drone-'professionals,' its worker, its servants.

The educational system is the individual's doorway to

90

liberation, to enlightenment" (Thurman 1983,41). Once again

we note the remarkable parallels between Valentino's

educational aims and those of Nagarjuna as interpreted by

Robert Thurman (1983, 41).

Finally, Thurman describes the education that Nagarjuna

would offer as, "universal, total, unlimited education of all

individuals" (1983,42).

I hope that the previous three chapters have made clear

that the Alice Project School is exactly that-a pedagogy that

aims to teach in a "universal, total, unlimited" way to all

students.

The close connection between Thurman's vision of

Nagmjuna's education and the Alice Project School lends

credibility to Valentino's philosophy or education.

Beyond the support or his educational project as a whole,

Thurman's final section also gives further weight to one of

Valentino's most controversial claims, the universal nature of

the Buddhist philosophy he teaches.

Thurman arrives at his claim of universal education in a

brilliant analysis of the word "Dharma" in verse 310. Leaving

91

Dharma untranslated the verse reads, "Create centers of

Dharma." Thurman argues that if Dharma is translated as

Religion or Doctrine (following Hopkins) then the advice "would

have a religious missionary flavor" or "dogmatic scholastic

flavor" (1983,42). He then discusses eleven possible meanings

of Dharma including "thing," "Truth," "practice," or even

"nirvana" concluding that the best possible translation is

"Teachings" because the Dharma "teach[es] the Truth, path,

and practice leading to Nirvana" (1983, 42-43).

Because Nagarjuna is calling for any education that leads

its students to Nirvana, Thurman argues, "lie is not even talking

about creating 'Buddhist centers,' 'Buddhism' understood in its

usual sense as one of a number of world religions" (1983, 43).

Thurman further resonates with Valentino saying, "It does not

matter what symbols or ideologies provide the umbrella, as

long as the function is liberation and enlightenment" (1983,

43).

Thurman provides further evidence from Nagarjuna's

philosophy for his belief in the universal nature of a Buddhist

education. Citing the Madhyamika opposition to division and

reification Thurman argues, "Clearly Nagarjuna, who proclaims

92

repeatedly that 'belief-systems" 'dogmatic views,' 'closed

conviction,' 'fanatic ideologies,' etc. are sicknesses to be cured

by the medicine of emptiness, is not a missionary for any

particular 'belief-system,' even if it is labeled Buddhism"

(1983,43).

The fact that Nagarjuna did not call himself a Mahayana

Buddhist, avoiding any sort of categorization, is further

evidence of how seriously he took his stance against "belief

systems" (Harvey, 96). With such a strong position against

dogma, Nagarjuna's philosophy embodies the essence of

universalism—any path that is able to lead its followers to

transcendence and nirvana is a valid path. Not only does

Thurman's work on Nagarjuna's educational plans lend support

to Valentino' s claims of universalism, but his comparison of

Christianity and Buddhism also supports Valentino's

"nonacademic" comparisons of religious teachings: "Jesus

Christ's' Love God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as

thyself,' and Augustine's “Love God and do what you will”—

these two great ‘pivotal phrases’ are very much in the same

vein, using of course the theistic term for emptiness" (Thurman

1983,50).

93

Having surveyed Thurman's account of the four elements

of Nagarjuna's philosophy of social activism-individualist

transcendentalism, compassionate socialism, education, and

universalism it is important to note one of the key

philosophical concepts behind his program f()r social change,

the perfect union of wisdom and compassion.

Thurman opens his article on Nagarjuna's social activism

with a thorough presentation of Buddhist relative and absolute

realities. In this section he explains how a person who has fully

realized selflessness and has ceased all grasping, a person with

“wisdom”, will necessarily be compassionate: “the ground, or

even womb, of compassion is emptiness, defined as the

absolute selflessness of personal subjects and impersonal

object” (1983, 21). Having transcended any sense of self as

distinct from other, the enlightened person is able to

emphasize with the suffering of other sentient being, feeling

then suffering as if ……were his own. Thurman and others

stress the connection between wisdom and compassion is not

arbitrary but rather ontological—wisdom and compassion

necessarily become—or are—each other. Knowing the suffering

of others, the liberated person is able to use upaya (skillful

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means) to alleviate their suffering by helping them to

transcend.

