Tag Archives: Engaged Buddhism

Volume 31 2024

Economic Justice in the Buddhist Tradition

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Volume 31, 2024

Economic Justice in the Buddhist Tradition

Christopher Queen
Harvard University

Buddhism is widely associated today with progressive values and exemplary models of economic life. The idea of “Buddhist economics” was paired with the slogan “small is beautiful” by the economist E. F. Schumacher in 1973. Voluntary simplicity, renunciation, and a middle path between self-indulgence and self-denial are seen as keys to sustainable levels of acquisition and consumption. Buddhist kindness and compassion are thought to inspire charitable giving to the poor, and right livelihood to promote occupations of service to society. Yet the history of Buddhist economics does not always support these assumptions. Traditional beliefs in karma and merit-making do not align with modern ideas of justice. We examine the Buddhist record in areas of social equality, property, natural resources, products, wealth, income, jobs, and taxation. Each section surveys Buddhist economics in the Theravāda cultures of South and Southeast Asia; the Mahāyāna cultures that flourished in India, China, Tibet, and East Asia; and the modern period, marked by the rise of Engaged Buddhism in Asia and the West. At each stage we find distinctive teachings and practices in the economic sphere. Read article

Volume 31 2024

Phases of the Buddhist Approach to the Environment

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Volume 31, 2024

Phases of the Buddhist Approach to the Environment

Johannes Cairns
University of Helsinki

Various typologies of Buddhist ecophilosophies have been proposed but they have overlooked temporal dynamics and the relationship between beliefs and practice. I address this research gap by proposing a three-tier diachronic scheme. The first premodern phase featured a mixed bag of attitudes and behaviors in relation to ecology, with some being supportive of environmental ethics and others subversive. The second phase arose with the early counterculture environmental movement and consisted of ecophilosophies and activism with limited influence. The third phase started in the mid-1990s with political acknowledgement of the ecocrisis and has gained momentum. It consists of global adoption of ecophilosophies and environmental practices, including conservative Asian organizations, and new radical ecology. The dynamics indicate that a tradition of accommodating to prevailing political paradigms may have obstructed Buddhist environmentalism in the past but could facilitate it in the future.
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Volume 30 2023

Are Ethnocentric/Nationalist Buddhists Engaged Buddhists? Certainly Not.

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Volume 30, 2023

Are Ethnocentric/Nationalist Buddhists Engaged Buddhists? Certainly Not.

Sallie B. King
James Madison University

This is a brief response to Donna Lynn Brown’s article, “Beyond Queen and King: Democratizing ‘Engaged Buddhism’,” (Journal of Buddhist Ethics Vol. 30, 2023) and indirectly to others who have argued that ethnocentric and/or nationalist Buddhism could be a part of Engaged Buddhism. To this question, I will argue that this is not possible. Secondarily, I take up the question of the “oneness” of Engaged Buddhism.

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Volume 30 2023

Engaged Buddhism at Sixty-Five

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Volume 30, 2023

Engaged Buddhism at Sixty-Five: Nuancing The Consensus

Christopher Queen
Harvard University

After more than 65 years of public activism and social service by engaged Buddhists in Asia and the West, it is time to reconsider the nature of engaged Buddhism and how faithfully it has been represented by scholars. In “Beyond Queen and King: Democratizing ‘Engaged Buddhism,’” Donna Lynn Brown argues that the category should be expanded to include “overlooked Buddhists” who may have traditional, ethnic, national, state-supported, or conservative orientations; those who perform social service; and those who engage in violence. Furthermore, Brown claims that engaged Buddhism is a narrative imposed by Western scholars on Asian Buddhists who may not know or approve of it. In this response, I will focus on three characteristics of engaged Buddhism that Brown and other scholars she cites have misunderstood or rejected in their critique: (1) the practice of compassionate service by engaged Buddhists; (2) the commitment of engaged Buddhists to nonviolent social change; and (3) the decentralized, hybrid, and evolving nature of engaged Buddhist ideology and praxis which reflects the contribution of voices and values from Asia and the West.

