The early Buddhist teaching on emptiness can be understood based on the Buddha’s teaching on non-self and dependent origination. However, if everything is empty, then who is socially engaged?  How can we be socially engaged in the world ? And what is the purpose of social action and responsibility toward people who are suffering?

The Thích Nhất Hạnh Program for Engaged Buddhism invites you to join us for our monthly Dharma Talk Series: Emptiness and Social Action. Over the course of nine months, a wide array of Buddhist teachers will take us into the essential teachings of the Buddhadharma and what it looks like to move into action to address the dissatisfaction, distress, and suffering that we meet in relationship with the earth, people, and systems today, in the United States, and around the world.

How does conceptual, inferential, and experiential knowledge into emptiness of an inherent self invite for a response to circumstances that are stressful, painful, and violent? Each evening will be unique, with a combination of a dharma talk, meditation, and a question and answer period exploring these essential and vital questions within Buddhism and our lives’ for this moment in time.

Ven. Bhante Buddharakkita, Founder & Abbot, was born and raised in Uganda, Africa. He first encountered Buddhism in 1990 while living in India, and he began practicing meditation in 1993. He was ordained as a Buddhist monk by the late Venerable U Silananda in 2002 at the Tathagata Meditation Center in San Jose, California. He then spent eight years under the guidance of Bhante Gunaratana at the Bhavana Society, West Virginia. Bhante is the founder of the Uganda Buddhist Center in Uganda. Besides spending time at the Buddhist Center in Uganda, he is the spiritual director of Flowering Lotus Meditation Center in Magnolia, Mississippi. He is also on the council of spiritual advisers to the Global Buddhist Relief, New Jersey.  Bhante has been teaching meditation in Africa, Australia, Europe, Asia, and the U.S. since 2005. His book, “Planting Dhamma Seeds: The Emergence of Buddhism in Africa”, tells the story of his religious and spiritual work in Africa.