Editing Vietnam (section)

== Radical Buddhism in Vietnam ==
Vietnam presents an unusual case for the RBP: despite a wealth of politically consequential Buddhist activity in the twentieth century, there is little evidence of any sustained fusion of Buddhist doctrine with left-wing political thought of the kind found elsewhere in Buddhist Asia. The historian Trần Văn Giau argued that "progressive" Buddhists of the 1920s–1930s understood their religion within a framework of genuine Buddhist–Marxist dialogue and shared anti-colonial struggle. Shawn McHale's detailed study of the period disputes this claim directly: Marxists and Buddhists, he argues, "had sharply different answers to what may seem like analogous concerns with enlightenment, equality, and liberation from suffering," and virtually no direct debate between the two camps took place.<ref>McHale (1995), "Imagining Human Liberation," p. 330.</ref> The two currents occupied overlapping but distinct social spheres: Marxist writing circulated mainly among urban male youth, Buddhist print culture mainly among rural women, and the two rarely addressed each other directly.<ref>McHale (1995), "Imagining Human Liberation," p. 342 n.2.</ref>

What Marxist engagement with Buddhism did exist took the form of one-sided critique rather than dialogue. Đào Duy Anh's ''Tôn giáo'' [Religion] (1929) and Nguyễn An Ninh's ''Phê bình Phật giáo'' [Critique of Buddhism] (1938) both dismissed Buddhism as an idealist, otherworldly doctrine unsuited to a "scientific" modern age, though neither seriously engaged the specifics of contemporary Vietnamese Buddhist practice, and both writers retained a degree of respect for Buddhism's original philosophical content.<ref>McHale (1995), "Imagining Human Liberation," pp. 331–334.</ref> The reform monk Thiện Chiếu, an important early translator of Taixu's writings into Vietnamese, represents the clearest individual trajectory from Buddhist modernism toward Marxism: he eventually left the sangha, was arrested for Communist Party membership in 1943, but continued to express appreciation for Buddhist doctrine even after his departure.<ref>McHale (1995), "Imagining Human Liberation," p. 344 n.32.</ref> His case illustrates a personal movement from Buddhism to Marxism rather than a synthesis of the two.

The post-1963 "struggle movement" associated with the Unified Buddhist Church was avowedly nationalist and pacifist rather than socialist. Its own 1963 declaration explicitly stated that Vietnamese Buddhism "does not aim to topple the government" and grounded its demands in religious equality and nonviolence rather than a critique of capitalism or class.<ref>Do (1999), "Quest for Enlightenment," p. 273.</ref> No figure or organization surveyed in the current literature articulates a program comparable to, for instance, [[Senoo Giro|Seno'o Girō]]'s Buddhist socialism in [[Japan]] or [[Buddhadasa Bhikkhu|Buddhadasa]]'s Dhammic socialism in [[Thailand]]. Pending further research, this entry treats Vietnam as a country with a rich history of politically engaged, nationalist, and modernizing Buddhism, but with no clearly documented radical Buddhist tradition in the sense defined by the RBP.

=== Thích Nhất Hạnh's Engaged Buddhism ===
Thích Nhất Hạnh (1926–2022), who coined the term "engaged Buddhism," is the best-known Vietnamese Buddhist figure of the modern period. Ordained in 1947 and active in the peace movement and refugee relief during the 1960s and '70s, he lived in exile from 1966 until 2018. His central influence was the Chinese reformer Yìnshùn, and the term "engaged Buddhism" itself translates ''Nhân gian Phật giáo'', the Vietnamese rendering of Yìnshùn's (and originally [[Taixu]]'s) "Buddhism in the human world."<ref>Brons, Lajos (2022). ''A Buddha Land in This World: Philosophy, Utopia, and Radical Buddhism''. Punctum Books, pp. 99–100.</ref> Like Yìnshùn, Nhất Hạnh stressed individual bodhisattva practice and explicitly rejected partisan political engagement, writing that "to engage in partisan political action that leads to a power struggle among opposing parties" is not what he meant by Buddhist practice.<ref>Brons (2022), ''Buddha Land'', p. 99.</ref> Sally King has argued that this position leaves no constructive role for Buddhists in shaping political systems, only protest against injustice.<ref>Brons (2022), ''Buddha Land'', p. 99.</ref> James Mark Shields goes further, arguing that Nhất Hạnh's later writings on business and leadership (e.g., ''The Art of Power'') pair "spiritual power" with material success, invoke the Mauryan emperor Aśoka as a model of benevolent hierarchy rather than a challenge to hierarchy as such, and thereby exemplify precisely the kind of domesticated, individualized Buddhist ethics that a radical Buddhist critique of labor and capitalism must reject.<ref>Shields, James Mark (2026). "Right Livelihood in an Age of Bullshit Jobs: A Radical Buddhist Critique of Labor". ''Journal of Buddhist Ethics'' 33: 44–85, pp. 71–73.</ref>