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Author Archives: Maia

Quote of the Week: Bernie Glassman

Posted on February 23, 2010 by Maia

Bernie Glassman is both an iconoclast as well as a steeped-in-tradition Zen master, in the White Plum lineage of Taizan Maezumi Roshi.

Brooklyn-born and bred, Bernie studied engineering and mathematics and worked for a number of years as an aeronautical engineer for McDonnell-Douglas. The book The Three Pillars of Zen by Philip Kapleau inspired him to study and practice Buddhism. Bernie received dharma transmission from Maezumi Roshi in 1976 and then inka in 1995.

Bernie’s output over the past three decades has been amazing. He started the Greyston Bakery in 1982 in Yonkers, NY, which eventually grew into the Greyston Foundation — an array of social services to the surrounding neighborhood that was based in Zen principles and aimed to empower all who were part of its mandala. He also started the Zen Peacemakers, devoted to the exploration and practice of socially engaged Buddhism. One of the main practices of the Zen Peacemakers is “Bearing Witness” — retreats that invite participants to intimately enter into the stream of reality of those who are homeless or in other situations of suffering.

Bernie’s latest project is “Zen Houses.” These will be small, Buddhist-based residential communities around the world that focus on serving the needs of members of that area.

This quote is from Bernie’s book Bearing Witness: A Zen Master’s Lessons in Making Peace:

When we bear witness, when we become the situation — homelessness, poverty, illness, violence, death — the right action arises by itself. We don’t have to worry about what to do. We don’t have to figure out solutions ahead of time. Peacemaking is the functioning of bearing witness. Once we listen with our entire body and mind, loving action arises.

Loving action is right action. It’s as simple as giving a hand to someone who stumbles or picking up a child who has fallen on the floor. We take such direct, natural actions every day of our lives without considering them special. And they’re not special. Each is simply the best possible response to that situation in that moment.

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Create a Holiday!

Posted on February 20, 2010 by Maia

Okay, this post is a momentary diversion from the usual subject matter of this blog. But maybe you can figure out a way to tie it back in to socially engaged Buddhism. Go for it.

Yesterday, I posted a question on my Facebook page: If you could create a new national (or better yet, global) holiday, what would it be? Some great answers have been coming in, including:

  • World Garden Day
  • Columbus Didn’t Discover America Day
  • Love and Dark Chocolate Day (which sounds a lot like Valentine’s Day to me)
  • Peace Disarmament Day
  • Karma Day (in which we confess and make amends, set aside blames and forget)
  • Jubilee Day (in which all debts are forgiven)
  • Do Nothing Day

So, dear reader, I ask you the same question — what new holiday deserves a place on all of our calendars? How might the world be a better place, if even for just one day, if we celebrated that occasion?

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Quote of the Week: Roshi Joan Halifax

Posted on February 14, 2010 by Maia

For this week’s quote, I’m very happy to feature my friend and root teacher Roshi Joan Halifax. Roshi has led a remarkable life, one filled with adventure, great humor, intelligence, creativity, compassion, and, most of all, friends.

Trained as a cultural anthropologist, Roshi has spent time with indigenous people in Africa, Tibet, and Mexico. During the Sixties, she was deeply involved in Civil Rights and anti-war movements.

Roshi began practicing Buddhism with Korean Zen master Seung Sahn, and through the years has also studied with Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh and Roshi Bernie Glassman. When Glassman Roshi gave her inka in 1998, she became the first female dharma successor in the White Plum lineage.

Roshi Joan has created many engaged Buddhist institutes and programs including the Ojai Foundation, Upaya Zen Center and Institute, the Being With Dying program that has pioneered work in contemplative end-of-life care, and the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Program. And that’s just to name a few. I’ve often thought that a day in Roshi’s life is the equivalent to about a year in mine, in terms of her creative output and the number of people she reaches through her work.

She is  very passionate about the intersection of neuroscience and meditation and serves on the board of the Mind & Life Institute. Roshi is also one of the most digitally accessible dharma teachers around – she’d be happy to have you follow her on Facebook and Twitter.

This quote is an excerpt from Roshi’s book The Fruitful Darkness, published in 1993. It’s a beautiful book, blending Buddhism, tribal wisdom, and deep ecology – one well worth putting on your reading list.

Many Buddhists have believed that the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara (enlightened hero of compassion) is beyond gender. According to the Lotus Sutra, this deity transforms the body and becomes a female, male, soldier, monk, god, or animal to save various beings from suffering. When he/she looked out into the world and saw the immense suffering of all beings, he/she shed tears of compassion….