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Volume 30 2023

Review: Buddhism under Capitalism

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Volume 30, 2023

Buddhism under Capitalism. Edited by Richard K. Payne and Fabio Rambelli. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, 280 pages, ISBN 978-1-350-22832-0 (hardback), $90.00, 978-1-350-22833-7 (paperback), $29.95, 978-1-350-22835-1 (e-book), $26.95.

Reviewed by Stephen Christopher

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Volume 30 2023

Democratizing “Engaged Buddhism”

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Volume 30, 2023

Beyond Queen and King: Democratizing “Engaged Buddhism”

Donna Lynn Brown
University of Manitoba

What counts as Buddhist social engagement? Why, in Buddhist Studies, do certain forms of engagement and certain Buddhists often not count? This article argues that the limits that scholars Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King placed around Buddhist engagement in the 1990s—limits that produced a rough consensus in Buddhist Studies—should be democratized to include all Buddhists and their social engagement. For years, criticism of these limits and research that circumvents them have appeared without seriously undermining them. However, 2022 may mark a turning point. In that year, two publications, by Paul Fuller and Alexander Hsu, offered comprehensive and convincing arguments for considering all Buddhists’ socially oriented activities “engaged.” This article examines the consensus on the nature of Buddhist engagement, its origins in activism, research that dissents from it, and critiques it has faced. The article assesses dissent and critiques and considers why, until recently, they have had little effect. It then discusses why Fuller’s and Hsu’s publications represent a turning point and proposes new areas of research beyond those even these two scholars suggest.

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Volume 30 2023

Review: Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All

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Volume 30, 2023

Buddhist Visions of the Good Life for All. Edited by Sallie B. King. Routledge Critical Studies in Buddhism. Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2021, xvi + 256 pages, ISBN 978-0-367-56181-9 (hardback), $160, 978-1-00-310045-4 (e-book), $44.05.

Reviewed by Timothy Loftus

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Volume 29 2022

Principles for Jōdo Shinshū Social Engagement

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Volume 29, 2022

Principles for Jōdo Shinshū Social Engagement

Jeff Wilson
Renison University College, University of Waterloo

Despite omission from much of the record of scholarship on Engaged Buddhism, Jōdo Shinshū Buddhism has significant potential for positive involvement with social causes. Here I propose six principles based on elements of the Jōdo Shinshū teachings that might inspire or inform efforts at reducing harm in the world. I further provide some examples of social engagement from Jōdo Shinshū history that demonstrate how they might be applied.

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Volume 29 2022

Review: A Philosophical Exploration of Buddhist Ethics

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Volume 29, 2022

Buddhist Ethics: A Philosophical Exploration. By Jay L. Garfield. Buddhist Philosophy for Philosophers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021, xiv + 231 pages, ISBN 978-0-19-090763-1 (hardback), $99/978-0-19-090764-8 (paperback), $24.95/978-0-19-090766-2 (e-book), $16.99.

Reviewed by Amod Lele

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Volume 29 2022

Thich Nhat Hanh’s Ecological Humanism

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Volume 29, 2022

Collapsing Space and Time: Thich Nhat Hanh’s Ecological Humanism

Victor Thasiah
California Lutheran University

Identifying with non-human organisms, such as flora and fauna, and non-living members of the natural world, such as winds and clouds, was central to Thich Nhat Hanh’s (1926–2022) practice of Buddhism and conduct of resistance during the Vietnam War. This deep affinity with nature enabled him to “become himself” and sustain his public service and humanitarian work under duress. We examine Nhat Hanh’s extended accounts of identifying with the natural world during the war, relevant material from his 1962–1966 memoirs and 1963 poem “Butterflies over the Golden Mustard Fields.” They set out what we call his ecological humanism, his paradoxical overcoming of self-alienation through a close rapport with relatively wild nature. With no critical biography yet available, this focused, ecocritical interpretation, the first of its kind on Nhat Hanh during this major period, contributes to a better sense of the making of this global Buddhist influencer, who at the time was nominated by Martin Luther King, Jr. for the Nobel Peace Prize.

