Buddhism is one of the oldest and most important religions in the world. People often regard Buddhism as a belief that trying to seek ways to reach the extramundane perfection of one’s soul, which is passive and so far away from our daily life. However, there is a new form of Buddhism developed in last century, which is highly socially active, we call it Engaged Buddhism. Engaged Buddhism was developed by an extraordinary Vietnamese Zen Buddhist teacher, Thich Nhat Hanh in the 20th century based on his experience during the Vietnam War which he regarded as an “unnecessary and ideological war”. American government used ideology as their excuse to arouse and get involved in the Vietnam War. As a result, tons of people died, suffered in pain and were forced to leave their home country. Thus Thich Nhat Hanh decided to find an antidote for ideology and then established Engaged Buddhism as a response to the evil form in the modern world. As he stated in his book, Peace is Every Step, “Should we continue to practice in our monasteries, or should we leave the meditation halls in order to help the people who were suffering under the bombs?”, said Thich Nhat Hanh, “Mindfulness must be engaged. Once there is seeing, there must be acting…We must be aware of the real problems of the world.” (Nhat Hanh 111). Therefore we can define Engaged Buddhism as a teaching that focusing on relating one’s understanding of meditation practice to those social and political issues in daily life.
First of all, we have to clarify that there are still many aspects that Engaged Buddhist retained from the classical Buddhism. For example, they both focus on maintaining one’s inner peace (nirvana) and opposed to the belief in permanent spiritual reality. Although Engaged Buddhism has a narrower meaning of The Four Noble Truths, these two forms of Buddhism both established their main concepts and meditation methods based on the noble truths. In fact, as Thich Nhat Hanh stated in the interview with John Malkin, “Engaged Buddhism is just Buddhism. When bombs begin to fall on people, you cannot stay in the meditation hall all of the time.”
Engaged Buddhism is developed from the traditional Buddhism, however, there is some specific difference between them. Based on the lecture, we see that Thich Nhat Hanh did rethink about the Four Noble Truths, which is the fundamental insight of Buddhism. The first truth is, life is suffering, which is a philosophical concept in traditional Buddhism. However, Engaged Buddhism redefined the meaning of suffering, now it is war in reality. People are undergoing a harsh reality, forced to be departed from their family, both emotional and physical pain. Thus, monks should truly engage with the world and understand those real suffering. The second truth is that suffering comes from desire. Based on what he saw during the Vietnam War, Thich Nhat Hanh delimitated the desire as the attachment of one’s country and ideology. When two different ideologies run into each other, for example, Communism and Capitalism, there will definitely be incompatibility and conflict. The third noble truth is that suffering stops when desire stops. In Thich Nhat Hanh’s view, people must learn to accept the diversity in different ideologies, do not regard oneself as the one and only “rightness”. As Dalai Lama emphasized in his work, The True Source of Political Success: “Since the essence of our diverse religious traditions is to achieve our individual and collective benefit, it is crucial that we are active in maintaining harmony and mutual respect between them.” (Dalai 169). The last truth is that the path that frees people from suffering is practicing the Eightfold Path. Thich Nhat Hanh delineated the eight-fold path and focused on mindfulness and established the fourteen mindfulness training which contains a lot of opposition to traditional Buddhism. For instance, in the twelfth mindfulness teaching, reverence for life, he stated that: “Aware that much suffering is caused by war and conflict… We are committed not to kill and not to let others kill.” In his statement, our duty is no longer limited to “not killing” but we are also responsible to confront and against any act of killing. (Module 10.1)
Furthermore, Engaged Buddhism has been highly focused on solving the ecological issue since the day this form of Buddhism was shaped. Some of the Buddhist monks successfully applied the Buddhist principles to the environmental issues. Pipob Udomittipong described a perfect example for us in his work, Thailand’s Ecology Monks. In his article, the Thailand monk Phrakhru Pitak, who worked so hard to address the importance of the forest to the people in his village, facilitated the construction of roads and led a protest against the government plan which aimed at economic growth but would harm damage the local forests. In addition, he combined the Buddhist rituals with the tree ordination which sanctified the local forest. The monks in Thailand have a special and very important role which is spreading positive insights and ideas that government is not able to pass down because those monks are deeply involved in both cultural and religiously with the local residents. (Udomittipong 194). It is essential for us to solve the ecological crisis, as Sulak Sivaraksa suggested in her work, Development as if People Mattered, “Asia’s new vision of reality must be spiritual and ecological. If we can develop in this way, the future may be bright.” (Sivaraksa 190).
In the study of religion and social issue today, it is important for us to relate our ideology with the world around us. Despite the belief of an individual, establishing a good understanding of Engaged Buddhism will truly help one achieve the calmness of inner self and the ability to think and reflect.