California does this). Might there also be situations when meditating quietly in one's room could count as a form of engagement? The issue invites continued scrutiny.

In engaged Buddhism, what becomes of the quest for enlightenment? Again, a variety of stances can be identified. Bernard Glassman, reflecting on his own experience, writes:

In the beginning I believed that a diligent meditation practice was the answer. In fact, I was a fanatic about meditation and retreats. I thought that if I persevered I would become enlightened, like Shakyamuni Buddha 2,500 years ago. If I concentrated hard enough, I would experience what he experienced. And then I would go out and take action. It took me a long time to understand that I couldn't wait till then to take action.(27)

Some fear that in less capable hands such retrospection could give way to laxity or self-deception. Engaged Buddhism would then become a cop-out for frustrated meditators, a kind of Buddhism Lite. Toni Packer, a teacher originally trained in Zen, maintains that inwardly focused spiritual practice still takes precedence:

Am I driven to do something helpful for humanity or the endangered planet because I feel deeply, achingly, apart from it all?…Can we wake up to the fact that separateness isn't real at all—that it exists only in thoughts, images, feelings? Are we interested in finding out the truth of this?(28)

Packer's line of questioning infers that unless one has achieved at least some degree of spiritual insight, engagement is little more than a misguided attempt to salve unrecognized inner needs. Others perceive engagement as worthwhile but properly subsumed by the process of awakening. For Stephen Batchelor, cited by Sandra Bell, the ideal of wisdom has long been in “classic tension” with the ideal of compassion, which corresponds to engagement. From this perspective, a deepening of wisdom is accompanied naturally by a deepening of compassion, so “the whole notion of making an issue out of engagement becomes somewhat superfluous.”

A nondualistic understanding of the relation between enlightenment and engagement honors both “inner” work and “outer” work as mutually reinforcing and ultimately inseparable. While enlightenment remains a matchless goal, pursuit of that goal in isolation has limited value. As Batchelor concludes, “We cannot awaken for ourselves: we can only participate in the awakening of life.”(29) In this spirit, some engaged Buddhists are investigating the proposition that social engagement can serve explicitly as a practice that leads to and expands awakening. To give this path a name requires a string of adjectives, such as “socially engaged Buddhist spiritual practices.” Advocates of engagement as a road to awakening readily concede that further exploration is needed: “The question is whether…socially engaged practice in the world can approximate the depth and focus of traditional training.”(30)

What is the relation between personal transformation and social change? When classic Buddhist texts address the practitioner's potential effect on others, the language tends to be abstract and even paradoxical. A well-known passage in the Diamond Sutra states, “As many beings as there are in the universe of beings…all these I must lead to Nirvana…. And yet, although innumerable beings have thus been led to Nirvana, no being at all has been led to Nirvana.”(31) The Avatamsaka Sutra declares, “The bodhisattva will not give up one single living being for the sake of all beings, nor will he give up all beings for the sake of one living being.”(32)

Without rejecting such formulations, contemporary Buddhists are framing a parallel set of concerns in more nitty-gritty terms. Does traditional Buddhist practice prepare people adequately for engaging in the world? What are the links, on a practical level, between spiritual insight and improved social conditions? Does the practice of right livelihood contribute meaningfully to the creation of a new society? It is often assumed that compassion almost automatically leads to the alleviation of others' suffering. Yet ethicist Lee Yearley, in a conversation with the Dalai Lama, cautions against oversimplification:

Many modern Westerners believe compassion provides an insufficient basis for an ethical system—although all would agree that compassion is an important personal trait. These critics of compassion point to the fact that in spite of the ideal of compassion, Christianity and other traditions have tolerated many kinds of injustice. Most important, they believe that this fact is not simply a matter of chance, but shows the problems inherent in the idea of basing ethics on compassion….
Most people normally feel compassion only at some times or toward some people…. Compassion can tell me how to react to a suffering person I encounter on the street, but it alone cannot tell me what I should do to make sure that person, and others like that person, do not suffer any more.(33)