No to spiritual bypass, yes to Engaged Buddhism

Posted by prem_das on September 11, 2025

It happens a lot. I’ve seen too much of it.

Someone drops a post for approval in one of our Buddhagang groups — usually it’s a line from the Buddha or from Thich Nhat Hanh. Rooted in the Bodhisattva path traced and opened by all Buddhas. A reminder of awake, woke, understanding (and therefore loving) presence. Of being alive enough to be seen by beings, of manifesting the Bodhisattva practice of becoming visible, even when it’s not fun or easy. Of returning to this moment with clarity — not spinelessness, not braindead nihilism, not apathy or annihilationist tendencies.

Prthagjana Beings

But beings don’t get it. They twist it, bend it into a mirror for their own biases, and use it to excuse their urge to bypass — wrapping themselves in proud, apathetic indifference to the suffering of others. These same beings are the beings we have vowed to save. I don’t hate but I do disagree. Engaged Buddhism isn’t spiritual bypassing.

Wokeness was always the goal

These days too many throw around woke like it’s a slur. Let’s clarify it the way the Buddha clarified words beings were abusing — Arya, Brahmin — by using them skillfully and showing the better way to catch the snake. There is a way to catch the snake of dualistic discrimination without being poisoned. May all beings figure out that way.

This world of differentiated things (dharmas) and persons (pudgalas) is often called, in English, conventional reality. Conditioned. Dualistic. Relative. Historical. The woke recognize this flow of reality, and the unwoke either don’t know, or they cry about it when those who do know speak up.

When the woke express their deep and expansive knowing with love, the unwoke wriggle like eels or lash out in blind pride and harshness.

Buddhism is the science of wokeness

The knowing of suffering and the causes of suffering shows up in woke speech, in skillful thought, in helpful, harmless bodily action. These are the first two truths gnown and known by the Aryas. The woke think, speak, and act for the sake of all other beings. They act. Action is karma. Karma always has results. These three flows of karma are called the Three Mysteries, and they are potent to ponder. Align those three mysteries identified as “you” with the Three Mysteries of the Dharmakaya Tathagata Mahavairocana, the Great Illuminator.

Yes, “woke.”

It was always the goal of every lineage of Buddhism. The root budh already means awake. The Buddha is the most woke one. A Bodhisattva is one who cultivates and shares that wokeness so others can change their minds sooner rather than later, to stop being so selfish, greedy, hateful. And yes, the so-called social justice warrior was always the Bodhisattva too. So whether you’ve been tricked into hating the word by maga propaganda, or whether you sneer at social justice warriors like they’re the enemy, give it up. It’s dumb.

The woke were never your problem. Those now disparaged as woke are the ones who care about you — they pay attention, they think, speak, and act for your sake. Woke means bodhi. Too many of us in the west, who identify as buddhist, have been drinking way too much of that maga koolaid. We’ll see what happens, but whatever comes, the Buddhagang response will not be to encourage violence.

Jesus Bodhisattva and the Bible

The Bodhisattvas have always been sly as snakes and innocent as doves, as Yeshu Bodhisattva of Galilee taught. Be woke like him. He moves as a Bodhisattva. Look deeply into the right sources and it becomes clear.

Then go back to the Bible — the so-called New Testament. Already poisoned with hatred: Christians saying the God of the Jews abandoned them and chose them instead. That hatred grew until it bloomed as the Holocaust in Germany. And now the world spins again. Samsara is loopy like this! Israel, or at least a small group of hateful fools within it, repeats the same patterns against Palestinians. Not all Israelis — many protest, many resist, and it is good to see. Thich Nhat Hanh spoke on this directly. He urged young Israelis to practice conscientious objection as Bodhisattva practice. Literally. Go search — Plum Village has preserved those teachings.

Celebrate wokeness outloud, in public, for the sake of others

So, yes. Be woke. Celebrate it, study it, perfect it for the sake of all other beings first. Keep attention steady in both realms — the realm of worldly appearances and the realm of Buddhadharma. This is how the Avatamsaka Sutra shows Bodhisattvas practicing right mindfulness: attending to both fields. The field of Buddhadharma clarifies the worldly field of conditioned, dualistic, relative, historical, empty appearances which do appear but are not what the masses assume them to be.

Be mindful. Attentive. Awake. Aware. Woke.

Recollection is another way to render what the Buddha meant by mindfulness.

Mindfulness is remembrance.

