ISSN 1076-9005
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
ISSN 1076-9005
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
Buddhism and Waste: The Excess, Discard, and Afterlife of Buddhist Consumption. Edited by Trine Brox and Elizabeth Williams-Oerberg. Bloomsbury Studies in Material Religion. London: Bloomsbury, 2022, 208 pages, ISBN 978-1-3501-9553-0 (hardback), $115, 978-1-3501-9554-4 (e-book), $103.50.
Reviewed by Mark Speece
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ISSN 1076-9005
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
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
Living with the Mountain: Mountain Propitiation Rituals in the Making of Human-Environmental Ethics in Sikkim
Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia
University of California Los Angeles
In 2019, a debate erupted in the eastern Himalayan Indian state of Sikkim over whether the Indian Government should allow climbers to attempt to summit Mount Kanchenjunga, the world’s third highest mountain, located on the western border of Sikkim and Nepal. For local communities in Sikkim, Kanchendzonga, as the mountain is known, is seen as the protector deity of the land and its human and nonhuman inhabitants. Summiting him is considered deeply disrespectful. Ritual and textual traditions in contemporary west Sikkim provide insight into how local Buddhists create and reaffirm their relationship with Kanchendzonga and provide context for understanding the 2019 debates. These traditions outline appropriate ethical behavior and function pedagogically to demonstrate how the mountain and humans have historically engaged in forms of reciprocal care, healing, and protection, and how they can continue to do so, thereby ensuring a generative future for all of Sikkim’s transdimensional residents.
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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
Mindfully Facing Climate Change. By Bhikkhu Anālayo. Barre, Massachusetts: Barre Center for Buddhist Studies, 2019, 206 pp., ISBN 978-1-7067-1988-5 (paperback), $9.95. Open access e-book: https://www.buddhistinquiry.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/MindfullyFacingClimateChange.pdf.
Reviewed by Abhinav Anand
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Volume 27, 2020
Climate Justice: Some Challenges for Buddhist Ethics
Simon P. James
Durham University
It has often been suggested that the Buddhist teachings can help us to meet the moral challenges posed by the climate crisis. This paper, by contrast, addresses some challenges the topic of climate justice presents for Buddhist ethics. Two arguments to the effect that Buddhist ethics is incompatible with calls for climate justice are considered and rejected. It is then argued that for Buddhists such calls must nonetheless take second place to the paramount concern with overcoming suffering.
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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
ISSN 1076-9005
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
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Volume 25, 2018
Prolegomenon to Thinking about Buddhist Politics
André Laliberté
University of Ottawa
Introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Buddhist Ethics: “Buddhism and Politics.”
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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
Dependent Origination, Emptiness, and the Value of Nature
David Cummiskey and Alex Hamilton
Bates College
This article explains the importance of the Buddhist doctrine of dependent origination to contemporary environmental ethics and also develops a Buddhist account of the relational, non-instrumental, and impersonal value of nature. The article’s methodology is “comparative” or “fusion” philosophy. In particular, dependent origination and Nāgārjuna’s doctrine of emptiness are developed in contrast to Aldo Leopold and J. Baird Callicott’s conception of deep ecology, and the Buddhist conception of value is developed using Christine Korsgaard’s Kantian analysis of the distinction between intrinsic/extrinsic value and means/ends value.
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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 23, 2016
Valuing Diversity: Buddhist Reflection on Realizing a More Equitable Global Future. By Peter D. Hershock. Albany: SUNY Press, 2014, vi + 332 pages, ISBN 978-1-4384-4458-1 (paperback), $29.95.
Reviewed by Seth D. Clippard
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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 23, 2016
Inaugural Conference on Buddhist Ethics
Daniel Cozort
Dickinson College
A report on the Conference on Buddhist Ethics held at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pennsylvania, on June 14-16, 2016.
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Volume 22, 2015
Nature’s No-Thingness: Holistic Eco-Buddhism and the Problem of Universal Identity
Marek Sullivan
University of Oxford
“Holistic eco-Buddhism” has been roundly criticized for its heterodoxy and philosophical incoherence: the Buddha never claimed we should protect an “eco-self” and there are serious philosophical problems attendant on “identifying with things.” Yet this essay finds inadequate attention has been paid to East Asian sources. Metaphysical issues surrounding eco-Buddhism, i.e., problems of identity and difference, universalism and particularity, have a long history in Chinese Buddhism. In particular, I examine the notion of “merging with things” in pre-Huayan and Huayan Buddhism, suggesting these offer unexplored possibilities for a coherent holistic eco-Buddhism based on the differentiating effects of activity and functionality.
