The Radical Buddhism Project
A new website cataloguing radical left-wing Asian Buddhists' activism.
My friend and colleague James Shields has just started a new site called the Radical Buddhism Project, “an independent digital humanities archive and research portal dedicated to recovering, preserving, and contextualizing the historical intersections of Buddhist doctrine with radical left-wing socio-political thought.” It collects information on Buddhist radicals in countries across Asia.
I’ve often been at pains to point out that classical Buddhism often opposed political engagement. (Others like Brian Victoria and Michael Jerryson have called attention to something that should have been obvious, that Buddhism has frequently been deployed in a right-wing direction as well.) That said, traditions flourish by being reinvented and extended in new ways, from Chinese Tiantai to medical mindfulness. I think the radical Buddhists on the site are creating an interesting form of modernized Buddhism that’s worth knowing about, and I’m excited that James has put the site together.
CHANGE THE NAME
My practice of Buddhism teaches me that the Middle Way is the way. But the Middle Way is not a timid compromise between cruelty and compassion. It is the wise path that refuses both extremes while remaining firmly committed to relieving suffering.
Yes, we must generate a powerful alternative to Trumpian cruelty, indifference to human well-being, and disregard for Mother Earth. But the language must change. Words such as 'socialist' and 'socialism' carry decades of political fear and provoke resistance before a conversation can even begin.
Change the name, and you change the listening.
Change the language, and you change the context.
Change the context, and new possibilities become available.
A Democratic Humanist does not ask government to control everything. Nor does one accept a society in which the powerful accumulate everything. A Democratic Humanist supports free enterprise with moral responsibility, individual liberty with responsibility for one another, and economic progress that does not sacrifice people or the planet.
Democracy describes how we govern.
Humanism describes who—and what—we govern for.
Change the name ASAP. Democratic Humanist—not Democratic Socialist.