The Buddha taught mindfulness and concentration with breath as anchor. There are many other objects where samadhi can rest, single-pointed, which is also shamatha — the single-pointedness that brings relief to a being pushed and pulled too long by worldly winds. That relief can be medicine, or it can turn addictive, a hindrance to the bodhisattvayana and its aim — the ending of all other beings’ suffering first. The ancients warned us: don’t get hooked on the bliss of samadhis.

The story of the Buddha’s Awakening

The Buddha himself showed this in his awakening story. He almost didn’t engage. He looked at the world and saw most beings, prthagjana beings, would not understand. It would be a bummer to engage, it would be tedious to try to help them. Then Brahma appeared — and, we can call Brahma “god” here, because brahma and the American construction of “god” are more than close enough — and reminded the Buddha that there are some with little dust in their eyes, and for their sake he should engage. So he did.

For forty years he walked the dusty roads, agreeing and disagreeing, using words, thoughts, and bodily actions as rafts. Rafts are not to be clung to forever, but it is just as foolish to throw them off halfway across the flood. Let go too soon, and you drown, washing back to this same shore of suffering.

Bodhisattvas are ferry boat captains

The bodhisattvas are ferry boat captains. They guide the big raft of the Mahayana, carrying beings to the other shore. And when the ferry lands, they turn back and do it again, and again. Each crossing sharpens their own understanding, strengthens their vows, expands their superpowers of mind and spirit.

So we use shamatha, tranquility, to be steady in realms like this one, realms with beings that are not okay. We appear here among these beings for these reasons. We feel the pain, see why it keeps arising, and we figure out how to tear it apart — dismantle it like the Buddha did. He said it clearly that he delights in this dismantling. He said he tore down the ridgepole of this samsaric structure so it would not be built again. Interpreting that as “no work left for us” is the wrong page, though.

Study, implement, share, repeat

With study, with implementation — which means meditation and ethical discipline — and with sharing (teaching), we can bring beings onto this bodhisattvayana page of engaged Buddhism. I can explain what Thich Nhat Hanh explained, from the ancient sources, and that has been a central focus of mine over the past few years because so much of what modern secular Buddhists in the West reject is exactly what would get them moving like bodhisattvas. If they understood, they wouldn’t want to bypass any of this!

Shamatha and Vipasyana

Out of this single-pointed tranquil mind (shamatha), bright with insight, the being is stabilized. From there karma flows better — ethical, wise, loving, vigorous, diligent, and patient endurance of what sucks — with mahakaruna (great compassion) burning brighter each cycle. And from that, true love. Not the blind, perpetually soft, disengaged kind, but the fierce bright love of even a baby bodhisattva. The love that refuses to turn away, even when the world of appearances spins out ten thousand forms that sting, ache, or cut.

People say the darndest things

People share things like: “There is no way to enlightenment — enlightenment is the way.” At first it can sound beautiful, even convincing. But look closer and you’ll find more avidya hiding in the folds. What does the one sharing it actually mean? Words are empty. Combinations of words are empty too. Yet they still carry meanings, and turning them over in the mind is already karma — thinking karma. How a person thinks shapes how their mind tends to focus, or scatter.

Sometimes such phrases come from the Buddha, recorded in sources we can trust. And sharing right Dharma is one of the Bodhisattva’s responsibilities — passing on the words of the Buddha as they are, and correcting the distortions that cloud them in the West and beyond, online and in the flesh. That is engaged Buddhism.

Beware!

But caution is needed. Buddhism is still new in these western regions of the human mind system. Misunderstanding is easy. Distortion spreads fast. So we check the words, test them, interpret them with care, and stay with the work of clarifying Dharma for beings who haven’t yet seen.

So yeah, people share things like: “There is no way to enlightenment — enlightenment is the way.”

Now, this can land in two directions.

What do they mean?

On one hand, it can make good and useful sense. If you mean that enlightenment is not some far-off destination, not just some prize waiting at the end of lifetimes of craving and struggle, but the way we walk right now — then yes. Wake up. Live woke.

Let every step, every breath, every word, every act be the way. This echoes what the Buddha taught about right mindfulness, right concentration, right view, right action. Enlightenment is not a trophy at the finish line. It’s the mode of moving, the style of being, the way we walk the Eightfold Path moment after moment.

It is often the worst

On the other hand, the phrase gets thrown around as if the Noble Eightfold Path doesn’t matter, as if there’s no training, no ethics, no discipline, no work to do. That’s when it’s just more bullshit. That’s spiritual bypassing. That’s basic apathy disguised as Buddhist and even Engaged Buddhist wisdom.