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Volume 22, 2015
The Eco-Buddhism of Marie Byles
Peggy James
University of Tasmania
Marie Beuzeville Byles (1900–1979) was a key figure in the historical development of Buddhism in Australia, and the nation’s conservation movement. From the 1940s she began to develop an eco-Buddhist worldview and Buddhist environmental ethic that she applied in her day-to-day conservation activities and articulated over the course of four books on Buddhism and dozens of published articles. She is recognized in Australia for her Buddhist environmental thought, the influence that her ideas had in a key environmental debate of her day, and her international profile as a Buddhist. Most histories of modern eco-Buddhism, however, do not mention Byles’s work, and there has thus far been little scholarly analysis of her writings. This paper examines Byles’s eco-Buddhist ideas and activities in detail, and assesses the historical significance of her contribution.
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Volume 22, 2015
Puṇya and Pāp in Public Health: Everyday Religion, Material Culture, and Avenues of Buddhist Activism in Urban Kathmandu
Todd Lewis
College of the Holy Cross
In the dense settlements of old Kathmandu city, an urban ecology is fueled by abundant natural resources and sustained by a complex web of predator and prey species, all in a space dominated by human presence and practices. These include everyday activities in temples, roads, and homes that are rooted in Buddhist and Hindu doctrines. Both traditions emphasize non-violence (ahiṃsā) to all living beings, and adherents seek merit (puṇya) daily from feeding some of them. In light of the still chronic outbreaks of diseases like cholera, and especially in light of the threat of future avian-vector epidemics, a new avenue of doctrinal interpretation favoring human intervention might be developed based on the Bodhicaryāvatāra, an important Mahāyāna Buddhist text. In the spirit of “engaged Buddhism,” the discussion concludes with suggestions on how Newar Buddhist teachers today can use their cultural resources to shift their community’s ethical standpoint and take effective actions.
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Volume 22, 2015
Pad Yatra: A Green Odyssey. Directed by Wendy J. N. Lee; Executive Producer, Michelle Yeoh; Narrator, Daryl Hannah. 2013, $549 (Campus Screening License and DVD), $499 (Digital Streaming License), $299 (College and University DVD), and $129 (K-12, Library, and Non-Profit DVD).
Reviewed by Adam T. Miller
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Volume 20, 2013
Buddha’s Maritime Nature: A Case Study in Shambhala Buddhist Environmentalism
Barbra Clayton
Mount Allison University
This paper describes the Buddhist environmental ethic of Windhorse Farm, a Shambhala Buddhist community in Atlantic Canada supported by ecosystem-based sustainable forestry and organic farming. The values, beliefs and motives for this project are described and contextualized within the Shambhala Buddhist tradition, and these results are discussed within the context of the debate in scholarly discussions of environmental Buddhism over whether interdependence or virtues such as compassion and mindfulness are more significant for a Buddhist environmental ethic. The results of this study suggest that both areteic features and the metaphysical position of interdependence play key roles in the Shambhala approach to environmentalism. Results also suggest that the Shambhala environmental ethic defies the theoretical demand for a fact/value distinction, and that this case study may indicate why Buddhist traditions tend to lack systematic treatments of ethics.
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Volume 20, 2013
Resources for Buddhist Environmental Ethics
Christopher Ives
Stonehill College
In recent decades Buddhists have been turning their attention to environmental problems. To date, however, no one has formulated a systematic Buddhist environmental ethic, and critics have highlighted a number of weak points in Buddhist arguments thus far about environmental issues. Nevertheless, Buddhism does provide resources for constructing an environmental ethic. This essay takes stock of what appear to be the most significant of those resources, including the Buddhist anthropology, the tradition’s virtue ethic, elements in Buddhist epistemologies, doctrines that make it possible to determine the relative value of things, the Four Noble Truths as an analytical framework, and bases for action if not activism.
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Volume 20, 2013
Reimagining Buddhist Ethics on the Tibetan Plateau
Holly Gayley
University of Colorado, Boulder
This article examines the ideological underpinnings of ethical reform currently underway in Tibetan areas of the PRC, based on a newly reconfigured set of ten Buddhist virtues and consolidated into vows taken en masse by the laity. I focus on texts of advice to the laity by cleric-scholars from Larung Buddhist Academy, one of the largest Buddhist institutions on the Tibetan plateau and an important source for an emergent Buddhist modernism. In analyzing texts of advice, I am interested in how lead-ing Buddhist voices articulate a “path forward” for Tibetans as a people, calling simultaneously for ethical reform and cultural preservation. Specifically, I trace the tensions and ironies that emerge in their attempts to synthesize, on the one hand, a Buddhist emphasis on individual moral action and its soteriological ramifications and, on the other hand, a secular concern for the social welfare of the Tibetan population and the preservation of its civilizational inheritance. In doing so, I view ethical reform as part of a broader Buddhist response to China’s civilizing mission vis-à-vis Tibetans and new market forces encouraged by the post-Mao state.
