Journal of Buddhist Ethics

ISSN 1076-9005
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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ISSN 1076-9005
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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ISSN 1076-9005
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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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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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 29, 2022

An Introduction to Engaged Buddhism. By Paul Fuller. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021, 248 pages. ISBN 978-1-350-12907-8 (hardback), $63.00/978-1-350-12906-1 (paperback), $19.47/ 978-1-350-12909-2 (e-book), $18.86.

Reviewed by Christopher Queen

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 29, 2022

The Irish Buddhist: The Forgotten Monk Who Faced Down the British Empire. By Alicia Turner, Laurence Cox, and Brian Bocking. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020, 336 pages, ISBN 978-0-19-007308-4 (hardback), $39.95.

Reviewed by Victor Forte

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ISSN 1076-9005
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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ISSN 1076-9005
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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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 27, 2020

Violent Karma Stories in Contemporary Sinhala Buddhism

James Stewart
Deakin University

Buddhism is a religion normally respected for its message of non-violence. In this article I will discuss how images of violence are used as a means to compel Buddhists to act in accordance with Buddhist ethical principles. This will be shown through the examination of a contemporary newspaper series from the popular Sinhala language Lankādīpa Irida periodical. In it, we find a series of karma stories that illustrate how examples of violence can be found in modern Buddhistic narratives, both in written and pictorial forms. In this article it will be argued that these modern narratives have a precedent in much earlier, and in some cases ancient, Buddhist writings and art. I will argue that these modern narratives deviate from canonical karma stories in that they focus on the maturation of karma in this life while the former focus on the afterlife. The purpose of these modern stories is to assure the reader of the reality of karma and to entertain the reader with gruesome stories that feature the death of moral transgressors. Read article

ISSN 1076-9005
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

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

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

The Politics of Buddhist Relic Diplomacy Between Bangladesh and Sri Lanka

D. Mitra Barua
Cornell University

Buddhists in Chittagong, Bangladesh claim to preserve a lock of hair believed to be of Sakyamuni Buddha himself. This hair relic has become a magnet for domestic and transnational politics; as such, it made journeys to Colombo in 1960, 2007, and 2011. The states of independent Ceylon/Sri Lanka and East Pakistan/Bangladesh facilitated all three international journeys of the relic. Diplomats from both countries were involved in extending state invitations, public exchanges of the relic and a state-funded, grand scale display of the relic.

This article explores the politics of such high profile diplomatic arrangements. For the Bangladeshi Buddhist minority, these international relic exchanges help them temporarily overcome their marginalized position in a predominantly Muslim society and generate religious sympathy among the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka. Such Buddhist fellowship and sympathy results in sponsorship for Bangladeshi Buddhist novices to attend monastic trainings in Sri Lanka and the donation of Buddhist ritual artifacts like Buddha statues, monastic robes, begging bowls, and so forth, for Buddhist institutions in Bangladesh.

But how do the relic exchanges benefit the Islamic state of Bangladesh and the Sri Lankan government? That question leads to an analysis of the relic exchanges in relation to global and trans-national politics. I argue that the repeated exchanges of the relic are part and parcel of creating “good” governance images for both Sri Lankan and Bangladeshi governments for both a domestic and transnational audience respectively.
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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 25, 2018

Theravāda Buddhist Encounters with Modernity. Edited by Juliane Schober and Steven Collins. Routledge, 2017, 168 pages, ISBN 978-1138192744 (hardback), U.S. $138.01.

Reviewed by Ananda Abeysekara

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ISSN 1076-9005
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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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017

Vegetarianism and Animal Ethics in Contemporary Buddhism. By James J. Stewart. London: Routledge, 2015, ISBN 1138802166 (hardback), $128.94.

