Guardian UK: Summary of the Papal Encyclical on the Environment “Laudato Si”

Pope Francis: The Earth, our home, is beginning to look like an immense pile of filth An extract from Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change, the environment and inequality  ‘The climate is a common good, belonging to all and meant for all. At the global level, it is a complex system linked to many of… Read More Guardian UK: Summary of the Papal Encyclical on the Environment “Laudato Si”

Privilege, Knowledge, Power in White Convert Buddhism

by Scott W. Menasco We have a new contributor to Engage!. Scott W. Menasco is a PhD Student studying Buddhism in the United States, a counselor, and a practitioner of a tradition influenced by the Perfect Wisdom Tradition of Mahayana Buddhism. In the United States, the overwhelming amount of non-heritage Buddhist practitioners are white and… Read More Privilege, Knowledge, Power in White Convert Buddhism

Seeing Through: Emptiness and Networks of Power

Today I begin a new series on the use of the Buddhist concept of emptiness to challenge and dismantle social systems of power and oppression. I translate the term shunyata or emptiness into a description of the process of seeing through social institutions that create powerful controls on our minds, behaviours and relationships. As engaged Buddhists,… Read More Seeing Through: Emptiness and Networks of Power

Seeing Through: Towards a Buddhist Sociology

[Editor’s note; I was supposed to be taking a break from Buddhism this summer. Well, that resolve lasted all of a week. But I’ve been working on my dissertation, and came across pieces that gave me an opening for introducing a series that I have wanted to write for many months: seeing through as a sociological application of shunyata.] Seeing… Read More Seeing Through: Towards a Buddhist Sociology