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      speakers:
        - speaker_name: Gil Fronsdal
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      title: The Buddha Taught Action
      url: https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12089
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  title: The Buddha Taught Action
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youtube_url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAIs86t8lD8
---

# The Buddha Taught Action - [Gil Fronsdal](https://www.audiodharma.org/speakers/1)

_This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video above. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers._

## [The Buddha Taught Action](https://www.audiodharma.org/talks/12089)

I think many of you know that here in California, in Oregon, Washington, and other places on the West Coast going up into Canada and up in the Arctic regions of the tundra, there are fires everywhere.

There was a nun at the time of the Buddha named Upacālā[^1]. Upacālā wrote two verses. I am going to read the first one now, and then the second one later. She wrote:

"All the world is on fire. All the world is burning. All the world is ablaze. All the world is quaking."

So that was 2,500 years ago, and here in California, we have COVID-19, we have economic disruption for many people, and now we have fires. For those not directly impacted by fires, we have a tremendous amount of smoke that keeps many people indoors. It is really sad to see the people who can't stay indoors. There are people who do outdoor work—farm workers and construction workers—who are just continuing to work in these terrible, unhealthy conditions.

This world on fire has been going on for a long time. In the time of the Buddha, Upacālā writes, "All the world is quaking." Some people are beginning to wonder if the next big earthquake in California will come now as well, just to add to the complication of it all. I think that way of thinking also comes from fear and weariness. Some people are exhausted by all these months of COVID-19 and now all these weeks of fires. It just seems to go on and on; it feels like a long winter.

## Starting Fresh Through Meditation

Meditation can renew us. Meditation, at its best, allows us to start fresh every time we come out of it. All the traces, all the dust and soot that has built up in our hearts and minds as we go through the day and are worried, stressed, tense, or preoccupied, has a chance to clear out to some degree. It is a wonderful thing to be able to start fresh—to start over in a certain kind of way. We might not start over without the new responsibilities we carry with us, but we have the ability to really step out of meditation with fresh eyes. It is like you have gotten a good night's sleep and you are fresh and new, so that the continuity of the weariness that weighs us down doesn't build up so much. We have this way of refreshing ourselves, just like some people do when they exercise, which really allows them to refresh and shed everything so it doesn't build and build.

In that last meditation, the focus was on relaxation. Some people might feel or believe that relaxing is a pretty elementary practice in meditation—that meditation certainly should be much more profound, or have loftier aspirations, purposes, insights, or experiences than just relaxing. Maybe that's true, but as with a lot of things in Buddhism, it is very important not to overlook the foundation. We want to have a foundation in place from which we can develop further, and relaxation is one of them. The Buddha taught relaxation. In the English translations of his teachings, they use a more sophisticated term for it: they talk about tranquility, and tranquilizing the body and mind. But this comes down to the same thing as relaxation and calming.

## A Teacher of Action

Here we are in this heartbreaking time of so much distress. Now with the fires, it is clear that climate change is escalating much faster than the climate scientists had expected. That is kind of the big surprise. This was predicted in the predictive models that climate scientists had, but some of them are saying it just came sooner than they expected.

How do we manage with all this? Beyond just becoming relaxed, how do we understand it to make sense of it? Some people are looking for understanding. Some people are praying that someone or something will make a difference and help. Some people are just swept up in their fear, anger, and despair. Some people don't quite know what to do; they read the news and just get more and more upset reading the news.

If we go back to the teachings of the Buddha for some guidance on this, I think it is very important to understand that the Buddha promotes action. Even though many of us associate Buddhism with meditation, when you read the texts of the Buddha's teachings, you get a strong sense that what he is promoting is action—to be engaged. The word for action is _kamma_ (karma)[^2], which has different meanings, but over and over again in the texts, it simply means action, and he is promoting action. In fact, he calls himself a _kammavādin_[^3], which means a teacher of action.

The Buddha defines a wise person as someone who benefits oneself, benefits others, benefits self and others, and benefits the whole world. He also said that wisdom shines through action. Or maybe a little bit more precisely, as Bhikkhu Bodhi[^4] translates it: "Wisdom shines through its manifestation, its enactment." Buddhism is often associated with wisdom, but wisdom is meant for us to act differently—to act in a new, beneficial way. The Dhamma[^5] is not for people who are inactive.

## The Inclination Toward Inaction

However, sometimes in certain Buddhist circles, some meditators get the idea that the goal of Buddhism is to be inactive. Not to do, not to be engaged, and to somehow just _be_. Back in the 1960s, there was a cartoon character called Mr. Natural[^6]. There was a wonderful cartoon of Mr. Natural just sitting and meditating in the desert for decades or centuries. While whole cities were built around him and then decayed, he was just sitting there meditating, doing nothing except meditating.

