The Contract
In Buddhism, there’s a social contract between two communities, the lay, and the monastic population. This social contract is like any other contract, it’s a promise of exchange of goods and services between two parties. For example, a school providing education to students and students, in turn, paying tuition. But in this case, the exchange is food and shelter for the monastic population in pursuit of nirvana with imparting of Buddha’s teachings to the lay population.
Taking out politics aside (I am an independent), our congressman, Leonard Lance, just sold out our privacy for a measly $43,000 ¹ contribution to his campaign on his last election by his telecom buddies. Even though our senators didn’t voted for it, it still went through.