Avoiding the Stain of Religion: Attitudes toward Social Engagement amongst Australian Tibetan Buddhist

This thesis explores the attitudes of Australian practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism to Buddhist social engagement, or, as it is generally referred to, Engaged Buddhism. Social engagement has frequently been cited as a defining characteristic of Western Buddhism possibly because much that has been written on Engaged Buddhism has showcased Engaged Buddhist organisations and highly visible leaders of Buddhist social engagement. Few studies however have investigated what significance Engaged Buddhism holds for less prominent contemporary Buddhists. I therefore set out to explore these themes further through fieldwork-based research by conducting in-depth interviews with Australian practitioners of Tibetan Buddhism.;My inquiry began with identifying how Australian Tibetan Buddhists related to the concepts and practices of Engaged Buddhism, but as the project developed, and unexpected attitudes emerged, I increasingly sought to examine how their attitudes toward Buddhist social engagement were informed by contemporary social and cultural concerns. What specific socio-cultural worldviews shape the way that Australian Tibetan Buddhists see Buddhist social engagement? What do participants' attitudes toward Buddhist social engagement suggest about the direction of Buddhist acculturation in Australia in the twenty-first century? And indirectly, what does it say about Australian culture, its relation to religion and religious engagement in the public sphere?;Beyond understanding processes of Buddhist acculturation in Australia, the topic of Buddhist social engagement provides a lens to consider central issues within the sociology of religion today; debates about the privatisation and deprivatisation of religion and more generally theories about secularisation and desecularisation. Engaged Buddhism, explicit in its very name, advocates a public role for Buddhism---a push to use Buddhism as a moral and frequently political resource for social improvement in the public domain. While the Engaged Buddhist movements documented in scholarly works represent a clear example of this, was there evidence of a similar trend amongst Australian Tibetan Buddhists?;In carrying out this research I have identified a typology of four distinct approaches toward Buddhist social engagement. Reflecting the values that inform them, I have described these as: secularist, neoconservatist, romanticist and reformist. Though the influences of reformism, romanticism, and neoconservatism were evident in my research, secularism emerged as the most significant underlying worldview shaping attitudes toward Buddhist social engagement; it underlies all the categories.;The secularism that participants accommodate to in their approach toward Buddhist social engagement reflects a form of political secularism, one that suggests that controversial religious and existential orientations should be bracketed from public discourse and political life. The influence of this form of secularism induced caution, ambivalence and resistance toward Buddhist social engagement amongst participants. Given the widespread adoption of this approach I suggested that, in method rather than principle, participants work to maintain the 'secularist truce'; a secularist contract that guarantees religious freedom yet bans religion from the public sphere by relegating it to the private realm. This suggests that, secularism, while 'allowing' multiple religions to coexist, significantly frames and constrains participants' attitudes and approaches to Buddhist social engagement.;Given these findings my thesis presents the need to reconsider the widespread assumption that Buddhist social engagement is strongly supported or adhered to by the majority of Western Buddhists. Furthermore my research indicates that secularism continues to be a dominant intellectual background in Australian culture, significantly influencing perceptions of religion, particularly attitudes toward religiously motivated social engagement. It affirms anthropologist Charles Hirschkind's claim that, 'the secular is the water we swim in'; or at least suggests that Australian Tibetan Buddhists believe it best to swim with the secular current in the way they approach Buddhist social engagement, thus keeping Buddhism free from the 'stain of religion'.