A blending of Buddhism, social engagement, and alternative agriculture from Thailand: the Maap Euang Meditation Center for Sufficiency Economy

2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitri Schertenleib
Keyword(s):  
Social Engagement ◽  
Alternative Agriculture ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
Buddhist Studies ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Engaged Buddhism ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
The Way

Abstract Today, across all the places where the various Buddhist schools have established themselves, there is a broad phenomenon with heterogeneous characteristics and manifestations called engaged Buddhism or socially engaged Buddhism. What unites the advocates of this movement is the way the Buddhist notion of dukkha (i.e., ‘suffering’) is interpreted to include the economic, political, social, and even ecological dimensions of suffering in the contemporary world. Engaged Buddhists have reformulated the normative teachings of dukkha to make them relevant to current issues. In this paper, I present an example of ecologically and socially engaged Theravāda Buddhism of the Maap Euang Meditation Center for Sufficiency Economy, in Thailand near Bangkok. Members of this community have developed a form of engaged Buddhism that treats ideas of “sufficiency” economy and peasant agroecology. To understand this movement, I will argue that the discipline of Buddhist Studies needs to combine the study of ancient canonical texts with the study of their contemporary interpretations.

Theravada Buddhism and Meditation

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Great Emphasis ◽  
Theravada Buddhism ◽  
Complex Relationship ◽  
Balanced Development ◽  
Buddhist Meditation ◽  
Textual Basis ◽  
The Way

This chapter describes texts and practices associated with meditation in Southern, or Pali, Buddhism, sometimes known as Theravada Buddhism. It explores some different approaches to meditation that characterize this form of Buddhism, as well as the textual basis for their practice and theory. The word “meditation,” with its application in Southern Buddhism, is examined. In Southern Buddhist countries (principally Sri Lanka, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Burma/Myanmar) the word bhāvanā covers a range of activities including chanting, devotions, offerings, and recollections, as well as sitting meditation. These are considered central supports to the development of both samatha (calm) meditation and vipassanā (insight). The chapter considers the way that various elements of sitting practice in both calm and insight schools are felt to be needed to work with one another and with these supports. Some aspects of the complex relationship between the two modes of approaching meditation, calm and insight, are then examined further: schools in both traditions teach many other features of practice as well as sitting meditation to ensure balanced development. The tradition’s great emphasis on the importance of meditation guidance is also discussed. Some of the adaptations that have accompanied global interest in Southern Buddhist meditation are explored, with a broad survey of some modern strands that have moved to regions outside the traditional “home” of these practices.

The Changing Way of the Bodhisattva

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbra R. Clayton
Keyword(s):  
Social Action ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
Social Activist ◽  
Altruistic Motive ◽  
Modern View ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
The Ideal

This chapter explores the nature of the connections between contemporary understandings of the bodhisattva path as socially engaged, and the canonical Mahāyāna tradition in India—the Ugraparipṛcchā-sūtra and the works of Śāntideva. These canonical treatments of the bodhisattva’s career are compared with a contemporary understanding as reflected in the commentary on Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra by Pema Chödrön. This analysis reveals distinct visions of the bodhisattva, from the Ugra’s elite superhero, to Śāntideva’s saintly bodhisattva, to the modern view of the bodhisattva as social activist. The career of the bodhisattva is furthermore shown to involve a range of types of social engagement. While the canonical texts support the ideal of imbuing all daily activities with an altruistic motive, as well as endorsing selfless service to meet the needs and wants of sentient beings, only the contemporary reading of the bodhisattva path advocates social action to address systemic causes of collective suffering.

The Ethics of Engaged Buddhism in the West

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Queen
Keyword(s):  
Systems Theory ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Mindfulness Meditation ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Human Suffering ◽  
Buddhist Ethics ◽  
The West ◽  
New Models ◽  
Engaged Buddhism ◽  
Contemporary Religion

This chapter identifies challenges facing Engaged Buddhism in the West and proposes new models of ethical interpretation to account for its originality and persistence. Taking Engaged Buddhism to mean the application of Buddhist principles and practices to address social sources of human suffering and environmental harm—in contrast to other modes of Buddhist ethics, such as discipline, virtue, and altruism—we consider the degree to which Buddhist social engagement has been embraced, repudiated, or ignored by influential Buddhists and by the sponsors of mindfulness meditation programmes that have proliferated in the West. In comparing these expressions of contemporary religion and secularity, we find a range of conditions for the practice of Engaged Buddhism. We conclude by offering John Dewey’s pragmatism and Joanna Macy’s systems theory as resources for Engaged Buddhist ethics, as supplements to the virtue ethics and consequentialism others have proposed to account for traditional Buddhist ethics.

