June 2022: Dharmic response to social issues

Before I begin, I just want to say that I’ll be reading my talk, more or less, because I can’t trust my memory anymore and often I can’t find a very simple word that I need to say and that must get a bit irritating for my listeners. So just bear that in mind. 

Buddhist activism, yes or no? Should Buddhists should Buddhist centres engage in activism? That’s a question I believe you are discussing. When considering this question, we can’t turn to the example of the Buddha because, of course, he lived in a completely different society than our own. Activism in the sense that we mean it was simply not an option. And we can’t turn to any of the ancient teachers for that reason too. That hasn’t prevented some Buddhists from referring to the Buddha as an activist. Gil Frondsal, the Pali scholar and translator, for instance, has written a lovely short piece called the Buddha as an activist, I’m just going to read you a little bit from it:

“His activism was focused on establishing ethical behaviour as a foundation for how a society operates. He was an activist, because he encouraged others to also advocate for this.

Through his followers, he worked to spread his ethical activism out into the societies of his time.”

And then he discusses that idea using the 10 precepts – the same 10 that we take in the Triratna Buddhist Order. So this isn’t really activism in the sense in which the word is normally used, of course, but it’s a good point. 

What I’m going to do in this talk is turn to Bhante,  Urgyen Sangharakshita, (I’ll refer to him as Bhante  throughout) in three lectures relevant to this question. The first one Evolution or Extinction; A Buddhist View of World Problems he gave in 1971. The second A Vision of History he gave in 1978 – he gave that to the Order actually, at an Order convention. And the third one Buddhism, World Peace and Nuclear War he gave in 1984 and that was actually a public talk. And I think it was in response to a scare, you know, the threat of a nuclear war. But I’ll come back to that. 

But I want to start with the middle of these three talks, A Vision of History. Because in that talk, he outlines the general principle of the relationship between spiritual communities and the world. Many other spiritual communities are mentioned, as well as Buddhist spiritual communities. So let’s get into that. 

A vision of history, his vision, or we might say his interpretation of history is this: since the Axial Age, there’s been an ongoing conflict between the spiritual community and the group. The group, he says, tries to produce good members, good group members; the spiritual community tries to produce individuals. The group is based on power, of course, which is always the power of the strong over the weak. And the spiritual community is based on metta. Although they’re trying to do very different things, they are closely connected, and each strongly influences the other. The spiritual community, Bhante says, has a refining, a softening and the civilising effect influence on the group, whereas the group always tries to turn the spiritual community into another group and it often succeeds. I’m just going to say that again, because I think it’s really important. Bhante says that the group always tries to turn the spiritual community into another group, and it often succeeds. 

Continuing Bhante says it’s important to remember this we are engaged in a battle – a non-violent battle on our side, of course – but we need more and more spiritual communities, eventually they should outweigh the group, then there will be an even greater change in the world than that which took place in the Axial Age, the world will be transformed. 

He finishes that lecture by saying this: that is my vision of history and I can only hope Triratna will play its part. (He didn’t say Triratna of course, he said the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, but we’re called tree Triratna these days, I should say the Triratna Buddhist Community). 

Now onto the first of these three lectures, Evolution or Extinction; A Buddhist View of World Problems, which he gave in 1971. And in this one, the general principle that I’ve just told you about from Bhante’s lecture A Vision of History is applied specifically to world problems. So, he says, there have always been problems in the world; what is new is they are now global. Also the size of the groups involved is huge, as is their power, and especially the power of mutual destruction. Our reaction to these problems may at first be very emotional, maybe anger, indignation, fear, sorrow, a feeling of we must get the culprits of these problems. But later, we may have a reaction – we may feel overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness. The problems are so big, and we are so small and insignificant in relation to them. And this may cause us to decide to try to just ignore world problems and get on with our lives. And he says to this: in my opinion, retreating from the problems in a personal and rather narrow sense, is not an attitude worthy of a human being. It represents a sort of abdication of responsibility. He goes on to say all world problems are essentially group problems. And group problems cannot be solved on the level of the group. All that can be achieved is a precarious balance of power between conflicting interests. In the long term, there’s only one solution: the human race has to produce more individuals and more spiritual communities. We have two alternatives: individual members of the human race must develop spiritually or sooner or later we will just perish. 

And he says in a practical sense, we should do four things: develop ourselves spiritually; join a spiritual community; withdraw our support from all anti-spiritual forces, which are always groups of course; and exert whatever influence for good we can do in any group that we are part of. 

He goes on to say, and this is lovely, we should be like earthworms burrowing, tunneling, loosening the soil, so that the groups and the current world problems associated with them may collapse, the centre of gravity will shift from conflicts in groups to cooperating spiritual communities. All of this can be achieved, he says, but we may not have very much time left. 

And this brings me on to the third of his lectures, Buddhism, World Peace and Nuclear War, which he gave in 1984. Why? Well, in November 83, America and NATO came very close to having a nuclear war with Russia, all to do with a misunderstanding. Google it, it’s frightening how close we were. And of course, we’ve been reminded recently that the threat of nuclear war is still very much present. So Bhante begins his talk by saying that his lecture is based on an assumption which he hopes we share. And the assumption is this – although the risk of nuclear war is very great, it is not inevitable. We should not allow the sheer horror of the prospect to reduce us to inaction. We must bring pressure to bear firstly on our own government and, secondly, on the governments of other countries to whatever extent we can. Our government should be left in no doubt as to what the wishes of the electorate really are. We do that by letters to politicians, demonstrations, maybe newspaper articles, etc. He says if your government remains unresponsive, or not sufficiently responsive, and the situation is one of extreme urgency, where every day is precious, then more serious measures should be taken – civil disobedience. 

