Tradition

Engaged Buddhism

The application of the dharma to social, political, and environmental suffering. Thich Nhat Hanh, Sulak Sivaraksa, Tzu Chi.

Knowledge2

Sites1

Teachings5

Products0

Knowledge

02

Thich Nhat Hanh, founder of the modern Engaged Buddhism movement

Engaged Buddhism

The twentieth-century movement that carries the Buddhist insights of interdependence, non-self, and compassion directly into social, political, ecological, and economic action — coined by Thich Nhat Hanh in war-time Vietnam, now a global lay-monastic ethic.

Photograph of Thich Nhat Hanh smiling while speaking into a microphone

Thich Nhat Hanh

Vietnamese Zen master (1926-2022), poet, founder of the School of Youth for Social Service during the war, exiled for nearly forty years for his refusal to take sides, founder of Plum Village in southwest France, author of more than a hundred books. He gave the modern world the phrase "engaged Buddhism" and made mindfulness — sati — a global practice.

Sacred Sites

01

Lumbini

The Birth.

Teachings

05

The Tzu Chi 60th Anniversary at Lumbini

The Tzu Chi Foundation's sixtieth anniversary observance at Lumbini — a triple festival of Buddha Day, Mother's Day, and the foundation's own founding, broadcast live from the birthplace of the Buddha.

Three Days, Thirty Nations — A Single Observance

A short dispatch on the simultaneous Tzu Chi observance held in over thirty countries — a Mahayana tradition that treats humanitarian service as the bodhisattva's daily practice.

Dharma Master Cheng Yen

A Blessing from Dharma Master Cheng Yen

A short blessing from Dharma Master Cheng Yen — the founder of the Tzu Chi Foundation — on the necessity of unity in any sustained work for the welfare of others.

A Free Clinic at Lumbini

A studio dispatch on the Tzu Chi free health clinic at Lumbini — thousands of patients seen, the bodhisattva path practised as primary care.

The Tzu Chi School at Lumbini

A studio dispatch on the construction of the Tzu Chi school near Lumbini — a Mahayana foundation's contribution to education at the birthplace of the Buddha.

More tradition tags

Mahayana14 Mindfulness-Based7 Newar Buddhism10 Nichiren2 Pure Land5 Theravada16 Vajrayana18 Zen4

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