(…continued) I once knew a Cambodian refugee named Salee. Salee was a young man when the communist dictator Pol Pot came to power in Cambodia in 1975. Pol Pot was a ruthless tyrant, and over the next four years, two million Cambodians were dead as the result of his rule, many of them murdered in the infamous ‘killing fields.’ Salee, simply because he was from the educated class, was arrested and marched out of the city into one of these killing fields. There he, along with a thousand other people, were shot and left for dead. Salee was severely wounded, but survived. He lay quietly among the hundreds of dead bodies until darkness, and then crept away. He was a medical student and knew how to treat and bandage his wounds. He then made his way to a refugee camp in Thailand, and after living there two years, was able to come to the United States.
Salee is a Christian, one of only a few in Cambodia. Cambodia is 95% Buddhist, the faith in which Salee was raised. I asked him how he came to believe in Jesus. He said that even before the civil war, there was much hunger and suffering in Cambodia. But the poor and suffering people received no help from the government, and they received no help from the Buddhists.
Salee did notice, however, that American Christian missionaries were helping everyone they could, in whatever ways they were able. Salee asked himself, “Why do these Christians come here from the other side of the world to help my people, when my people do not even help their own neighbors?” He went into one of the mission churches to find out. The pastor told him about Jesus, about the compassion Jesus had for the poor and suffering, and how Jesus told his followers to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. Salee said he learned none of that from Buddhism. Salee wanted to know more about Jesus. Before long, Salee came to believe in Jesus as the Son of God, Savior of the world. I met him at a Ministry Training School for immigrants where I was teaching. Salee’s goal there was to learn enough about Christianity to go back to Cambodia as a missionary to his own people.
It is interesting to note that the question which led Salee out of Buddhism and into Christianity, is very similar to the question that led Steve Jobs out of Christianity and eventually toward Buddhism. Both wondered about the problem of hunger. Steve Jobs wondered how God could allow it. Salee wanted to find out about the God that inspired people to do something about it.
Now, back to Steve Jobs. Jobs gave Buddhism credit for helping him focus his life and simplify his approach to technology, two of the things that led to his incredible success. He was an intensely focused problem solver and innovator, and, his goal was to make his very complex products simple to use.
But what did Buddhism do for Steve Jobs’ concern for his fellow human beings? Remember, he walked away from Christianity, disappointed with God’s lack of concern for starving children in Africa. But Jobs’ Buddhist beliefs provided little incentive for him to do anything about the suffering of others. He was not known for his generosity. Bill Gates has established a foundation to help the needy of the world in a variety of ways, has donated tens of billions of dollars to it, and invited other billionaires to join him in the effort. Warren Buffet, among many others, has joined with Gates. But Steve Jobs refused. The company Jobs helped start, Apple, does some significant work by sharing a percentage of its profits with charities, but it seems Jobs did not give away very much of his own vast personal wealth to help the starving, or anyone else in the world.
I am reminded of a comment I heard many years ago about world hunger by Sam Kinison. Kinison was a stand-up comedian who died in a car accident in 1992 at the age of 38. I did not like his humor. He was crude, vulgar, abrasive, and went out of his way to ridicule religious faith. He was not the kind of person I ever expected to be quoting in a meditation. But he did say one thing that struck me with its practical honesty and truth. He referred to a photograph of a starving child in Africa (probably much like the one Steve Jobs saw; see above), and he said in his loud and abrasive way, “Why is that guy taking a picture? Why doesn’t he brush the flies off that poor kid’s face and give him a sandwich?”
Good question. In the same way we could ask: “Why spend our time discussing the theological problem of hunger; why not just feed the hungry?” Sam Kinison’s question leads us back to Salee’s question. Salee was frustrated with his Buddhist religion that sought only to teach the individual how to transcend his or her own suffering. Salee wanted to get to know the people who were handing out the sandwiches. He wanted to find out what they believed in. (continued…)
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