Although neither Jones nor Queen originated it, Queen has probably been the most vocal and articulate advocate of this narrower, more specific definition of “engagement,” as well as the most aggressive proponent of its “newness.” As he describes it in his 1996 introduction:

It is this new awareness of the social and institutional dimensions of suffering and the liberation from suffering that has contributed to the rise of contemporary Buddhist liberation movements. (1996: 10)

Although he was quite clear and consistent about this definition in that first book, he emphasizes and develops this theme much more in his 2000 anthology:

The essence of the new outlook is a recognition of (1) the inalienable value of the human person, whatever his or her level of achievement or standing in the community, (2) the social and collective nature of experience, shaped in particular by cultural and political institutions that have the power to promote good or evil, fulfillment or suffering, progress or decline, and (3) the necessity of collective action to address the systemic causes of suffering and promote social advancement in the world. (2000: 3)(28)

Other engaged Buddhists have also recently sought to identify with this type of narrower definition of engagement.(29) These refinements are indeed extremely valuable and useful, and they have considerably advanced the discussions of issues central to the concerns of all engaged Buddhists. But exactly how new are such definitions? As such definitions draw on and are expressed in terms of recent Western (critical, Marxist) theories of political economy, social analysis, and so forth, modernist engaged Buddhists who adopt such language certainly insist that they are new. But could one trace similar developments in social theory in Buddhist discourse prior to the modern era, and if so, might other (traditionist) engaged Buddhists be justified in emphasizing more continuity? I will explore one useful (perhaps conciliatory) approach to the question of determining the criteria for similarity versus newness (continuity/discontinuity) in the concluding section on Ruegg’s methodological observations.

The real issue before us presently is to clarify how Queen specifies and then applies such narrower definitions. In particular, how this-worldly must such an engaged approach be? More importantly, what does “this-worldly” itself mean and entail? What, if anything, does it exclude? In the following section we will see that Queen is able to magnify the perceived disjunction between traditional Buddhism and engaged Buddhism precisely by exaggerating both the other-worldliness (and individual orientation) of the former as well as the this-worldliness (and social/collective orientation) of the latter. When taken to an extreme, this drive to emphasize radical disjunction misrepresents both sides and runs the serious risk of disjointing the two halves of “engaged Buddhism” itself: traditional Buddhists are made out to be so other-worldly that they are not engaged, while engaged Buddhists are made out to be so this-worldly that (I will argue) they come dangerously close to not being Buddhists.

What is Buddhism? What is liberation?

While Queen never ventures a definition of Buddhism (a daunting task for anyone, to be sure), his frequent, passing characterizations of various types of Buddhists are quite revealing. Two examples from his earlier anthology will suffice:

The social engagement of Buddhist liberationists may indeed be seen as a rejection of the other-worldly asceticism of the traditional monk and the routinized devotionalism and merit-making of the lay masses. (1996: 30)

[N]ineteenth-century Asian-Americans (Chinese and Japanese immigrants) were occupied in the ritual observance of their imported faiths. (1996: 30)

These passages present a surprisingly stereotypical, negative caricature of Buddhists. Among the traditional Buddhists, the ordained are disconnected “other-worldly ascetics,” and the lay are a naïve and mechanistic “mass” engaged in “routinized devotion.” The East Asian Mahāyāna Buddhist immigrants seem dull and hapless, “occupied” as they are with “observing” the “rituals” dictated by their blindly accepted “faiths.” In just a few words, Queen, like Jung, constructs the quintessentially passive Eastern “Other”—one that opposes, of course, a conversely active and assertive Western “Self,” namely,

the mainstream Protestant Buddhist sympathizers and adherents who forged the conception of an activist, socially engaged Buddhism. (1996: 31)

These cultural and religious reifications are continued in his 2000 anthology:

For Buddhists and practitioners of the other world faiths, it is no longer possible to measure the quality of human life primarily in terms of an individual’s observance of traditional rites, such as meditation, prayer, or temple ritual; or belief in dogmas such as “the law of karma,” “buddha-nature,” “the will of God,” or “the Tao.” (2000: 1)