The SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies in London will host a two-day public conference on Buddhist environmentalism titled “From Green Living to Buddhist Environmentalism: Exploring Buddhist Texts, Rituals, and Practices for a Sustainable Future.” Co-organized and sponsored by the Taiwan-headquartered Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, the forum will run from 18–19 October in SOAS’s Khalili Lecture Theatre. The event is free and open to all.
“This conference is part of a multi-year research project exploring the potential of Buddhism to advance the practice of environmental protection and mitigate climate change,” the SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies announced. “In the course of this project, 13 scholars have drawn on different sources and methods, including archive research, textual analysis, and ethnographic fieldwork among Buddhist communities in five continents.”
The symposium will examine Buddhist doctrines, rituals, and practices, and provide a platform for dialogue with other religious and cultural views, approached from national, regional, and global contexts.
The SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies at SOAS University of London is one of the world’s leading institutions for Buddhist scholarship, home to a diverse community of academics and researchers dedicated to exploring Buddhism across cultures and traditions. With expertise spanning Tibetan, Chinese, Japanese, and Indian Buddhism, the center supports an interdisciplinary approach that examines Buddhism from historical, philosophical, anthropological, and material culture perspectives. The center fosters collaboration between scholars internationally, while training the next generation of Buddhist studies experts and providing research opportunities and resources for academic study and understanding Buddhism as a living tradition.
Among the key speakers for the event are: Kalzang Dorjee Bhutia (Occidental College, USA); William Edelglass (Barre Center for Buddhist Studies and Emerson College); Weishan Huang (Hong Kong Shue Yue University); Sonya Lee (University of Southern California); Yih-Ren Lin (Graduate Institute of Museum Studies, Taipei National University of the Arts); Brian J. Nichols (Mount Royal University, Canada); Rey-Sheng Her (Tzu Chi University, Taiwan); Julia Shaw (University College London); Stefania Travagnin (SOAS, University of London); and Ven. Chao-Hwei (Hsuan Chuang University, Taiwan)
“The papers presented at SOAS will analyze the environmental ideologies of modern leaders, such as Ambedkar from India, the nun Cheng Yen from Taiwan, and the monk Thich Nhat Hanh from Vietnam,” SOAS noted. “They will include reflections on the idea of ‘eco-Dharma,’ Buddhist environmental justice movements, theories of altruistic economy, virtue ethics and environmental gratitude, the methods of eco-art history, and the ideal of the economy of goodness.”
The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, Republic of China, more widely known as the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation, was founded in Taiwan in 1966 by the Buddhist nun and Dharma teacher Master Cheng Yen. With a focus on “putting compassion into action,” the Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation is a UN-accredited NGO with some 10 million supporters and 432 offices worldwide across 51 countries, undertaking regular activities in the fields of humanitarian aid, medical care, education, and environmental sustainability.
As a global icon of socially engaged Buddhism, Master Cheng Yen has expressed a deeply held belief that all people are capable of manifesting the same great compassion as the Buddha. She has noted that true compassion is not simply feeling sympathy for the suffering of others, but is found in reaching out to relieve suffering with concrete action.
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Tzu Chi Foundation
SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies
From Green Living to Buddhist Environmentalism (SOAS Centre of Buddhist Studies)
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