The Buddha didn’t say “sit back and you’re already enlightened, good job.” He laid out the path because there is work to do. Thought, speech, action, livelihood, effort, mindfulness, concentration — that’s how the woke life is lived.

It all depends

The saying can be a bright bell of Dharma or a dull clunk of ignorance. It depends on how you hold it, how you speak it, how you live it. If it stirs beings to wake up and practice, good. If it lulls beings into complacency, forget it. That’s Mara’s voice, not the Buddha’s.

But don’t expect applause. People don’t like being shown wrong in public, and yet they often are. That’s samsara — world-systems dominated by greed, hatred, and delusion, where beings earn the name prthagjana — not yet awake, common, ordinary, wordlly, not yet woke.

But then they add more. A poem, usually. Their own, or something they lifted from somewhere. And the tone shifts. Instead of deepening Thay’s insight, the extra words smuggle in a softer, sneakier message — one that contradicts the Dharma. Not always blunt. Not always rude. But often gentle. Slippery. Sweet-sounding. Like an eel wriggling loose.

Instead of calling the reader to practice, the extra words suggest there’s no need to do anything. They split up being and doing, as if they were not-two by erasing one half. But they are not-two! Being and doing interpenetrate.

Watch out for nonsense

Awakening comes through effort, through love, through clarity, through transformation. Yet these poems whisper the poison lines:

“Everything’s already perfect.”
“There are no suffering beings and no work to do.”
“Striving on, as the Buddha urged at his Mahaparinibbana, is delusion.”

Be woke to the influence of white privilege and affluence

And sure — if your life is safe, if the white privilege is comfortable, and protected by affluence,
you might get away with believing that.
Maybe your bypassing effort feels like truth,
because the world hasn’t crushed you yet. But let’s be real: that’s not liberation.
That’s privilege dressed up as peace. You may be able to ignore it today, but the suffering of your neighbors will eventually find you too. This is interbeing.

But such statements are not born of Buddhist wisdom.
They’re expressions of delusion sustained by conditions that protect you — while others suffer.

And when you dress that up in spiritual language?
It becomes dangerous.

Misrepresenting the Buddha is very bad karma

Because now you’re not just avoiding the world —
you’re encouraging others to do the same, and calling it Buddhist enlightenment.

That’s not what Thầy taught.
That’s not what the Buddha taught.
That’s not what we practice in BuddhaGang.

All our spaces are engaged Buddhist spaces.
We remember the vows of the Bodhisattvas and implement them in our daily lives.
We train in remembering.
Because too many beings are suffering
for us to drift into clouds and pretend the work is done.

Worldly appearances appear

This morning, I saw it again:

“Mountains don’t care about enlightenment.”
So what — we shouldn’t either?
Mountains don’t read sutras or keep precepts.
You do.

“Clouds just float by without thoughts.”
Yes. But they don’t face addiction, trauma, injustice, or karma.
We do.
That’s why the Buddha taught right thought, not no thought.

“You don’t get enlightened — everything else becomes you.”
No.
Everything is already you — ultimately.
But that doesn’t mean your unexamined habit stream is already the fully clarified Dharmakaya.

Not totally the same, not totally different

Like Thầy taught with the three complexes:
We’re not inherently superior, inferior, or equal —
because what we do matters.
Karma matters.
Action, intention, result.
Different karma. Different results.
Different seeds. Different fruit.
Different habit energies. Different patterns of karma and results.

We don’t all arrive in the same place just by not trying.
We are not “the same.”
We are not “already there.”
Our habits and karma are shaped by what we feed — thought, speech, and deed.
Karma feeds the seeds and the seeds manifest in daily life.

We’re working with the mud.
We don’t throw it away.
But we don’t mistake it for the lotus either.

The mud stinks and the lotus is beautiful!

This takes effort.
It takes training.
The Bodhisattva takes the vows.

Be discerning

The guy went on:

“Rain yesterday, enlightenment today — no difference.”
No. That’s no-thinking-ism. And we don’t do that here in Buddhagang land.

There is a difference.
There are many differences — and they deserve your full attention.

The Buddha pointed it out.
So did Thich Nhat Hanh.
So did Asaṅga, Vasubandhu, Śāntideva, Kamalaśīla, Xuanzang.

They didn’t say “just let it all be.”
They taught how to discern:
Wholesome from unwholesome.
Delusion from clarity.
Habit from insight.
Mud from lotus.

