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Engaged Buddhism: Interbeing, the Mindfulness Trainings and Practice in the World

How Thích Nhất Hạnh and Buddhist movements across Asia joined meditation and social action — and how it is practised

What is Engaged Buddhism?

Engaged Buddhism is Buddhist practice carried directly into the suffering of society — war, poverty, injustice, ecological harm — so that meditation and social action are one path rather than two. The term is credited to the Vietnamese Zen teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh, who grounded it in his teaching of interbeing and in the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of his Order of Interbeing, founded in Saigon in 1966; scholars use the wider label for Buddhist movements across Asia and the West, from Sarvodaya Shramadana in Sri Lanka to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

The Plum Village biography of Thích Nhất Hạnh places the roots of his engaged Buddhism in Vietnam in the 1950s, when, amid the division of the country, he wrote a front-page series of articles arguing that Buddhism could speak to democracy, freedom and education. The scholar Tom Yarnall notes that the term “engaged Buddhism” appears originally to have been coined by Thích Nhất Hạnh in 1963, and that the expanded term “socially engaged Buddhism” emerged in the 1980s. The practice took its shape in war: the School of Youth for Social Service he co-founded in 1965 sent young volunteers into bombed villages, and in February 1966 he established the Order of Interbeing, whose Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings Plum Village describes as a modern distillation of the Mahāyāna bodhisattva precepts. Its philosophical centre is interbeing, his rendering of dependent co-arising: nothing exists by itself alone. Scholars have since used the label for a much wider family — A. T. Ariyaratne’s Sarvodaya Shramadana in Sri Lanka, Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu and Sulak Sivaraksa in Thailand, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar’s Buddhist movement in India (the Navayāna, which has its own page), Maha Ghosananda’s peace walks in Cambodia, and Western groups such as the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. These movements differ sharply, especially on politics. This page sets out what they share and the practices Plum Village teaches for living it. The six perfections, compassion meditation and walking meditation have their own pages.

Práticas

Como estas práticas se conectam

Every practice on this page applies one insight: interbeing, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s word for dependent co-arising — that nothing, including oneself, exists apart from everything else. If the paper is made of the forest, then how one listens, speaks, consumes and holds one’s views is already action in the world, and action in the world is already practice. Contemplating interbeing makes the insight perceptible; non-attachment to views and taking care of anger keep it from hardening into a new fanaticism; deep listening, mindful consumption, service and nonviolent action carry it into relationships, economies and politics; and a sustaining practice keeps the one acting from being consumed by the suffering they are working on.

What is interbeing, and how does it lead to engaged Buddhism?

Interbeing is the word Thích Nhất Hạnh coined to render the Buddhist teaching of dependent co-arising: nothing exists by itself alone, and to be is to inter-be. His standard image is a sheet of paper, which cannot exist without clouds, rain and forest. The step to engagement is direct: if one is made of everything else, the suffering of others and of the earth is not outside one’s practice. Plum Village’s Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings call interbeing a reality to be experienced rather than a theory, and Thích Nhất Hạnh also warned that the notion should be put down once it has done its work, like a spade after the well is dug.

How did Thich Nhat Hanh start engaged Buddhism in Vietnam during the war?

According to his Plum Village biography, his vision took shape in the mid-1950s, when he wrote front-page articles arguing that Buddhism could speak to democracy, freedom and education in a divided Vietnam. Scholar Tom Yarnall notes the term “engaged Buddhism” appears to have been coined by him in 1963. In 1965 he co-founded the School of Youth for Social Service, which sent volunteers into bombed villages, and in February 1966 he founded the Order of Interbeing with six members drawn from that work. He later described engaged Buddhism as born in such conditions: keeping up one’s practice while responding to suffering, walking mindfully where people were still running from the bombs.

What is the difference between engaged Buddhism and secular Buddhism?

They answer different questions. Engaged Buddhism is about where practice goes — into social, political and ecological suffering — and says nothing by itself about belief; secular Buddhism, associated with writers such as Stephen Batchelor, is about reworking the dharma for a secular age and setting aside much of its traditional metaphysics. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s engaged Buddhism is not secular in that sense: the Order of Interbeing belongs to the Linji (Rinzai) Zen lineage, receives its trainings in a formal ceremony, and frames them as bodhisattva precepts. At the same time Plum Village presents its Five Mindfulness Trainings as nonsectarian, so a person can take up engaged practices without adopting the full religious frame.

