Buddhist teachings educate that Siddhartha went on a
devout journey. He spent forty-nine days in a state of contemplation to
discover enlightenment on ways to end human torment and suffering. His
meditation retreat showed him the way to enlightenment and from that instant he
became the Buddha. The Buddhist custom began to spread as Buddha wanted more
individuals to find joy and happiness in their lives, while also recuperating
the lives of those around them.
In today's Buddhist tradition, those steps and
philosophies are still going strong. Books on Buddhism flourish as more
individuals want to begin finding tranquillity and peace in themselves rather
than their exterior surroundings. By improving on their own inner peace it is
said to lead to individuals helping others end their suffering. It is a very
dignified cause and the spirituality Buddhism symbolizes has many Western
people turning to the religion Buddhism.
For example, while indigenous socially engaged
Buddhist activists in Soka Gakkai Los Angeles have often utilized ‘loving-kindness’
meditation practices as a means of responding to the troubles of others, in Los
Angeles, people have found that the emphasis seems too often be on how
loving-kindness practice can be deployed as a mode of self-transformation,
self-help and dealing with individual psychosocial traumas.
The practice of ‘dana’ has likewise evolved different
significance and meaning in the two contexts. In conventional Buddhist
cultures, the practice of dana, or alms giving ceremonies to ordained monks, is
often intensely intertwined with notions of humanizing good karmic merit so as
to secure a happy and fortunate rebirth. On the contrary, in many of my
research encounters in Los Angeles, dana seems to be most often perceived as a
pragmatic, simple way of supporting one’s spiritual institution, teacher or
community through voluntary donation. Therefore, while its rootedness in
Buddhist moralistic ideas of ‘letting-go’ is emphasized, quite often the
practice itself is deprived of the soteriological implication found in Asian
Buddhist cultures.
However, while they may seem quite diverse from the
outside, therapeutic metta meditation and merit-making dana do share common
attributes. Both are oriented toward cultivating emotional wellbeing and
happiness in oneself. So as much as American Buddhist practitioners deemphasize
concerns about the accretion of merit or karma and notions of rebirth, which
are at the core of the dana impulse in more conventional contexts, their focus
on metta still obtains sentimental experiences that are resembling those that
Asian Buddhists are seeking through dana. In other terms, these rituals are
meant to cultivate a compassionate heart, ease the mind, and eventually lead to
inner freedom. Dana as merit in Asia and metta as therapy in the Soka Gakkai Los Angeles
are both about
constituting a happier, more ethical self.
More than this, their actual innovation is in how they
revive and retain elements in popular traditional Buddhism that are foremost
about inward, personal experiences. So while the cultural trappings of Eastern
traditions and Western teachings have considerable differences, the fundamental
commonality is how they are both essentially about similar—and similarly
transformative—modes of understanding.