It is also important to note that the compassion of a

Buddha is unlike that of any unrealized person because it

springs from the infinitely deep wealth of compassion, fully

realized wisdom. Understood as such, wisdom or emptiness

becomes both the motivation and the aim, the impetus and the

goal of Buddhist social activism, a theme that will be explored

in the next chapter.

Chapter 6

Buddhism Of Socially Engaged Buddhism

The previous tow chapters have shown how hath Valentino

and Robert Thurman emphasize personal transcendence over

“outer” or material change in their visions of socially engaged

Buddhism. This concluding chapter will offer a critique of the

apparent dualism ill this approach to social engagement; this

critique is based on the Mahayana Heart Sutra's famous maxim

"form is emptiness, emptiness is form." I will show, however,

that

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Thurman's writings and Valentino's practice of social

action are not in fact vulnerable to this critique, as they are

proposing a non-dualistic union of form and emptiness, social

change and personal realization. Finally, I will return to the

original question of this paper- what is Buddhist about socially

engaged Buddhism? I will suggest that it is this union of social

change and personal realization aimed at the cessation of

suffering that ground both Valentino's and Thurman's social

engagement in Buddhism. While this essay has discussed how

two socially engaged Buddhists—Valentino Giacomin and

Robert Thurman—have defined the Buddhist nature of their

social engagement ill these terms, I will propose that the union

of wisdom and compassion is a starting point for further study

and progress towards a broader definition of socially engaged

Buddhism. Even if this formula does not prove to be a useful

general definition of socially engaged Buddhism, Valentino's

Alice Project School is a potent example of what makes a social

engagement Buddhist, and how Buddhism is translated into

social activism. Ultimately, it is this latter issue, the how, that

every engaged Buddhist must encounter on a daily basis as

they strive to make their social activism Buddhist and their

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Buddhism socially active.

Questioning the Social Activism of Valentino and Thurman

In his interpretation of Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland,

Thurman writes, "The root of good, of positive social action, is

the individual's realization of this subjective selflessness," a

clear statement about the importance of personal

transcendence in the cessation of suffering (1983, 34).

Thurman not only emphasizes personal transcendence, but

puts it above the needs of society: because the individual is the

focus of social change, "the necessities and will of the

collective, the 'business of society' is not that important" (1983,

22).

As shown in the previous chapter, Valentino similarly argues for

personal change over social change: "the only tool that can

change their I an oppressed person's] situation is wisdom. If

you look inside you have the power to change yourself”

(9/12/00).

Many people, however, object to such an emphasis on personal

over social change. In his recent essay "Can Buddhism Save the

World? A response to Nelson foster," David Loy writes:

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"Traditionally Buddhism has emphasized our personal

responsibility for our own dukkha [suffering] and awakening,

Today it has been important for Buddhists to realize how

conditioning by social structures also fosters widespread

dakkha” (Loy, 3). Lay's emphasis on dukkha due to social

structures gets to the heart of the objection to Valentino and

Thurman's traditional Buddhist stance on suffering.

Most social activists today would probably concur with Lay's

assertion that social constructions such as class, race, gender,

and caste cause suffering and, to mitigate this suffering, we

must change the structures.

One possible response from Valentino's and Thurman's camp is

that Lay and other social activists are reading their own cultural

understandings of liberation into Buddhism.

Though neither Valentino nor Thurman make this

argument, Ken Jones in his "Emptiness and Form: Engaged

Buddhism Struggles to Respond to Modernity," argues that

Buddhism is distorted to meet the needs of American activists'

modern assumptions.

Jones paints the culture of the Buddha as one "in which

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there could be virtually no expectation of change in the harsh

conditions of life (even for the rich)" and therefore one

demanding a form of "release" that does not depend on the

alteration of these physical conditions (4). He goes on to claim,

"Modernity totally reverses these assumptions.