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Volume 28 2021

Aquinas and Mipham on Military and Punitive Violence

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Volume 28, 2021

Aquinas and Mipham on Military and Punitive Violence: A Tribute to Michael Jerryson

Damien Keown
Goldsmiths, University of London (Emeritus)

The claim that Buddhism is exclusively a “religion of peace” has been shown to be untenable. Buddhism now faces the challenge of explaining how the pacifist spirit of its teachings can be reconciled with its well-documented recourse to military and punitive violence. Buddhism is not the only religion to face this challenge, and we first consider the Christian stance on violence as formulated by St. Thomas Aquinas before turning to the views of the Tibetan polymath Jamgön Mipham. We consider to what extent the views of the two thinkers are compatible and conclude with a suggestion as to how what Michael Jerryson calls “the quandary of Buddhism and violence” might be resolved.

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Volume 28 2021

Review: Jewish Encounters with Buddhism

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Volume 28, 2021

American JewBu: Jews, Buddhists, and Religious Change. By Emily Sigalow. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2019, 280 pages, ISBN 978-0-691-17459-4 (hard-back), $29.95/978-0-691-22805-1 (paperback), $21.95.

Jewish Encounters with Buddhism in German Culture: Between Moses and Buddha, 1890–1940. Palgrave Series in Asian German Studies. By Sebastian Musch. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019, ix + 289 pages, ISBN 978-3-030-27468-9 (hardback), $99.99/978-3-030-27471-9 (paperback), $69.99/978-3-030-27469-6 (e-book), $54.99.

Reviewed by Mira Niculescu

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Volume 28 2021

Buddhist Lessons in Pandemics and Politics

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Volume 28, 2021

Coronavirus and Ill-fated Crowns: Buddhist Lessons in Pandemics and Politics

Alexander McKinley
Loyola University Chicago

Synthesizing three retellings of the story about the Buddha curing a plague in the ancient city of Vesāli, this article argues that lessons from the narrative can help us analyze the modern coronavirus pandemic and critique political responses to it. From the ancient Pāli commentary of Buddhaghosa to Sinhala vernacular retellings by a medieval monk named Buddhaputra and a colonial-era layman named Vijēvikrama, the critical force of the story has seemingly grown over time. Along the way, these authors emphasize how the endless expansion of the city due to the material desires of its rulers was bound to exacerbate suffering by their grasping at impermanent forms. This philosophical insight is applicable to current problems, where the limitless materialism of global capitalism has also been overextended, altering climates and ecologies to generate new pathogens like the coronavirus. Countries that promised uninterrupted economic growth during the pandemic have in turn suffered its worst consequences. The story of Vesāli therefore remains ripe for many more retellings in the modern world, teaching that attention to a higher ideal of transcendent truth is more fruitful than material enrichment alone.

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Volume 28 2021

Is Buddhism Individualistic? The Trouble with a Term

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Volume 28, 2021

Is Buddhism Individualistic? The Trouble with a Term

Donna Lynn Brown
University of Manitoba

Western scholars have been calling expressions of Buddhism “individualistic”—or denying the charge—since the 1800s. This article argues that “individualism” and related terms are sometimes problematic when applied to Buddhism. Because they are associated with Western modernity, they contribute to hegemonic discourses about Asia and Buddhism, skew representations, and reinforce stereotypes. Because their referents have been many and varied—including escaping caste and family, asociality, lay practice, and racism—their use leads to imprecision, confusion, and lack of comparability among analyses. And because they have moral connotations, they can blend observation with valuation and polemic. The article examines selected scholarly works that maintain or deny that Buddhism is individualistic, highlights problems associated with the term, and concludes that, in many cases, more precise and less value-laden descriptors should be found.

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Volume 28 2021

Review: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence

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Volume 28, 2021

If You Meet the Buddha on the Road: Buddhism, Politics, and Violence. By Michael Jerryson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018, 240 pp., ISBN 978-0-19-068356-6 (hardback), $115.00.

