engaged buddhism
Recently Published Documents


TOTAL DOCUMENTS

108
(FIVE YEARS 24)

H-INDEX

4
(FIVE YEARS 1)

2021 ◽  
pp. 180-198
Author(s):  
Jay L. Garfield

This chapter enters the realm of contemporary moral discourse. It discusses the origins of the 20th- and 21st- century Engaged Buddhist movement, which attempts to construct a new understanding of Buddhism and of Buddhist ethics in a political sphere. The chapter also addresses the degree to which such a modernist movement can be considered Buddhist, the degree of continuity between Engaged Buddhism and earlier Buddhist ethical thought, and the impact of modern Western ethical and political theory on Engaged Buddhism. Special attention is devoted to the work of the 14th Dalai Lama, of Thich Nhat Hanh, and of Sulak Sivaraksa.


2021 ◽  
Vol 0 (0) ◽  
Author(s):  
Dimitri Schertenleib

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.


2021 ◽  

Buddhism comprised 2.4 percent of the Australian population at the most recent census in 2016. While reflection on Buddhism’s growth in Australia is recorded as early as 1961, the first major body of work in the field was documentation of the early history in Buddhism in Australia, 1848–1988 (Croucher 1989 [cited under History]). The study of Buddhism in Australia has grown since the 1990s, with a small number of books and academic theses now available. An edited volume, Buddhism in Australia: Traditions in Change (Rocha and Barker 2011) [cited under Overviews]) provides a significant addition in showcasing a broad range of work from researchers and leading teachers. “Bibliography: Buddhism in Australia” (Fitzpatrick, et al. 2012 [cited under History]) provides a bibliography of all the works in the field that records more than ninety academic publications and forty other resources. A total of forty of these were completed between 2003 and 2012, and it would be reasonable to assume that approximately forty more have been added from 2012 to 2021, suggesting that there are now more than 175 studies relevant to this field. This review of key works in the field focuses on five areas: Overviews, History, Major Schools, Buddhist Identity, and Expressions of Buddhism. The history section ranges from historical overviews to community profiles, culminating in the exploration in “The Buddhist Council of Victoria and the Challenges of Recognizing Buddhism as a Religion in Australia” (Cousens 2011 [cited under History]) on the efforts to encourage government recognition of Buddhism as a designated religion in Australia. As for many countries in Europe and North America, a wide range of Buddhist schools took root through various means, and examination of these has increased to enable the section on major schools to encompass at least one work on most major traditions, often by researchers who are also practitioners. Consideration of the diversity of Buddhist traditions represented in Australia leads into the section Buddhist Identity, which includes studies on both immigrant identity and conversion in relation to Buddhist practice. The final section contains references dealing with how aspects of Buddhist teachings have been expressed in practice, including feminism, engaged Buddhism, and incorporation into Australian education systems. “Women and Ultramodern Buddhism in Australia” (Halafoff, et al. 2018 [cited under Expressions of Buddhism]) provides a valuable update and new perspective on the role of women in Australian Buddhist history, and The Buddha Is in the Street: Engaged Buddhism in Australia (Sherwood 2003 [cited under Expressions of Buddhism]) illustrates expressions of engaged Buddhism in the Australian context.


Author(s):  
Ann Gleig

Engaged Buddhism emerged in Asia in the 20th century as Buddhists responded to the challenges of colonialism, modernity, and secularization. It is often dated to Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar’s challenge to caste discrimination in India in the 1950s and the antiwar activism of Vietnamese Buddhist monastic Thich Nhat Hanh, although recent scholarship has pointed to the influence of Chinese Buddhist reforms occurring in the 1930s. Hanh coined the term “engaged Buddhism” to describe social and political activism based in Buddhist principles in the 1960s. The terms “engaged Buddhism” and “socially engaged Buddhism” were taken up by loosely connected Buddhists in Asia and the West who adapted Buddhism to a range of nonviolent social activist projects such as peacemaking, human rights, environmental protection, rural development, combatting ethnic violence, and women’s rights. With globalization and technological advances, engaged Buddhist organizations and efforts have spread across the globe. Reflecting the culture shift from the modern to the postmodern, generational and demographic shifts within these communities are marked by increased attention to intersectionality and postcolonial thought. Engaged Buddhists see their social and political activities as extending Buddhism’s classical focus on individual suffering to the suffering generated by unjust structures and systems, and set collective as well as individual liberation as a soteriological goal. While there is a consensus in academic scholarship that engaged Buddhism is an expression of Buddhist modernism, recent debates have arisen around whether conservative, nationalist, and even ethnocentric modern forms of Buddhism can be considered as forms of engaged Buddhism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-13
Author(s):  
Jørn Borup

ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Ecologization of Buddhism makes sense in both a mod-ern and posthuman perspective. Initiatives and institutions based on socially engaged Buddhism with sustainability, biodiversity and ecology as ideals have spread in recent decades in both East and West. There are arguments from both classical Pali Buddhist literature and East Asian Mahayana philosophy to justify Buddhist nature symbiosis from both ontological, ethical, and soteriological perspectives. Critical analysis can easily deconstruct such ideals as anachronistically constructed, primarily based on modern naturalism, reform Buddhism and con-temporary philosophy of nature. Such an ‘invented Buddhism’ is, however, genuinely authentic, and it is argued that an ecological perspective on both historical and contemporary Buddhism can legitimize other possibilities of interpretation, including the view of an ontological continuum with room for also animistic and posthuman 'nature religion', in which a dog on several levels can be said to possess Buddha nature. DANSK RESUMÉ: Økologisering af buddhismen giver mening i både et moderne og posthumant perspektiv. Initiativer og institutioner baseret på socialt engageret buddhisme med bæredygtighed, biodiversitet og økologi som idealer har de sidste årtier bredt sig i både Øst og Vest. Der er argumenter fra både klassisk pali-buddhistisk litteratur og østasiatisk mahayana-filosofi til at godtgøre buddhistisk natur-symbiose ud fra både ontologisk, etisk og soteriologisk perspektiv. Kritisk analyse kan sagtens dekonstruere sådanne som anakronistisk konstruerede idealer, primært med afsæt i moderne naturalisme, reformbuddhisme og nutidig naturfilosofi. En sådan ’opfundet buddhisme’ er dog helt autentisk, og der argumenteres for, at netop et økologisk perspektiv på både historisk og nutidig buddhisme kan legitimere andre fortolkningsmuligheder, herunder anskuelsen af et ontologisk kontinuum med plads til også animistisk og posthuman ‘natur-religion’, i hvilken en hund på flere planer kan siges at besidde buddha-natur.  


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document