The core teachings and practices of Buddhism are systematically directed toward developing keen and caring insight into the relational or interdependent nature of all things. This book applies Buddhist thought to reflect on the challenges to public good created by emerging social, economic, and political realities associated with increasingly complex global interdependence. In eight chapters, the key arenas for public policy are addressed: the environment, health, media, trade and development, the interplay of politics and religion, international relations, terror and security, and education. Each chapter explains how a specific issue area has come to be shaped by complex interdependence and offers specific insights into directing the growing interdependence toward greater equity, sustainability, and freedom. Thereby, a sustained meditation on the meaning and means of realizing public good is put forward, which results in a solid, Buddhist conception of diversity. The author argues that concepts of Karma and emptiness are relevant across the full spectrum of policy domains and that Buddhist concepts become increasingly forceful as concerns shift from the local to the global.
Buddhism in the Public Sphere: Reorienting Global Interdependence, Peter Hershock, Hardcover, Routledge Curzon, 2006, 229 Pages, $120.00
Peter D. Hershock is coordinator of the Asian Studies Development Program at the East-West Center, University of Hawai'i. He specializes in Buddhist Philosophy and Chinese Religion and Philosophy.
Chapter 1 Liberating Environments
Chapter 2 Health and Healing when Relationships are Basic
Chapter 3 Trade, Development, and the Possibility of Post-Market Economics
Chapter 4 Technology, Media, and the Colonization of Consciousness
Chapter 5 Governance Cultures and Countercultures: Religion, Politics and Public Good
Chapter 6 Diversity as Commons: International Relations Beyond Competition and Cooperation
Chapter 7 From Vulnerability to Virtuosity: Reflections on Responding to Terrorism and Tragedy
Chapter 8 Educating for Virtuosity
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