Reviewed by Manuel Litalien

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Volume 27 2020

A Tibetan Regent’s Economic Reforms and the Ethics of Rulership

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Volume 27, 2020

The Saṃgha and the Taxman: A Tibetan Regent’s Economic Reforms and the Ethics of Rulership

William K. Dewey
Rubin Museum of Art

This article examines how Tibetan Buddhists believed a state should be governed justly by considering the political agenda of the regent Ngawang Tsültrim (1721–1791) and how he was influenced by the Indian nītiśāstra tradition and similar indigenous traditions of ethical rule. Nītiśāstra originally, under Kauṭilya, promoted wealth and power. Later proponents (both Hindu and Buddhist) more strongly emphasized the primacy of Dharma and justice for the poor, and in this form it most influenced Tibetan Buddhist political thought, including the legislative decrees of Ngawang Tsültrim. He tried to relieve the Tibetan peasants from the heavy tax and labor obligations of the Tibetan social system, and otherwise pursued economic justice. In so doing, he also wanted to ensure that resources continued to flow to the Saṃgha, the supreme field of merit. Accordingly, the decrees targeted aristocratic rather than monastic corruption. They prioritized the maintenance and reform of existing economic obligations over economic development or redistribution of wealth. Ngawang Tsültrim’s decrees demonstrate a tension within the nītiśāstra tradition which can also be found when today’s religions (including socially engaged Buddhism) pursue goals of social justice. These goals may conflict with the goal of spreading the faith, and especially with the social and financial structures that support religious institutions, but may be responsible for social ills. Read article

Volume 26 2019

The Global Refugee Crisis and the Gift of Fearlessness

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Volume 26, 2019

The Global Refugee Crisis and the Gift of Fearlessness

Christina A. Kilby
James Madison University

This article is a critical-constructive application of the Buddhist ethical concept of the gift of fearlessness (abhayadāna) to the global refugee crisis and to nativist policy responses. Investigating classical South Asian literary sources on the gift of fearlessness, typically glossed as the offer of refuge or protection to those in danger, I present today’s refugee as situated at the nexus of two types of fear: the fear that drives vulnerable people to flee from harm and the fear that drives a potential refuge-offering state to close its borders or build walls. I argue that the gift of fearlessness, if extended beyond its classical scope to include the challenges of xenophobia and terrorism threats, is a capacious framework through which to probe the moral contours of contemporary refugee policy and the security concerns of states. Read article

Volume 26 2019

Recent Publications on Buddhism and Ecology

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Volume 26, 2019

Buddhist Responses to the Ecological Crisis: Recent Publications on Buddhism and Ecology

Christopher Ives
Stonehill College

A review essay on four recent publications on Buddhism and environmental issues: Ecodharma: Buddhist Teachings for the Ecological Crisis by David R. Loy; Ecology, Ethics, and Interdependence: The Dalai Lama in Conversation with Leading Thinkers on Climate Change, edited by John Dunne and Daniel Goleman; Green Buddhism: Practice and Compassionate Action in Uncertain Times by Stephanie Kaza; and Mountains, Rivers, and the Great Earth: Reading Gary Snyder and Dōgen in an Ecological Crisis by Jason W. Wirth. Read article

Volume 26 2019

Disengaged Buddhism

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Volume 26, 2019

Disengaged Buddhism

Amod Lele
Boston University

Contemporary engaged Buddhist scholars typically claim either that Buddhism always endorsed social activism, or that its non-endorsement of such activism represented an unwitting lack of progress. This article examines several classical South Asian Buddhist texts that explicitly reject social and political activism. These texts argue for this rejection on the grounds that the most important sources of suffering are not something that activism can fix, and that political involvement interferes with the tranquility required for liberation. The article then examines the history of engaged Buddhism in order to identify why this rejection of activism has not yet been taken sufficiently seriously. Read article

Volume 26 2019

Sustainability Views in Two Rural Development Movements

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Volume 26, 2019

A Comparative Analysis of Sustainability Views across the Saemaul Movement in South Korea and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka

Jungho Suh
University of Adelaide

This paper compares and contrasts the Saemaul Movement in South Korea and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement in Sri Lanka. The paper identifies and polarizes sustainability views played out from each of the two rural development movements, making use of content and discourse analysis techniques. Although the two movements commonly emphasize the mobilization of human resources available in rural villages, both are premised on contested sustainability views. The Saemaul Movement has been driven by a solely growth-oriented developmentalism and has strived for affluent rural villages whereas the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement has been guided by a Buddhist ethic and has pursued a “no-poverty and no-affluence” society. The former is hardly concerned with the ecological dimension of sustainability, while the latter is very concerned about it. The former tends to risk eroding social capital whereas the latter weighs the overriding importance of social capital. The Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement recognizes interdependence between the economic, ecological, and social dimensions of sustainability, and also endeavors to put a holistic sustainability view into practice. Read article