This poem by Upacālā is one of the teachings where one might get the idea that inaction is somehow the goal. Here is the second half of her verses (I read the first half already):

"All the world is on fire. All the world is burning. All the world is ablaze. All the world is quaking.
That which does not quake or blaze,
That to which worldlings do not resort,
Where there is no place for evil,
That is where my mind delights."

So, where the mind doesn't quake or blaze, where the mind has no fires of greed, hate, and delusion, it doesn't quake in fear. It can be interpreted as a place in the mind where you get quiet, still, safe, and centered. Worldlings don't resort there, but meditators do. They take up refuge there, they rest there, they live there. "That is where my mind delights," she says.

The focus here is that the world is blazing out there, and I am resting inside in a place where the mind is still and quiet. That lends itself to the idea that this is what we are supposed to do: just be Mr. or Mrs. Natural, sit quietly, and let the world do what it does.

There is a powerful story that the tradition tells. Actually, it is in the first person; the Buddha tells it of his own awakening. Right after the Buddha was awakened, he reflected like this: "It is hard to see the truth that I discovered with my awakening. It is hard to experience the stilling of the mind, the relinquishing of attachments, the destruction of craving, and Nibbana[^7] (Nirvana). If I were to teach the Dhamma, others would not understand me, and that would be wearying and troublesome for me."

And then it says here: "Thereupon there came upon me spontaneously these verses never heard before: 'Enough with teaching the Dhamma that even I found hard to reach; for it will never be perceived by those who live in lust and hate. Those dyed in lust, wrapped in a blanket of darkness, will never discern this Dhamma, which goes against the worldly stream, subtle, deep, and difficult to see.' Considering thus, my mind inclined to inaction rather than to teaching the Dhamma."

According to this text, one of the first things that occurred to the Buddha after he experienced awakening was to incline toward inactivity. _It's too difficult to teach people; they won't learn. I might as well just be Mr. Natural, sit here, and just practice._

Luckily for us—or at least for the story, because it's probably a little bit of a myth—the great god Brahma[^8], the chief god of the heavens, recognized what was happening in the Buddha's mind. He thought to himself, "The world will be lost. The world will perish, since the mind of the Buddha inclines to inaction rather than to teaching the Dhamma." So he went down to India, talked to the Buddha, and asked the Buddha, "Please teach." Upon hearing that request, the Buddha surveyed the world and decided there were indeed people with "little dust in their eyes," people who could be taught. And then he started teaching, and those teachings have come down to us now.

So we see this idea of inaction—being somehow easy to get confused by or pulled into as a result of the deep peace and subtleness of meditation—is part of the territory, part of the danger of this meditation tradition itself. We find people who succumb to that.

## Ethical Action as the Foundation

But what we see over and over again in the suttas—just like I was saying earlier that relaxation is a basis for everything—is that the basis of the Buddha's teaching turns out to be action. There is a particular emphasis to engage in good deeds, ethical deeds, and avoid what is unethical. That is foundational. He repeats this over and over again in different ways: we should do this in bodily actions, in speech, and in mind. A well-practiced monk is someone who avoids doing wrong, harmful conduct in body, speech, and mind, but rather is engaged in beneficial conduct in body, speech, and mind.

I cannot underscore enough how often the Buddha lays this down as the foundation for everything else that follows. When he engaged in the interreligious debates that occurred at that time, he didn't fall back on philosophy, or some ultimate nature of consciousness, or the ultimate nature of the cosmos, or some great metaphysical principle, or even spiritual experience. In these debates, he always emphasized that what is important is a person not killing, not stealing, not engaging in sexual misconduct, not lying, not being involved in divisive speech, not being involved in harsh speech, and not being involved in pointless speech. Those are the important things. He asks, "Does your religion have that? Do your teachers live that way?" Sometimes when he talked to other practitioners, they would say, "Well, my teacher is not quite that," and that was enough for the Buddha to win the debate. Being ethical is the foundation, and then you build on that.

This emphasis on action includes actions of the mind. From the Buddha's point of view, meditation is a form of action. It is the activity of the mind in a particular way. If you did the last meditation with us, the emphasis was on relaxation; that is an activity of the mind. If you do loving-kindness, that is an activity of the mind—you bring love to yourself. If you are just practicing being mindful in open awareness to what is, that is also an activity of the mind. It might seem like a very simple activity; it might seem like the activity is just to get out of the way and let awareness operate. But even to get out of the way to let it operate is an activity of the mind. There is always action.

