Buddhist theology and activism in America
Stories of Buddhist leaders standing for justice usually take place in Tibet or Myanmar (Burma), but American Buddhists have been speaking out on issues ranging from Iraq to criminal justice.
Over at Progressive & Religious, Robby Jones has a podcast interview with just such an activist — Hozan Alan Senauke, program director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship.
From the transcript:
To me the Buddhist precepts, they boil down to not living your life at the expense of other beings,
so that means really looking at – in our meal chant we say innumerable labors have brought us this
food, we should know how it comes to us. And when we know how it comes to us, we have the
beginnings of a sense of responsibility. And this is very difficult to sustain in America.
Good people – anyone can be a good person, but do you want to live at the expense of the person in
Bangladesh or Pakistan who’s making your shirt or the oil rig worker in Nigeria, the agricultural
worker in the Central Valley who is being hounded by the INS? Do you want to live that way? Until
we address those questions, I don’t think we’ll have a truly progressive religious movement or truly
progressive movement.
Click here to listen in entirety.