Volume 25 2018

Rita Gross and Engaged Buddhism

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Volume 25, 2018

Borrowing a Prophetic Voice, Actualizing the Prophetic Dimension: Rita Gross and Engaged Buddhism

Charles R. Strain
DePaul University

“I am taking permission, as a Buddhist,” Rita Gross boldly affirmed, “to use the prophetic voice.” More than any other engaged Buddhist scholar she made this voice an explicit part of her work. This article explores the prophetic voice/dimension within Buddhism by pushing further along the path that Gross has blazed. This involves, first, a return to the classical Hebrew prophets where, arguably, the religious dimension of the prophetic voice is most clearly presented. The second section deconstructs the misogynistic narratives that pervade the prophetic literature and their theology of retributive justice and then offers an argument about what is salvageable in the prophet’s raw speech. The third section examines how Gross applies a prophetic method to the deconstruction of the androcentric views and the patriarchal structures of all schools of Buddhism. The final, fourth, section comes to terms with the religious chords sounding in the prophets’ declamations. It does so by examining three aspects of the prophetic mode of being religious: allegiance to the God of Exodus, the practice of grief, and the practice of hope. In each case it suggests what challenges these modes of being religious present to engaged Buddhists.
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Volume 25 2018

The Place of Socially Engaged Buddhism in China

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Volume 25, 2018

The Place of Socially Engaged Buddhism in China: Emerging Religious Identity in the Local Community of Urban Shanghai

Weishan Huang
Chinese University of Hong Kong

This article aims to analyze a realization of socially engaged Buddhism outside of Buddhist monasteries in China by using the case studies of Tzu Chi Foundation. Since the 2000s, state-led religious charities have been gradually implemented among Han Buddhist monasteries in China. With a renewal of the religious idea of “Humanistic Buddhism,” temples have set up guideline to conduct their charitable work. At the same time, Buddhist communities have become more diversified due to the international immigration of Buddhist groups. While social service is the central focus of Tzu Chi Foundation worldwide, I raise the question of how a global movement of moral reform and social service can help us re-think the normative account of “public engagement” in a highly regulated and censored society such as China. Based on the ethnographic work, I argue the successful structural adaption of the Tzu Chi movement corresponding with, first, the promotion of socially engaged Buddhism, which aligns with state policy and interests. Secondly, the timely change of organizational missions corresponding with the shift in social identity of urban residents from “Work Units” to “Communities” in urban Shanghai.
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Volume 25 2018

Geopolitics of Buddhism

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Volume 25, 2018

Geopolitics of Buddhism

André Laliberté
University of Ottawa

This article argues that Buddhists still lack an international organization that could help them present a unified voice the way that the World Council of Churches does for non-Catholic Christians, or the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, for all Muslims, whether they are Sunni or Shia. There exist international organizations that claim to speak on behalf of Buddhists the world over, but they compete against each other. The basis of this competition has little to do with the differences between the Mahāyāna, Theravāda, and Vajrayāna schools, but owes a lot more to competition between Asian great powers, in particular China and India. The article will demonstrate this by first presenting an historical account of the different attempts to create a unified Buddhist international organization, along with different transnational Buddhist institutions. Then it will review the divisions that have prevented, so far, the creation of such an organization.

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Volume 25 2018

Is a Buddhist Praxis Possible?

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Volume 25, 2018

Is a Buddhist Praxis Possible?

Charles R. Strain
DePaul University

The question that forms the title of this essay may well evoke an instant response: “Of course, why not?” This answer assumes a vague and quite elastic understanding of praxis. Latin American Liberation theologians saw praxis, to the contrary, as arising from a dialectic of critical reflection and practice. Following the example of Liberation Theology, this paper argues the thesis that the pieces of the puzzle of an adequate critical reflection on Buddhist praxis exist but they have yet to be put together into a Buddhist theory of political transformation akin to any number of Liberation Theologies. The following definition of praxis serves as a heuristic device to examine engaged Buddhist theoretical contributions to a Buddhist praxis: Praxis is action that is: (1) symbolically constituted; (2) historically situated; (3) critically mediated by a social theory; and (4) strategically and politically directed. After examining each of these components in turn, the article concludes by asking what might be the “vehicle” of a distinctively Buddhist praxis.

