This Summer 2008 (VI, 3) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is dedicated to an exploration of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Engaged Buddhist philosophy and spiritual theory and practice from a sociological and social scientific vantage point, to highlight the significance his teaching bears for the development of a self-reflective, globally humanist, and environmentally concerned, sociological imagination. Included are several talks, letters, and a poem, by Thich Nhat Hanh on the meaning and practice of Engaged Buddhism—in regard to issues ranging from war and conflict, the environment, food industry and consumption, and history of Engaged Buddhism. Other articles put his views in social science and sociological contexts, specifically exploring the overlapping landscapes of Engaged Buddhism with Pragmatism, Deep Ecology, sociological imagination, and ideological analysis. Other contributions are illustrative of the ways in which Thich Nhat Hanh’s teachings have engaged contexts such as: international conflict; the classroom; urban policing; traumatized populations; economic theory; environmental crisis; and family loss and trauma. A critical commentary by a participant’s experience of attending one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreats in 2005 is also included, followed by a response from a representative of the Plum Village community in France. Contributors include: Thich Nhat Hanh, Winston Langley, Michael C. Adorjan, Benjamin W. Kelly, Julie Gregory, Samah Sabra, Darren Noy, Sujin Choi, Marc Black, Samiyeh Sharqawi, Richard Brady, Michael J. DeValve, Cary D. Adkinson, Robert Brian Wall, Glenn Manga, Angela Tam, Karen Hilsberg, Lisa Kemmerer, Bhikshuni Chan Tung Nghiem (Barbara Newell), Robert Andrew Parker, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.
This Summer 2008 (VI, 3) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is dedicated to an exploration of Thich Nhat Hanh's Engaged Buddhist philosophy and spiritual theory and practice from a sociological and social scientific vantage point, to highlight the significance his teaching bears for the development of a self-reflective, globally humanist, and environmentally concerned, sociological imagination. Included are several talks, letters, and a poem, by Thich Nhat Hanh on the meaning and practice of Engaged Buddhism-in regard to issues ranging from war and conflict, the environment, food industry and consumption, and history of Engaged Buddhism. Other articles put his views in social science and sociological contexts, specifically exploring the overlapping landscapes of Engaged Buddhism with Pragmatism, Deep Ecology, sociological imagination, and ideological analysis. Other contributions are illustrative of the ways in which Thich Nhat Hanh's teachings have engaged contexts such as: international conflict; the classroom; urban policing; traumatized populations; economic theory; environmental crisis; and family loss and trauma. A critical commentary by a participant's experience of attending one of Thich Nhat Hanh's retreats in 2005 is also included, followed by a response from a representative of the Plum Village community in France. Contributors include: Thich Nhat Hanh, Winston Langley, Michael C. Adorjan, Benjamin W. Kelly, Julie Gregory, Samah Sabra, Darren Noy, Sujin Choi, Marc Black, Samiyeh Sharqawi, Richard Brady, Michael J. DeValve, Cary D. Adkinson, Robert Brian Wall, Glenn Manga, Angela Tam, Karen Hilsberg, Lisa Kemmerer, Bhikshuni Chan Tung Nghiem (Barbara Newell), Robert Andrew Parker, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal's Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR's homepage.