For the young American radicals of the 1960s, 1970s, and

1980s who became interested in Buddhism, emancipatory

modernity was simply the absolute taken-for-granted truth, to

which Dharma had to be accommodated" (4), Jones suggests

that the modern American activists, who would dispute the

claims of Valentino and Thurman, have read their own cultural

notion's of freedom and emancipation into Buddhism.

?Jones goes so far as to say: "to imply that the above

injunction 'to save all sentient beings'] of the Buddha to his

Sangha is a manifesto for social revolution, or even some kind

of welfare agenda, is to wrench it from its soteriological context

and secularize it" (4), Jones is not alone in this position.

Nelson roster, all original BPF member, reflecting on the

founding of the BPF, writes:

Naivete played a part in BPF's creation, I now see, at least on my

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part, naivete about Buddhism itself and the bodhisattva way of

saving beings.." As I reflect on the developments of the past twenty

years, it seems to me that BPF and other Buddhist projects of a

similar nature have suffered from a failure to resolve crucial

differences between the world view implicit in Buddhism and the

world view that we absorb unintentionally as children of this culture

(Foster, 1).

Both Jones' and Foster's arguments could be enlisted in

support of Valentino's and Thurman's vision of social activism.

Thurman and Valentino could also argue that their

emphasis on personal transcendence rather than social

transformation checks the excessively social-change focused

modern American social activism. Dr. Masao Abe, a Zen layman

and scholar, hopes that an emphasis on personal change will

balance out the American focus on social change.

Abe's image of underground water destroying the roots of

social evil rather than a constant pruning of the branches of

such evil suggests that we need to transform the heart of

suffering rather than resolve social issue after social issue.

Referring to this image, he told Nelson Foster that he

appreciates "the American form of social change," but "I just

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hope that American Buddhists realize the importance of the

work of underground water" (in Foster, 6-7).

While Valentino did stress the importance of personal

transcendence during my visit, Mark Singleton, a long time

volunteer at the school, told me that at other times Valentino

has placed an emphasis on the social transformation necessary

in India. This leads me to believe that Valentino emphasized

personal transcendence in his conversations with me because

he saw me as a young American social activist, likely to be

skeptical about a theory that valorizes inner over outer

transformation.

By stressing the inner aspect of social activism he,

perhaps, hoped that we would med at a middle ground that

united both personal and social transformation.

Form is Emptiness, Emptiness is Form

There remains more serious objection to the social

activism theories of Valentino and Thurman, which is that they

appear dualistic—a clear contradiction of the Mahayana

teaching of non-dualism.

Referring to Nagarjuna, Thurman places individual

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realization above the transformation of social structures: "The

root of good, of positive social action, is the individual's

realization of this subjective selflessness" (1983, 34); "the

necessities and will of the collective, the' business of society,' is

just not that important" (Thurman 1983, 32). This seems to

reflect a dualistic viewpoint in which the realization of ultimate

reality is valued over the improvement of conventional reality.

Likewise, Valentino seems to give personal liberation priority

over social change.

Further, Thurman describes Nagarjuna's "compassionate

socialism" as "generous compassion dedicated to providing

everyone with everything they need to satisfy their basic needs

so that they may have leisure to consider their own higher

needs and aims" (1983, 38-39).

Though Thurman acknowledges the importance of social

uplift, this social change is merely a means to the individual's

realization. This linear cause and effect relationship,

compassion causes wisdom, is another example or the dualism

inherent in Thurman's social activism theory.

The material aid given at the Alice Project School could be

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seen as an example of this dualism in practice. The students

receive food, shelter and health care so that they can fully

dedicate themselves to personal liberation. Stated as such, it

seems that the heart of Buddhist social activism is dualistic,

with the personal valued above the social.