Reviewed by Amy Defibaugh

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017

Tradition, Power, and Community among Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka

Nirmala S. Salgado
Augustana College

This article focuses on the relationship between two aspects of monastic comportment among Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka. How nuns present themselves is embedded both in a discourse of power and in a discourse of morality. Their comportment is the subject of public debate insofar as it relates to disputes about tradition and the recognition of the higher ordination of Theravāda nuns. Yet that comportment also relates to the cultivation of moral dispositions (sῑla), such as restraint and discipline, which are intrinsic to tradition and the daily work of nuns in the communal life of a nunnery. The article argues that nuns live a communal form of life in which their cultivation of moral dispositions relates to questions about power and tradition that they cannot ignore, even though they may seek to do so.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 24, 2017

Dharma Dogs: Can Animals Understand the Dharma? Textual and Ethnographic Considerations

James Stewart
University of Tasmania

Pāli textual sources occasionally mention the existence of unusual animals with an aptitude for the Buddha’s dharma. In the Jātaka, clever animals do good deeds and are thus reborn in better circumstances. In the Vinaya, the Buddha declares to a serpent that he should observe Buddhist holy days so he can achieve a human rebirth. But can animals develop spiritually? Can they move towards enlightenment? In this article I will be examining textual and ethnographic accounts of whether animals can hear and understand the dharma. Using ethnographic research conducted in Sri Lanka, I will show that although animals are thought to passively benefit from being in proximity to dharma institutions, there seems to be agreement amongst the monks interviewed that animals cannot truly understand the dharma and therefore cannot practice it. Animals are therefore severely hampered in their spiritual advancement. However, these ethnographic and textual findings do indicate that passively listening to dharma preaching, whether it is understood or not, has spiritually productive consequences.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 21, 2014

Bhikkhunī Academy at Manelwatta Temple: A Case of Cross-Tradition Exchange

Cheng Wei-yi
Hsuan Chuang University

This article is the result of an investigation continued from an earlier article on an exchange between Buddhists in Taiwan and Sri Lanka (“A Cross-Tradition Exchange Between Taiwan and Sri Lanka,” Journal of Buddhist Ethics, vol. 18, 2011). In that article, I investigated the exchange between a Mahāyāna Taiwanese nunnery and a Theravāda Sri Lankan missionary monk. After the initial exchange, described in the 2011 article, a more permanent institute for the education of Sri Lankan Buddhist nuns has been established. This article describes the cross-tradition exchange behind the founding of the educational institute and its implication for exchanges across different Buddhist traditions in Asia.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013

Buddhist Funeral Cultures of Southeast Asia and China. Edited by Paul Williams and Patrice Ladwig. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012, ISBN: 9781107003880 (paper-back), $39.99.

Reviewed by Nicolas Sihlé

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 21, 2014

“We Love Our Nuns”: Affective Dimensions of the Sri Lankan Bhikkhunī Revival

Susanne Mrozik
Mount Holyoke College

In this paper I examine lay responses to the Sri Lankan bhikkhunī revival of the late 1990s. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted between 2010 and 2012, I argue that laity have very different concerns than do the scholars, activists, government officials, and monastic authorities engaged in public debate over the scriptural validity of the controversial revival. The primary concern of laity is whether or not they can get their religious needs met at their local bhikkhunī temple, not whether or not the bhikkhunī revival conforms to Theravāda monastic regulations (Vinaya). Taking a rural farming village as a case study, I focus particular attention on the affective ties between laity and nuns, demonstrating that laity in this village express their support for the bhikkhunī revival in the language of love (Sinhala: ādayara, ādare). I analyze what laity mean by the word “love” in the context of lay-nun relationships, and what this can tell us about the larger dynamics of the Sri Lankan bhikkhunī revival.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013