Twelver Shīʿī Exegesis

2020 ◽  
pp. 705-720
Author(s):  
Sajjad Rizvi
Keyword(s):  
Classical Tradition ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Stages Of Development ◽  
Historical Approach ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
Central Concern ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Thematic Approach ◽  
Oral Teaching ◽  
Normative Perspective

In this chapter normative approaches to exegesis from a Twelver Shīʿī perspective are combined with a diachronic historical approach. From the normative perspective, the function of exegesis is to reveal the walāya of the imams and the close complementarity of the Qur’an and the imam is the central concern for the exegete. That process begins with the classical tradition in which the Qur’an is glossed on the basis of the sayings of the imams alone, both through explicit citation and through claims articulated that draw on oral teaching. From a diachronic perspective, one finds that the development of exegesis in the Twelver Shīʿī context follows the wider scholarly engagement in different milieux over roughly three or four stages of development. Hence one finds comprehensive exegeses that examine all aspects of understanding from the language to the law, others that focus on philosophy and theology, and others still that engage in mystical speculation. The traditions of exegesis remain very much alive and flourishing in the present in manners of social engagement as well as a shift towards a more thematic approach to making sense of the Qurʾan in the contemporary world from a Shīʿī perspective.

scholarly journals Prawa i godność człowieka we współczesnej bioetyce

2004 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 189-212
Author(s):  
Wojciech Bołoz
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Ethical Code ◽  
European Convention ◽  
Human Being ◽  
Application Of Law ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The World ◽  
Independent Life ◽  
The Way

In contemporary bioethics dominate two trends dealing with two basic ethical solutions. First of them is utilitarianism concerning utility as a criterion of judging between what is right and what is wrong. The second trend applies to human rights and human dignity, which are to be obeyed without any exceptions. Utilitarianism protects the strong and prosperous people in society and excludes those who are weak and not capable of independent life. The concept of human dignity protects each and every human being including the weakest ones. It is therefore characterized by real humanitarianism. In addition, it has one more outstanding virtue; in the contemporary world, it is the most widespread and understandable ethical code. It enables people of different civilizations to communicate with understandable ethical language. In the world constantly undergoing global processes, it is a great value. Although there are a number of discussions concerning the way of understanding human dignity and human rights, their universal and ethical meaning; there are certain international acts of law concerning biomedicine that support the concept of human dignity as the most adequate concept for the contemporary bioethics. As an example, the European Convention on Bioethics can be taken. The article includes the most significant topics concerning understanding, history, and application of law and human dignity in bioethics.

scholarly journals Remedies of Social Decadence in Context of the Life of Prophet Muhammad (Peace be upon him)

2019 ◽  
Vol 02 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ms Rabia
Keyword(s):  
Contemporary World ◽  
Current Article ◽  
Social Maladies ◽  
The Way

In this article, putrefaction of society has been discussed along with the counterstrategies adopted by the Prophet (Peace be upon him). Since social vices have been the vestigial part of the Arab society, the Prophet (Peace be upon him) took up the cudgels and bestirred to eradicate moral decay, existent among the Arabs from the days of yore. Analogous to the situation, in the contemporary world, the similar social vices are being erected on the pretext of ‘modernization’, which has become the cause of demoralization for many. For this, in the current article, social maladies and moral turpitude like fib, backbiting, adultery, grudge, rancor etc. have been delineated. After being involved in elusive bustling, an individual blemishes his or her life in this world and hereafter, affecting Peace and Stability in the society. The only way out that one can adopt to escape herself/himself from this, is the way that has been unfolded by the Prophet (Peace be upon him). So, by acting upon the Prophet’s (Peace be upon him) instructions we can curb these social vices and moral turpitude in our society.

scholarly journals The problem of reality in writings of Richard Wagner reality of artwork as transition from „reality of the contemporary world“ towards „reality of the future world“

2014 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-273
Author(s):  
Dragana Jeremic-Molnar
Keyword(s):  
Actual World ◽  
Richard Wagner ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Way

