OVERVIEW

Some 2,500 years later, humanity seems to be more tangled that it has ever been. Facing environmental crisis and continuing violent conflict, many seem to be turning inward and away from the embrace of a world of inclusivity, where we overcome the constructed barriers of our diverse identities to rebuild our mother earth and find a new home upon it. . The role of institutionalized religion in  this struggle is debatable. Is it a source of continued division and intolerance or a platform to develop common values and infuse our economic and political systems with ethics? Socially engaged Buddhism has been a movement oriented to the second  of these possibilities. Emerging out of the anti-colonial struggles of the peoples of Asia, socially engaged Buddhism has flowered over the last three decades into an incredible diversity of movements—holistic community development in Sri Lanka and Thailand, suicide prevention and psycho-spiritual care in Japan, meditation for application in modern medical science in the U.S and Europe, campaigns for social justice and equality in India, and a growing movement for environmental justice world wide—to name just a few.

The International Network of Engaged Buddhists (INEB), founded in 1989, has been an integral part of many of these developments, identifying and nurturing grassroots initiatives in localities all over Asia and linking them together in a global network for holistic, inclusive, and non-violent social transformation. The immense complexity of our worlds—so interconnected by internet technology yet so fragile, as seen in recent political and cultural  shifts away from this interconnectedness—have more deeply awakened those of us at INEB towards taking new steps in our collective struggle. We feel we must now double-down on our efforts to realize over the next decade four essential goals for the livelihood of our planet, which make up our Roadmap for Socially Engaged Buddhism for the Next Decade: [in graphic below: “Peace” and “Wholeness”]

• Environmental integrity, which consists of the integration of inner and outer ecology
• Cultural inclusivity and diversity, which are essential to a vibrant and healthy system at any level
• Inner peace, and the need for experiential forms of inner development to empower psychological wholeness
• Social justice, and the creation of larger political and economic systems that nurture ecology, diversity, and inner peace.

A Conference on Interbeing: Transforming Conflict by Compassion

• As INEB seeks to further empower its own network and support efforts by like-minded colleagues from different faiths and different fields of endeavor, we will host the 18th  International Conference as part of this roadmap for the coming decade in Taiwan in November, 2017 entitled “A Conference on Interbeing: Transforming Conflict by Compassion”. While environmental integrity, cultural inclusivity & diversity, inner peace & psychological wholeness, and socio-political justice constitute our goals, compassion is one of our principle means, and conflict is our field. In keeping with our core Buddhist view of non-duality, conflict provides a rich field for our practice, without which we could not practice compassion. Therefore, conflict is not our enemy, but actually the ground for realization, hence we transform conflict as we realize compassion, the two working together in a creative dynamic. In our conference, we will investigate these themes further through a program of exposure, conference, and retreat covering one week.