Coming out of the right-wing Buddhist closet

Are you someone who has politically conservative leanings on economics, domestic or foreign policy, ethical or spiritual issues, or in some other area? Are you often wary of engaging in political discussions with your fellow practitioners because you feel you will either have to hide your views or receive a disapproving response or a even a lecture on the fact that you are being inconsistent, or worse, hypocritical about your professed Buddhist values and your confessed political positions? Or are you someone who feels, like blogger DJ Buddha, that "If you’re a Buddhist, you need to vote for progressive candidates."

In the interest of fairness I should disclose at least my own general tendencies regarding the political spectrum and confess that...

I am neither of these types of people. As far as politics in the United States goes, I generally come out left of center. I don't mind at all, nor do I think that I need to claim to be "in the middle" or a "moderate" in order to be reasonable or fair-minded. I can defend and promote my values without having to be derisive or disrespectful towards others, although despite this I don't always choose such a preferable path. That being said, stereotyping the political perspective of any large, socio-economically and ethnically heterogeneous group is always a mistake, as Jeff Wilson astutely points out in a recent commentary published at the Tricycle Editors Blog. In "Voting Buddhist?" Jeff reminds us of the historically conservative nature of Buddhism when it comes to Asian politics, the complex motives of immigrant Buddhists which leads many of them to vote for conservative candidates, and the results of a recent Pew Forum survey in which a large minority (44%) of convert Buddhists did not identify themselves as being liberal, feeling that their political perspective was more accurately reflected either as moderate or conservative.

I can see some objections being raised to Wilson's analysis. For one thing, Buddhism has been used to promote change, both at the personal and societal level, and in some sense this can be touted as being progressive. But does conservative automatically mean anti-equality or for the wealthy and against the poor? In the polemic tone of modern politics in the U.S., this may seem to be so. Of course, while some Buddhist reformers, such as Honen and Nichiren in Japanese history, were known for trying to stand up for the commoner and liberate practice from the nearly exclusive purview of the elites, the system they were working to reform was maintained and justified by other Buddhists! I tend to agree that in as much as Joshua bin Joseph, Siddhartha Gautama and others were somewhat radical and left-wing in terms of their spiritual revolutions, this does not always mean that such shifts are accompanied immediately by full-scale political revolutions. I am not suggesting one cannot be used to inspire the other, but even after such a change, what was new and edgy is now the status quo. Maintaining that new status quo becomes a conservative effort. Again, this is distinct from the kind of elites versus the commoner parsing of conservative and progressive, in which the face of the revolution is co-opted by the elites to maintain their power.

That suggests that there it is not, in fact, illogical or inconceivable to have someone find inspiration and liberation in the teachings of the Buddha without being a card-carrying member of the Socialist party. People on the left, we love to talk about inclusion, but often this is thought of strictly in terms of the disenfranchised and powerless. When it comes to those with differing political views, it can mean We will work and wait patiently until you come around to our way of seeing things. As Wilson suggests, "The lack of a reasonable argument for Republican Buddhism, therefore, may not be because there is no such argument, but because liberal Buddhists create an environment wherein such sentiments are difficult to express."

So, if you are a non-liberal, particularly a conservative and/or Republican, you are cordially invited to share your experiences in this regard if you will and, if you wish, feel welcome to explain why you believe your position is NOT incompatible with your Buddhist values and practice, as some have argued.