I just have to say here that that sounds a little bit like Extinction Rebellion. They think, the founders of Extinction Rebellion and their followers think, that we are in that situation. I disagree. Happy for them to have their ideas about it but I disagree, and I’ll come on to that later – not that particular disagreement, but disagreements about such things in our movement. 

So civil disobedience – we do have to be really careful here. Bhante thought that the structures of society and the rule of law were very, very important. I even remember him saying once that any kind of structure was better than no structure. And he was strongly of the opinion that civil disobedience should be only used rarely, in extreme situations, such as a very real threat of immediate nuclear war of course. There’s an interesting thing that Bhante says, (I can’t remember whether it’s a seminar or a question & answer session but whatever the form was) he warned us that to engage in civil disobedience we would be sewing Dragon’s Teeth. And this phrase comes from Greek mythology. The hero Cadmus killed a dragon, and the goddess Athena told him to so plant the Dragon’s Teeth in the ground. Out of these teeth, ferocious warriors grew, and Cadmus threw a precious jewel into their midst and they fought each other until only a few remained. In other words, he’s talking about the law of unintended consequences. 

Anyway, another point he made is this: we should resist the temptation to use pro-peace, anti-nuclear activities, for the furtherance of any sectional interests. Whether those interests are social, party political or ideological, there must be no attempt to hijack the peace process. To weaken it in this way would be in the highest degree irresponsible, and a betrayal of the trust of mankind. 

Now, I’m going to come out of that lecture now and I’m going to speak for myself. In the last few years, we’ve witnessed Order members, mitras, friends, supporting (going on ‘demos’ with) two organisations that do have political agendas, ideological agendas. These organisations, one originating in the UK, the other from America, say they’re doing one thing but have another political, ideological, actually anarcho-Marxist, agenda. Neither of these two organisations kept their ideological agenda secret. They are or they were on their websites. I say ‘were’ because I think they started taking those ideas down now, because people have began to notice them and to question them – about time! 

Anyway, another important point he made was that this failure of communication is a feature of our times based, ultimately, on a breakdown of the notion of objective truth. He basically says this happens in two stages. First stage, truth becomes selective. Actual lies may not be told, but those facts which are not in accordance with the feelings and interests of this or that individual group are increasingly ignored, misrepresented, distorted and suppressed. And from there is not a very big step to the stage where that which is in accordance with those interests becomes the truth. And at this stage, there is a total breakdown of the notion of objective truth. Because truth is, then, whatever happens to be in accordance with the interests of a particular class, sovereign state or an ideology. 

This actually was something that like the late Professor Carter called noble cause corruption. And this is something we should all be aware of, because we have a noble cause, you might have a number of noble causes. And it’s so easy to be tempted into giving only half of the truth, omitting certain facts, exaggerating certain things, minimising certain things. Yes, we need to be very careful. Until the notion of objective truth has been reinstated, Bhante says, all our attempts to communicate are doomed to end in frustration. So the reinstatement of the notion of objective truth to its rightful position, therefore, ranks as one of our most urgent tasks. 

Coming out of Bhante’s lecture now, and I’m speaking, this means in the first instance, finding out what the objective truth is, because you can’t speak the truth unless you know it. Finding the truth, though, is not an easy task. It takes time, and resourcefulness. Things are usually much more complex, much more subtle than they are presented in the mainstream media. So you can’t really rely on the mainstream media for the truth. And it may also entail discovering that what you thought was true, isn’t. And, as we know, it’s very difficult indeed to accept that something we thought was true, and are committed to and have told people you’re committed to and maybe tried to persuade them to commit to, is very difficult if you find out it’s actually false. But it’s our duty as members of the human race and, of course, as Buddhists,  as Order members to do this. 

Okay, so those are a few points from the three lectures. And finally there’s one important thing Bhante didn’t address in any of these lectures, which is the question: should Buddhist centres engage in activism, not Buddhists as individuals, but should Buddhist centres engage in activism? There are reasons for and reasons against. 

I’ll start with the reasons for. Sangha members working together on a shared project can be really good for those Sangha members. It can be a way of coming closer together, or forming friendships, and creating a strong and deep sense of community. And of course, you would be practising the altruistic dimension of going for refuge or, you could say, partaking in Bodhisattva activity. And of course, more than once Bhante said that the bodhicitta is more likely to arise collectively than individually, to arise when sangha members work together on a shared project. So those are the reasons for – there may be others, but those ones I thought of. 

Now for the reasons against. Bhante once said that it’s not possible for anyone to represent the spiritual community, because the spiritual community is not a group. So in the lecture, Evolution or Extinction, that I spoke about earlier, Bhante made it very clear in that lecture, that this was a Buddhist world view of world problems. It was his Buddhist view of all problems, he wasn’t claiming to give the Buddhist view, because there cannot be one. So given that, how can a Buddhist centre have an opinion on social or political matters? Individuals in the Sangha may well have political opinions but it’d be quite a coincidence, wouldn’t it, if everyone had the same ones? In fact, it would be very worrying. It would suggest the kind of ‘group-think’. We’ve talked a lot about diversity in the last few years, quite rightly, but we seem to overlook cognitive diversity. In fact, we don’t seem to welcome cognitive diversity. So if a Buddhist centre did take a stand on a social or a political issue, whoever was responsible for that decision would have to either assume that everyone else shared that opinion, or didn’t think it mattered that some people disagree with them. So how do you think someone would feel if their local Centre began campaigning for something that they disagreed with? That centre would risk alienating some of the local Sangha members by doing that and should we take that risk? Is it worth taking that risk? Considering that our main duty, the duty of a Buddhist centre, is to teach the Dharma and help people to Go For Refuge on deeper and deeper levels, become enlightened, should we risk someone leaving our centre because of a political or social disagreement? 

