Panel: ENGAGING IN THE WORLD: SOCIAL JUSTICE AND RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS IN DIALOGUE



141.2 - INTER-RELATIONAL DIALOGUES OF LIBERATION: BUDDHISM AND LATIN AMERICAN THEOLOGY IN RESPONSE TO THE CRISES OF LATE NEOLIBERALISM

AUTHORS:
Tsai P. (Universidade Metodista de Sao Paulo ~ São Bernardo do Campo ~ Brazil)
Text:
In the current era of neoliberalism, referred to by some as late neoliberalism, compounded by the post-pandemic period and the global environmental crisis, we are not witnessing the emergence of a cultural network focused on collaborative efforts to protect human life beyond ethnic and cultural boundaries. On the contrary, we are faced with an escalation of warfare, territorial seizures, a constant intensification of aggressive policies for the conquest of natural resources and market dominance, and a development of technology as an alternative to human mortality in the face of increasing climate disasters and their ever more somber projections. And these are only some of the problems. Yet, in the face of these contemporary issues, the potential contribution of Buddhism to the search for solutions converges with the concerns of Latin American Liberation Theology. While Liberation Theology denounces the problem of idolatry through a precise definition of its sustaining interdependence, Buddhist thought—when applied to the object, the view that sustains idolatry—reveals itself as a potential immediate solution for ceasing reified individualism, the kind that emerged during the capitalist and political phase of Liberalism and Modernization. The analysis of the cause of this reified individualism—the superimposition (samāropa) provoked by distortive ignorance (avidyā viparyasta)—contributes to solving the problem of idolatry denounced by Liberation Theology. Through the Inter-relational Network Theory configured with Tsongkhapa's elements, it is possible to envision a flux leading to an identity network that overcomes the reification of individualism.