Applied Buddhism

Dear Colleagues,

Compassionate activity has been central to Buddhist practice from the beginning. One of the various forms of self-conceit that human beings so easily and unconsciously default to is the discrimination of self and other. Buddhist practice demands that one engage in compassionate activity to realize the dissolution of a genuine self‒other distinction, thereby realizing the dependent origination or interdependence (or “interbeing,” to use a term coined by the Vietnamese Thien (Zen) monk Thich Nhat Hanh) of every “thing.”

Buddhist practice, however, takes different forms, across but also within different schools and traditions. Does it only refer to monastic practice within the sanghas, or can any activity that takes root in the dharma be called authentic practice? Engaged Buddhism, a movement popularized by Thich Nhat Hanh during the 1960s, is perhaps the best-known name for a Buddhism that leaves the monastery to enter the world of form for social change. According to Ann Gleig, while studying comparative religion at Columbia and Princeton, “Hanh … became inspired by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He returned to Vietnam in 1963 and in 1964 founded the Order of Interbeing (Tiep Hien), which centered on extending Buddhist thought and practice to promote peace and social responsibility.” (Gleig 2021). While acknowledging the significance of Nhat Hanh for this movement, Gleig explains that the spirit of engaged Buddhism has an older root:

While most engaged Buddhist narratives start with Thich Nhat Hanh, scholars have shown that Hanh was influenced by the Chinese monastic Taixu (1890–1947), who spearheaded a modern reform of Buddhism in China in the 1920s. Taixu taught “renjian fojiao,” translated as “Buddhism for this world” or “Buddhism for this human life,” which emphasized the importance of education, publishing, social work, and lay Buddhism for Buddhism to remain relevant in the modern world. In service of “creating the Pure Land in the human realm,” his reforms shaped the Chinese Buddhist Revival and initiated the emergence of “humanistic Buddhism,” which saw innovations such as Buddhist clinics, orphanages, and schools as well as teaching in prisons (Ibid.).

The labels proliferate: Humanistic Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, and, more recently, Applied Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh in a 2009 Dharma Talk differentiates Engaged and Applied Buddhism as follows:

Engaged Buddhism means that you practice all day without interruption, in the midst of your family, your community, your city, and your society.

…

When you are alone, walking, sitting, drinking your tea or making breakfast, that is also Engaged Buddhism, because you are doing it not only for yourself, but in order to help preserve the world. This is interbeing. Engaged Buddhism is practice that penetrates into every aspect of our world.

…

“Applied Buddhism” is a continuation of Engaged Buddhism. Applied Buddhism means that Buddhism can be applied in every circumstance in order to bring understanding and solutions to problems in our world. Applied Buddhism offers concrete ways to relieve suffering and bring peace and happiness in every situation (https://www.parallax.org/mindfulnessbell/article/what-is-applied-buddhism/, accessed on 24 May 2023).

Despite their differences, what these different Buddhist movements suggest is that practice is not just for the monastery but for all forms of life in the world, and that there are various ways in which Buddhist teaching finds its expression in everyday life and can be applied to the problems in the modern world.

In this Special Issue on Applied Buddhism, we invite original research articles that engage with the applications of Buddhist teaching to the myriad contemporary problems found across the world, including papers that focus exclusively on Humanistic Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism, or Applied Buddhism. In doing so, we make a distinction between papers that are more theory oriented, more normative, and those that are more practice oriented. Research areas may include (but are not limited to) the following:

Theory Oriented

• What is Applied Buddhism?
• How is Applied Buddhism different from Buddhism?
• How is Applied Buddhism different from Engaged Buddhism?
• How is Applied Buddhism different from Buddhist ethics?
• Is Applied Buddhism antithetical to any particular tradition’s conception of the nature of compassionate activity? For example, with Dōgen’s centering Dharma practice on Zazen, specifically shikantaza (“just sitting”), is there anything else to being a Bodhisattva other than practicing, modeling, and teaching Zazen?
• What are the limits and limitations of Applied Buddhism?
• Must one be a Buddhist to engage in Applied Buddhism?
• Is Applied Buddhism limited to the aim of alleviating human suffering? Or might it not also extend to non-human animals and natural environments more generally?

Practice Oriented

Here the possible topics are many, given the broad diversity that is human life on Earth, interdependent as it is with that Earth and the rest of life. To name but a few:

• Economics;
• Non-violence;
• Politics;
• War;
• Poverty;
• Racism;
• Classism;
• Gender;
• LBGTQ issues;
• Mental health issues.

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

Reference

Gleig, A. Engaged Buddhism. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia: Religion. 28 June 2021.

Dr. Rika Dunlap
Dr. George Wrisley
Guest Editors

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• Humanistic Buddhism
• Engaged Buddhism
• Applied Buddhism
• suffering
• Buddhist practice
• compassion
• enlighten-ment
• nonduality
• emptiness