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Volume 18, 2011
The Lorax Wears Saffron: Toward a Buddhist Environmentalism
Seth Devere Clippard
Arizona State University
This article argues for the reorientation of eco-Buddhist discourse from a focus on establishing textual justifications of what Buddhist environmental ethics says towards a discourse in which Buddhist rhetoric and environmental practice are intimately linked through specific communal encounters. The article first identifies and assesses two different strategies used by advocates of Buddhist environmentalism in Thailand, one being textual and the other practical. Then, after laying out the deficiencies of the textual strategy, the article argues that the practical strategy offers a more meaningful basis for a discourse of Buddhist environmental concern—one that accounts for the differences in Buddhist communities but does not discount the importance of key Buddhist concepts. This article will suggest that a rhetorical interpretation of environmental practices offers the most effective means of articulating the ethical foundations of religious environmentalism.
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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 18, 2011
Environmental Ethics in Buddhism: A Virtues Approach. By Pragati Sahni. Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2007, 224 pages, ISBN: 978-0415396794 (cloth), US $160.00.
Reviewed by Deepa Nag Haksar
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Volume 17, 2010
Moving Forward by Agreeing to Disagree: A Response to “Healing Ecology”
Grace Y. Kao
This paper was the subject of discussion at the American Academy of Religion national meeting in Atlanta, October 31, 2010 on “Nondualist Ecology: Perspectives on the Buddhist Environmentalism of David Loy.” Co-hosting were the Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Group and the Comparative Religious Ethics Group.
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Volume 17, 2010
Healing Ecology
David R. Loy
This paper was the subject of discussion at the American Academy of Religion national meeting in Atlanta, October 31, 2010 on “Nondualist Ecology: Perspectives on the Buddhist Environmentalism of David Loy.” Co-hosting were the Buddhist Critical-Constructive Reflection Group and the Comparative Religious Ethics Group.
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Volume 15, 2008
Buddhism and Speciesism: on the Misapplication of Western Concepts to Buddhist Beliefs
Colette Sciberras
University of Durham
In this article, I defend Buddhism from Paul Waldau’s charge of speciesism. I argue that Waldau attributes to Buddhism various notions that it does not necessarily have, such as the ideas that beings are morally considerable if they possess certain traits, and that humans, as morally considerable beings, ought never to be treated as means. These ideas may not belong in Buddhism, and for Waldau’s argument to work, he needs to show that they do. Moreover, a closer look at his case reveals a more significant problem for ecologically minded Buddhists—namely that the Pāli texts do not seem to attribute intrinsic value to any form of life at all, regardless of species. Thus, I conclude that rather than relying on Western concepts, it may be preferable to look for a discourse from within the tradition itself to explain why Buddhists ought to be concerned about the natural world.
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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 15, 2008
Business within Limits: Deep Ecology and Buddhist Economics. Edited by Laszlo Zsolnai and Knut Johannesssen Ims. Bern: Peter Lang Publishing, 2006, 324 pages, ISBN 3039107038, US $62.95 (paperback).
Reviewed by Jason McLeod Monson
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Volume 14, 2007
Avoiding Unintended Harm to the Environment and the Buddhist Ethic of Intention
Peter Harvey
University of Sunderland
This paper reflects on how the mainly intention-based ethics of Buddhism relates to issues of causing unintended harm across a range of issues of relevance to environmental concern, such as species protection, resource depletion and climate change. Given our present knowledge, is environmental concern to be seen as morally obligatory for a Buddhist or only a voluntary positive action? Writers sometimes simply assume that Buddhist ethics are supportive of the full range of environmental concerns, but this needs to be critically argued. The paper reflects on a range of principles of traditional Buddhist ethics, both Theravāda and Mahāyāna, and concludes that, in the present world context, Buddhist considerations urge not only that we should not deliberately harm any living being, but that we should also look after the biosphere-home that we share with other beings, by using our knowledge of unintended effects of our actions to modify our behavior, and that we should act positively to benefit others beings, human and non-human, and enhance their supportive environment. The paper also considers issues such as Buddhism’s attitude to wild nature, industrialization and “progress.”
