2021 Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism

Leading international Buddhist studies scholar, Emeritus Professor Lewis Lancaster and Australia’s top social researcher Hugh Mackay are the Symposium’s keynote speakers. It is envisaged that their topic, “Never Waste a Crisis: a human response to disruption” will set the tone for the entire Symposium.

Dialogue and conversation during their session will focus primarily on what we can learn from the current pandemic, and how we can shape a positive, more humanistic future.

The first major topic for discussion is on the impact of isolation vs community strength as well as what happens when a crisis shatters social norms and disrupts aspects of peoples’ lives, welfare and social worlds.

The discussion will then focus on doors which have been opened to change – with potentially positive results for our personal and social worlds, as crises allow us opportunities to reorganise.

With a particular focus on extending what we can learn from the present COVID-19 Pandemic to other crisis situations, the dialogue when then shift to the issue of Climate Change, which, like the COVID-19 Pandemic, affects the entire human race.

Finally, the dialogue will frame how the current crisis must be seen as a stimulus for positive action, as we need to project forward to specific actions that deal with global problems, even in the face of differences of opinions and agendas.

The Keynote Dialogue encourages us to paint a very broad canvas, but this very canvas provides the frame for considering the basic assertion and exploration of the 8^th International Symposium on Humanistic Buddhism, “Never Waste a Crisis: A Humanistic Response to Disruption.”