Is engaged Buddhism political, or does it try to stay out of politics?

It varies widely. In Sallie King’s survey of Asian movements, Soka Gakkai endorsed party politics and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was a national political figure who founded a party, while Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu and some nuns’ movements had almost nothing to do with politics; Sulak Sivaraksa and A. T. Ariyaratne stayed out of party politics but criticised the status quo. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s trainings ask members not to turn their community into a political instrument, yet to take a clear stand against oppression and injustice without taking sides in a conflict. King also distinguishes a “love” approach that recognises no enemy from a “prophetic voice” that denounces wrongdoing.

Is engaged Buddhism something new, or has Buddhism always been socially engaged?

Scholars disagree. Tom Yarnall sorts them into “traditionists,” who hold that Buddhism has always included a social dimension so engaged Buddhism is nothing new, and “modernists,” who argue that its social potential stayed largely untapped until Buddhism met modern Western ideas. Thích Nhất Hạnh himself is quoted as saying that engaged Buddhism is just Buddhism practised in the family and society. Amod Lele adds that several classical South Asian Buddhist texts explicitly reject social and political activism, arguing that the deepest sources of suffering are not fixable by activism and that political involvement disturbs the calm needed for liberation — a view he says the field has not taken seriously enough.

How do engaged Buddhists keep activism from turning into anger and burnout?

By treating inner practice as the ground of action rather than a break from it. Thích Nhất Hạnh taught being peace in order to make peace, and his Sixth Mindfulness Training asks that when anger arises one not speak or act until one has breathed or walked with it. He told wartime social workers that without a spiritual practice they could not survive, and his publisher describes the Fourteen Trainings as a way of not burning out. Interview research with social justice activists links burnout partly to a culture of martyrdom in movements. When someone is already depleted, the first steps are grounding, rest and support from other people, not more intensive practice.

Como escolher entre elas?

If the idea of engaged Buddhism is new to you, start by contemplating interbeing in one object, since every other practice rests on it. If you are already active in a cause and feel your convictions hardening into contempt, work with non-attachment to views and with nonviolent action without enemies; if your anger keeps getting ahead of you, begin with being peace before making peace. If the conflict is with a particular person, deep listening and loving speech is the direct tool. If your concern is how ordinary life feeds harm — what you buy, scroll and take in — mindful consumption is the place to start. If your practice feels stuck on the cushion, find a shared act of service. And if you are depleted or dreading the work, put everything else aside and begin with the practice for sustaining yourself: grounding, rest and support come first.

O que estas abordagens não resolvem

Most of what supports these practices is textual and historical: Plum Village’s own trainings, Thích Nhất Hạnh’s biography and publisher pages, and scholarship describing movements rather than testing practices. The modern studies cited — on social media limits, listening, nonviolent campaigns and activist burnout — test related things in specific groups, not the mindfulness trainings themselves. The label “engaged Buddhism” covers movements that disagree sharply, especially about politics, and scholars dispute whether it is continuous with older Buddhism; some classical texts reject activism outright. Movements also carry their own limits — Sarvodaya’s scholars, for instance, call its picture of village life idealised. And no contemplative practice removes the structural causes of injustice or of burnout.

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Perguntas frequentes

What is Engaged Buddhism?

Engaged Buddhism is Buddhist practice carried directly into the suffering of society — war, poverty, injustice, ecological harm — so that meditation and social action are one path rather than two. The term is credited to the Vietnamese Zen teacher Thích Nhất Hạnh, who grounded it in his teaching of interbeing and in the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings of his Order of Interbeing, founded in Saigon in 1966; scholars use the wider label for Buddhist movements across Asia and the West, from Sarvodaya Shramadana in Sri Lanka to the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.

Como funciona «Contemplate interbeing in one ordinary object»?

Interbeing is the word Thích Nhất Hạnh coined, during a retreat at Tassajara Zen Center according to his biography, to render dependent co-arising: the early teaching that “when this exists, this comes to be.” The Plum Village biography records his instruction to look with the eyes of interbeing and see that there cannot be a sheet of paper without clouds, forest and rain. Tracing an object’s conditions outward turns an abstract doctrine into a perception, and the perception has an ethical edge: if the paper is made of the forest, the logger, the rain and oneself, then harm and care do not stop at the edge of the self. The Fourteen Trainings call interbeing not a theory but a reality that can be directly experienced.