In this major new study in the sociology of scientific knowledge, social theorist Mohammad H. Tamdgidi reports having unriddled the so-called ‘quantum enigma.’ This book opens the lid of the Schrödinger’s Cat box of the ‘quantum enigma’ after decades and finds something both odd and familiar: Not only the cat is both alive and dead, it has morphed into an elephant in the room in whose interpretation Einstein, Bohr, Bohm, and others were each both right and wrong because the enigma has acquired both localized and spread-out features whose unriddling requires both physics and sociology amid both transdisciplinary and transcultural contexts. The book offers, in a transdisciplinary and transcultural sociology of self-knowledge framework, a relativistic interpretation to advance a liberating quantum sociology. Deeper methodological grounding to further advance the sociological imagination requires investigating whether and how relativistic and quantum scientific revolutions can induce a liberating reinvention of sociology in favor of creative research and a just global society. This, however, necessarily leads us to confront an elephant in the room, the ‘quantum enigma.’ In Unriddling the Quantum Enigma, the first volume of the series commonly titled Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian toward Quantum Imaginations, sociologist Mohammad H. Tamdgidi argues that unriddling the ‘quantum enigma’ depends on whether and how we succeed in dehabituating ourselves in favor of unified relativistic and quantum visions from the historically and ideologically inherited, classical Newtonian modes of imagining reality that have subconsciously persisted in the ways we have gone about posing and interpreting (or not) the enigma itself for more than a century. Once this veil is lifted and the enigma unriddled, he argues, it becomes possible to reinterpret the relativistic and quantum ways of imagining reality (including social reality) in terms of a unified, nonreductive, creative dialectic of part and whole that fosters quantum sociological imaginations, methods, theories, and practices favoring liberating and just social outcomes. The essays in this volume develop a set of relativistic interpretive solutions to the quantum enigma. Following a survey of relevant studies, and an introduction to the transdisciplinary and transcultural sociology of self-knowledge framing the study, overviews of Newtonianism, relativity and quantum scientific revolutions, the quantum enigma, and its main interpretations to date are offered. They are followed by a study of the notion of the “wave-particle duality of light” and the various experiments associated with the quantum enigma in order to arrive at a relativistic interpretation of the enigma, one that is shown to be capable of critically cohering other offered interpretations. The book concludes with a heuristic presentation of the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of what Tamdgidi calls the creative dialectics of reality. The volume essays involve critical, comparative/integrative reflections on the relevant works of founding and contemporary scientists and scholars in the field. This study is the first in the monograph series “Tayyebeh Series in East-West Research and Translation” of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge (XIII, 2020), published by OKCIR: Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). OKCIR is dedicated to exploring, in a simultaneously world-historical and self-reflective framework, the human search for a just global society. It aims to develop new conceptual (methodological, theoretical, historical), practical, pedagogical, inspirational and disseminative structures of knowledge whereby the individual can radically understand and determine how world-history and her/his selves constitute one another. Reviews “Mohammad H. Tamdgidi’s Liberating Sociology: From Newtonian Toward Quantum Imaginations, Volume 1, Unriddling the Quantum Enigma hits the proverbial nail on the head of an ongoing problem not only in sociology but also much social science—namely, many practitioners’ allegiance, consciously or otherwise, to persisting conceptions of ‘science’ that get in the way of scientific and other forms of theoretical advancement. Newtonianism has achieved the status of an idol and its methodology a fetish, the consequence of which is an ongoing failure to think through important problems of uncertainty, indeterminacy, multivariation, multidisciplinarity, and false dilemmas of individual agency versus structure, among many others. Tamdgidi has done great service to social thought by bringing to the fore this problem of disciplinary decadence and offering, in effect, a call for its teleological suspension—thinking beyond disciplinarity—through drawing upon and communicating with the resources of quantum theory not as a fetish but instead as an opening for other possibilities of social, including human, understanding. The implications are far-reaching as they offer, as the main title attests, liberating sociology from persistent epistemic shackles and thus many disciplines and fields connected to things ‘social.’ This is exciting work. A triumph! The reader is left with enthusiasm for the second volume and theorists of many kinds with proverbial work to be done.” — Professor Lewis R. Gordon, Honorary President of the Global Center for Advanced Studies and author of Disciplinary Decadence: Living Thought in Trying Times (Routledge/Paradigm, 2006), and Freedom, Justice, and Decolonization (Routledge, forthcoming 2020) "Social sciences are still using metatheoretical models of science based on 19th century newtonian concepts of "time and space". Mohammad H. Tamdgidi has produced a 'tour de force' in social theory leaving behind the old newtonian worldview that still informs the social sciences towards a 21st century non-dualistic, non-reductionist, transcultural, transdisciplinary, post-Einsteinian quantum concept of TimeSpace. Tamdgidi goes beyond previous efforts done by titans of social theory such as Immanuel Wallerstein and Kyriakos Kontopoulos. This book is a quantum leap in the social sciences at large. Tamdgidi decolonizes the social sciences away from its Eurocentric colonial foundations bringing it closer not only to contemporary natural sciences but also to its convergence with the old Eastern philosophical and mystical worldviews. This book is a masterpiece in social theory for a 21st century decolonial social science. A must read!" — Professor Ramon Grosfoguel, University of California at Berkeley "Tamdgidi’s Liberating Sociology succeeds in adding physical structures to the breadth of the world-changing vision of C. Wright Mills, the man who mentored me at Columbia. Relativity theory and quantum mechanics can help us to understand the human universe no less than the physical universe. Just as my Creating Life Before Death challenges bureaucracy’s conformist orientation, so does Liberating Sociology“liberate the infinite possibilities inherent in us.” Given our isolation in the Coronavirus era, we have time to follow Tamdgidi in his journey into the depth of inner space, where few men have gone before. It is there that we can gain emotional strength, just as Churchill, Roosevelt and Mandela empowered themselves. That personal development was needed to address not only their own personal problems, but also the mammoth problems of their societies. We must learn to do the same." — Bernard Phillips, Emeritus Sociology Professor, Boston University
FOREWORD In 1999, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the resolution to recognize the Vesak Day as an International Day of Recognition of Buddhists and the contribution of the Buddha to the world. Since then, the people and the Royal Government of the Kingdom of Thailand, in general, and Mahachulalongkornraja- vidyalaya University, in particular, were very honored to have successively and successfully held for twelve years the United Nations Day of Vesak Celebrations in Thailand. From 2004 to date, we have come a long way in the celebrations, and we are happy to be the host and organizer, but it is time for the celebrations to grow and evolve. The United Nations Day of Vesak is coming to maturity, with twelve celebrations under our belt, much experience gained, and it is time now to share this with others. There will always be room for growth and development, and we are elated to see it grow. In 2006-2007, having joined the International Organizing Committee for the UN Day of Vesak as Deputy Secretary General, Ven. Dr. Thich Nhat Tu has played a crucial role in building strong relationships between the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and the International Council for Day of Vesak in particular and the Global Buddhist communities in general. We have supported and congratulated Vietnam on organizing successful UNDV celebrations and conference in 2008 and 2014, respectively. We have full trust in Vietnam being the host of UNDV 2019 for the third time. We like to thank all those who have contributed to the success of previous celebrations and wish all future celebrations be successful. The teachings of the Buddha see no boundaries; the minds of all are alike; the sufferings of all are similar and truly; and the liberation of all is the same. We are happy to initiate the process, develop the scope, and now it is time for others to follow in similar footsteps, evolve the celebrations into a truly international event that can be shared with Buddhists and Non-Buddhists alike. Let the Dhamma of the Buddha be the beacon to the world, shredding away the ignorance within our hearts, bringing development into sustainable capacity for humanity and more importantly, peace and harmony to the world. Most Ven.Prof. Brahmapundit President, International Council for Day of Vesak (ICDV) President, International Association of Buddhist Universities (IABU) ----------------------------------- PREFACE The history of mankind records how the Buddha got enlightenment and showed a path which not only leads but also guides the world till date. That is solely to emanate wisdom and offer insights which help us overcome numerous challenges and achieve the welfare of humanity. Recognizing his pragmatic approach, values and contribution of Buddhism, the United Nations in a resolution