So you probably have guessed that I don’t think Buddhist centres should take part in social or political campaigns. But I want to end by saying something about the difference between activism and social action. Here’s a definition of activism that I got from one of those dictionaries online: 

the policy or action of using vigorous campaigning to bring about political or social change. 

That about encompasses it, doesn’t it? But then there was a list of synonyms which I found very surprising, and well, let’s see what you think about them. Synonyms of activism: fanaticism, radicalism, zealotry, zeal, fundamentalism, dogmatism, bigotry, militancy, sectarianism, chauvinism, partisanship, gosh, who knew? I wonder who wrote that entry? Because none of them are good things are they, none of them? 

Anyway, here’s the definition of social action, which I took from the UK Government website: social action is about people coming together to help improve their lives, and solve the problems that are important in their communities. It can include volunteering, giving money, community action, or simple neighbourly acts. 

Activists tried to change the world into the kind of world they think it should be. People engaging in social action just try to reduce the suffering of people in the world as it is. 

And our brothers and sisters in India marvellously exemplify social action, so inspiring. We saw that especially during the recent pandemic, didn’t we? And closer to home, closer to my home that is, we’ve seen people of the countries near to Ukraine welcoming and looking after the refugees, Poland more than any other, and I’m very happy that the Polish Sangha have been taking part in that work, that support. Such actions are not political or ideological. They are humanitarian. They are not future-orientated, that is trying to make changes now for the future of society,  but they are present-orientated and the results are immediate and practical. So I hope that my talk has given you much to discuss.

Thanks very much to all members of the International Council and the steering group. I have this opportunity to talk on social action and activism from an Indian perspective.  

It is an important subject to discuss and to develop principles as a Triratna movement worldwide – to establish vision and principles for our Buddhist spiritual movement.

Let me give a brief overview: there is always criticism against Triratna in India from other Ambedkarite and Buddhist activists whenever atrocities and injustices happen to scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, non-Buddhists etc. They say we have not responded very well, kept silent, with little response on such issues.

Now recently, when the pandemic started in the last two years, there were so many incidents of atrocities and injustice happening in India – in different states like UP, Rajasthan, Bihar, Maharashtra and Gujarat etc. You may be surprised that in 21st century it’s still happening in India

 For example, a bridegroom went to his marriage ceremony on horse and was beaten by upper caste people in Rajasthan; a young boy in Rajasthan kept moustache and was beaten by some upper caste; on the occasion of Buddha festival celebrations upper caste people opposed the  program, incidents of rape is evrywhere in different states of India, the burning of Dalits houses, boycotts against entering villages; and restrictions in the opportunity to buy daily needs from shops. 

Whenever we came across such atrocities and incidents of injustice on scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, non-Buddhists, any minorities, we went through strong mental pain, suffering and mental shocks. 

On top of that, caste discrimination is a critical disease to human beings in India. When scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, oppressed people go to the police station, the police don’t register the crime, but if they do register they don’t apply the proper punishments on the  accused; there is partiality, no humanity, no value to the life of minorities, with upper castes feeling that raping and beating the downtrodden, oppressed, scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, is their right. 

Such a mentality is destroying the unity of our nation, and using such incidents for political polarisation is harmful to our country. It’s a strong attack on Indian civilization and culture, so many people feel tension between communities, a divided society with social tension, fear, anxiety, and mental pain. 

What are the principles and the nature of our movement?

 We practise compassion, maitri, non-violence – therefore we have some limitations. We know caste discrimination and violence is unconstitutional. We have to be careful such situations do not dominate our mentality and because we’re Buddhists we must promote constructive work. From the point of long-term teaching, Dhamma and maitri would be helpful for social change. We have strong faith in maitri. Also we have to protect the human values of freedom, brotherhood, equality and justice. To create awareness of these human values in the society, to educate people in how to see others as a human being apart from any discriminations, it takes hard efforts to create harmony in the society but this is the only and best solution.

The Triratna movement is based on the principle of non-violence. Our primary work is to establish social equality, giving equal opportunity to cultivate individual human potential like the Buddha, to facilitate situations to develop the individual. Therefore our work is most valuable. We trust our work will be helpful against all kinds of discriminations among human beings. In this way we are serving the nation and human society. 

To respond to the atrocities and injustice happening in India we established a team which included public preceptors and members from the Area Council. Under the guidance of that team, we organised a workshop for Indian Order members on 23rd June 2020: A Buddhist Response to Atrocities and a Protest against Injustice. Approximately 300 Order members participated. We came to the conclusion that for proper social activism, and to help create a change in the Indian perspective, we would need an independent team or trust to focus on relief work – to work on such issues in India. Their main work was to respond to atrocities and injustice happening within the lower castes – mainly they would work to show how to overcome caste discrimination and work for the betterment of human beings, to create a pressure group on the administration.

