Environmental Buddhism, Engaged Buddhism: an insight to the Thai Environmental Buddhist movement
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Keywords
Engaged Buddhism, Thai Buddhism, environmental Buddhism, ethic Buddhism, economic development, social movement, activism, environmentalism.
Abstract
The Thai society experiences an environmental crisis that manifests itself in the quick degradation of their natural resources, mainly generated by its exploitation dynamics. Regarding this situation, the Buddhist monks have manifested in various ways acquiring a social, political and environmental compromise towards finding solutions to the environmental crisis. One of these manifestations is the creation of the Thai Buddhist Environmental Movement, which is based on Buddhist principles to develop actions that contribute to the protection and conservation of the environment. The objective of this essay is to explore the role of this movement in Thailand, based on the “Engaged Buddhism” and the “Environmental Buddhism”, which are the schools of thought that allow the creation of the movement and its current existence. This will allow explaining the relationship between Buddhism and the environment, in order to contribute to the debate about the unification of these aspects and its current impact.
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