In Chapter Three, I introduced the Buddhist notion of two

worlds or two truths, the ultimate and the conventional. Despite

an apparent dualism, the ultimate and conventional realities

exist in the same place at the same time; they are two sides of

the same coin, two views of the same world. The bodhisattva,

who has realized the ultimate reality yet remains in the world of

conventional reality in order to free all sentient beings,

exemplifies how the two worlds can be navigated and are truly

one. This doctrine is captured in the Heart Sutra's words "Form

is emptiness, emptiness is form," in which form stands for the

conventional reality and emptiness for the ultimate.

In Chapter 4. I explained how for Madhyamika and other

Mahayana philosophers this same union of form and emptiness

is applied to wisdom and compassion. In our first conversation

about the philosophy of the Alice Project School, Valentino

stressed the point that wisdom and compassion are inextricably

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linked (8/25/00). The realization of interdependence achieved

with wisdom breeds a great compassion (mahakaruna) and

likewise great compassion fosters wisdom. Aligning

compassion, the ethic of conventional reality, with form, and

wisdom, the realization of the ultimate reality, with emptiness,

we could rewrite the Heart Sutra to say, "Compassion is

wisdom, wisdom is compassion." Neither Valentino nor

Thurman, who writes that wisdom and compassion "are the

essence of the Great Vehicle, and of the Middle Way," would

disagree with this alignment (Thurman 1976,3).

In the formulas "form and emptiness" and "wisdom and

compassion," neither element is deemed more important than

the other. Such a distinction would create a dualism between

two apparent entities that are inherently one. The connection

between these elements is not causal but rather ontological.

Emptiness does not cause form, nor does form cause

emptiness. Likewise, wisdom does not cause compassion, nor

does compassion cause wisdom. Such a linear causal

relationship would also betray the inherent unity of form and

emptiness, wisdom and compassion.

Having math: the transition from "form is emptiness,

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emptiness is form" to "compassion is wisdom, wisdom is

compassion," I would go one step further to suggest: "social

change is personal transcendence, personal transcendence is

social change." Thurman and Valentino independently argue for

the ontological and non-causal union of form and emptiness,

wisdom and compassion. They also both call for social change

and personal transcendence. They do not, however, treat the

pairing of "social change and personal transcendence" in the

same way that they do that of "form and emptiness," or

"wisdom and compassion." While wisdom and compassion are

deemed to be equal, with one not greater than the other,

throughout this and the previous two chapters I have shown

that Valentino and Thurman place a greater emphasis on

personal transcendence than on social change. Similarly, the

ontological relationship between the two is ignored as social

change is-seen as causally connected to personal realization-

social change seen either as a means of fostering inner

transcendence or as a product thereof. Thus the alignment of

three equal and onto logically connected pairs-form and

emptiness, compassion and wisdom, social change and

personal transcendence—yields a critique of the social activism

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theories presented in the previous chapters. Social change and

personal realization are inextricably linked, equally valid places

for work towards liberation, and should both be addressed

simultaneously.

Other socially engaged Buddhist scholars share this belief

in the union of social change and personal liberation. In his

article "Emptiness and Form," Ken Jones suggests that we need

to find a "Middle Way between contemplation and activism" (5).

Jones divides the positions we see above into two models. The

first model emphasizes personal realization over social service

and warns, in the great Tibetan yogin Milarepa's words, against

"setting out to serve others before one has oneself realized

Truth in its fullness; to be so would be like the blind leading the

blind." Jones calls this the soteriological model (5).

The other camp, in which "Buddhism reduces to mindful

social service and mindful radicalism—a spiritual lubricant for

justice, freedom and welfare" he gives the moniker "social

emancipation model" (5).

Faced with these two extremes, the emphasis sharply on

personal transcendence in the one case and on social change

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on the other, Jones writes, "There is a middle way to be found

in personal practice, whether contemplative or active. And

there is also a middle way to be discerned in the

appropriateness of our response to a range of different

personal and social predicaments" (5).

The union of form and emptiness suggests that this

"middle way" can be discovered, and that neither has to be

compromised for the full realization of the other. We can find a

middle way that allows both personal realization and social

change.

A Response

Both Valentino and Thurman would strongly object to

accusations of dualistic social engagement.

