Explain the linkages between Buddhist ideology and social Work.

Linkages of Buddhist Ideology In Social Work:

Buddhism and an Exploration of Social Action

The philosophy of Buddhism believes in ‘social action’ which many kinds of action intended to benefit mankind and includes charity, teaching and training, helping the professionals through various kinds of community development and for the betterment of the society. The early Buddhists were very much concerned with the creation of social conditions which were favourable to the individual cultivation of Buddhist values. In India, Buddhism arouse as a spiritual force against social injustices, against degrading superstitious rites, ceremonies, sacrifices, against caste system. The basic principle of the religion was to provide equality to all men and improve the status of women in the society and gave her a complete spiritual freedom.

Social Action and the Problem of Suffering

Buddhism believes in the concept of true freedom which is to achieve full release from the root cause of all the sufferings and social evils like greed, hatred and delusion. Buddhism believes in finally eliminating these evils from the society. Buddhism offers to the individual human being a religious practice that leads to the transcendence of suffering. From suffering arises the desire to end suffering. The Buddhist social actions ultimately believe in the concept of Karma and in relieving suffering and in creating the social conditions which will favour the ending of suffering through the achievement of transcendent wisdom.  

Buddhism is a guide to the transformation of individual experience. The traditional Buddhist teachings are based on the concept that an individual sets out with a Karmic inheritance of established volitions, derived from his early life and certainly from the social environment which is a part of the Karmic inheritance. The starting point of an individual is experiencing of life.

Social Action: Giving and Helping

Social action is an act of giving (dana). According to Buddha’s saying “Whoever nurses the sick serves me” and also David Bradon wrote in the art of helping that “Respect is seeing the Buddha nature in the other person that means perceiving the superficiality of positions of moral authority. The other person is as good as you and is worthy of respect from you. He is another form of nature and has autonomy and purpose”.   

Buddhism believes in the concept of Dharma. It is a systematic help practice in which the teacher provides the support, the warmth and the encouragement in a long and lonely endeavour. Buddhist always seek to cultivate a spirit of openness, cooperation, goodwill and equality in their relationships.

Violence and Non-violence in Buddhism 

Buddhism is against getting involved in the violent action or earning the living in a way that it involves violence in a direct or indirect manner. Buddhism believes in abstaining from taking any life.

In Buddhist texts non-violence or Ahimsa is part of the Five Precepts, the first of which has been to abstain from killing. This precept of Ahimsa is applicable to both the Buddhist layperson and the monk community. 

The Ahimsa precept is not a commandment and transgressions did not invite religious sanctions for layperson, but their power has been in the Buddhist belief in karmic consequences and their impact in afterlife during rebirth. Mahatma Gandhi also used non-violent methods and helped India gained independence.

Buddhist Spiritual Centres

The activities of the Buddhist communities and centres are as follows:

■ The healthy spiritual community helps not only to vive a healthy good life but also in building a good society. There are many spiritual values that are practiced in the centres which are not possible in print or in talk.

■ These communities are reaching and training communities and offer courses and classes in which the trainees become veritable community members. The community is open to an outsider who wish to open up the communication with the community through some participation in work, ritual, teaching and meditation. 

■ There are numerous outside community services beyond teaching that may sustain the community’s “Right Livelihood’. One such example is running a hospice for the terminally ill, providing the information and advice centre on a wide range of personal and social problems for the people and for the local community.

Buddhist’s Community Services and Development

There are a number of community development services initiated by the local workers or household members who have a string root in their own town or neighbourhood. For example, Dana House opened by the Harlow Buddhist Society is an attempt to deal with the problems of the town. The centre takes care of the mentally and emotionally ill people and is run by the experienced group leader and a psychologist who can also be consulted privately. Another group is a beginner group ‘Meditation class based on the concept of Right Understanding’. Another group is a Buddhist group which is not attached to any particular school of Buddhism.

According to Peter Donahoe: ‘We have endeavoured to provide a centre which can function in relation to a whole range of different needs, a place of charity and compassion where all are welcomed regardless of race, colour, sex, or creed, welcome to come to terms with their suffering in a way which is relative to each individual’.  

