Critical Buddhism is a methodological approach for assessing the philosophical and practical implications of the Zen Buddhist institution in Japan that arose among a group of scholars and priests in the 1980s who responded to claims that antinomian and substantialist tendencies contributed to various social defects, including discrimination against the outcast community and support for pre-World War II imperialism. The impact of this controversial faction linking scholarship to ideology by stressing the need for a return to fundamental Buddhist values of compassion based on adhering to the moral law of karmic causality has been associated with other wide-ranging critiques and challenges to Zen orthodoxy in addition to contemporary reform movements such as Engaged Buddhism.
