Applied Buddhism

"Tiep Hien members are not expected to be professors of Buddhist Studies. They organize the practice and are the exemplars of the practice. They have to master the Dharma doors of Applied Buddhism, touching happiness as they sit in meditation, take each step in mindfulness, or practice noble silence."

What does Applied Buddhism mean?

Applied Buddhism means that Buddhism can be applied in every circumstance in order to bring understanding and solutions to problems in our world. Applied Buddhism offers concrete ways to relieve suffering and bring peace and happiness in every situation.

"First we had the term “Engaged Buddhism.” Engaged Buddhism means that you practice all day without interruption, in the midst of your family, your community, your city, and your society. The way you walk, the way you look, the way you sit inspires people to live in a way that peace, happiness, joy and brotherhood are possible in every moment.

The term Engaged Buddhism was born when the war in Vietnam was very intense. To meditate is to be aware of what is going on, and what was happening then was bombs falling, people being wounded and dying: suffering and the destruction of life. You want to help relieve the suffering, so you sit and walk in the midst of people running from bombs. You learn how to practice mindful breathing while you help care for a wounded child. If you don’t practice while you serve, you will lose yourself and you will burn out.

When you are alone, walking, sitting, drinking your tea or making breakfast, that is also Engaged Buddhism, because you are doing it not only for yourself, but in order to help preserve the world. This is interbeing. Engaged Buddhism is practice that penetrates into every aspect of our world.

“Applied Buddhism” is a continuation of Engaged Buddhism. Applied Buddhism means that Buddhism can be applied in every circumstance in order to bring understanding and solutions to problems in our world. Applied Buddhism offers concrete ways to relieve suffering and bring peace and happiness in every situation.

When President Obama gave a talk at the University of Cairo, he used loving speech in order to ease tension between America and the Islamic world. He was using the Buddhist practice of loving speech: speaking humbly, recognizing the values of Islam, recognizing the good will on the part of Islamic people, and identifying terrorists as a small number of people who exploit tension and misunderstanding between people.

The practice of relieving tension in the body is Applied Buddhism because the tension accumulated in our body will bring about sickness and disease. The sutra on mindful breathing, Anapanasati, presented in sixteen exercises, is Applied Buddhism. We should be able to apply the teaching of mindful breathing everywhere—in our family, in our school, in the hospital, and so on. Buddhism is not just for Buddhists. Buddhism is made up of non-Buddhist elements.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh From a Dharma Talk given June 21, 2009 in Plum Village

Q: “Sister Annabel, I’ve been running over in my mind, and I am not fully clear myself on Thay’s progression from engaged to applied Buddhism. That evolution. ”

A: In Buddhism, when Thay first started teaching he was speaking in Vietnamese, and used the words Phật Giáo nhập thế which means something like bringing Buddhism into the world. It was the time of war first with the French and then the U.S. The idea was that the monks and nuns do not stay in the monastery but to come out and help: help bring succour to those who need it: the wounded, the homeless, the orphans. We should practise not to be afraid to come out when the bombs are falling. So it was that engaged Buddhism came to be understood like that. It was an activism to be applied doing in the situation of war.

Then we also see that war is a result of our way of living, it is not just that once a war has started we can stop the war but before the war has started we have to do something to stop it. We have to live in such a way that won’t make another war start. War only happens because the causes and conditions for war have been laid down. So we really need to practise non-violence in times of peace, which means when our country is not at war, because globally there never really seems to be a time of full peace. We need to live and apply Buddhism in our daily life at all times. Sometimes people hear the word engaged Buddhism and think ‘Oh, when there’s a problem we have to engage our Buddhism to deal with the problem.” But when you talk about applying Buddhism that is something you can do the whole time. So you handle your suffering but you also nourish your happiness, you have to nourish your happiness.

For instance a reporter from the Guardian newspaper in the UK asked Thay “What are we going to do about these businessmen who are destroying the environment in order to make a profit? How can we persuade them not to do that?”

And Thay said you can’t go and give them a dharma talk and say, “Look, what you’re doing here is not good, you’re destroying the environment and it won’t help your children and so on.”

You can’t do that because they get a certain feeling of satisfaction a certain feeling of happiness from doing the business that they are doing. So what we have to do is to find another kind of way for them to touch happiness, to touch satisfaction. So now we have to have as many retreats a possible for business leaders so they can find a kind of happiness. In mindful walking and listening to the bell they have another way of nourishing happiness instead of making a profit while destroying the environment.

So with applied Buddhism it is really a practice to be done for as long as we are awake. We keep reminding ourself to nourish the practice, nourish ourself with our breathing with our mindful steps; applying it throughout the day in every circumstance and and then coming back to ourselves in the midst of activity. That is the historical dimension, the dimension we live in our daily life. Then there is the ultimate dimension which in Christian terms is resting in god. and dwelling in the dimension beyond time and space; beyond conceptualization. We need time to nourish ourselves in that dimension.

There is also the dimension of action but when we go into the dimension of action we do it with all the applied Buddhism that we have been using in our daily life. We were asked to come and lead the the practice for anti-fracking demonstrators in England, so that the demonstration doesn’t turn into everybody shouting at each other. In fact the anti-fracking movement is in a particular part of England at the moment where they have people who’ve been trained in Plum Village. And there’s another anti-fracking movement in another part where they don’t have that (training). You can really tell the difference between the two, because one is not shouting at the other side and very peaceful. They need us to come and tell them the way you’re doing it is fine, we can support you. So we apply and engage in difficult situations in the world.

Because we follow a point of view of compassion which means not just having a feeling of compassion but having the clarity of knowing what to do in order to be able to offer something that can help the situation improve. If we’re not successful in stopping this particular fracking session taking place but while we've been demonstrating we've been sending out to the world an energy of compassion and peace, then there is success int that. We've not been sending the energy of hatred. The energy that we do send out by our thinking, our speaking and our acting cannot be destroyed. It will continue and contribute to a more peaceful world. So the kind of energy we send out in our dialy lives whether we are engaged in political action or not, is very important. We need to master our thinking, to be able to take care of our thinking so that it doesn’t turn into violence and hatred. That is applied Buddhism, the mindfulness practice.

~Transcribed from a meeting at Union Theological Seminary on September 6, 2017