Sarvodaya Shramadana movement of Sri Lanka is by far the largest non-governmental voluntary organization in Sri Lanka which is inspired by the Buddhist principles for community development in which Sarvodaya means awakening of all and Shramadana means sharing of labour, making a gift of time, thought and energy. There are many initiatives taken up by the villagers in the village development programmes and work on the community projects such as road or irrigation channel, pre-school care for under-fives and informal education for adults, health care programmes and community kitchens with the cooperation with the State agencies. The Sarvodaya Shramadana’s system of development education programme provides training in self-employment for the youth who comprise the largest sector of the unemployed. The main thrust of activity has been in rural areas and in urban community and in the local interest of the people.

Social Service

Social Service manifests as presence and dignity and is an important means to promote and nurture the sanity in the society, environment, education, healthcare, home, relationships and the arts throughout the world. The Sambhala Buddhist meditation teaches the concept of tolerance and care. They are engaged individually and in groups in compassionate work all over the world. Also the spiritual and the educational needs of the inmates in federal, state, country and municipal prison systems and jails was served by the Shambhala Prison Community (SPC). The SPC also provides meditation instruction by the qualified instructors, pastoral counselling, distribution of books and record tapes, written correspondence and newsletters, magazine and related pamphlets.  

Buddhism and Social Work

Buddhism is a Volitional effort of the well-being of others and its origin can be traced in the Buddhist system and Indian culture. Buddhism returns social science to its existential roots. For example, it invites economists to consider its claim that acquisitiveness originates as much in the root insecurity and angst of the human animal as in its physical needs. This is illustrated alike by the flaunting conspicuous consumption of the wealthy ruling minority throughout history and by characteristic behaviour in the affluent societies of the world. The social work in the early Buddhist tradition is a psycho-ethical concept initiated for the dawn of the complete harmony and the well beings of the society. Buddha conceived the idea of social work with that of social order and conceived a social fabric and an order where there is a ground or bhumi of unalloyed love and affection and friendliness, compassion, joy and equanimity. It was named as Bhrama Vihara in which the teachers were of two types namely Upajihaya and Acariya who provided training in the theory and practice of monasticism and social service. There were many other voluntary agencies that came up apart from Viharas and Sanghas which were in the form of Dharma centres, meditation centres, Vipassana international academy, youth Buddhist society and so on. These organizations run free homoeopathic dispensary, schools, ambulance services, disaster management and emergency relief and canteen services and free dispensary and so on. Buddhism has welfare foundations that train public health educational trainers and volunteer coordinators who set up community based workshops to train the local women in personal hygiene and water sanitation process. There are many other agencies which are working on HIV/AIDS and other communicable diseases for women and children. 

Socially Engaged Buddhism

Socially Engaged Buddhism extend across public engagement in caring and service and social and environmental protest and analysis, and non-violence and other similar initiatives which work towards socially just and ecologically sustainable society. It is a new form of Buddhist movement and is the reinterpretation and application of traditional Buddhist doctrines. The ultimate freedom in Buddhism is to achieve full release from the root causes of social evils. The Buddhist ethics are used to eliminate these evils in oneself. Buddhism believes in removing the sufferings of the people and the Buddhist social action arises from this practice and contributes to it.

Buddhism is a global phenomenon now and its movements have arisen as a heroic response to extend the conditions of invasion, civil war and tyrannical government. There are many personalities who got inspired by Buddhism and include A.T. Ariyaratne of Sri Lanka, The Dalai Lama, Sulak Sivaraksa of Thailand, etc. In the modernized global world, the terms ‘Humanistic Buddhism’ or ‘Engaged Buddhism’ is used which refers to active involvement by Buddhists in social work. The Engaged Buddhism applies these ideals to social issues of peace and justice, environmental degradation, human and animal rights, community-building and provision of the care to those who need it. Thus, in Buddhism social work reveals that as a minority community it was compelled to live and work with several communities and was obliged by the circumstances wherein self-interest and survival plays a decisive role to adopt the changes in the mode of living.  

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