Como funciona «Hold your views as guides, not weapons»?

The first two of the Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings — Openness and Non-Attachment to Views — were written in wartime Vietnam, where Thích Nhất Hạnh saw people on every side ready to kill and die for an ideology. The training commits members not to be idolatrous about any doctrine, “even Buddhist ones,” and locates fanaticism in dualistic, discriminative perception. The Plum Village biography records that he meant the trainings as a direct answer to war and dogmatism. The working idea is that the hardening of a view, not the strength of the care behind it, is what turns a cause into a source of new violence — so the practice keeps the care and loosens the grip.

Como funciona «Be peace before you try to make peace»?

Being Peace, one of Thích Nhất Hạnh’s first books published in the United States, was written for peace activists, and its publisher sums up its message as being peace in order to make more peace. The Sixth Mindfulness Training, Taking Care of Anger, asks that when anger manifests one not do or say anything, but breathe or walk mindfully and look into its roots, which it places in wrong perceptions rather than outside. The reasoning is that action carries the state it comes from: anger expressed as protest tends to produce more anger, while action taken from a steadier mind can be heard. The biography records how he taught this in war, as walking meditation where people were still running from the bombs.

Como funciona «Practise deep listening and loving speech»?

The fourth of Plum Village’s Five Mindfulness Trainings, Loving Speech and Deep Listening, commits a practitioner to compassionate listening and to speech that is true and inspires confidence, joy and hope, in order to promote reconciliation between people, groups and nations. It echoes an early discourse in which well-spoken words are timely, true, gentle, beneficial and loving. The mechanism is relational: a person who feels heard tends to defend less, and an undefended person can change. Laboratory experiments on high-quality listening point the same way, finding that being listened to without judgment reduced speakers’ social anxiety and the extremity of their attitudes.

Como funciona «Consume mindfully: the four nutriments»?

The fifth of the Five Mindfulness Trainings, Nourishment and Healing, asks practitioners to look deeply into the four kinds of nutriments — edible food, sense impressions, volition and consciousness — and to avoid products that carry toxins, naming certain websites, games, programmes and conversations alongside alcohol and drugs. It also names the motive it is watching for: covering up loneliness, anxiety or other suffering by losing oneself in consumption. The Fourteen Trainings extend this outward, asking members to behave responsibly as consumers and citizens. The engaged move is that consumption is never private: what one takes in shapes one’s own mind, and what one buys shapes the collective body the training names alongside the personal one.

Como funciona «Take nonviolent action without making an enemy»?

Engaged Buddhist movements have used marches, mediation, peace delegations and public witness, and the Fourteen Trainings ask members to take a clear stand against oppression and injustice and to strive to change the situation without taking sides in a conflict. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s publisher quotes his line that “the essence of nonviolence is love,” from which strategies arise. In Cambodia, Maha Ghosananda’s Dhammayietra peace walk, which began with the return of refugees from the Thai border camps in 1992, turned walking itself into a religious act with his instruction to move toward peace step by step. Sallie King distinguishes this “love” approach, which recognises no enemy, from a “prophetic voice” that does not hesitate to denounce; both are found among engaged Buddhists.

Como funciona «Serve with others, as practice»?

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s School of Youth for Social Service, founded in 1965, trained young people in practical skills and spiritual resilience and sent them to bombed villages to build schools and medical centres and resettle families. In Sri Lanka, the Sarvodaya Shramadana movement founded by A. T. Ariyaratne draws on Buddhism and Gandhian thought and puts the village at the heart of its work; George Bond’s study, as Fenn summarises it, presents personal liberation there as bound up with social liberation, and quotes the slogan “We build the road and the road builds us.” Sallie King argues that for engaged Buddhists spiritual practice and social betterment blend into one whole: service done in community both helps and forms the one serving.

Como funciona «Keep a sustaining practice so care does not burn out»?

