Latin American Network of Socially Engaged Buddhism

The Latin American Network of Socially Engaged Buddhism is an institutional and social space created to bring and to nourish the wisdom and the narratives of the Buddha’s teachings, so that they may transform our collective public reality and help build a better future.

That reality is wide, and the network’s scope follows it: economy and politics, the arts and the sciences, governance and sustainability, human rights and natural law, spirituality and collective consciousness, institutions and communities, nature, animals, and wellbeing.

As a network, LANSEB seeks to open dialogues that are healthy, productive, useful and alive, and to carry them across Latin America. What it offers is not an ideology, and not a body of dogma. It is a contribution made toward and alongside other spiritual perspectives, in order to confront and resolve the problems and challenges the countries of the region face in the twenty-first century.

This is a network for Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike. Those who come from outside the tradition may wish to learn what socially engaged Buddhism holds and how far it reaches, and to carry that knowledge further. Both may take part together in research and study on the subjects the network defines for itself over time.

Its principal source of inspiration and learning comes directly from the Sutras of the Buddha, in both the Mahayana and Theravada traditions. This is a distinguishing attribute: many forms of teaching and diffusion rest on secondary interpretations, while LANSEB returns to the teachings themselves.

As the network grows in size and in substance, its institutional framework will take shape accordingly. It will remain informal and grassroots in character. Through instruments both formal and informal, it will seek to influence social decision-making at every level.

Here we gather the dialogues, research, publications and news of the network as they emerge across the ZIHT ecosystem.