17 Buddhist Bioethics

Describing anything as ‘Buddhist’, including in this case a distinctively Buddhist bioethics, is fundamentally problematic from both a historic and Buddhist point of view. Historically, the Buddhist tradition has evolved in dozens of countries for 2500 years, with no one tradition having clear doctrinal authority over the others. Internally, even if a common Buddhist ethics was implicit in the practices of the dozens of Buddhist cultures or the exegetics of their traditions, the core philosophical insight of Buddhism is that all things are empty of essential, authentic being, including the Buddhist tradition. So, starting from the understanding that there is no authentic Buddhist bioethics to explicate, and only a constellation of practices and ideas related to medicine and the body among Buddhists throughout history, which may or may not be tied to core ideas of the Buddhist tradition, we can interrogate the tradition for the lessons it may hold for contemporary bioethics.