If anything, the umpteenth event of this kind shows once more that the praxis is the sole source of knowledge, especially when compared to the reading of books of any doctrine, explicitly religious or not, reading which does nothing but develop faith, instead of removing doubts as with the praxis.
Perhaps the republics institutionalizing the liberal democracies could render mandatory the vipassana-samatha mediations in their mandatory school programs, such as they do in few of their prisons or for their cancerous, even though the buddhist morality --- that is to say the dhamma put into praxis --- which is required to get any result remains in strong contrast to the morality of the Human rights whereon lie the doctrine that is the initial classical liberalism and its various contemporary refinements.
The lack of praxis is the sole effect of the faith in a rationalism supporting a doctrine (religious or not), sometimes more or less blend in some bastardization of empiricism, in order to acquire knowledge, whereas the traditional quest of the rationalist, especially the one who qualifies himself as secular, since this is all that he has, to link the productions of the mind, which are the abstractions, to the « states of the world » remains sterile, thus far.
And the desire for western academic to find a political philosophy in the dhamma --- that is to say to construct and then having faith in such political structure in sanctifying it, à la Human Rights --- shows how deeply misguided he is through another tragedy of the occidental rationalism claiming to be a occidental humanist and seeking some salvation through some concrete objectivity via a universalism, since, let's face it, he more or less understands that his Human rights are nothing but universal in a performative manner...
The problem of the occidental humanism is the explicit lack of praxis of the human rights, either a personal praxis or even a social one, since there are very few rituals in any liberal doctrine; and the faith in its imposition on the children in formatting them through the national education demonstrates solely his despair. This education could a good strategy, but given that they still need the justice and the police today, it fails de facto.
Naturally, the rationalism not being bound to the occidental humanist, the same lack of praxis is detrimental in any other doctrine putting an emphasis solely on the reading of their conventional texts.
It is always the same problem, irrespective of the doctrine, religious or not : how can the few proponents of such doctrine manage to get dozens of millions of people, who were birthed by parents precisely not following the doctrine, into adopting a doctrine which is not theirs spontaneously ?
There is no answer to these besides a mixed of proselytism and imposition, more or less explicit. And The dhamma does not show a proselyte face. So what can the buddhists do ?
Once entered in the stream, the followers of the dhamma knows that the human conventions will not save anybody. These conventions in the West take the form, today, of legal laws and scientific laws. This loss of faith in politics, in views consolidates his doubts on a structure to manage people inside a nation (assuming that he has faith, beforehand, in the relevance of the concept of nation).
As usual, the sole display of a doctrine is through the action of its followers. Concerning the dhamma, the buddhists must accept that the majority of the people will not follow the dhamma, that a minority will be explicitly against it, that a minority will show a few fruits of the dhamma without even following it.
The buddhists must show how good buddhist they are; in one word, how good they are in being equanimous and benevolent, towards themselves and others, at any time and any place...
