Buddhist Modernism Underway in Bhutan: Gross National Happiness and Buddhist Political Theory

Gross national happiness and health: lessons from Bhutan

Editorials 514 Bhutan was the first country in the world to pursue happiness as a state policy. The Bhutanese concept of happiness is deeper than the common meaning of happiness in industrialized countries. The philosophy of gross national happiness has several dimensions: it is holistic, recognizing people's spiritual, material, physical or social needs; it emphasizes balanced progress; it vie...

Buddhist Theory of Causation

Contributions of medicinal plants to the Gross National Happiness and Biodiscovery in Bhutan

BACKGROUND The medicinal plants and the associated Bhutanese traditional medicine (BTM) are protected by the country's constitution and receive both government support and acceptance by the wider public. More than 1000 medicinal plants are described in the BTM but currently collects only 300 species for daily formulations of BTM. These medicinal plants have been one of the drivers of the 'Gross...

Health and Gross National Happiness: review of current status in Bhutan

Worldwide, contemporary measures of the success of health development programs have been mostly in terms of the reduction of mortality and morbidity as well as increasing longevity. While these goals have yielded much-needed health improvements, the subjective outcomes of these improvements, as experienced by individuals and the communities, have not been considered. Bhutan, under the overarchi...

Toward a Buddhist Theory of Language

1. To point out that there is a Buddhist theory of language; 2. To set forth the fundamental premises of the Buddhist theory of language, which are implicit in the first and most fundamental teaching of the Buddha—the Four Noble Truths; 3. To assert that the Buddhist theory of language is better than the conventional theory of language, which is the theory that currently dominates the linguisti...