Last week the room was packed for our lecture with Nho Anh Tran on “What is ‘Right Action’?”
A key component of Buddhist ethics, “right action” describes the Buddhist view of how to live a virtuous life. In today’s polarizing times, how are Buddhists drawing on moral philosophy to make decisions about issues of both personal and global importance?
Nho Anh Tran is a scholar of religion and ethics, and a negotiation instructor and consultant whose work bridges conflict resolution, moral philosophy, and leadership across academic, corporate, and civic contexts. She teaches courses in religion, Buddhist ethics, and negotiation at Harvard, and consults with organizations and leaders on interest-based negotiation, difficult conversations, and ethical decision-making. She is a PhD candidate at Harvard University specializing in religion, ethics, and statecraft. Her scholarship and practice converge around a central question: how can negotiation function not merely as a transactional exchange, but as a method for structuring interdependent systems—enabling actors to communicate, coordinate, and cooperate in ways that generate clarity, legitimacy, and durable collective outcomes under conditions of asymmetry and change?
This was the third lecture in our series celebrating the 20th anniversary of the Buddhism, Psychology and Mental Health program. #bpmh #contemplativescience #buddhism #contemplativestudies