in 1999 decided to celebrate the Triply Blessed Day of Vesak (Birth, Enlightenment and Passing Away of Gautama), falling mostly in a lunar calendar in the month of May. The first celebrations were held way back in the year 2000 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York and subsequently the day has been celebrated hugely in different countries. Today our planet is confronted with a number of crises and unprecedented natural disasters. The imminent threat of terrorism and ethnic violence, tackling poverty, providing education and sustainable development leads us to strive for social justice. There is an urgent need for concerted and constant planning and right effort at an international level to foster permanent peace in the societies and in the lives of individuals. Against the backdrop of such widespread misery and strife leading to complex issues and crises, Buddhism with its rich heritage of tolerance and non-violence can contribute immensely and inspire us with His message of loving-kindness, peace and harmony in today’s world. The United Nations Day of Vesak (UNDV) 2019 is a testimony to this fact. Vietnam got the chance and responsibility of hosting this international Buddhist event UNDV in 2008 and 2014 respectively. The event proved an amazing spectacle of religious and spiritual festivity, with thousands of Buddhists from around the world converging in Vietnam, to spread the Buddha’s message of peace, love and harmony. This is the third time that Vietnam is hosting this important international event which is viewed by Buddhists as an opportunity to spread the Buddha’s message and values of love, peace, non- violence, tolerance and compassion across the world. It is a great honor for Vietnam, the Vietnamese people, the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and Buddhists all around the world to participate in the UNDV celebrations and spread the rich Buddhist heritage, especially its teachings of equality, social justice, respect and understanding for the benefit of all humanity. World Buddhists and particularly the Vietnamese people are excited about their country hosting this auspicious and important event for the third time. This international religious, cultural and academic event would also certainly promote interaction and exchange of Buddhist cultural and intellectual values among diverse countries. The International Buddhist conference with the main theme of “Buddhist Approach to Global Leadership and Shared Responsibilities for Sustainable Societies” during the celebrations could not have been more relevant and timely. The present book is the outcome of one workshop representing one perspective of the conference. Other perspectives of the conference include: (i) Mindful Leadership for Sustainable Peace, (ii) Buddhist Approach to Harmonious Families, Healthcare and Sustainable Societies, (iii) Buddhist Approach to Global Education in Ethics, (iv) Buddhism and the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and (v) Buddhist Approach to Responsible Consumption and Sustainable Development. This international conference aims to foster co-operation among Buddhist communities and institutions, and to develop Buddhist solutions to the global crisis. Papers selected for this volume are those that combine thematic relevance, familiarity with the main theme or sub-themes, significant research in primary resources, innovative theoretical perspectives, clarity of organization and accessible prose style. Acceptable articles in this volume are determined by the Academic Peer-Review Committee. UNDV 2019 certainly is an opportunity for the world Buddhists, the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and all the members of the international community to benefit from the rich traditions, values and spiritual ideals of Buddhism. The pragmatic path shown by Buddha can make the world a better, safer, more peaceful and harmonious place to be cherished and enjoyed by all sentient beings. On behalf of the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha and myself, I would like to warmly welcome President of Myanmar, H.E. Mr. U Win Myint, Prime Minister of Nepal, Right Hon. Mr. K.P. Sharma Oli, Vice President of India, H.E Mr. Shri M. Venkaiah Naidu, Chairperson of the National Council of Bhutan, H.E. Mr. Tashi Dorji, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations/ Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific, H.E. Ms. Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana, Director-General of UNESCO, H.E. Ms. Audrey Azoulay, Ambassadors, and many other dignitaries. It is my honor to warmly welcome National Assembly Chairwoman H.E. Ms. Nguyen Thi Kim Ngan, Prime Minister of Vietnam, H.E. Mr. Nguyen Xuan Phuc, President of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Central Committee H.E.Mr. Tran Thanh Man, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister H.E.Mr. Truong Hoa Binh, Deputy Prime Minister-Minister of External Affairs H.E.Mr. Pham Binh Minh, other dignitaries including former Political leaders of the Government of Vietnam. I extend my warmest welcome to all respected Sangharajas, Sangha Leaders, Buddhist Leaders, Sangha members and 1600 Buddhist Scholars and practitioners from 115 countries and territories, participating in this international celebration and conference. Let me thank all of you for your contributions to this celebration and Conference. My heartfelt thanks are extended to respected members of the Supreme Patriarch Council and Executive members of the National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, especially 25 sub-committees for UNDV 2019 in Vietnam for their devotion and contribution. I take this opportunity to express here my profound gratitude to Most Ven. Prof. Brahmapundit for his continuous supporting Vietnam to host this international event. I also thank profusely all members of the International Council for Day of Vesak (ICDV), Conference Committee and Editorial Board for their devotion. I am grateful to Mr. Xuan Truong for his generosity and other donors, sponsors, volunteers and agencies from the public sector and the private sector for their excellent contribution. This publication and other 29 books printed for Vesak could not have been possible without the persistence, hard work, and dedication of Editorial Committee for their devotion including Most Ven.Dr. Thich Duc Thien, Prof. Le Manh That, and especially Most Ven. Dr. Thich Nhat Tu serving as the international conference coordinator. I extend my warmest and best wishes to all the delegates and participating countries on this special occasion which strengthens our resolve to improve the world by walking on the path shown by the Lord Buddha. Whatever merit there is in publishing this book may be transferred over to the welfare and happiness of all sentient beings. May all sentient beings be happy and released from suffering. We wish the celebration of the United Nations Day of Vesak 2019 in Vietnam every success. Most Ven. Thich Thien Nhon President of National Vietnam Buddhist Sangha Chairman of the United Nations Day of Vesak 2019 in Vietnam
This Summer 2009 (VII, 3) issue of Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge, is devoted to the theme “Sociological Re-Imaginations in & of Universities.” As part of the journal’s continuing series critically engaging with C. Wright Mills’ “sociological imagination,” i.e., the proposition that the best way to theorize and practice sociology is via a continual conversation between the study of one’s personal troubles and that of broader public issues, the present issue turns its attention to fostering sociological re-imaginations in and of universities. Several faculty, recent graduates or alumni, and current undergraduate students advance insightful, critical perspectives about their own learning and teaching experiences and personal “troubles,” and broader university, disciplinary, and administrative “public issues” that in their view merit immediate attention in favor of fundamental rectifications of outdated procedures and educational habita that continue to persist at the cost of more creative, and in fact more scientific and rational, approaches to production and dissemination of knowledge. Contributors include: Satoshi Ikeda, Sandra J. Song, L. Lynda Harling Stalker, Jason Pridmore, Festus Ikeotuonye, Samuel Zalanga, Donald A. Nielsen, Anne Bubriski, Penelope Roode, Belle Summer, E. M. Walsh, Ann Marie Moler, Minxing Zheng, Andrew Messing, Jillian Pelletier, Christine Quinn, Trevor Doherty, Lisa Kemmerer, and Mohammad H. Tamdgidi (also as journal editor-in-chief). Human Architecture: Journal of the Sociology of Self-Knowledge is a publication of OKCIR: The Omar Khayyam Center for Integrative Research in Utopia, Mysticism, and Science (Utopystics). For more information about OKCIR and other issues in its journal’s Edited Collection as well as Monograph and Translation series visit OKCIR’s homepage.
This essential book critically examines the various ways in which Eastern spiritual traditions have been typically stripped of their spiritual roots, content and context, to be more readily assimilated into secular Western frames of Psychology. Beginning with the colonial histories of Empire, the author draws from the 1960s Counterculture and the subsequent romanticising and idealising of the East. Cohen explores how Hindu, Buddhist and Daoist traditions have been gradually transformed into forms of Psychology, Psychotherapy and Self-Help, undergoing processes of ‘modernisation’ and secularisation until their respective cosmologies had been successfully reinterpreted and reimagined. An important component of this psychologisation is the accompanying commodification of Eastern spiritual practices, including the mass-marketing of mindfulness and meditation as part of the burgeoning well-being industry. Also presenting emerging voices of resistance from within Eastern spiritual traditions, the book ends with a chapter on Transpersonal Psychology, showing a path for how to gradually move away from colonisation and towards collaboration. Engaging with the ‘mindfulness movement’ and other practices assimilated by Western culture, this is fascinating reading for students and academics in psychology, philosophy and religious studies, as well as mindfulness practitioners.