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Volume 14, 2007
Leaf Blowers and Antibiotics: a Buddhist Stance for Science and Technology
Will Tuladhar-Douglas
King’s College, University of Aberdeen
Sustainable technology, like mindfulness, requires cultivation. It is a process of constantly attending in the face of considerable distraction, a process that leads to a self-balancing wholesome state that has beneficial properties for both self and others. This brief essay begins with a consideration of science, scientism and technology. I will then use a handful of examples to consider how technologies appear to behave autonomously, often perverting the good intentions of their inventor or revealing unexpected opportunities for wholesome behavior. In many cases, it seems that apparently neutral technologies fit together with unwholesome tendencies, locking humans and machines into an accelerating and apparently unstoppable destructive dance. I will then propose a general strategy for engaging technologies which draws on traditional Buddhist practices, with two particular objectives: to gain insight into, and maintain awareness of, the actual bias of any particular technology, and to discover tactics for interrupting the destructive cycles which are the cause of the ecological crisis in our world.
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Volume 12, 2005
The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory. By David R. Loy. Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2003. 228 pages. Paperback. ISBN 0861713664.
Reviewed by Dan Arnold
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Volume 12, 2005
Zen Buddhism and Environmental Ethics. By Simon P. James. Hampshire, UK: Ashgate, 2004. 142 pages. ISBN: 0754613674.
Reviewed by Eric Sean Nelson
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Volume 7, 2000
Saving the Rainforest of Ethics: Society, Urgency, and the Study of Asia
William R. LaFleur
University of Pennsylvania
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Volume 7, 2000
Environmental Philosophy and Ethics in Buddhism. By Padmasiri de Silva. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Macmillan Press Ltd., 1998, xviii + 195 pages, ISBN: 0-333-67906-7, £50.
Reviewed By Pragati Sahni
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Volume 4 1997
The Early Buddhist Tradition and Ecological Ethics
Lambert Schmithausen
University of Hamburg
This paper is concerned with ecological ethics, and examines the contemporary ecological crisis from the perspective of early Buddhism.
Through an examination of early texts (mainly the Pāli Canon) it asks to what extent ecological ethics has formed part of the teachings of Buddhism and whether contemporary ecological concerns can be integrated into this tradition. A range of divergent opinions held by modern authors are critically reviewed in the first section, followed in section two by a discussion of nature in the light of the Buddhist evaluation of existence. Section three considers the adequacy of the doctrine of Origination in Dependence as a basis for ecological thics, and section four discusses early Buddhist spirituality and ethics in the context of ecological concerns. Section five is devoted to evaluations of nature versus civilization and section six discusses the status of animals. The conclusion is that early Buddhism was impressed not so much by the beauty of nature as by its sombre aspects. It seeks not to transform or subjugate nature but to transcend it spiritually through detachment. However, although Buddhism does not romanticize nature it does not mean it is altogether impossible to establish an ecological ethics on the basis of the early tradition.
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Volume 5 1998
Buddhism and Ecology: The Interconnection of Dharma and Deeds. By Mary Evelyn Tucker and Duncan Williams. Harvard University Center for the Study of World Religions, 1997, xlii + 467 pages, ISBN: 0-945454-13-9 (cloth, US$29.95), ISBN: 0-945454-14-7 (paper, US$19.95).
Reviewed by Paul Waldau
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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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Volume 1 1994
Causation and Telos: The Problem of Buddhist Environmental Ethics
Ian Harris
University College of St. Martin
Environmentalist concerns have moved center stage in most major religious traditions of late and Buddhism is no exception to this rule. This paper shows that the canonical writings of Indic Buddhism possess elements that may harmonize with a de facto ecological consciousness. However, their basic attitude towards the causal process drastically reduces the possibility of developing an authentically Buddhist environmental ethic. The classical treatment of causation fails to resolve successfully the tension between symmetry and asymmetry of relations and this has tended to mean that attempts to inject a telos, or sense of purpose, into the world are likely to founder. The agenda of eco-Buddhism is examined in the light of this fact and found wanting.
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Volume 17, 2010
Sufficiency Economy and Santi Asoke: Buddhist Economic Ethics for a Just and Sustainable World
Juliana Essen
Soka University of America
Mainstream economic thought and practice has resulted in wide-spread socioeconomic disparity and environmental devastation in all corners of the world, unmitigated by a multi-billion dollar development industry informed by these same economic models. To reverse this trend, the dominant forms of economic thought and practice must be reunited with ethics that are more caring of the human-nature base. Such ethics may be found in alternative economic models based on religious, spiritual, environmental, or feminist values. This essay considers one such alternative: Buddhist economics. After outlining a theory of Buddhist economics, this essay considers two models: the Royal Thai Sufficiency Economy Model and the approach adopted by the Santi Asoke Buddhist Reform Movement of Thailand. Both are conducive to economic activity that is more socially just and environmentally sustainable, particularly due to their ethics of self-reliance, moderation, and interdependence.
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An online journal of Buddhist scholarship