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Volume 24 2017

Right Speech is Not Always Gentle

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Volume 24, 2017

Right Speech Is Not Always Gentle: The Buddha’s Authorization of Sharp Criticism, its Rationale, Limits, and Possible Applications

Sallie B. King
Georgetown University

What is Right Speech and how should it be applied in the multiple challenges of social and political life? Examining passages from the Pāli canon shows that although Right Speech is normatively truthful and gentle, the Buddha endorsed “sharp” speech when it was beneficial and timely. He both permitted and modeled direct, sharp criticism of the person whose words or actions were harmful. The monks were taught to use such speech even though it might disturb their equanimity and are seen as having a moral duty to do so. Good moral judgment is needed to determine when sharp speech should be used. Applying the analysis to the question of how Buddhists should respond to the harmful words and actions of Donald Trump, the study finds that the norms of Right Speech entail using sharp speech in this case. In responding to supporters of Donald Trump, the study finds benefit in avoiding sharp speech in an effort to build mutual understanding and heal the deep divisions in contemporary American society. An exception is made for hate speech which is seen as needing to be immediately confronted.

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Volume 24 2017

Burmese Buddhists and Business Ethics

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Volume 24, 2017

In the Midst of Imperfections: Burmese Buddhists and Business Ethics

Pyi Phyo Kyaw
King’s College, University of London

This article looks at interpretations by Buddhists in Burma of right livelihood (sammā-ājīva) and documents the moral reasoning that underlies their business activities. It explores different ways in which Buddhists in Burma, through the use of Buddhist ethics and practices, resolve moral dilemmas that they encounter while pursuing their livelihood. I give a brief summary of the existing scholarship on Buddhist economics and on economic action in Burma, exemplified by the work of E. F. Schumacher and Melford Spiro respectively. In so doing, I wish to highlight a difference between the approaches of the existing scholarship and that of this article: the existing scholarship analyzes economic issues from the perspective of normative ethics; this research analyzes them from the perspective of descriptive ethics, looking at how Buddhists interpret and apply Buddhist ethics in their business activities, in the midst of moral, social, and economic imperfections. The research presented draws on semi-structured interviews and fieldwork conducted in Burma in the summer of 2010 and relates the interpretations given to the relevant Buddhist literature, the textual authorities for doctrines such as morality (sīla).

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Volume 22 2015

Ethical Implications of Upāya-Kauśalya

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Volume 22, 2015

Ethical Implications of Upāya-Kauśalya: Helping Without Imposing

Kin Cheung
Temple University

Upāya-kauśalya has been examined as a hermeneutical device, a Mahāyānic innovation, and a philosophy of practice. Although the paternalism of upāya-kauśalya employed in the Lotus Sūtra has been analyzed, there is little attention paid to bringing these ethical implications into a practical context. There is a tension between the motivation, even obligation, to help, and the potential dangers of projecting or imposing one’s conception of what is best for others or how best to help. I examine this issue through various parables. I argue that ordinary people can use upāya-kauśalya and that the ethical implications of upāya-kauśalya involve closing two different gaps in knowledge. This has potential applications not just for individuals, but also for organizations like NPOs or NGOs that try to assist large communities.

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Volume 21 2014

The Role of Deterrence in Buddhist Peace-building

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Volume 21, 2014

The Role of Deterrence in Buddhist Peace-building

Damien Keown
University of London, Goldsmiths

This article proposes that military deterrence can be a legitimate Buddhist strategy for peace. It suggests that such a strategy can provide a “middle way” between the extremes of victory and defeat. Drawing on evidence from the Pāli canon, notably the concept of the Cakkavatti, it argues that the Buddha did not object to kingship, armies or military service, and that military deterrence is a valid means to achieve the social and political stability Buddhism values.

