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Buddhist family to work together for the betterment of mankind.
This conference symbolises China’s return to the big family in a big
way, and to many this is a big dream come true. “non-violence” is a term aptly
Socially used because this strategy,

Engaged while being peaceful, actually
(Originally Published in World Fellowship of Buddhists Bulletin 2014) “agitate” and “ provoke” the
Buddhism powers that be, to probe deeply
into their conscience, leaving

them no peace!

As put forth by Ven. Dr. W. Rahula of Sri Lanka and Ven.
Payutto of Thailand, Buddhist monks used to be leaders and teachers
of their communities. During the last century, the better-educated
Sangha members took up leadership in championing the destiny of
their own countries. A wave of Buddhist social movements swept
across countries like India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand,
Burma and Vietnam. This movement came to be known as Socially
Engaged Buddhism.

Socially Engaged Buddhism (SEB) is not a new Buddhist sect. It
is a movement represented by radical protests and struggles against
colonialism and social injustice. Proponents of SEB have always
argued that Buddhism has a long tradition of social engagement
(including political engagement), starting from the time of the
Buddha, and the term SEB had been used primarily to highlight the
importance of social engagement.

The core leaders in this movement had been mostly monks who
were sometimes labelled as “political monks (bhikkhus)”. Some

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