The problem with discussing any two concepts that are joined

in the way that form and emptiness or wisdom and compassion

are, is that in promoting one you appear to be demoting the

other.

For example, if I were to tell you that the there is no

independently existent self in the world (a statement about the

ultimate reality), that would appear to contradict the

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conventional reality truth that we are all individuals living in

this world. Within the confines of language, an inherently

objectifying and dualistic medium, it is impossible to

simultaneously do justice to both ultimate and conventional

realities.

Thus, when Valentino and Thurman emphasize the

importance of personal transcendence over social change this

does not necessarily mean that they are opposing the

importance of a simultaneous social change and uplift.

Valentino's actions and Thurman's other writings on Buddhist

social activism reveal that they both believe in the equal

importance of simultaneous social change and personal

realization.

While Valentino continually told mc of the importance of

spiritual transcendence, on occasion he stressed the

importance of compassionate social change: "If you know cases

of injustice, as a human, you react. If a house is on fire put it

out with water, not philosophy!" (9/13/00).

Mark Singleton, a long time volunteer at the school and friend

or Valentino suggested that Valentino's emphasis on material

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change is not uncommon. Furthermore, the school's very

presence in Sarnath along with his daily actions reflects his

commitment to social change. The Alice Project provides an

outstanding education to the disadvantaged children from the

villages around Sarnath.

This alone gives them the tools to create social change. His

desire to work with children in Indian prisons also demonstrates

his commitment to altering the social structures by

representing and educating the unrepresented and

uneducated. Furthermore, his dream of having an Alice Project

School in every village across India, a place force of caste and

sex discrimination, reveals a commitment to large-scale social

change.

On the personal level, Valentino is constantly on the lookout for

students who are unhappy or ill. He is always willing to help his

students confront abuse and resolve financial and social

problems.

Any person who spends time at the Alice Project School would

agree that Valentino is committed to social change while also

providing the tools for personal realization to his students. The

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opening paragraph of Thurman's article shows that he, like

Valentino, recognizes the importance of both wisdom and

compassion within social activism: "The primary Buddhist

position on social action is one of total activism, an unswerving

commitment to complete self-transformation and complete

world-transformation." He clearly understands the equality and

non-dualism between social change and personal realization

(1983, 19). In his "Introduction" to the Vimalakirti Sutra

Thurman writes eloquently on the same point:

We are left with the seemingly contradictory tasks of

becoming conscious of its [our reality's] ultimacy on the

one hand and, on the other hand, of devoting our energies

to the improvement of the unavoidable relative situation

as best we can. For the successful accomplishment of this

dual task we need, respectively, wisdom (prajna) and

great compassion (mahakaruna), and these two functions

are the essence of the Great Vehicle (Mahayana), and of

the Middle Way (Thurman 1976, 3)

Here we see no prioritization of personal transformation

over social transformation or causal relationship between

wisdom and compassion.

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While Valentino and Thurman sometimes stress the

importance of personal realization, they both acknowledge the

equal importance of social change. They both realize that

wisdom and compassion in the forms of personal

transcendence and social change are needed to deal with the

problems of ultimate and conventional realities. Thus, the point

of the critique in this chapter is not to disprove their theories

but to point the reader toward a more careful consideration of

the Buddhist union of wisdom and compassion.

What Makes Socially Engaged Buddhism

"Buddhist"?

In the above response we see a fuller picture how

Valentino and Thurman ground their social engagement in

Buddhism. Throughout chapters four and five we see that for

Valentino and Thurman social engagement is Buddhist if it

teaches Buddhist wisdom aimed at personal transcendence.

The critique and subsequent response offered above reveals

that this dedication to personal realization is a necessary

condition for socially engaged Buddhism but not a sufficient

condition for it meets only the criterion of "ultimate" reality. For

a socially engaged movement to be Buddhist it must also strive

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to allay the suffering of conventional reality through social

change. Thus for Valentino Giacomin and Robert Thurman we

see that what makes a socially engaged movement Buddhist is

its aim of ending suffering (dukkha) through the simultaneous

and equal means of wisdom in the form of personal

transcendence and compassion in the form of social change.

