Regarding this radical newness, he acknowledges that “there are indeed harbingers of socially engaged practice in the annals of Buddhist history” such as (of course) Aśoka in India and some others in China, but he contends that “these are exceptions to the practices of individual discipline, virtue, and altruism advocated in the tradition” (2000: 17).

* * * * *

Having recognized (constructed) that in all three spheres (ethical, philosophical, and socio-political) traditional and engaged forms of Buddhism occupy opposite ends of an (equally constructed) transcendent-worldly spectrum, Queen then distances his newly appropriated world-engaged Buddhism as far as possible, taking it to its logical (modernist) conclusion: he boldly proposes that “engaged Buddhism be thought of as a fourth yana” (2000: 24). He suggests several terms for the “New Vehicle” (Navayāna, following Ambedkar) of the “new Buddhism,” including “Earth Vehicle” (Terrayāna, following Kraft, 2000), and “World Vehicle” or “Global Vehicle” (Lokayāna)(2000: 23)(35) On page one of his “Introduction: A New Buddhism,” he alerts us that:

Inasmuch as … concepts [of human rights, distributive justice, and social progress] have had few parallels in the classical formulations of … Hinayana[,]… Mahayana[,] …and … Vajrayana[,] I shall argue that the general pattern of belief and practice that has come to be called “engaged Buddhism” is unprecedented, and thus tantamount to a new chapter[,] … a new paradigm[,] … a “new vehicle.” (2000: 1-2)

Later, when he actually makes this argument, he says:

This [New Vehicle] Buddhism is endowed with many, if not all, of the themes and techniques from the past. … But it is also endowed with a sensitivity to social injustice, institutional evil, and political oppression as sources of human suffering, that has not been central to Buddhist analysis in the past. (2000: 25)

Now others such as Joanna Macy (cited in Kaza, 2000: 160) and Franz-Johannes Litsch (2000: 423) have suggested that engaged Buddhism should be considered a “new turning of the wheel of Dharma,” so Queen is certainly not alone in wanting to appropriate traditional Buddhist hermeneutical schemas to give the highest possible status to what he sees as a truly revolutionary new development in Buddhism. In fact, none of these contemporary Western Buddhists are alone, for Asian Buddhists throughout history have repeatedly made such controversial attempts at redefinition and reclassification—the very attempt to define a “New Vehicle” or a “new turning of the wheel of Dharma” is itself nothing new.(36) A substantial body of literature exists regarding such controversies,(37) so it would seem most sensible for engaged Buddhists wanting to make such claims to consult this material for precedents. On the other hand, since making such radical claims is often more of a political act than a hermeneutical one, perhaps it behooves such attempts to keep this material in the shadows.

Universal Vehicle “liberation”

We will now look more closely at Universal Vehicle elaborations of “the world” and of “liberation (from the world)” to determine whether or not the more worldly dimensions of engagement are as new as they are claimed to be.

Exactly how this-worldly is the Universal Vehicle notion of liberation? Let us clarify the premise and the question. Charles Prebish suggests that Nhat Hanh’s notion of engagement was influenced by French postwar existentialist concepts of engagement (l’engagement, engagé), particularly by Sartre’s notion that (in Prebish’s words) “to be ‘engaged’ is to actualize one’s freedom by … acknowledging one’s inescapable involvement in the world” (1998: 273). To restate the question: Does Universal Vehicle theory admit “one’s inescapable involvement in the world?” If so—if one cannot escape—then what could “liberation” possibly mean? These are in fact classical Universal Vehicle themes.

The answer to these questions depends, of course, on a subtle analysis of what is meant (or even could be meant) by “this world” and by “liberation.” Ever since Nāgārjuna, Universal Vehicle proponents have relentlessly critiqued the naïve notion that liberation (mokṣa, nirvāṇa) is (or logically even could be) another realm, a “goal” to reach somehow dualistically apart from this world (loka, saṃsāra). As Nāgārjuna says in his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā (XXV: 19-20):

There is not the slightest difference
Between cyclic existence and nirvana.
There is not the slightest difference
Between nirvana and cyclic existence.
Whatever is the limit of nirvana,
That is the limit of cyclic existence.
There is not even the slightest difference between them,
Or even the subtlest thing. (trans. Garfield