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Volume 21 2014

Buddhist Self-immolation and Mahāyānist Absolute Altruism, Part Two

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Volume 21, 2014

Thresholds of Transcendence: Buddhist Self-immolation and Mahāyānist Absolute Altruism, Part Two

Martin Kovan
University of Melbourne

In China and Tibet, and under the gaze of the global media, the five-year period from February 2009 to February 2014 saw the self-immolations of at least 127 Tibetan Buddhist monks, nuns, and lay-people. An English Tibetan Buddhist monk, then resident in France, joined this number in November 2012, though his self-immolation has been excluded from all accounts of the exile Tibetan and other documenters of the ongoing Tibetan crisis. Underlying the phenomenon of Buddhist self-immolation is a real and interpretive ambiguity between personal, religious (or ritual-transcendental), altruistic, and political suicide, as well as political suicide within the Buddhist sangha specifically. These theoretical distinctions appear opaque not only to (aligned and non-aligned, Tibetan and non-Tibetan) observers, but potentially also to self-immolators themselves, despite their deeply motivated conviction.

Such ambiguity is reflected in the varying historical and current assessments of the practice, also represented by globally significant Buddhist leaders such as His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and the Vietnamese monk and activist Thích Nhất Hạnh. This essay analyses the symbolic ontology of suicide in these Tibetan Buddhist cases, and offers metaethical and normative accounts of self-immolation as an altruistic-political act in the “global repertoire of contention” in order to clarify its claims for what is a critically urgent issue in Buddhist ethics.

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Volume 21 2014

The Ethico-Political Significance of Mindfulness

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Volume 21, 2014

Towards a Dialogue Between Buddhist Social Theory and “Affect Studies” on the Ethico-Political Significance of Mindfulness

Edwin Ng
Deakin University

This article stages a conversation between an emergent Buddhist social theory and current thinking in the humanities and social sciences on the affective and visceral registers of everyday experience—or what falls under the rubric of “affect studies.” The article takes the premise that prevailing models of Buddhist social theory need updating as they remain largely confined to macropolitical accounts of power, even though they argue for the importance of a mode of sociocultural analysis that would anchor itself on the “self” end of the self–society continuum. The article will thus explore ways to develop a micropolitical account of the ethical and political implications of Buddhist spiritual-social praxis—specifically mindfulness training—by formulating some hypotheses for dialogical exchange between Buddhist understandings and the multidisciplinary ideas informing the so-called “affective turn.”

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Volume 20 2013

Śāntideva on Gifts, Altruism, and Poverty

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Volume 20, 2013

The Compassionate Gift of Vice: Śāntideva on Gifts, Altruism, and Poverty

Amod Lele
Boston University

The Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker Śāntideva tells his audience to give out alcohol, weapons and sex for reasons of Buddhist compassion, though he repeatedly warns of the dangers of all these three. The article shows how Śāntideva resolves this issue: these gifts, and gifts in general, attract their recipients to the virtuous giver, in a way that helps the recipients to become more virtuous in the long run. As a consequence, Śāntideva does recommend the alleviation of poverty, but assigns it a much smaller significance than is usually supposed. His views run counter to many engaged Buddhist discussions of political action, and lend support to the “modernist” interpretation of engaged Buddhist practice.

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Volume 18 2011

On the Distribution of Wealth

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Volume 18, 2011

Can Buddhism Inform the Contemporary Western Liberal Debate on the Distribution of Wealth?

Caroline Mosler
Dhaka, Bangladesh

The contemporary Western liberal debate on the distribution of wealth revolves around whether the right to property may be subordinated to the good of society. Both Liberal Egalitarians and Libertarians make various negative assumptions concerning individuals, rights and duties. Buddhism, on the other hand, can offer the debate, and thereby the topic of human rights, a different perspective on the role of rights and duties and can introduce to the debate the issue of social, economic and cultural rights (“socio-economic rights”), as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) or the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR).

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Volume 13 2006

Socially Engaged Buddhism in the U.K.

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Volume 13, 2006

The Sociological Implications for Contemporary Buddhism in the United Kingdom: Socially Engaged Buddhism, a Case Study

Phil Henry
University of Derby

This article addresses Buddhist identity in contemporary settings and asks what it means to be Buddhist in the West today. This is the overarching theme of my doctoral research into socially engaged Buddhism in the United Kingdom, which addresses the question of how socially engaged Buddhism challenges the notion of what it means to be Buddhist in the twenty-first century. The scope of this article is to portray part of that work, and, in so doing, it suggests methodological approaches for students of Western Buddhism, using my research into the identity of socially engaged Buddhists in the United Kingdom as a case study.