A Manifesto of Such Work in India: firstly, levels of leadership 

As a Dhammic movement, we train people in Dhamma: study and practice is our priority. Nourishing the Dhammic sustenance of the Sangha is of prime importance to us. 

Structurally speaking, preceptors (public and private), GFR team, ordination team members are responsible for constantly nourishing the movement Dhammically. So, they cannot afford to divide their energy from the major responsibilities they are engaged in. 

So, let’s not project onto them for not responding or not doing anything in response to such sensitive cases. They too feel deeply and wish to do something about it and would be fully behind the team that takes forward the task of creating justice. 

As a Buddhist we should respond. 

Cases against atrocities and injustices could be made but they are heavily loaded (once atrocities or injustices occur) by the force of sentiments and politics. We do need to look after the impact that has on us as individuals and as a movement while responding in such circumstances. Emotions are understandable but given the nature of our movement we do need to consider what we can do and what we can’t.  

In the light of this brief overview I had some Zoom meetings, especially when Jagatap and Bansode cases erupted recently. Both of them were Buddhist and Ambedkarite, whatever their involvement was,  and as a response to the heinous atrocities we, as Triratna, responded to the situation by issuing a statement and holding a Zoom online event of Order members, GFR mitras etc. on 23rd June 2020 at 11 am. Title was “Against the injustice and torment: Buddhist opposition and responses”

This was satisfactory and as a result we all agreed to take it forward in as positive and as peaceful a way as possible.  

Execution: in a follow-up meeting where all who were present very much welcomed further proceedings, we decided the following:

We should have a Two Layered Team 

Firstly, an informal Order team to hold the vision of Triratna, in terms of what should be done, how and why should be done, that matches the founding principles and structure of our movement. 

Secondly a formal team: this may or may not include Order members (ideally 2 Order members would be there).

This would constitute skilled and qualified members (5 or 7). 

We should try to involve advocates, retired police officers, counsellors that can advise the victims, medical background, etc. 

We also need those who can document the news with the right approach and a team that can help to let the world (East and West) know about what actually happens in India. 

We have thought of setting up an independent Triratna ‘team for justice’. This is not the name but we should make an arrangement in the movement at large to deal and respond to such sensitive issues. 

As I mentioned, we are a Dhammic movement and have a deep link with a Western World – both in terms of teachers and funding – so we have to be careful while responding (this is why I mentioned before the levels of leadership). 

We cannot actually take part in the politics of cases but we would like to support and facilitate as much as we can the victims in terms of emotional, economic, and rehabilitation of life. In fact, we can do it much better than anyone else. 

Thus we have discussed the two levels of the teams: formal and informal. 

Many Order members, mitras, and sympathisers have come forward and shown their interest in supporting the justice work. We are open to inviting people who are fairly close to the vision of Triratna. 

We can facilitate a lot by setting up Triratna ‘team for justice’. We are also hoping that we can educate Order members about law, rights and how to respond to such important and sensitive issues in the given circumstances. 

Examples like Black Lives Matter, Roma Gypsies, Dalit rights, CISCO collected testimonials on caste/race privilege in US, and atrocities and injustice in India. All these are inspiring us as we are an international movement that needs to protest such issues strongly on international levels.

As a Buddhist and non-political movement for establishing equality and justice we would like to connect with scheduled caste, scheduled tribe, etc to adopt strategic planning. At the moment upper caste people in India haven’t participated much in protesting atrocities and injustice happening in India. 

Some remaining work and waiting for announcement –

To announce the formal, informal teams, advisory body etc.
To set up a memorandum of association, rules and regulations.
To develop legally such an independent team.
To give a proper name to this team in the spirit of Buddhism.

Some achievements – 

Dhammacharini Vimalasara led a webinar on this issue, and we sent three representatives to participate in that webinar.

We organised one webinar for Indian Order members when the rape case of a Dalit young women took place in UP at Hatharas Village. Ambedkarite Social activists participated and guided us. Also most of the Triratna centres went to district collectors to protest and give deputations. 

A threat

Social activism work is so affecting and has the potential to dominate our primary work of teaching Dhamma, compassion, and maitri, which is the best long-term solution.

Thus friends, the role of this group is to lay a foundation for the future for such work. We, the people in this group, will not necessarily stay forever in the current arrangements but, whether these are the people who may stay or may not, they can certainly help to get the ball rolling.  

Nothing is final or decided but in a process, and we all are equally participating in it. 

I hope this message helps to motivate all of us in a very important step-forward and bridge this important aspect for our movement which was directly or indirectly lingering in the back of our mind. 

Thank you very much. 

Hello, my name is Rodashruti, which means she who listens to the cries of the world. I live in San Francisco. I was ordained in 2021 with Vimalasara as my private preceptor, and Karunadevi as my public preceptor.

I’m going to talk for a few minutes about my personal involvement in social activism, specifically around issues of Equity, Diversity, Justice, and Inclusion, which for shorthand I’ll call E-D-J-I. This is a new label for a kind of engagement I’ve been part of for a few decades. I’m third-generation Syrian American and fifth-generation Irish American. I am bisexual and have chronic health conditions. My activism has centered around women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, race, class, health and the environment. These issues are interwoven, and I try to address them that way.

