Many people think that Right Speech has something to do with
Free Speech and its related Constitutional rights and
responsibilities. This confusion frequently allows political
activism to contaminate religious life; and, unfortunately for the
heroic crusaders who dwell within our breast, few things are as
harmful to a person's spiritual practice than political
activism.
When government is immoral, society looks to its religious
leaders to promote change. Sometimes, as is often the case in
undeveloped countries, a religion is the only organization
available to form an opposition. Sometimes, ironically, it was the
unwarranted intrusion into secular matters by the religion, itself,
which engendered the poverty, oppression and corruption which the
people are engaged in opposing. But no matter, whether trying to
change conditions for which they are largely responsible or whether
trying to change conditions for which they are entirely blameless,
religions seem always to get involved in politics.
Unripened religious professionals, believing it incumbent upon
themselves to set society straight on moral issues, frequently can
be found marching in protest lines or parades. They do not realize
that by publicly protesting injustices of one sort or another they
are practicing Six-Worlds' Chan. Don't warn them that if they
expend all their energy correcting the misconduct of others,
they'll have no strength left to root lust or greed out of their
own hearts. They are prepared to make the sacrifice.
Charge that their devotion to the issue far exceeds their
understanding of the issue and they will rebuke you, gnashing their
teeth in vehement denial. They are authorities on Good and Evil.
They have studied the issue (nuclear energy, alien rights, ozone
depletion, military draft, toxic waste, abortion, endangered
species, organized labor strikes, offshore drilling, etc.) and they
know that they are on the side of Good.
How do religious organizations really determine which side of an
issue is the good one? Do they automatically assume that the good
side is the side the government is not on? No. They do not study
issues that carefully. If we interview the protesters, we usually
learn that they determined the good side by having it described to
them by the administrators of their temples at whose instigation
they also picked up their placards. And how did those astute beings
arrive on the side of Good? Either they found in the 'evil' side a
fit receptacle for their congregation's collective hate (common
enemies being the nutritive umbilical cord of fellowship) or, what
is more frequently the case, they simply differentiated good from
evil according to the quid pro quo, "I'll march in your protest if
you'll march in mine" accommodations which religious groups make
with each other.
According to this arrangement, one religious group calls another
to solicit help in protesting the deployment of Multiple Warhead
Intercontinental Nuclear Missiles (their Roshi's pet peeve). The
solicited organization complies and contributes a few dozen bodies
to the march. Then, a month later when this organization wants to
protest Offshore Drilling (the bane of their Guru's existence),
they call upon the first which reciprocates. Often, the people on
the line don't know anything at all about the issue except what
they have been told by their religious leaders. Not exactly a
think-tank operation.
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