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Volume 12 2005

Zen Social Ethics in Japan

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Volume 12, 2005

What’s Compassion Got to Do with It? Determinants of Zen Social Ethics in Japan

Christopher Ives
Stonehill College

Judging from pronouncements by contemporary Engaged Buddhists, one might conclude that historical expressions of Zen social ethics have rested on the foundation of compassion and the precepts. The de facto systems of social ethics in Japanese Zen, however, have been shaped largely by other epistemological, sociological, and historical factors, and compassion should best be understood as a “theological virtue” that historically has gained specificity from those other factors.

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Volume 08 2001

Review: Socially Engaged Buddhism

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 7, 2000

Socially Engaged Buddhism for the New Millennium: Essays in honor of the Ven. Phra Dhammapitaka (Bhikkhu P. A. Payutto) on his 60th birthday anniversary. Edited By Pipob Udomittipong and Chris Walker. Bangkok: Sathirakoses–Nagapradipa Foundation and Foundation for Children, 2542/1999, 531 pages, ISBN: 974–269–154–2, US$38.00 (paper), US$60.00 (cloth).

Reviewed by Donald K. Swearer

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Volume 07 2000

Review: Structural Violence, Social Development, and Spiritual Transformation

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 7, 2000

Global Healing: Essays and Interviews on Structural Violence, Social Development, and Spiritual Transformation. By Sulak Sivaraksa. Bangkok: Thai
Inter-Religious Commission for Development and Sathirakoses-Nagapradipa Foundation, 1999, 164 pages, ISBN: 974-260-156-9, US $15.00.

Reviewed by Donald K. Swearer

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Volume 06 1999

Buddhist Approaches to Social Change

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ISSN:1076–9005
Volume 6, 1999

Changing the Way Society Changes: Transposing Social Activism into a Dramatic Key

Peter D. Hershock
East-West Center
Asian Studies Development Program

While many Buddhists are rightly committed to working in the public sphere for the resolution of suffering, there are very real incompatibilities between the axiomatic concepts and strategic biases of (the dominant strands of) both current human rights discourse and social activism and such core Buddhist practices as seeing all things as interdependent, impermanent, empty, and karmically configured. Indeed, the almost startling successes of social activism have been ironic, hinging on its strategic and conceptual indebtedness to core values shared with the technological and ideological forces that have sponsored its own necessity. The above-mentioned Buddhist practices provide a way around the critical blind spot instituted by the marriage of Western rationalism, a technological bias toward control, and the axiomatic status of individual human being, displaying the limits of social activism’s institutional approach to change and opening concrete possibilities for a dramatically Buddhist approach to changing the way societies change.

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Volume 02 1995

Social Engagement in Western Buddhism

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 2 1995

Practicing Peace: Social Engagement in Western Buddhism

Kenneth Kraft
Lehigh University

This essay examines some current concerns of socially engaged Buddhists in the West. How does one practice nonviolence in one’s own life and in the world? How can the demands of “inner” and “outer” work be reconciled? What framework should be used in assessing the effects of Buddhist-inspired activism? Today’s engaged Buddhists do not refer extensively to Buddhism’s ethical tradition, and some of their activities may not appear to be distinctively Buddhist. Nonetheless, their efforts reflect a longstanding Mahāyāna ideal — that transcendental wisdom is actualized most meaningfully in compassionate action.

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Volume 02 1995

Typology of Buddhist Environmentalism

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 2 1995

Getting to Grips With Buddhist Environmentalism: A Provisional Typology

Ian Harris
University College of St. Martin

This paper offers a survey of current writing and practice within the area of Buddhist environmental ethics. Consideration of the manner in which sections of contemporary Buddhism have embraced a range of environmental concerns suggests that four fairly distinct types of discourse are in the process of formation, i.e., eco-spirituality, eco-justice, eco-traditionalism and eco-apologetics. This fourfold typology is described and examples of each type are discussed. The question of the “authenticity”, from the Buddhist perspective, is addressed to each type in turn.

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