I work professionally in digital communications at a medical university on a project about HIV/AIDS, which means I spend a good part of my life contributing to projects that address the ways stigma, discrimination, poverty, and access to care impact, and are impacted by, health outcomes. Outside of my work, my E-D-J-I focus is in three places: an affinity group at the San Francisco Buddhist Center called the Green Sangha; An E-D-J-I kula also at the San Francisco Buddhist Center; and the leadership team at the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, or AROC. I’m going to talk primarily about AROC.

Before I do I’ll tell you a little bit about the Green Sangha. We meet monthly, coordinate with other groups, meditate in public, organize sangha nights, goes on focused retreats, and study together. Our mission statement is: Within the context of Buddhist values and teachings, we aim to create a space for the San Francisco Buddhist Center to creatively engage with others around climate change and environmental justice.

The E-D-J-I kula is still coming together. Our mission statement is a work in progress, and currently reads: “As Buddhists committed to liberation for all beings, we work to cultivate an inclusive space and resources for the SFBC sangha to collectively integrate awareness of barriers to Dharma practice, celebrate difference, and to remove obstacles that spring from all injustices of oppression and devaluation, including hidden and explicit forms of racism, sexism, homophobia, classism, ableism, ageism, and other structural biases.”

I’ve been a member of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center, or AROC, for over a decade. I’ve been attending regular meetings and participating in actions since 2016. The organization invited me to be a member of their leadership team in January of this year. From their vision statement, “AROC envisions powerful and liberated Arab communities living with dignity from here to our homelands. AROC sees the liberation of Arab people inextricably tied to the liberation of all oppressed people.” They appeal to me in part because of their ethos that there is no such thing as personal liberation.

With AROC, I have organized for Arabic language curricula in public schools; petitioned the State Board of Education for liberatory ethnic studies curricula that accurately includes Arab Americans; and advocated for Congressional legislation called the Defending the Human Rights of Palestinian Children and Families Act. This Act called for, among other things, prohibition against the use of U.S. dollars for Israeli military detention of Palestinian children. I’ve also volunteered at community events, taken young people to a theme park, and organized raffles. I write press releases, articles, sign petitions, participate in political education, and attend, as an ally, events organized by groups like Jewish Voice for Peace, the International Indian Treaty Council, Black Lives Matter, and local unions.

It is important to me to try turn toward the difficult things happening in our world with kind awareness. The fact that an issue is polarizing is not a reason to avoid it. No group is perfect. No solution is perfect. I can’t do everything, but I don’t want to step over structural oppression on my way to personal enlightenment. Conditions being such an important part of experience, I strive to collectively organize for conditions that allow everyone to know themselves as beloved, to experience care and connection. For the benefit of all beings, I undertake this work as part of my practice even if I won’t see the results in my lifetime.

Hello, I’m Shantigarbha from Bristol in the UK. I was ordained in 1996 and my name means womb or matrix of peace or you could say seed of peace and the issue I’m very concerned about is the climate and ecological emergency, what I’m calling the climate and ecological emergency.

So recent IPCC reports confirm, to my mind, beyond reasonable doubt that we’re in the middle of multiple climate and ecological emergencies and we’ll be experiencing the impacts of those in our lifetimes increasingly and beyond. So why is this issue important to me? Well, as a child I wanted to change the world and as a teenager I tried out politics, party politics, as a way of doing this and I soon realised I wasn’t going to be able to keep my integrity in the UK party political system.

So I gave up on politics and I concentrated on meditating and practicing the Dharma but I was still interested in the intersection between the Dharma and social change, so one of my first jobs was at the Karuna Trust, working for health and educational projects in India and of course the Dhamma revolution. Later on, through Non-Violent Communication, I had a vision of how to combine personal development with social change in other contexts so you can see that I’ve been fascinated by Bhante’s teaching of transforming self and world and since then I’ve supported social change initiatives in various countries including caste dialogue in India, reconciliation dialogues in Sri Lanka, Israel-Palestine and Nepal and so on. In fact I regard the Triratna Buddhist Order and the Triratna Buddhist Community as social change initiatives. We have a Dharmic vision of the world and we’re working to bring that vision into reality and this is why I’ve been a regional Order convener for 17 or 18 years and I’m an enthusiastic member of the International Council.

So what kind of activism have I been involved in? Well, in 2019 I was supporting Extinction Rebellion in non-violence and de-escalation using my mediation skills to de-escalate one-to-one situations, crowd situations, to maintain a non-violent atmosphere and a bit later on I got involved in XR Buddhists, a Buddhist offshoot of Extinction Rebellion and here I am leading an activity, an action, outside Barclays HQ on Canary Wharf in London and here I am again leading a meditation for marchers at COP26 in Glasgow and of course I wrote a book ‘The Burning House: a Buddhist response to the climate ecological emergency’ and I wrote this book because I really wanted to support people to integrate their environmental concerns with their Dharma practice and I wanted to explore that for myself and see how to do that for others and I’ve done approximately 30 book launches in various places, some online and some in person, and even more recently I’ve been part of the group of people founding the Triratna Earth Sangha, so here we are on team retreat earlier this year

So the Triratna Earth Sangha – we have a mandate from the ECA, from the European Chairs Assembly, for Dharmic engagement in ecological and social issues – we’ve organised a conference, an online conference, we’ve organised an online home retreat and we are establishing a network of local conveners.