Some Problems with Particularism

Damien Keown
Goldsmiths College, University of London

This article suggests that due to a restricted understanding of the nature and scope of ethical theory, particularism discounts prematurely the possibility of a metatheory of Buddhist ethics. The textual evidence presented in support of particularism is reconsidered and shown to be consistent with a metatheoretical reading. It is argued that writers who have adopted a particularist approach based on W. D. Ross’s “Principalism”—such as Tessa Bartholomeusz in her study of just war ideology in Sri Lanka—have failed to give a satisfactory analysis of the moral dilemmas they have identified. Although particularism rightly draws attention to stories as important sources of moral data, it fails to disprove that the diversity of such evidence can be explained by a single comprehensive theory.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013

Buddhist Reflections on “Consumer” and “Consumerism”

Peter Harvey
University of Sunderland

This article starts with a characterization of “consumerism” and the idea of “the consumer.” It then explores Buddhist attitudes on wealth and “Buddhist economics” before drawing on these to develop a critical assessment of consumerism as an ineffective and wasteful route to human happiness.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 20, 2013

Locations of Buddhism: Colonialism and Modernity in Sri Lanka. By Anne M. Blackburn. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2010, xxii + 237 pages, ISBN-13 978-0-226-05 507-7 (cloth); ISBN-10 0-226-05 507-8 (cloth), $45.00.

Reviewed by Nathan McGovern

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 18, 2011

A Cross-Tradition Exchange Between Taiwan and Sri Lanka

Wei-Yi Cheng
Hsuan Chuang University

This paper uses as an example an alms-offering ceremony that took place on October 5, 2010 to illustrate cross-tradition exchanges between Asian Buddhists of different geographic locations. This ceremony had been intended to give alms to all of the bhikkhunīs in Sri Lanka and was thus itself noteworthy. However, the attention of this paper is on the two main players behind this ceremony. One is a Sri Lankan monk who has been a long term Theravāda missionary in Mahāyāna Taiwan, and the other is a Taiwanese nunnery which has not limited its works to Taiwan. This paper wishes to shed light on cross-tradition exchanges among Asian Buddhists.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 18, 2011

Attracting the Heart: Social Relations and the Aesthetics of Emotion in Sri Lankan Monastic Culture. By Jeffrey Samuels. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2010, xxx + 167 pages, ISBN: 978-0824833855 (cloth), US $36.00.

Reviewed by Mavis L. Fenn

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 15, 2008

Eight Revered Conditions: Ideological Complicity, Contemporary Reflections and Practical Realities

Nirmala S. Salgado
Augustana College

Scholarly debates focusing on the “Eight Revered Conditions,” a list of conditions suggestive of the dependence of nuns on monks in early Buddhism, have long been the focus of scholarly debates. These debates, centering on the legitimation of a patriarchal Buddhism, have reached an impasse. Here I argue that this impasse logically flows from questionable reconstructions of the imperative and authoritative nature of these eight conditions in early Buddhism, perceived as Buddhavacana, or the word of the Buddha. In contemporary Sri Lanka, practitioners’ reflections on the eight conditions suggest that they function less as imperative injunctions than as markers defining social and moral boundaries, in terms of which monastics conceptualize their world. I demonstrate that scholarly presuppositions of the hierarchical nature of the controversial conditions are contested by perspectives of current praxis, and may also possibly be questioned, at least theoretically, by the process of reconstructing earlier Buddhist realities.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 13, 2006

In Defense of Dharma: Just-war Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka. By Tessa J. Bartholomeusz. London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002, 209 pages, ISBN 0700716823 (paper), US $37.95.

Reviewed by Annewieke Vroom

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SSN 1076-9005
Volume 10 2003

Bath Conference on “Buddhism and Conflict in Sri Lanka”

Dr. Mahinda Deegalle

Bhikku Professor Dhammavihari

Prof. Heinz Bechert

Dr. Mudagamuwe Maithrimurthi

Ven. Akuratiye Nanda

Prof. P.D. Premasiri

Prof. Asanga Tilakaratne

ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 10, 2003

Portraits of Buddhist Women. By Ranjini Obeyesekere. Albany: SUNY Press, 2001. ISBN: 0791451127.

