Social Activism of Buddhist University Students in Accordance with the Concept of Socially Engaged Buddhism

Abstract

     This article is to propose the characteristic of social-service functions of students from Nakhon Phanom Sangha College who are a new breed in terms of the socially engaged Buddhism concept which is divided into 2 levels; the principle Buddhist perspective and phenomenological fact levels. The level of Buddhist principle perspective reveals that all things are mutually linked and related. Nothing happens and stands independently. This perspective brings about the interrelation of the social units; among monks to monks, monks to society and monks to the environment for the mutual support to harmonize everything to Dhammas. For the phenomenological fact level, Thai people in former times used the Buddhist principle as their aim of living and the aim of their interrelation which included the state aim. The monks therefore; had engaged themselves in maintaining the social equilibrium. Nowadays, Thai society becomes more complex. The monks have been also diversified into unit-types. The new breed of monk students have become the social-working unit with the implementation pattern under the institutional extra-curriculum structure which the monk students are studying. Although the monk students are socially-aimed working with the Buddhism by involving themselves in social activities, the working pattern of the present monk students is different from that in the past which focused on the principle. While the present one focuses on targeted groups according to the modern life style method and focused on target groups rather than “principle” as did some previous works.