So what are the Dharmic principles underpinning our approach to activism? Well, at its broadest, at ordination we repeated ‘I accept this ordination for the benefit of all beings’ and I take this very seriously, I want to play my part in alleviating in reducing avoidable suffering and I feel a sense of urgency around the climate and ecological emergency because, as the first Noble Truth reminds us, we’re almost programmed to turn away from suffering –  my impression is that that’s what we’re doing collectively, we’re turning away from the particular suffering of the climate and ecological emergency, we just don’t want to know. Now Bhante had foresight of this of this issue and in 1988 when he spoke to the Order on its 20th birthday he said

‘in the next 20 years I would like to see the Order developing an ecological dimension and I’d like to see some Order members working in this field on the basis of their Buddhist commitment, perhaps in some cases working alongside non-Buddhists who share this concern this sort of commitment because it is something of very, very basic importance’. So that was Bhante in 1988.

So why is the climate environmental concern an ethical issue for Buddhists? Well, broadly speaking, there are four kinds of reasons: one is we just don’t want to foul our own nest, as human beings we don’t want to foul our own nest – we rely on the biosphere for our lives; secondly, as Buddhists, we want to preserve the possibility of Enlightenment for future generations; thirdly, a sense of solidarity with the natural world and I’ll come back to that in a moment; but fourthly, a spontaneous outpouring of compassion, so kind of the Bodhisattva spirit. So the natural world and solidarity with the natural world –  so the natural world is alive, full of life, that resonates with our own life and is valuable as life, so this is from Bhante and Subhuti in Reimagining the Buddha. Now I’ve enjoyed my time on this earth, I’ve really enjoyed it and I’ve loved the sense of abundance and richness and beauty in the natural world and I want others born and unborn to enjoy similar opportunities, so what kind of ancestors do we want to be?

Now Dr Ambedkar understood that the world can’t be reformed except by the reform of the mind of man or we could say of humanity and Bhante explored this and talked about this in terms of transforming self and world and we can’t transform one without transforming the other, we need both personal and societal change, so for me when I’m engaged in actions like sitting outside Barclays Bank protesting at their investment in fossil fuels, it’s a matter of context. I want to bear in mind how this fits in with my Dharmic vision of the world of interconnectedness of mutual care and responsibility and I want to model that in my actions this is what I understand by transforming self and world and in the Triratna Earth Sangha this is what we do, we’re a Sangha. We’re in the process of setting up a Triratna charity, we start our meetings with refugees and precepts, we’ve had a team retreat and we support each other, we inspire each other with shraddha, with confidence and trust that the climate and ecological emergency has the potential to awaken us individually and collectively to Enlightenment

I’m Maitripala and I live in Australia in Melbourne and I’m an Order member preceptor and public preceptor and friend

I just thought I’d tell you a little bit about a project that I was involved in in 2016 called Buddhas in my pocket

I gave friends and family the opportunity to donate little Buddhas to me – I think I ended up with 183 from around the world – and I decided to take to the streets with the third stage of metta practice. I really wanted to sort of test out the metta practice in terms of just how active it could be out in the world, not necessarily taking it as a Buddhist practice but actually trying to live it and go out and meet strangers on the streets, start conversations and try and do that in a field of metta.

So that’s what I was doing, I was just taking these Buddhas a dozen at a time in my little bag and going out, working quite hard on the way, walking to the town square in Melbourne, to drop all my judgements and views about people.  I was quite shocked to notice how I had them as I walked along the street, as people passed me, and learning to put those down. By the time I got to the town square and then finding someone just to sit next to and have a conversation and if it felt right I would would offer for them to choose a Buddha and I wasn’t doing it in an overtly Buddhist way. It was more about letting them know that this small little thing represented the vast potential of every human being and I had some beautiful connections and communications in that practice and I did that around eight different areas in Australia.

The image of Indra’s Net – so the idea of these little Buddhas being gifted to me and then me just passing them on you know was a a bit like activating Indra’s Net in another way in our sangha and then I would write small stories about the people I met, not using any identifying details, but telling the human story and people who donated that buddha could see where it ended up, who took it home in their pocket.

In an interesting way, when I was first asked to talk about this, I I’ve found myself wondering ‘am I an activist, in what way am I an activist?’ It wasn’t in the ways I thought people might be looking for some examples and the way I came to peace with that really was that, in a way, as Buddhists, as practicing Buddhists we’re all activists, we’re activating this reality to move from reactive responses to creative responses – actually is very possible for all beings so the activism really was in allowing a creative response to come from my practice and to take that out into the world and for me in particular I did it in a way where I wasn’t um particularly doing it under the banner of a Buddhist practitioner, it was as a human being. So I think you are an activist when you’re practicing but we can all look at how we can make that a little a bit more alive actually. I think in my heart I was at a stage of my practice where I wanted to test it out a bit more, it can be quite daunting sitting down next to a stranger and actually making sure you’re in a field of metta- as Rumi talks about in that field where you’ll meet somebody, the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make sense, that actually you can just be another human being with another human being, so that’s the active part I think.