Part of the reason people are reluctant to read the teachings of the Buddha and see how much he emphasizes action is that action can be tiring. A lot of people associate action with tension, striving, pushing, and trying to make things different than what they are. But the action the Buddha is pointing towards in meditation allows us to be peaceful. And being peaceful is not so that we can just have our own inner peace. The Buddha talked about how when we're peaceful in our faculties and peaceful in our mind, then our actions can be peaceful. If we have ease within, then there is ease in how we act and what we do. Learning how to act peacefully, how to act free, without stress, without tension, is at the heart of what the Buddha is teaching.

He promoted actions that were ethical. Here is a quote that makes this clear:

"The Buddha, the fully enlightened one, relying on the Dhamma, honoring, respecting, venerating the Dhamma, taking the Dhamma as a standard, banner, and authority..."

The Dhamma can mean the truth, or the law, but a good argument can be made that Dhamma can also mean justice—what is just. Occasionally it is translated as righteous, but in our modern climate, I think justice works quite well.

"...Relying on justice, honoring, respecting, and venerating justice, taking justice as a standard, banner, and authority, providing just protection, shelter, and guard. In regard to verbal action, saying such verbal action should be cultivated, such verbal action should not be cultivated."

This hyperbolic, grand beginning to this teaching builds up to a simple statement that a parent could tell a child: you should cultivate certain kinds of speech, and avoid other kinds of speech. For the Buddha, it was to cultivate speech which was ethically beneficial, and to avoid that which is harmful or unethical. The exact same paragraph is said around physical actions and mental actions.

## Encouraging Action in Others

Here is another teaching talking about action:

"A _bhikkhu_[^9] (a monastic) is acting for the welfare of many people, for the happiness of many people, for the good, welfare, and happiness of many people, of _devas_[^10] and human beings, by encouraging them to be concordant (to be in harmony). Encouraging them in concordant bodily action, concordant verbal action, and concordant mental action. Possessing these three things, a well-known monastic is acting for the welfare of many people, for the happiness of many people, for the good, welfare, and happiness of many people, of devas and human beings."

Here we find explicit encouragement not only to act ethically oneself, but to encourage others to be ethical. Ethical action is foundational. In the climate of our society in the United States today, with the huge arguments and divisiveness in the country, you would think that they could somehow find their way if everyone could decide to be ethical and not cause harm. This country is facing an ethical challenge in all kinds of directions.

I choose the example of speech because that is such a big one in our society. A practitioner reflects this way:

"If someone were to damage my welfare with false speech, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to me. Now, if I were to damage the welfare of another with false speech, that would not be pleasing and agreeable to the other either. What is displeasing and disagreeable to me is displeasing and disagreeable to the other, too. How can I inflict upon another what is displeasing and disagreeable to me? Having reflected thus, the person abstains from false speech, and exhorts others to abstain from false speech, and speaks in praise of abstinence from false speech."

The Buddha is encouraging not just being ethical oneself, but speaking up for right speech and the avoidance of false speech. He says the rest of this teaching applies to not stealing and avoiding doing so, not killing and avoiding killing. The Buddhist teachings are phenomenally centered on action.

## Do Something

So, if you are despairing, afraid, or angry; if you are upset, find yourself complaining a lot, or find yourself just drawn to the news; if you feel ground down by the ongoing onslaught of challenges this world has, the Buddhist proposal for you is that you should do something. You should act.

Modern psychology says that people who do even small acts are much less likely to be depressed, despairing, or discouraged. Do something. Action is at the heart of Buddhist practice. Act in ways that are beneficial. Do what you can, even small acts. It could be making a small financial donation to people struggling with a fire or to the Red Cross. Maybe it is bringing a meal to someone who is sheltering in place or someone who cannot go out shopping with COVID-19. It could be that you simply make sure your street is a bit cleaner by picking up the trash. It could be sending a nice email or letter to someone talking about how you appreciate them. People are uplifted by being appreciated.

Perhaps you could talk more often about what you enjoy, and what is beautiful, pleasant, and nice. There is something very powerful for the heart and mind—for ourselves and others—if we just talk about things that we really appreciate and enjoy. If you feel like you are not doing that enough, maybe try it sometimes. Just speak kindly, speak with appreciation, and see what that does to you.

