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Engaged Buddhism

Engaged Buddhism. Culture and Change. Compassion or Competition.

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Engaged Buddhism

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  1. Engaged Buddhism Culture and Change

  2. Compassion or Competition • I spoke of a new worldview that encompasses far more than economic performance. This new worldview requires a transformation of self-goals and a new lens for understanding the problems of structural violence, environmental degradation, and consumerism. This new lens requires us to look beyond a traditional cost-benefit analysis and accept that everything has multiple causes and innumerable effects. P. 65

  3. Blessings and Courage • Four Blessings – Longevity, Complexion, Happiness, and Strength • Kalyanamittata (virtuous friendship) – An external source of dhamma and nurtures our moral conscience. Spiritual friends raise embarrassing issues that we may not want to hear and remind us of the benefits of selflessness and goodness p. 68

  4. Buddhism and Environmentalism • Anthropocentrism, the central focus of traditional notions of development that aim to control and exploit the environment for the alleged benefit of humans, is at odds with Buddhism, especially its reverence for all life and its understanding of interdependence. Anthropocentrism places humans at the highest level of intelligence and understanding and sees other beings as less developed. It emphasizes the functional value of nature as food, fuel, and shelter and overlooks the profound truths found in nature. P. 73

  5. Buddhist Initiatives and Peaceful Coexistence • Volatility of global food markets cause harm to farmers • Government subsidies to industry disrupt rural communities • Health hazards from manufacturing are unaddressed • Localized economies – cooperatives, local currencies

  6. From the Lotus Flower to the Devil’s Discus: How Siam Became Thailand • Internal or mental colonization • Buddhism became ceremonial religion • Marshal Phibun along with Luang Wichit and Prince Wan establish autocracy • Consumerism and Monoculturalism • Concerns about the power of transnational corporations

  7. The Last Word: Remembering Pridi Banomyong • Pridi Banmyong played an important role in the democratization movement in Siam but was unacknowledged by the state despite his significance. He was often on the losing side of history but his defense of constitutional monarchy and democracy is essential to Siam’s future.

  8. Art and Beauty: An Ethical Perspective • Real Beauty is beyond the transient – Octavio Paz • Post modern world teeters dangerously close to Nihilism – Vaclav Havel • Art as the love of life Kuramaswami • Technology and modernity uproot and destroy the traditional way of living and the traditional conception of beauty and goodness. Ugliness is supplanting beauty. Goodness is dimming. The quest for truth is now skewed by falsity and injustice, guided by money and power. All this is done in the name of being civilized or Western civilization. Science and technology are said to provide the answer to every question. The fact that the latest science and technology may trample beauty and goodness is easily and conveniently discarded. For instance, self-reliance has immeasurably weakened, nature is raped and its diversity leveled, and millions of people are exploited in the name of progress. P. 109

  9. Who are the Contemporary Thai Buddhists? • Concerns about the weakening of Buddhism and its frailty even in the monastery • Looks to establish Buddhist meditation centers so that Buddhist can realize the necessity of wrestling with structural injustices

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