by Jonathan S. Watts (Author)
These volumes are the culmination of sixteen years of research and engagement in the growing Socially Engaged Buddhist movement in Japan by the International Buddhist Exchange Center (IBEC) @ Kodosan in Yokohama, Japan. They follow its two publications dedicated to the Northeast Japan
tsunami and nuclear disaster in This Precious Life: Buddhist Tsunami Relief and Anti-Nuclear Activism in Post 3/11 Japan (2012) & Lotus in the Nuclear Sea: Fukushima and the Promise of Buddhism in the Nuclear Age (2013).
Volume II presents the new Socially Engaged Buddhist activities of 21st century Japan, a dynamic movement arising out of the social crisis of Japan's "disconnected society" (mu-en shakai). It focuses on five sub-movements in end-of-life care, suicide prevention, disaster relief and Buddhist chaplaincy, poverty and homelessness, and anti-nuclear activism and holistic development. An Afterword ponders the possibility of a new movement for gender justice.
Volume I provides an essential presentation of historical themes and a comprehensive survey of Socially Engaged Buddhism in the modern era.