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Engaged Buddhism

Practical application of Buddhist teachings

  • 8 min read
  • 4 chapters

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Modern engaged Buddhism emerged in Vietnam in the 1950s, from the teachings of Thiền Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh. It was popularized by the Indian jurist, politician, and social reformer B. R. Ambedkar, who inspired the Dalit Buddhist movement in the 1950s. It has since spread to the Indian subcontinent and the West.

During the 1960s, the terms "engaged Buddhism" and "socially engaged Buddhism" were taken up by loosely-connected networks of Buddhists in Asia and the West to describe their adaptation of Buddhist values and ethical conduct to social and political activism. This included a range of non-violent social and political activities such as peacemaking, promotion of human rights, environmental protection, rural development, combatting ethnic violence, opposition to warfare, and support of women's rights. With globalisation and technological advancement, engaged Buddhist organizations and efforts have spread across the globe; an example is the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

Origins

Vietnamese Thiền Buddhist teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh coined the term "Engaged Buddhism" in his collection of articles, "A Fresh Look at Buddhism". Engaged Buddhism emerged from a need to respond to world crises, particularly the Vietnam War. The term was new, but Buddhism that engages with social and political issues had already occurred throughout the world.

Nhất Hạnh was inspired by the humanistic Buddhism reform movement in China led by Taixu and Yinshun and later propagated in Taiwan by Cheng Yen and Hsing Yun. At first, Nhất Hạnh described the concept by using Literary Chinese, the liturgical language of Vietnamese Buddhism, calling it 'Worldly Buddhism' (入世佛教). During the Vietnam War, he and his sangha (spiritual community) responded to the suffering around them, in part by adopting the nonviolence activism techniques of Mahatma Gandhi in India and of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. in the United States. This work was seen as part of their meditation and mindfulness practice, not as something apart from it.

As early as 1946, Walpola Rahula identified an explicit social ethos present in the earliest recorded Buddhist teachings. He noted that the Buddha encouraged early monks to travel in order to benefit the largest number of people, and that his discourses to lay people often included practical instructions on social and economic matters, rather than being purely concerned with philosophical or soteriological concerns.

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