So when I think about the main Dharmic principles that were underpinning this project when I started there was definitely a sense that I could experience, potentially, the truth of interconnectedness even more so by actually engaging in the metta practice with strangers. I just had this enormous sense of faith in that but I actually wanted to test it out so this truth of interconnectedness has been an important principle for me in exploring my own practice so the idea that the giver and the receiver of those Buddhas, for instance, really they’re illuminated together and in the end there’s no separation so that was one (principle)

The other principle or belief or truth for me is that there is beauty even in suffering, that within samsara and the suffering that’s involved in our lives in samsara, there is beauty to be found and and that was my experience of handing out now about 100 of those Buddhas, meeting 100 strangers, gems of people really that I met sometimes in laneways where homeless people slept, sometimes in the blood bank, in all sorts of settings that I was able to realise there was beauty if I could be present and grounded and open-hearted with someone I didn’t even know anything about…

Hi, my name is Guhyapati and I’m going to speak a little bit about the activist work that I do as part of the Ulex Project which is an initiative that grew out of the Ecodharma Centre in about 2018. So today I’m speaking to you from a training centre in Catalonia (Spain) where we’re currently running a week-long training for about 45 activists from across Europe on the theme of empowering collaboration. We’ve got people here from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Scotland, Romania, Germany, a bunch of countries and people who are climate activists, disability rights activists, anti-racist organisers, community organisers, people working on regulating global finance and trade unions, working on a just transition, so this is about the 10th of these trainings we’ve run already this spring and by the end of the year we’ll have run long residential trainings for about 900 activists from 25 different European countries.

So this is the kind of work we do and the Ulex Project takes a strategic approach to activism – we currently operate with a 14-person team, we run an annual budget of over a million euros, and we think of ourselves as a kind of a post-capitalist organisation, so we’re collectively governed, we operate a solidarity collectivised economy, a bit like what in Triratna has been called, at least in the past, the gift economy and the team come together around a shared commitment to radical personal and social transformation.

So we have a sense that we are living at a time of multiple interlocking crises: there’s a crisis of a growth-based industrial system colliding with non-negotiable ecological limits, a time of stalled engines of economic growth and an increasing sense of distributive injustice and also a time where the perceived legitimacy of our political systems and our political elites is failing. So we refer to this time as the twilight of neo-liberalism, we think of it as a time, a point, of historical disruption but it’s an opportunity to contest our future so it’s a bit like as Antonio Gramsci said, in the 1930s of Europe, that the crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying but the new cannot yet be born.

So we’re aiming to create enabling conditions so that the new can be born out of these crises in ways that can support more sustainable, just and compassionate cultures and societies, so we don’t focus on any one issue because we believe that to respond to the deep interlocking crises that we face require interconnected social movements that are capable of building agency for radical structural transformation, so we work with social movement organisations and groups to help them to build capacity to achieve this kind of deep structural transformation.

So we’re quite strategic about this and to help us to work strategically in that way we conduct things like, you know last year, we carried out a survey with over a hundred European social movement organisations to try to better understand the challenges that they face, we run research projects with university departments and large NGOs and organising networks, focus groups, communities of inquiry, this kind of thing and every year we conduct dozens of interviews with organisations who are trying to make a difference to achieve socio-political change in different ways and that helps us to identify the challenges and the opportunities for the kinds of interventions that we design and develop. With that we then choose key organisations that we want to work with and we provide training and what we call organisational accompaniment to help them to strengthen their efforts – that work in recent years has included things like from 2018 we’ve been working closely with civil society organisations opposing the far-right Fidesz government in Hungary running a two-year-long programme supporting LGBTQi+ networks in central and eastern Europe, we facilitate global strategic coordination within the climate justice movement.

We help to build capacity within racial justice networks and we’ve just finished a three year long project developing resources to provide psycho-social resilience skills to people doing migrant solidarity work in Greece and Italy and Spain. So these are all long-term projects that aim, we think of them as aiming to enrich the ecology of social movements in Europe

So we try to help organisations and activists to make deep shifts in their practice and their understanding, we provide training on themes such as regenerative activism, transformative collaboration, help them to embed anti-oppression practices within their organisations and their work, help them to think about and engage with the complexity of social change processes, and to increase their skills in movement building, amongst amongst other things.

The Dharmic aspect of that can be seen in the methodology that we use which is called integral activist training and we consider that the transformation of individuals, of their groups and organisations, and wider society are all interconnected, so we work with the interpersonal dimension, the relationships between people, the intra-personal or the kind of inner work that people need to do as well as social political engagement with wider societal change. At the intrapersonal level we emphasise the importance of practices of self-awareness, the cultivation of emotional literacy, the refinement of an ethical sensibility, the importance of recognising the constructed nature of identity including our political identities, and also the importance of recognising the partial and provisional nature of views, all pretty basic dharma. At the interpersonal level we emphasise the skills needed to create cultures of care of solidarity and of compassion, to learn to work well with power dynamics, to build empathetic relationships, we talk about the transformative power of collaborative relationships and again you know this is all stuff that’s you know pretty basic kind of Dharma practices and skills even though we don’t foreground Dharma as such

We see that the work done at the intra and interpersonal level as a crucial part of building capacity for deep structural transformation and we choose to work with activists as people already committed to working with others and so that they can build new cultures and forge the collective power needed for deeper societal change and we also choose to work with activists because we see them as people who are already stepping beyond self-interested motivation in their lives which lays a really important foundation for deep personal and interpersonal transformation.

