Buddhism | Intersectional Centre for Inclusion and Social Justice

Mindfulness in action: Buddhist Responses to Capitalism and Consumerism

Prof. Bee Scherer, PhD (Canterbury Christ Church University)
Mr. Jeff Waistell (Oxford Brookes University)

This presentation engages with Buddhist critiques of capitalism and consumerism; and it challenges the capitalist appropriations of Buddhist techniques. Scherer & Waistell show how Buddhist modernism and Marxism/socialism can align, and how Engaged Buddhism spawns egalitarian, socially revolutionary impulses for sustainability and ecological responsibility within the framework of Buddhist thought and mindfulness traditions.
The example of the Thai Asoke community exemplifies Buddhist communal mindfulness-in-action and shows how communal principles can operate in such work-based communities.

Also at laybuddhistforum.wordpress.com

Variable Bodies, No Self: Toward a Socially Engaged Buddhist ‘Theology’ of ‘Disability’
by Professor Bee Scherer (Director of INCISE at Canterbury Christ Church University)

Invited presentation delivered at the 2016 International Conference of the Korean Society for Literature and Religion (6 July 2016, Sahmyook University)

For a longer treatment of the subject (now published) see:

B. Scherer ‘Variable Bodies, Buddhism and (No-)Selfhood: Towards Dehegemonized Embodiment’ in Chris Mounsey and Stan Booth (eds.) ‘The Variable Body in History’ Oxford: Peter Lang 2016 (QP in Focus 1), pp. 247-263.

See also B. Scherer ‘Buddhism and Disability: Toward a Socially Engaged Buddhist ‘Theology’ of Bodily Inclusiveness’ JIABU, Volume IX, 2016, pp. 26-35, accessible online at http://www.iabu.org/sites/default/files/JIABU-Vol9-ASEAN.pdf