Reviewed by Justin McDaniel

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ISSN:1076–9005
Volume 5, 1998

Echoes of Nalinika: A Monk in the Dock

Enid Adam
Edith Cowan University

How can Nalinika, one of the Buddhist Jātaka tales, be used in the Perth District Court in Perth, Western Australia, as an illustration in the defence of a Buddhist monk from Sri Lanka? In the dock sat Pannasara Kahatapitye, a high-ranking monk from Colombo, facing eleven charges of sexual assault. Was this a case of cultural, religious, and political bias and misunderstanding, or of a monk breaking monastic vows and practicing immorally? Was this man a charlatan or a genuine monk being framed by dissident Sinhalese groups in Australia? Over ten days the drama developed as evidence was given before judge and jury. Throughout, the accused sat motionless in the dock, smiling benignly at all in the courtroom. Innocent or guilty? This paper describes how the issues were resolved as seen from the author’s role as a consultant to the crown prosecutor, and examines their implications for the general Buddhist community in Western Australia.

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ISSN:1076–9005
Volume 6, 1999

In Defense of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka

Tessa Bartholomeusz
Florida State University

Sri Lankan Buddhists avail themselves of a variety of Buddhist stories, canonical and post-canonical, to support their point of view regarding war. And because there are no pronouncements in the stories attributed to the Buddha or in those stories told about him that declare unequivocally and directly that war is wrong, the military metaphors of the stories allow for a variety of interpretations. Some Buddhists argue that the stories directly or indirectly permit war under certain circumstances, while others argue that war is never acceptable. Whether they justify war or not, these Buddhists engage the stories, sometimes the very same ones, to argue their points of view.

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ISSN:1076-9005
Volume 4 1997

A Bibliography on Sinhala Buddhism

Mahinda Deegalle
Kyoto University

Scholars identify the Theravāda form of Buddhism that grew in Sri Lanka as Sinhala Buddhism. The adjective Sinhala is both a reference to an ethnic group—Sinhala people, the majority population in Sri Lanka—and to an Indo-European language—Sinhala, spoken by the Sinhala public. Thus, Sinhala Buddhism has two meanings—Buddhism in the Sinhala language and Buddhism practiced by the Sinhala people.

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 6, 1999

Buddhist Fundamentalism and Minority Identities in Sri Lanka. Edited By Tessa J. Bartholomeusz and Chandra R. de Silva. New York: State University of New York Press, 1998, 320 pages, ISBN 0-7914-3834-1, US $19.95.

Reviewed by Mavis L. Fenn

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 5 1998

Relics, Ritual and Representation in Buddhism: Rematerializing the Sri Lankan Theravada Tradition. By Kevin Trainor. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, xiv + 223 pages, ISBN 0-521-5820-6, $60.00.

Reviewed by Tessa Bartholomeusz

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 5 1998

The Religious World of Kīrti Srī: Buddhism, Art, and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka. By John Clifford Holt. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996, x + 147 pages, ISBN 0-19-510757-8, $26.95.

Reviewed by Mahinda Deegalle

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 5 1998

Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia. Edited by Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King. New York: State University of New York, 1996, xii + 446 pages, ISBN 0-7914-2844-3, $24.95.

Reviewed by Mavis L. Fenn

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 4 1997

Women Under the Bo Tree: Buddhist Nuns in Sri Lanka. By Tessa Bartholomeusz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994, xx, 284 pages, 0-5214-6129-4 (cloth), $59.95.

Reviewed by Kate Blackstone

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ISSN 1076-9005
Volume 3 1996

The Presence of the Past: Chronicles, Politics and Culture in Sinhala Life. By Steven Kemper, The Wilder House Series in Politics, History and Culture. Ithaca, N.Y. and London: Cornell University Press, 1991, xiv +244 pages, ISBN: 0-8014-2395-3, US$29.95.

Reviewed by Nirmala S. Salgado

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