Remember Siddhartha came from a disengaged school but taught a middle way. Then with the second turning the story was mixed and with the third turning Buddhism became a lay free-for-all and quite engaged with society. Nevertheless, the type of engagement (and activism) we’ve seen (from monks and nuns especially) in society and even politics is a quite modern phenomenon. The basis of it in the Mahayana is that wisdom permits disengagement but the supreme compassion (gurunath) of the wise demands (as much as anything may be demanded of a wise person) reengagement.
There are three modern figures that have been especially influential in making this change and not all of them were even Buddhists (I’ve mentioned before that Mahayana Buddhism especially has always been keen to absorb ideas from other religions as appropriate). The first of the three I will discuss in the following three posts is Gandhi (a Hindu with a Jain-influenced mother and who also developed an interest in the Sermon on the Mount and English theosophy). Then the two Buddhists I will consider are Thich Nhat Hanh (who coined the term “engaged Buddhism”) and the 14th Dalai Lama (who likes the term). They both acknowledge their debts to Gandhi (I’ll also note their connections with Martin Luther King and throw in Trappist monk Thomas Merton's connections for good measure). Here they all are (from various Google image sources):
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