Buddhist socialism

Buddhist socialism is a political ideology which advocates socialism based on the principles of Buddhism. Both Buddhism and
socialism seek to provide an end to suffering by analyzing its conditions and removing its main causes through praxis. Both also
seek to provide a transformation of personal consciousness (respectively, spiritual and political) to bring an end to human
alienation and selfishness.[1]

People who have been described as Buddhist socialists include Buddhadasa Bhikkhu,[2][3] B. R. Ambedkar,[4] Han Yong-un,[5]
Seno’o Girō,[6] U Nu and Norodom Sihanouk.[7][8]

Buddhadasa Bhikku coined the phrase "Dhammic socialism".[3] He believed that Socialism is a natural state meaning all things
exist together in one system.[9]

Look at the birds: we will see that they eat only as much food as their stomachs can hold. They cannot take more
than that; they don’t have granaries. Look down at the ants and insects: that is all they can do. Look at the trees:
trees imbibe only as much nourishment and water as the trunk can hold, and cannot take in any more than that.
Therefore a system in which people cannot encroach on each other’s rights or plunder their possessions is in
accordance with nature and occurs naturally, and that is how it has become a society continued to be one, until
trees became abundant, animals became abundant, and eventually human beings became abundant in the world.
The freedom to hoard was tightly controlled by nature in the form of natural socialism.[9]

Han Yong-un felt that equality was one of the main principles of Buddhism.[5] In an interview published in 1931, Yong-un spoke
of his desire to explore Buddhist Socialism.

I am recently planning to write about Buddhist socialism. Just like there is Christian socialism as a system of
ideas in Christianity, there must be also Buddhist socialism in Buddhism.[5]

Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet has said that:

Of all the modern economic theories, the economic system of Marxism is founded on moral principles, while
capitalism is concerned only with gain and profitability. (...) The failure of the regime in the former Soviet Union
was, for me, not the failure of Marxism but the failure of totalitarianism. For this reason I still think of myself as
half-Marxist, half-Buddhist.[10]

Contents
See also
References
Further reading
External links
See also
Buddhist anarchism
Buddhist economics
Engaged Buddhism
Religious socialism
Sufficiency economy
Uchiyama Gudō

References
1. Shields, James Mark; Liberation as Revolutionary Praxis: Rethinking Buddhist Materialism; Journal of Buddhist
Ethics. Volume 20, 2013.
2. Puntarigvivat, Tavivat (2003). Buddhadasa Bhikkhu and Dhammic Socialism (https://web.archive.org/web/201406
13191428/http://www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/CJBS/Buddhadasa%20Bhikkhu.pdf), The Chulalongkorn Journal of
Buddhist Studies 2 (2), 189-207
3. What is Dhammic Socialism? (http://www.suanmokkh.org/ds/what_ds1.htm) Archived (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20100126045258/http://www.suanmokkh.org/ds/what_ds1.htm) January 26, 2010, at the Wayback Machine
4. Badal Sarkar, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s theory of State Socialism, International Research Journal of Social Sciences
2 (8), 38-41 (2013) PDF (https://web.archive.org/web/20130927012636/http://www.isca.in/IJSS/Archive/v2/i8/6.IS
CA-IRJSS-2013-113.pdf)
5. Tikhonov, Vladimir, Han Yongun's Buddhist Socialism in the 1920s-1930s, International Journal of Buddhist
Thought and Culture 6, 207-228 (2006). PDF (http://hompy.buddhapia.com/homepy/iabtc/files/Vol06_06_Vladimi
r%20Tikhonov.pdf) Archived (https://web.archive.org/web/20110727075947/http://hompy.buddhapia.com/homep
y/iabtc/files/Vol06_06_Vladimir%20Tikhonov.pdf) July 27, 2011, at the Wayback Machine
6. Shields, James Mark; Blueprint for Buddhist Revolution The Radical Buddhism of Seno’o Girō (1889–1961) and
the Youth League for Revitalizing Buddhism, Japanese Journal of religious Studies 39 (2), 331-351 (2012) PDF
(https://web.archive.org/web/20131119194506/http://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/4207)
7. Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge (http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/watkins/cambodia0.htm)
8. Monarchy in South-East Asia: the faces of tradition in transition (https://books.google.com/books?id=4zlI-xIG1oE
C&pg=PA216&lpg=PA216&dq=%22Norodom+Sihanouk%22+socialism&source=bl&ots=32XlEcJVAs&sig=I9mes
JYUWAyDNZqSgEKErUaqWmM&hl=en&ei=ADy6TKOtPM-mnQeWn43ODQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&r
esnum=5&ved=0CCgQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=%22Norodom%20Sihanouk%22%20socialism&f=false)
9. Preecha Changkhwanyuen, Dhammic Socialism Political Thought of Buddhadasa Bhikku (https://web.archive.or
g/web/20120313201742/http://www.stc.arts.chula.ac.th/CJBS/Dhammic%20Socialism.pdf), Chulalangkorn
Journal of Buddhist Studies 2 (1), page 118 (2003)
10. Tibet and China, Marxism, Nonviolence (http://hhdl.dharmakara.net/hhdlquotes1.html#marxism)

Further reading
Jones, Charles (2000). "Buddhism and Marxism in Taiwan: Lin Qiuwu's Religious Socialism and its Legacy in
Modern Times". Journal of Global Buddhism 1, 82–111.
Swanson Paul L (2014). Takagi Kenmyō and Buddhist Socialism (https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2014/02/06-
Modern-Buddhism-Swanson-on-Takagi.pdf). In Hayasi Makoto (ed.), Modern Buddhism in Japan, Nanzan
Institute for Religion and Culture, p. 144-162

External links
Dhammic Socialism (https://web.archive.org/web/20041204042849/http://suanmokkh.org/ds/dhamsoc.htm), a
Buddhist response to social suffering
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buddhist_socialism&oldid=893784836"

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