In his new book The Engaged Spiritual Life: A Buddhist Approach to Transforming Ourselves and the World, Donald Rothberg sets out ten basic principles for socially engaged spiritual life. He shared these with us this last weekend. (I believe he co-wrote these ten with a partner, but her name escapes me). Resisting the urge to make my own comments, I wanted to offer them for your own consideration and contemplation, with a few words that Rothberg added during the retreat:

1) Establishing Your Own Ethical Guidelines on the personal, relational, and collective levels.
2) Mindfulness practice both on the cushion and off- honest relationship to what is happening in the moment.
3) Clarifying motivation/ Setting intentions
4) Opening to pain and suffering (ie unpleasant, uncomfortable, unsatisfactory conditions), first on the cushion and then off.
5) Balancing the care of self and of other (note: the traditional pali word for "equanimity" is UPEKA- meaning balance)
6) Open mindedness "Not knowing and keeping going"
7) Interdependence/Interbeing the honest contemplation and eventual understanding of our integral relationship to the people around us, our environment, and the whole world.
8) Transforming anger (and the negative emotions) these emotions are our strength as well as poisons. how do we transform them into skillful action? (hating anger is not so wise, wha?)
9) Acting from a place of equanimity
10) Deep commitment to action without attachment to outcome (as one Sri Lankan (?) activist said: "What we need is a five hundred year plan for social reform!")