Thích Nhất Hạnh’s biography quotes him on the social workers of wartime Vietnam: without a spiritual practice, you cannot survive. His publisher describes the Fourteen Trainings as offering insights for existing mindfully and not burning out, and the Seventh Training asks members to touch what is refreshing and healing in and around them. Interview research with social justice and human rights activists found burnout tied in part to a “culture of martyrdom” in their movements, which made activism less effective as well as harming activists. The engaged Buddhist reasoning is that one’s own well-being is not separate from the cause — by interbeing, a depleted activist is part of the suffering, and care for oneself is part of the work.

What is interbeing, and how does it lead to engaged Buddhism?

Interbeing is the word Thích Nhất Hạnh coined to render the Buddhist teaching of dependent co-arising: nothing exists by itself alone, and to be is to inter-be. His standard image is a sheet of paper, which cannot exist without clouds, rain and forest. The step to engagement is direct: if one is made of everything else, the suffering of others and of the earth is not outside one’s practice. Plum Village’s Fourteen Mindfulness Trainings call interbeing a reality to be experienced rather than a theory, and Thích Nhất Hạnh also warned that the notion should be put down once it has done its work, like a spade after the well is dug.

How did Thich Nhat Hanh start engaged Buddhism in Vietnam during the war?

According to his Plum Village biography, his vision took shape in the mid-1950s, when he wrote front-page articles arguing that Buddhism could speak to democracy, freedom and education in a divided Vietnam. Scholar Tom Yarnall notes the term “engaged Buddhism” appears to have been coined by him in 1963. In 1965 he co-founded the School of Youth for Social Service, which sent volunteers into bombed villages, and in February 1966 he founded the Order of Interbeing with six members drawn from that work. He later described engaged Buddhism as born in such conditions: keeping up one’s practice while responding to suffering, walking mindfully where people were still running from the bombs.

What is the difference between engaged Buddhism and secular Buddhism?

They answer different questions. Engaged Buddhism is about where practice goes — into social, political and ecological suffering — and says nothing by itself about belief; secular Buddhism, associated with writers such as Stephen Batchelor, is about reworking the dharma for a secular age and setting aside much of its traditional metaphysics. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s engaged Buddhism is not secular in that sense: the Order of Interbeing belongs to the Linji (Rinzai) Zen lineage, receives its trainings in a formal ceremony, and frames them as bodhisattva precepts. At the same time Plum Village presents its Five Mindfulness Trainings as nonsectarian, so a person can take up engaged practices without adopting the full religious frame.

Is engaged Buddhism political, or does it try to stay out of politics?

It varies widely. In Sallie King’s survey of Asian movements, Soka Gakkai endorsed party politics and Dr. B. R. Ambedkar was a national political figure who founded a party, while Buddhadāsa Bhikkhu and some nuns’ movements had almost nothing to do with politics; Sulak Sivaraksa and A. T. Ariyaratne stayed out of party politics but criticised the status quo. Thích Nhất Hạnh’s trainings ask members not to turn their community into a political instrument, yet to take a clear stand against oppression and injustice without taking sides in a conflict. King also distinguishes a “love” approach that recognises no enemy from a “prophetic voice” that denounces wrongdoing.

Is engaged Buddhism something new, or has Buddhism always been socially engaged?

Scholars disagree. Tom Yarnall sorts them into “traditionists,” who hold that Buddhism has always included a social dimension so engaged Buddhism is nothing new, and “modernists,” who argue that its social potential stayed largely untapped until Buddhism met modern Western ideas. Thích Nhất Hạnh himself is quoted as saying that engaged Buddhism is just Buddhism practised in the family and society. Amod Lele adds that several classical South Asian Buddhist texts explicitly reject social and political activism, arguing that the deepest sources of suffering are not fixable by activism and that political involvement disturbs the calm needed for liberation — a view he says the field has not taken seriously enough.

How do engaged Buddhists keep activism from turning into anger and burnout?

By treating inner practice as the ground of action rather than a break from it. Thích Nhất Hạnh taught being peace in order to make peace, and his Sixth Mindfulness Training asks that when anger arises one not speak or act until one has breathed or walked with it. He told wartime social workers that without a spiritual practice they could not survive, and his publisher describes the Fourteen Trainings as a way of not burning out. Interview research with social justice activists links burnout partly to a culture of martyrdom in movements. When someone is already depleted, the first steps are grounding, rest and support from other people, not more intensive practice.

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