Editing Radical Buddhism in the West (section)

== Secular, Marxist, and Philosophical Radical Buddhism ==

From the late twentieth century onward, a further current of Western radical Buddhism developed in increasingly explicit dialogue with secular Buddhism and academic political philosophy, asking directly whether Buddhist ethics could support socialism, Marxism, or anarchism as systematic political programs.

=== Mike Slott ===

Mike Slott, a longtime labor and political activist who became a Buddhist practitioner only around 2010, represents one of the clearest attempts to develop an explicitly radical political Buddhism from within secular Buddhism. In "Can You Be a Buddhist and a Marxist?" (2011) and "Secular, Radically-Engaged Buddhism" (2015), Slott argued that a naturalistic approach to Buddhism could be combined with a systemic conception of social suffering, and in "Engaged Buddhists Need Radical Social Theory" (2020) he argued explicitly that problems such as poverty, climate change, and racism cannot be adequately addressed without transforming the structures that produce them, while insisting that such structural transformation must be pursued together with individual psychological transformation.<ref>Slott, Mike (2020). "Engaged Buddhists Need Radical Social Theory". ''Buddhist Peace Fellowship'' [blog]. https://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/engaged-buddhists-need-radical-social-theory/ ([https://web.archive.org/web/2024*/https://www.buddhistpeacefellowship.org/engaged-buddhists-need-radical-social-theory/ archived]).</ref> His most comprehensive statement, ''Mindful Solidarity: A Secular Buddhist Democratic Socialist Dialogue'' (2024), argues that secular Buddhism and democratic socialism can mutually enrich one another and that individual and social transformation must be pursued together.<ref>Slott, Mike (2024). ''Mindful Solidarity: A Secular Buddhist Democratic Socialist Dialogue''. Tuwhiri, chap. 1.</ref> Slott is also active in the secular Buddhist movement as an editor of the Secular Buddhist Network, and his work is a particularly clear contemporary illustration that secularization need not entail political moderation.

=== Recent Philosophical Work ===

Several recent scholars, while requiring no extensive discussion here, have brought comparable questions into professional philosophy. Karsten J. Struhl has explored points of intersection between Buddhism and Marxism and, more recently, has developed a Buddhist ecosocialism.<ref>Struhl, Karsten J. (2017). "Buddhism and Marxism: Points of Intersection". ''Journal of World Philosophies'' 2.1: 84–98.</ref> Graham Priest has argued for the replacement of capitalism through an explicit synthesis of Buddhist and Marxist insight in ''Capitalism—Its Nature and Its Replacement: Buddhist and Marxist Insights'' (2021).<ref>Priest, Graham (2021). ''Capitalism—Its Nature and Its Replacement: Buddhist and Marxist Insights''. Cambridge University Press, chap. 1.</ref> James Mark Shields, whose primary contribution is historical scholarship on Buddhist radicalism in modern Japan, has also written more broadly on Buddhist social philosophy and structural nonviolence.<ref>Shields, James Mark (2017). ''Against Harmony: Progressive and Radical Buddhism in Modern Japan''. New York: Oxford University Press, introduction.</ref> Lajos Brons' ''A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism'' (2022)<ref>Brons, Lajos (2022). ''A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism''. Earth, Milky Way: punctum books.</ref> seeks to reconstruct and extend the radical Buddhist tradition as a contemporary philosophical project in its own right. Together, this body of work suggests that radical Buddhism remains a living intellectual tradition whose recent development has increasingly taken place within academic philosophy rather than activist organizations alone.