…The eyes of Kanzeon see into every corner of Calcutta. The ears of Kanzeon hear all the voices if suffering, whether understandable to the human ear, or the voices of felled cedar and mahogany or struggling sturgeon who no longer make their way up Mother Volga to spawn. The hands of Kanzeon reach out in their many shapes, sizes, and colors to help all forms of beings. They reach out from the ground of understanding and love….It is understood that the craft of loving-kindness is the everyday face of wisdom and the ordinary hand of compassion. This wisdom face, this hand of mercy, is never realized alone, but always with and through others. The Buddhist perspective shows us that there is no personal enlightenment, that awakening occurs in the activity of loving relationship.

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Do Something Good: Bridge the Gap

Posted on February 9, 2010 by Maia

One of my favorite projects is directing the Upaya Buddhist Chaplaincy Program, based here in Santa Fe, under the leadership of Roshi Joan Halifax.

Penny Alsop, of Tallahassee, Florida, is one of our Second Cohort students. She has submitted a great proposal called “Bridge the Gap” to the Pepsi-Cola “Refresh Everything” campaign.

Here’s how it works: Each month, Pepsi gives away more than $1 million in grants to fund great ideas. Here’s an overview of Penny’s idea:

The “Bridge the Gap” project will fulfill one of the most critical needs of ex-offenders upon release and during their transition time from the ‘inside’ to the outside world – employment. Using the proven viability of small scale gardening, Florida’s long growing season, and the general public’s growing desire for fresh, local produce, it will create and operate a small urban farm and market, employing up to ten ex-offenders in its first year of operation. The training center will teach skills and provide ample opportunity to practice and cultivate gardening, cooking, retail,  service and small business management skills.

You can help make Penny’s vision a reality by voting for her project here. The projects with the most votes will receive funding from Pepsi. Voting ends on February 28. And while you’re there, check out some of the other great ideas.

I’m happy to share an opportunity to make something good happen. How often do we get to do that?!

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Quote of the Week: Buddhadasa Bhikkhu

Posted on February 8, 2010 by Maia

Buddhadasa Bhikkhu (1906 – 1993) is one of the founders of modern socially engaged Buddhism, and was a key person in the reformation of 20th century Thai Buddhism.

Born in Thailand (then called Siam), Buddhadasa became a monk in 1926. However, he soon became very concerned by the corruption of the monastic sangha and its preoccupation with money, politics, and comfort. He returned to the rural area of his birth and founded the forest monastery Suan Mokkh, which means “Garden of Liberation.”

Through Suan Mokkh, his talks, and his books, Buddhadasa strove to practice a Buddhism that was closer to the spirit of its original source. He once wrote, “People…have become attached to and view Buddha as a god instead of seeing him as a human being who attained enlightenment and had great compassion for others. They are not aware that Buddha teaches that anyone can follow his path and find the way out of suffering by and for themselves.”

He was very ecumenical in his understanding of Buddhism, and also reached out to members of other religions including Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs.

Buddhadasa’s teachings, and especially his emphasis on interdependence, inspired a generation of Thai social activists and artists, including Sulak Sivaraksa and many of the monks who have protected Thai forests.

This week’s quote from Buddhadasa comes from Donald K. Swearer’s essay “The Three Legacies of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu” (in The quest for a just society: the legacy and challenge of Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, ed. by Sulak Sivaraksa).

The entire cosmos is a cooperative. The sun, the moon, and the stars live together as a cooperative. The same is true for humans and animals, trees and soil. Our bodily parts function as a cooperative. When we realize that the world is a mutual, interdependent, cooperative enterprise, that human beings are all mutual friends in the process of birth, old age, suffering and death, then we can build a noble, even heavenly environment. If our lives are not based in this truth, then we shall all perish.

To learn more about Buddhadasa and his legacy, visit this website.

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Karen Refugees Deported Back to Burma

Posted on February 5, 2010 by Maia

This is very bad news from Southeast Asia: ethnic Karen refugees from Burma are being deported by the Thai government back to a landmine-infested camp in Burma. According to the Burma Campaign UK,

[On February 5] Three families, nine women and four children, including a nine month old baby, were forced back into Burma before the deportations were halted. The halt coincided with the arrival of foreign diplomats and NGOs. Thai authorities had originally blocked their entry to the camp. There is great concern that the Thais will restart the forced deportations soon.

You can read more about the situation here on The Irrawaddy news website.

I asked my friend Alan Senauke, founder of the Clear View Project, what we might do to support these people. His response was not optimistic: “There is a lot of governmental and NGO response to this at a very high level. And negative press all over Asia, including Thailand. A letter to the Thai prime minister was sent yesterday by 30 or so US congress people.  Also, the State Department has commented.  The painful entanglements and complicity of Thailand and Burma is deeply painful. I have not often seen the Thai government be responsive to outside opinion.”

One thing you can do is send an online letter to Thai officials urging them to stop the deportation. (With thanks to Genju of 108 zen books for the link.)

This may be one of those times when the best thing we can do is send lots of metta in the direction of the refugees as well as the Thai government.

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A Year-ful of Engaged Dharma

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Maia

Something that I noticed during my days editing Turning Wheel for the Buddhist Peace Fellowship was that there didn’t seem to be one place that aggregated all the socially engaged Buddhist events going on. And there are lots.