Richard Wagner began perceiving the world in terms of decay as early as the mid-1840s and especially during the 1848-49 revolution. He did not critique the contemporary world (and its accompanying reality) as someone who merely understood it in his own way. Wagner actually developed his own version of the world that was meant to become the referential framework for creating an entirely different reality in the future. The most exhaustive source concerning Wagner?s idea of the world and reality is his famous letter to August R?ckel, from 25-26 January 1854. In it Wagner put together his earlier ref lections on reality into a relatively coherent and meaningful whole. He did it by the means of several different concepts: ?the World as a whole?, ?the actual world?, ?reality of the world?/?the modern reality?. In this letter and elsewhere, he failed to elaborate his idea of the world, as well as to explain its relationship with ?the modern reality? that was undergoing change. Instead, he developed another idea: that of the artwork which was supposed to be a sort of mediator between ?the actual world? and ?the world of the future?, as well as between their accompanying realities. Wagner?s version of the ?actual world? (as well as its appropriate reality) comprised two components: ?the actual world? itself and the artwork, which was already changing it. Such a work contained a description of the change, understood in terms of regeneration, and thus also a prediction of the way reality itself should change in the future, as well as the direction of the change.

scholarly journals Progress and Free Will: On the Buddhist Concept of “Time” and Its Possibilities for Modernity

Asian Studies ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bart DESSEIN
Keyword(s):  
Free Will ◽  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Contemporary World ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The Way

An even only cursory glance at the way Buddhism is experienced, interpreted, and lived in the contemporary world––both Western and Oriental––reveals Buddhism’s multiple “modern faces”. This paper does not intend to describe all or even a selected group of these many faces, but attempts to contribute to our understanding of how peculiar developments within Buddhist philosophy have made it possible that such a variety of “Buddhist modernities” could develop. It is shown that it is the peculiar Buddhist interpretation of the concept of time that has provided the basis on which the various modern features of Buddhism could build, because the Buddhist interpretation of time contains an aspect of progress and free will. It is suggested that these two aspects increased the prominence given to the individual adept in the Mahāyāna. The article then claims that it precisely are the ideas of rationality, progress and individualism that are also characteristic for the modern world that contain the possibility for Buddhism to develop its multitude of modern faces. 

Reading Ignatius in Kathmandu

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Cattoi
Keyword(s):  
Religious Tradition ◽  
Systematic Theology ◽  
Buddhist Studies ◽  
Buddhist Text ◽  
Religious Other ◽  
The Way

The goal of this chapter is to reflect on a joint reading of Ignatius of Loyola’s Exercises and Śāntideva’s Bodhicaryāvatāra (The Way of the Bodhisattva) in seminars that were held in 2009 and 2012 at the Center for Buddhist Studies (CBS) in Kathmandu, Nepal. The seminars were a privileged occasion where the comparative reading of a Buddhist text and a Christian text was supplemented with a “dialogue of life” between practitioners of different traditions. This chapter presents some theological insights gained from these conversations, while also exploring the challenges of teaching these texts in a comparative and dialogical manner. In line with Francis Clooney’s call for a new systematic theology that is simultaneously confessional and interreligious, the chapter also attempts to lay foundations for a new “pedagogy of interreligious encounter,” which is characterized by “vulnerability” to the religious other while remaining grounded in a specific religious tradition.

Ñ??ananda’s Concept and Reality: An Assessment

2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-23
Author(s):  
Stephen Evans
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Studies ◽  
Seminal Work ◽  
The Given ◽  
The Way

Bhikkhu Ñ??ananda’s Concept and Reality has exerted a certain influence on Buddhist Studies, from translations of the P?li Nik?yas to interpretations of doctrine. Far beyond proposing translations for papañca and papañca-saññ?sa?kh?, the book lays out a thesis, supported and illustrated by frequent citations from the Nik?yas, concerning the role of concepts and language itself in perpetuating bondage to sa?s?ra. Concepts and language are said to obscure reality in a self-perpetuating cycle that bars us from liberation. The thesis has intuitive force and profound implications for understanding the P?li sources. However, the presentation is flawed by inconsistencies, lack of clarity, and overly interpretive translations of the P?li — it is not even clear in important details precisely what Ñ??ananda’s intended thesis is. The present offering is an attempt at clarifying this seminal work so as to enable building upon it. The given thesis is elucidated, making its problems explicit, and suggesting resolutions, arriving finally with a proposal of what he may have intended. Along the way, I indicate where given support from the Nik?yas is weak.

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