This paper attempts to view how Buddhism and Zen Buddhism in particular are relevant to the well being of society. It seeks to point out some aspects of the centrifugal force of Buddhism, to identify the life of non-duality of the personal and the social as being an aspect of the ultimate wisdom of Buddhism, to connect the ultimate wisdom with bodhi as the center of all forms of the non-duality including that of the social and personal, and to show the life of non-duality as the Bodhisattva way. Buddhism practiced by many Buddhists has become lopsided to its personal side of dual responsibility of coping with life. Thus it has given an inadequate picture of Buddhism. The flight into sheer non-social life is a truncating of Buddhist life and finally a distortion of Buddhist dharma, as the opposite may eventuate in a kind of insanity. Although Buddhism in the past had frequently pursued this way, this paper tries to show that traditional way of doing Buddhism represents a deviation from what Buddhism truly is.
This paper first explores the conceptual foundation of business ethics as defined currently in the mainstream western business world. In the second section, an ethical system comprising meta-ethical values and pragmatic ethical practices is constructed from the perspective of Humanistic Buddhism. Business ethics are then discussed as an integral part of this Humanistic Buddhism’s interpretation of ethics. Finally, the paper addresses the possibility of constructing universal business ethics from the aforementioned conceptual framework of Buddhist ethics.