Don't sugarcoat things. Don't pretend things are better than they really are. Don't avoid the difficulties of the world, but don't get mired in those difficulties. Find some way to empower, enliven, and engage your heart so that it is uplifted and inspired. An uplifted, inspired, gladdened heart will know how to live ethically. It is in a better place to act in the world beneficially. It acts in the world in ways that are not stressful and not under the weight of obligation, duty, and responsibility.

We live in very challenging times. I believe what the Buddha would say at the foundation is: Do something. Don't just sit. Don't complain. Don't despair. Do something. If you are upset about the elections, get involved in getting out the vote. If you are concerned about climate change, develop a little network of friends who are lobbying Sacramento or Washington, D.C. Or maybe you do a cleanup someplace in your neighborhood, or support an organization that supports the environment. There are all kinds of things you can do.

## A Call for Inspired Engagement

In this regard, I wanted to tell you a little bit about a wonderful thing that happened last week for me. Since I was probably a freshman in college, I have had a strong interest in the environment and ecology. I was actually slated to become a soil scientist because I wanted to do soil conservation in places where there was a lot of erosion in the world, before I got involved in Buddhism.

All these years I wanted to do something related to the environment. Because I have been involved for many years with training Buddhist chaplains for hospitals, prisons, and hospices, a little over a year ago I started a Buddhist Eco-Chaplaincy program with Susie Harrington and Kirsten Rudestam[^11] to train people to be environmental chaplains. We graduated the first crop last week from a 15-month-long training. It was my action to try to bring people into the world.

What was so inspiring was to watch these 22 people go through the training and mature, grow, and become more empowered to have projects and activities to try to make a difference in this world in relationship to the non-human world, the natural world. Why I say this is that the experience of being with them was so inspiring because they were actually doing something for the environment. These were people who didn't feel crushed, despairing, or angry about what was going on. They felt empowered; they were actually doing something.

I know other people—including long-time Buddhist practitioners—who don't know what to do, who don't feel they have an avenue to act, and as a result, they are feeling disparate and despairing about what is happening right now. Some of the inspired Buddhists that I know these days—the ones who are not discouraged, despairing, or crushed by it all—are the ones actively involved with getting out the vote. Yesterday I talked to Jack Kornfield[^12], and he is completely inspired these days, working hard in "get out the vote" movements and encouraging other people to do it. It's quite something.

The primary Dhamma point I wanted to make today is that at the foundation of the Buddha's teachings is the importance of action. If you remember that, I think it will give you a lot to think about and reflect on. You can wonder what's going on here, how that works, and how it works with meditation practice.

For the person who asked about this Eco-Chaplaincy, we are starting a whole new training for it in January. You can find information about it at the Sati Center for Buddhist Studies[^13].

Thank you very much, and may your actions be beneficial for yourself and for the world.

---

[^1]: **Upacālā:** Bhikkhuni Upacālā was a fully ordained nun during the time of the Buddha. The verses quoted are attributed to her in the Therigatha (Verses of the Elder Nuns) and the Samyutta Nikaya.

[^2]: **Kamma (Karma):** A Pali word literally meaning "action" or "doing." In Buddhism, it refers to intentional physical, verbal, or mental actions that have future consequences.

[^3]: **Kammavādin:** A Pali term meaning a proponent or teacher of kamma (action and its results).

[^4]: **Bhikkhu Bodhi:** An American Theravada Buddhist monk and prominent translator of Pali texts into English.

[^5]: **Dhamma (Dharma):** A Pali word with multiple meanings, most commonly referring to the teachings of the Buddha, the truth, or universal law. As Gil Fronsdal notes, it can also encompass the concept of justice.

[^6]: **Mr. Natural:** A comic book character created by Robert Crumb in the 1960s, often used to satirize counterculture or "guru" figures who maintain extreme detachment from the world.

[^7]: **Nibbana (Nirvana):** The Pali word for the ultimate goal of Buddhist practice, representing the extinguishing of greed, hatred, and delusion, and liberation from suffering.

[^8]: **Brahma:** In Buddhist cosmology, a high-ranking deity. According to scriptural accounts, it was Brahma Sahampati who pleaded with the newly awakened Buddha to teach the Dhamma.

[^9]: **Bhikkhu:** A fully ordained Buddhist monk.

[^10]: **Devas:** Divine beings or gods in Buddhist cosmology.

[^11]: **Kirsten Rudestam:** Corrected from the transcript's "kirsten redstem" based on context. She is a co-director of the Eco-Chaplaincy training.

[^12]: **Jack Kornfield:** A prominent American Buddhist teacher, author, and co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Meditation Center.

[^13]: **Sati Center for Buddhist Studies:** A center dedicated to supporting the study and practice of Theravada Buddhism.