This answer is very different from what I initially expected

in my research on socially engaged Buddhism. At the outset? I

looked not at the motivation of each movement but at the

projects they conducted in the world. When I read about the

BPF teaching meditation to prisoners, or Thich Nhat Hanh

leading meditation retreats for Vietnamese refugees, I was

easily able to see what was Buddhist about their social

engagement. In both cases the Dharma (Buddha's teaching)

was in the foreground, plainly visible to both the givers and

receivers of such aid. However, in the planting of garden and

building of preschools by the Sarvodaya movement in Sri

Lanka, I had greater difficulty seeing the Buddhism in their

actions-such work appears no different than that done by a

non-Buddhist social activist group. Despite the lack of explicit

Dharma in Sarvodaya's work, Ariyaratne and the greater

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Buddhist community still consider it "engaged Buddhism".

At that stage in my research I might have also objected to

the claim that it is the motivation rather than the action that

makes social activism Buddhist, citing the apparently limitless

forms that such social activism could take including violent

forms. While it is true that there are infinite ways to manifest

wisdom and compassion in the struggle to end suffering,

Buddhist movements that are inspired by a desire to end

suffering through wisdom and compassion will necessarily

avoid certain activities. Any movement that supports

oppressive structures or violence to other humans or life-

systems violates the notion of compassionate activism.

Likewise, any movement that preaches a doctrine that keeps

people from realizing the emptiness of self and the importance

of non-grasping conflicts with the call for a socially engaged

Buddhism that ends suffering through the wisdom of emptiness

realized in personal transcendence. Thus my fears of a

Buddhist fundamentalism that supports violent means (a fear

shared by Valentino) could not be realized within a socially

engaged Buddhist movement committed to the cessation of

suffering through wisdom and compassion.

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Unable to locate the Buddhism of socially engaged

Buddhism in the actions of such movements alone, I also

considered the importance of Buddhist textual support for

social work. Whether it is Sarvodaya's use of the Four Divine

Abiding or Fred Eppsteiner's compilation of traditional

Therevada, Tibetan, Zen and Pure Land texts to support the

work of the BPF, it seemed that all socially engaged

movements ground their social activism in some part of the

Buddhist canon. Working from this textual standpoint, I began

to judge negatively the work of Dr. Ambedkar and others who

drastically alter Buddhist principles such' as the Four Noble

Truths to support their social work. Influenced by Valentino, I

saw these people as straying from the "fundamentals" of

Buddhism and therefore judged their work as non-Buddhist or a

misconceived Buddhism. I would grant that Ambedkar is

socially engaged but not that he is a socially engaged Buddhist.

Many heated conversations with my good friend and

fellow student of socially engaged Buddhism, Ginger Hancock,

made me question my adamant belief in such "fundamentals"

of Buddhism. She argues that throughout Buddhism's 2,500

years the teachings of the Buddha, the "fundamentals," have

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been reinterpreted by countless people to support their own

beliefs. Santikaro Bhikkhu supports Ginger's position, arguing

that the "orthodox" Buddhism that we rely on for socially

engaged Buddhism's legitimacy is the product of an elite group

of Buddhists with their own agenda and does not consider the

beliefs of the majority of Buddhist practitioners (5). He cites

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, one of the most inl1uential thinkers on

engaged Buddhism saying, "Who cares'?" when asked about

the scriptural basis for his claims (Santikaro, 5). For

Buddhadasa, textual evidence is only necessary to convince

"the conservative monks [who] had vested interests and

emotional attachments to the orthodox line" (6). Finally,

Santikaro argues that the obsession with textual authority,

manifested in my own desire to judge engaged Buddhist

movements according to their textual support, might be related

to modern and Western approaches. (5).

Thurman's article on Nagarjuna's Jewel Garland shows how

the social activism of Thurman and Valentino can be grounded

in a Buddhist text. Despite this textual support, Thurman does

not claim that such grounding is what makes the social activism

Buddhist. Thurman concludes that the social activism described

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in his essay is Buddhist not because the text was written by

Nagarjuna, but because it proposes activism that strives to end

suffering through both wisdom and compassion.

