Politics and Dharma

It is often observed among Buddhists that politics invariably fails to bring happiness, and that its necessary focus on external appearances, which lack inherent reality, means that it invariably fails to achieve any improvement in the overall welfare of sentient beings.

I am a Buddhist, and I accept the general truth of this view, but I nonetheless believe that it is the responsibility of all people to act in the "conventional truth" of samsara in ways that are concordant and consistent with the ethics in which we believe.

To this end, I am a political person, and I believe in advocating, with a good heart and without hatred or antagonism, policies and practices of government which the best analysis of our minds show to be conducive to the greatest good. Spiritual life is a private affair, and we do what we can in that field, but I don't accept the proposition that a spiritual life and a political life are mutually exclusive.