World-renowned Zen monk Thich Nhat Hanh champions a more mindful, spiritual approach to protecting nature and limiting climate change—one that recognizes people and planet as one and the same. While many experts point to the enormous complexity in addressing issues ranging from the destruction of ecosystems to the loss of millions of species, Thich Nhat Hanh identifies one key issue as having the potential to create a tipping point. He believes that we need to move beyond the concept of the “environment,” as it leads people to experience themselves and Earth as two separate entities and to see the planet only in terms of what it can do for them. Here, Thich Nhat Hanh points to the lack of meaning and connection in peoples’ lives as being the cause of our addiction to consumerism. He deems it vital that we recognize and respond to the stress we are putting on the Earth if civilization is to survive. Rejecting the conventional economic approach, Thich Nhat Hanh shows that mindfulness and a spiritual revolution are needed to protect nature and limit climate change. Love Letter to the Earth is a hopeful book that gives us a path to follow by showing that change is possible only with the recognition that people and the planet are ultimately one and the same.
Immediate, illuminating, and hopeful: this is the key set of talks given by leading Zen Buddhist teacher Larry Ward, PhD, on breaking America's cycle of racial trauma. "I am a drop in the ocean, but I'm also the ocean. I'm a drop in America, but I'm also America. Every pain, every confusion, every good and every bad and ugly of America is in me. And as I transform myself and heal and take care of myself, I'm very conscious that I'm healing and transforming and taking care of America. I say this for American cynics, but this is also true globally. It's for real." So says Zen Buddhist teacher Dr. Larry Ward. Shot at by the police as an 11-year-old child for playing baseball in the wrong spot, as an adult, Larry Ward experienced the trauma of having his home firebombed by racists. At Plum Village Monastery in France, the home in exile of his teacher, Vietnamese peace activist and Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh, Dr. Ward found a way to heal. In these short reflective essays, he offers his insights on the effects of racial constructs and answers the question: how do we free ourselves from our repeated cycles of anger, denial, bitterness, pain, fear, violence? Larry Ward looks at the causes and conditions that have led us to our current state and finds, hidden in the crisis, a profound opportunity to reinvent what it means to be a human being. This is an invitation to transform America's racial karma.
Best known for his Buddhist teachings, Thich Nhat Hanh has lived in exile from his native Vietnam since 1966. These remarkable early journals reveal not only an exquisite portrait of the Zen master as a young man, but the emergence of a great poet and literary voice of Vietnam. From his years as a student and teaching assistant at Princeton and Columbia, to his efforts to negotiate peace and a better life for the Vietnamese, Fragrant Palm Leaves offers an elegant and profound glimpse into the heart and mind of one of the world's most beloved spiritual teachers.
Cut through the busyness and anxieties of daily life to discover the simple happiness of living in the present moment, as taught by a world-renowned Zen monk In this book, Thich Nhat Hanh—Zen monk, author, and meditation master—distills the essence of Buddhist thought and practice, emphasizing the power of mindfulness to transform our lives. But true mindfulness, Hanh explains, is not an escape. It is being in the present moment, totally alive and free. Based on a retreat that Thich Nhat Hanh led for Westerners, You Are Here offers a range of effective practices for cultivating mindfulness and staying in the present moment—including awareness of breathing and walking, deep listening, and skillful speech. These teachings will empower you to witness the wonder of life and transform your suffering, both within and outside you, into compassion, tenderness, and peace. As Thich Nhat Hanh declares, “the energy of mindfulness is the energy of the Buddha, and it can be produced by anybody.” It is as simple as breathing in and breathing out.
