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4 Humanistic Buddhism in Practice HUMANISTIC BUDDHISM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE The slogan ‘‘Humanistic Buddhism’’ is employed in much the same way by Vens. Xingyun, Zhengyan, and Shengyan as the phrase ‘‘engaged Buddhism’’ has come to be used by a variety of Buddhist practitioners and scholars in Southeast Asia and the United States.1 ‘‘Engaged Buddhism,’’ which refers to those individuals and organizations that have explicitly applied Buddhist values in the attempt to influence contemporary political and social issues, is believed to have been coined by Thich Nhat Hanh in the 1960s, and the nonviolent, nonpartisan antiwar movement that he led in Vietnam is regarded as paradigmatic of Buddhist forays into the political world.2 The outspoken Thai intellectual Sulak Sivaraksa is another figure closely associated with this trend of Buddhist activism; he is the founder of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists and has long shown himself to be quite willing to challenge Thai government policies, but without allying with any political faction. Both Thich Nhat Hanh and Sulak Sivaraksa have been exiled from their homelands for their efforts (the former living in France since having been granted asylum in 1966, the latter forced to take refuge in Europe, the United States, and Japan for a year beginning in the fall of 1991). Both have also been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. The dalai lama and Aung San Suu Kyi, recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 and 1991, respectively, are two others often cited as exemplars of engaged Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh, Sulak Sivaraksa, the dalai lama, and Aung San Suu Kyi have garnered fame primarily for their political stances. Other individuals and movements also placed under the rubric ‘‘engaged Buddhism’’ are known more for the social implications of their activities.3 Dr. A. T. Ariyaratne and the rural development projects that have been initiated by his Sarvodaya Shramadana movement throughout Sri Lanka is one case in point. The efforts of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar and the Trailokya Bauddha Mahasangha Sahayaka Gana to elevate the social standing of India’s dalits through their conversion to Buddhism have also been touted as exemplifying engaged Buddhism. So too have the nascent attempts throughout Asia to reestablish full bhikshuni ordination for women. The place of political and social activism in Buddhist practice has received considerable attention from Buddhists in the United States, where such books as The Path of Compassion (Eppsteiner 1988) and Engaged Buddhist Reader (Kotler 1997) have brought together articles, not only by Thich Nhat Hanh, the dalai Humanistic Buddhism in Practice • 79 lama, Sulak Sivaraksa, A. T. Ariyaratne, and Maha Ghosananda, but also by such prominent American Buddhists as Gary Snyder, Robert Aitken, Joanna Macy, Robert Thurman, and Jack Kornfield. In these volumes, ‘‘engaged Buddhism’’ serves as a rallying cry, galvanizing Buddhists, and encouraging them to apply the wisdom and inner peace gained through their individual practice in such a way that it pervades their everyday lives and concerns and frames their responses to crises near at hand and around the globe. As indicated above, the phrase ‘‘engaged Buddhism’’ first arose and gained currency within the Buddhist community itself. Subsequently, scholars have appropriated it as a heuristic tool to highlight commonalities in the assumptions, teachings, and methods of those Buddhists who subscribe to the principle of transforming current institutions according to a modernist reading of Buddhist ideals. Christopher Queen and other Buddhologists who have adopted the concept articulate five broad characteristics shared by the diverse individuals and movements that they regard as falling under this heading. First, engaged Buddhists are reformers; they seek significantly to alter or even to abolish institutions that uphold inequality, spawn violence, or perpetuate other forms of suffering. In most cases, the focus of reform is a political or social entity, but, as in the call for reinstating bhikshuni ordination, the ‘‘liberation movement’’ may have as its goal internal reform within organized Buddhism. Second, the reforms espoused are couched in the language of modernism. Engaged Buddhists have a generally favorable attitude toward technological advancement, scientific progress, and such Enlightenment values as liberty, equality, and democracy. Third, engaged Buddhism secularizes religious practice by collapsing the sense of separation between the supramundane and the mundane and, consequently, shifts the focus away from the former and onto the latter. According to Sallie King (1996, 414), this is ‘‘a linchpin in the fundamental conception of engaged Buddhism.’’ Christopher Queen adds that such secularization marks a significant departure from Buddhist...

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