Rememeber the two truths

Joy and dukkha — pleasant and painful —
these arise in conditioned life.
They are not only illusions.
They are real enough to matter.
This is where we live.
This is where beings suffer.
This is where we work.

So we don’t ignore what happens.
We aren’t afraid to keep updated.
Not afraid of “the news,”
and we don’t consume “toxins.”
We don’t pretend it’s all the same to avoid discomfort arising from acknowledgement of what sucks.
We don’t always float above like bypassing ghosts
murmuring “no difference” while the house is on fire.

No mud, no lotus

We get in the mud.
We get our hands dirty.
We do the work.

Because if we don’t?
The mud just stays mud.

But if we do —
if we understand and take the vow deeply, love fiercely, and show up with clarity and ethics —
that’s when the lotus appears.

That’s when daily life becomes Dharma-delight / Bodhisattva work.
Not by renaming pain, “pleasure”.
Not by skipping the path.
But by transforming the conditions inside and outside.

That’s what we teach and do here in BuddhaGang land.

Not floaty sameness.
But sharp, compassionate discernment.

Eyes open.
Heart strong.
Feet in the mud.
Vow intact.

Bummers happen in samsara

The bummer shouldn’t be hard to spot.

It’s spiritual bypassing.

It sounds spiritual — poems, metaphors, poetic little clouds —
but it’s actually just more not-useful words encouraging more basic avoidance.

And that’s why I don’t use the word “spiritual” too much.
It’s been watered down.
It’s been turned into a euphemism for comfort,
for superiority without responsibility.

But in this tradition —
the Dharma of the Buddha, of TNH, of the BuddhaGang effort —
the spiritual is the ethical,
and “religion” is just collective spirituality.
It’s the Bodhisattva vows in action.
It’s clarity in the middle of this worldly mess.

There is work to do!

A bodhisattva might say:
“Let me bow before the path and walk it with reverence.”

But a bypasser says:
“There’s no path. No suffering. Nothing to do.”

That’s not humility.
That’s more denial.

That’s not awakening.
That’s a defense mechanism.

And that’s not BuddhaDharma.

TNH said it:
“There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.”
But people twist that.
They hear it as a license to stop trying.
To rename confusion as wisdom.
To accept delusion as the path.

But that’s not what was said.
And it’s not what was meant.

When TNH said that line,
he wasn’t flattening the difference between prthagjana life and the bodhisattva path.
He was pointing right at the work.

Meet the world with wokeness and try to transform it in the best ways possible

Practice here. Do the dishes. Check your inbox.
Pay attention and roar like all Bodhisattvas do both online and in the flesh,
at the protest. In your grief and with great joy.
Use the freedom you have attained through your practice of the paramitas to benefit all other beings first.
The Bodhisattva is the original Engaged Buddhist.
It’s like TNH said, “Engaged Buddhism is just Buddhism.”

Daily life is the vehicle.
But it only moves when the driver is awake,
When the driver grabs hold of the “reins,”
only then can they be said to actually be “driving the chariot.”

If there’s still greed, hatred, and delusion —
if the poisons still run the show —
then it doesn’t matter how many quotes you post.
The prthagjana tendencies will continue to cause harm and suffering, inside and out.

If you bypass all the mud,
all the time,
you’re not living enlightenment.
You’re just not understanding what samsara means

So when someone says:
“See? There’s nothing to do.”
It’s a bait-and-switch.

Laziness is a hindrance

It’s spiritual laziness
dressed up as wisdom.
And this “laziness” isn’t the laziness constructed by the Protestant Ethic and Spirit of Capitalism.

It dulls the Dharma blade. Remember Manjushri’s sword?
It blurs the line between awake and asleep.
Stay woke.
It turns the fire of the path into a puddle of addiction to personal comfort.

Follow the Buddha, not the world’s assumptions about the Buddha

But the Buddha didn’t do that.
Asaṅga didn’t do that.
Vasubandhu didn’t do that.
Neither did Śāntideva, Xuanzang, or Kamalaśīla.

They taught a real path.
They taught real transformation.
Not slogans.
Not wordplay.
But an actual shift in how the mind works —
from craving to clarity,
from delusion to compassion,
from sleepwalking to wakefulness.

That’s not bypassing.

That’s BuddhaDharma.
And that’s what we’re here to practice.
Together.
As good friends.
All the way through.

Thanks for getting this far!
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Infinite blessings,
All the love,
Much respect.

Prem Das of the Buddhagang