Buddhist Peacework: Creating Cultures of Peace - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 086171167X ISBN 13: 9780861711673

Publisher: Wisdom Publications, 2000

Synopsis

Buddhism is famous for bringing inner peace, but what about social harmony, human rights, and environmental balance? We have a responsibility today to work directly with our own suffering and the suffering in our communities, the world, and the environment.

Buddhist Peacework collects - for the first time in one place - first-person descriptions of the ideas and work of eminent Buddhist leaders such as the Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Maha Ghosananda, A.T. Ariyaratne, Daisaku Ikeda, Shih Cheng-yen, Sulak Sivaraksa, and Robert Aitken. These 18 essays are divided into three sections that explore the newest Buddhist social developments, the principles that guide Buddhist peacework, and the importance of ongoing inner peacework in developing a sense of kinship with all people.

About this title

About the Author

David W. Chappell was a scholar of Chinese Buddhism and graduate chair of the Department of Religion at the University of Hawaii. He inititiated a series of Buddhist-Christian conferences in 1980 and was founding editor of the academic journal Buddhist-Christian Studies from 1980-95. He became the founding director of the Buddhist Studies Program at the University of Hawaii in 1987. In 1988, Professor Chappell was a cofounder of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies, and served as its President from 1993-95. He died in 2004.

Joan Halifax, PhD, is a Buddhist teacher and an anthropologist. Her books include Simplicity in the Complex: A Buddhist Life in America and Being with Dying. She is the founder of the Upaya Institute in Santa Fe NM, where she now practices, teaches, and works. She is a Founding Teacher in the Zen Peacemaker Order of Roshi Bernie Glassman and the late Sensei Jishu Holmes and is a Soto priest and teacher.

Reviews

Eighteen Buddhist leaders respond here to the recent United Nations document Declaration on the Role of Religion in the Promotion of a Culture of Peace. Peace, according to the collection's editor, is more than merely the inner tranquillity sometimes ascribed to Buddhism; it requires the recognition that all beings suffer, and that "we are not separate from others." The book's contributors include monks and laypersons from the Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhist traditions, speaking not just theoretically about peace, but from their personal experiences of life in war-ravaged or unjust societies. Vietnamese exile Thich Nhat Hahn writes of his efforts to rescue the "boat people" who fled his home country in the 1970s, while Dhammachari Lokamitra recounts the resurgence of Buddhism in India, its country of origin, where thousands of "Untouchables" seek a religion that will uproot the hierarchical foundations of the caste system. The various essays offer examples of Buddhist initiatives for peace all over the world, from Myanmar to Los Alamos; such "engaged Buddhists" agitate on issues such as the environment, nuclear arms, interreligious dialogue, homelessness, hunger and women's rights. The contributors' perspectives on peace are illuminating, but the most intriguing stories deal with the justice-oriented offshoots of the Buddhist tradition, such as the revival of Chontae Buddhism in Korea. (May)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Wisdom Publications
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 086171167X
• ISBN 13: 9780861711673
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256
• Editor: Chappell David W.