< Issue No. 17 (2022)Article
Applied Buddhism: Past and Present
Makransky, John, Boston College
Abstract
Various aspects of thought and practice from Buddhist traditions are being adapted and applied to meet individual and social needs in our time. The application of Buddhist forms of knowledge and power to meet social needs has historically been part of Buddhist activity throughout Asia and is one reason that Buddhist institutions garnered the social support they needed to become established in those cultures. So, applying Buddhist ideas and practices to meet contemporary needs is not new, but how they are being used now is problematic in two ways. First is the tendency to subsume modern secular applications of Buddhist practice under excessively individualistic, consumer-based agendas that lose the inclusive social-ethical frameworks that had informed such practices in traditional cultures. Second is the tendency to separate modern adaptations of Buddhist practices from the Buddhist institutions those practices are drawn from, thereby directing the social and economic support generated by those practices away from their sources. Three kinds of modern applied Buddhism are noted that help ameliorate those two problematic tendencies: socially engaged Buddhism, Buddhist critical-constructive reflection, and current meditation programs that include robust relational and ethical frameworks.