I’ve already collected a few of them on this blog, and I just did a search and found more. So, in the hopes that this will be of benefit, here’s a calendar of some of the major events for the year. Please add more in the comments section, and give us details like when, where, and a link for more information.

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Feb 12 – 14: Ready from Within A Quaker/Buddhist interfaith program exploring the spiritual dimensions of social action. Where: Oxfordshire, UK. More info: http://www.engagedbuddhists.org.uk/?p=902

March 2 – May 10: Walk for a Nuclear-Free Future The monks and nuns of the Nipponzan Myohoji Peace Pagoda will lead a Walk for a Nuclear Free Future to offer prayer and call attention to the United Nation’s review of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Where: Their route will take them from Buffalo, NY, to New York City. Click here for more info.

March 7 – June 1: ZENVC Ango: Practicing Everyday Life. ZENVC Ango is a three-month intensive in the fire of your daily life, offering deep study and reflection, skillful means, and lots of support for those who respond to this calling. Where: A virtual practice period done you’re your home, with a concluding 7-day retreat in North Carolina. Click here for more info.

March 18 – 21: Buddhism Without Borders. The Institute of Buddhist Studies hosts this conference on contemporary developments of Buddhism in the West. Where: Berkeley, CA More info: http://www.shin-ibs.edu/eventreg/Berkeley2010.php

March 23 – 24: The Dharma of Living Systems and the Work That Reconnects A workshop with Joanna Macy. Where: Upaya Zen Center, Santa Fe, NM   More info: http://www.upaya.org/programs/event.php?id=471

April 1 – 4: Zen Peacemakers Street Retreat. Where: Washington DC More info: http://www.zenpeacemakers.org/sa/street_retreats.htm

April 11 – 16: Bearing Witness Retreat in Rwanda. In Partnership with Memos: Learning From History and many other Rwandan NGO partners, the Peacemaker Institute is proud to announce the first Bearing Witness Retreat in Rwanda. More info: http://www.peacemakerinstitute.org/BW_rwanda.html

May 1: Fifth Annual Buddhist Women’s Conference: Dharma in Motion. Offers an opportunity for Buddhists to share experiences, to deepen our spiritual lives, and to discuss the Dharma and its action in our lives. Where: Chicago, IL  More info: http://www.dharmawomen.org/2010/Default.aspx

May 1 – 5: Zen Peacemakers Retreat on Bearing Witness to the Greek Refugee Issues. Where: Athens and Lesbos, Greece. More info: http://www.zenpeacemakers.org/sa/street_retreats.htm

May 1 – May 10: Sustaining Resistance, Empowering Renewal This workshop offers a range of tools, collective and personal, which can make our activism more effective. Where: in a remote and wild valley in the Catalan Pyrenees. Click here for more info.

May 12 – 15: Zen Peacemakers Street Retreat. Where: Zurich, Switzerland. More info: http://www.zenpeacemakers.org/sa/street_retreats.htm

Aug 5 – 8: Dharma at the Edge: Training in Socially Engaged Buddhism and Servant Leadership A workshop with Roshi Joan Halifax, Sensei Fleet Maull, and guest Jimmy Santiago Baca. Where: Santa Fe, NM  More info: http://www.upaya.org/programs/event.php?id=392

Aug 9 – 15: Symposium for Western Socially Engaged Buddhism. A major gathering of Western Socially Engaged Buddhist activists, academics and sponsors. Speakers include Roshi Bernie Glassman, Roshi Joan Halifax, Hozan Alan Senauke, Paula Green, Frank Ostaseski, and more. Where: Montague, MA  More info: http://zenpeacemakers.org/soc_eng_bud/symposium.htm

Nov 1 – 5: Bearing Witness Auschwitz Retreat Bernie Glassman and the Zen Peacemakers are returning for the 15th year to the old site of the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau, in Oswiecim, Poland. More info: http://www.zenpeacemakers.org/sa/auschwitz.htm

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Meditating for Peaceful Elections in Sri Lanka

Posted on January 30, 2010 by Maia

I was just surfing the web and looking for socially engaged Buddhist events for a list I will post soon here, and I came across this fascinating piece of news. Sarvodaya, the Sri Lankan-based organization founded by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, organized and just finished a 12-day mass meditation event held in Colombo, with over 2,000 people participating. The purpose of the meditation was to “[harness] the spiritual energy of individuals through out the country to ensure a peaceful presidential election 2010 and to contribute to creating a peaceful society.”

There’s another story about the event here, from Asian News service.

In the past, Dr. Ariyaratne, surely one of the exemplars of socially engaged Buddhism, has led peace meditations with hundreds of thousands of people, embodying his belief that it is necessary for peaceworkers to themselves awaken, spiritually, and to transcend religious and ethnic differences.

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