While occasionally - Valentino made reference to Buddhist

texts, he never depended on them to support his belief that his

social activism is Buddhist.

Like Thurman, for Valentino socially engaged Buddhism is

not Buddhist because it follows the words of an ancient text but

because it embodies the Buddhist philosophy of non-dualism

and the cessation of suffering in both conventional and ultimate

realities. It must be noted that this non-dependence on texts is

not so clean cut, as it is almost impossible to talk about

"Buddhist philosophy of non dualism," without reference to

respected texts.

This paper demonstrates how Valentino Giacomin and, in

the last two chapters, Robert Thurman, define socially engaged

Buddhism as Buddhist. I would also suggest, in conclusion, that

their understanding of Buddhist social activism-a "total"

activism that strives to end suffering through both personal

transcendence and social change—might be used as a model

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for further study of socially engaged Buddhism.

Looking at two of the most prominent socially engaged

Buddhists in the world, Thich Nhat Hanh and H.H. Dalai Lama,

we see that their social engagement shares this dual dedication

to wisdom and compassion. Thich Nhat Hanh's protests against

the Vietnam War, his aid to Vietnamese refugees, and many

other activities reflect his dedication to social change.

Concurrently he is involved with meditation retreats for people

all over the world, helping Vietnamese refugees and war

veterans alike achieve personal transcendence.

Though at times Nhat Hanh is more focused on one aspect

or another, both social change and personal realization are

always involved in his work and both are given equal

importance.

H.H. Dalai Lama is another world-recognized figure whose

life epitomizes the union of wisdom and compassion. Through

his teachings and books on Buddhist wisdom, he is continually

introducing people to both the basics of Tibetan Buddhism and

esoteric points of the highest Tantras, helping people of all

levels and all religions to achieve personal realization.

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Concurrently with this spiritual leadership, the Dalai Lama is

the primary opponent of the Chinese occupancy of Tibet.

Working from the headquarter of the Tibetan Government

in Exile in Dharamsala, India, he, along with thousands of

others, are working to restore the Tibetan people to their nation

through non-violent means Beyond seeking such political

change, the Dalai Lama is also concerned with changing the

economic structures of the world including the Western

obsession with endless economic growth (H.H. Dalai Lama, 10).

Books such as his Imagine All the People, in which he addresses

the issues of economics, globalization, and sexism alongside

meditation, death and miracles, reflect his ability to

simultaneously address issues of personal transcendence and

social change, wisdom and compassion, form and emptiness.

Though we cannot extrapolate from Thurman's and

Valentino's understanding of their own engagement to a

definition of a movement called "socially engaged Buddhism,"

the above descriptions of Thich Nhat Hanh and H.H. Dalai Lama

support the claim that socially engaged Buddhists work to end

suffering through wisdom and compassion. With further study

perhaps we will find that all people who call themselves socially

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engaged Buddhists are dedicated to the cessation of suffering

through a simultaneous commitment to both personal

transcendence and social change.

Even if this paper does not yield a widely accepted

definition of socially engaged Buddhism, its description of how

Valentino translates Buddhism into social engagement should

prove useful to the field of socially engaged Buddhist discourse.

While there are many books and essays describing various

movements, they deal largely with what occurs in each

movement. Few address how each socially engaged Buddhist

translates Buddhism into social activism-how one takes the

idea of non-dualism and puts it into practice. This process, the

how, has been the focus of both the case study of the Alice

Project School offered in Chapters 2 through 4 and the

description of Thurman's article in Chapter 5. While it is

important to have a definition of socially engaged Buddhism, it

is arguably more important to have models of this praxis, as

every day social activists throughout the world are struggling

with the issue of putting Buddhist theory into practice in their

social activism. Thus, this paper contributes both the

beginnings of a definition of socially engaged Buddhism and,

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more importantly, a model for making Buddhism socially

engaged and social engagement Buddhist.

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