So for us all of this is an expression of our Going For Refuge, creating enabling environments for the transformation of individuals, of their groups and, by doing that, having a wide impact on societal transformation. That’s 10 minutes, I wish there was more…

Hi there

it’s a weird thing talking to a phone but let’s see what happens

okay so i’m Maitrisiddhi and i live at Taraloka so that’s mostly what I do, I live and work in team-based right livelihood and I create the conditions for women to deepen their dharma practice, you know – that’s what i do with my life and sometimes I also engage in activism so I’ve organised and participated in a number of sort of meditative direct actions around the environmental situation. It’s often protests at banks with Buddhists or other meditators. Why banks? Because some banks choose to fund companies that do things like cut down the amazon rainforest and fracking and developing new sources of fossil fuel and mostly their customers do not realise that’s what they’re doing. They don’t know that’s where their money goes and you know that’s what they’re supporting. So i’ve also joined in with larger protests like the ones around COP 26 in Glasgow in November – a whole different kettle of fish – so my experience of engaging with meditative street protest around the environmental situation, like especially with sangha, is it’s a powerful form of practice, like i’m publicly bearing witness to my values but modeling a dharmic response, it’s like you’re sitting there you’re meditating you’re like the opposite of aggressive, you’re sitting there with openness without anger without blame and for me what’s really important is just sitting there as an act in its own right without having a fixed agenda without needing a particular outcome so for me they have felt like i’m just doing an act that is good in its own right like a puja or a meditation like you don’t need an outcome from a puja do you?

so that’s what i do enjoy and appreciate and I don’t enjoy or feel aligned with kind of mass protests with mob negative emotionality that’s really not my thing

so i have thought about this quite a lot strangely enough, so personally i can only engage with activism as a dynamic interplay between wisdom and compassion, so the compassion aspect is obvious – if there is an objective situation with living beings dying and suffering and if there’s a way that I can alleviate that well I want to do it, you know, why would I not want to do it?

for me it’s a matter of my personal integrity – if i don’t respond i ignore it like you know ignorance ignoring – doing nothing is an act of ignoring and it will have consequences and for me ignoring just doesn’t feel ethical. If I just carry on as usual with my comfortable lifestyle you know even my comfortable Buddhist lifestyle I’m complicit, you know, I’m consenting, I would also say it’s a matter of Triratna’s collective integrity. I often feel haunted by what happened with the catholic church during the nazi holocaust – they just went along with something that was seriously evil because that’s what their society was doing. It feels to me the same with the ecological crisis – there’s a choice between going along with it or not and generally our society doesn’t want to be aware of it and Triratna is part of this society. Ignoring it is normal and I just wonder like how will that feel looking back 100 years from now – I mean I just think of, like when I’m you know, when i’m at the end of my life is there anything that I will really regret actually I will really regret

I will really regret if I said nothing, if I did nothing

but this area of complicity I mean it’s you know in a way it’s unavoidable, I am complicit in the environmental situation – I can’t really protest about somebody else doing this, you know, corporations, banks, governments or whatever you know, who wants to fly to foreign countries? Me! Who wants to buy drinks in single-use plastic so they end up in the ocean? Me! Who wants cheap good quality clothes and technology? Me! so when I’m sitting in the street meditating it’s more that I’m bearing witness to, you know, a tragedy, actually a tragedy of collective delusion without blame that I am part of

but for me the wisdom aspect of activism is absolutely essential – a letting go, so it’s like I’m, you know, I’m sat there in the road in front of the bank or whatever and I’m letting go, I’m not trying to control or fix

it’s like just accepting, you know, that this is what is happening, you know, this heartbreaking dukkha in the world that these things are happening they will happen that conditionality will roll on whatever comes into being all these myriad forms of life will go out of being when the conditions cease and that is what is happening

and there’s a level of reality where that’s just okay because form is emptiness and emptiness is form and that’s not some kind of kind of weird stoicism but it’s something about knowing that the nature of reality is love and awareness and openness and that things really aren’t how we think they are with our deluded minds

and so this you know this sort of love awareness quality to the nature of consciousness nature of awareness it’s unloseable – no matter what happens to you know what we think of as life on this planet, that aspect of things as they actually are that is not going to be lost

so i feel that the wisdom aspect, the letting go, is missed by many buddhist activists or may be rejected as undermining compassionate action here and now. For me it seems essential – the wisdom perspective is the only thing that lets me engage without getting trapped in the near enemies of compassion, guilt, anxiety, overwhelm, whatever I mean often the burning house is cited by Buddhist activists in relation to the climate situation but of course the point of the parable of the burning house is to get out of samsara – isn’t to grab a fire extinguisher and start trying to put the flames out, you know that’s just not possible

yeah so ultimately spiritual realisation really is the only thing that will help and this is why i’m at Taraloka and i’ve been here for nearly 13 years and I just want to work for the movement, and yet how can i see this happening to the natural world and not want to respond – it’s like compassion says there must be a response you know I have to respond even though the only thing that will fix it is wisdom, is realisation

so my experience of doing meditation meditative direct action it feels like insight practice – you’ve got quite an intense situation, it’s very public and internally i have to hold together the apparent contradictions between wisdom and compassion and for me it makes internal fireworks happen and because when i’m doing this openness and metta have often been my mental states – it’s like you just end up having unexpected deep connections with total strangers, particularly strangers on the other side

There was one conversation I remember having with a Shell oil executive and he started out quite angry and you know accusing me of this and that and so what I was doing was standing outside a Shell investors meeting in London and i was handing out leaflets while other people were meditating on the pavement and I wasn’t defensive back and actually I think I just said to him oh so, you know, what would you do? and he just completely softened and he said oh actually I just really worry about my daughter and it was this moment of anti-polarisation – well you know his position just totally softened and you could just see like we were just two human beings stood in the street and to me that’s very, you know in a way, for me that’s the effect of doing those actions is those sorts of conversations that I have with people and I’ve had a lot like that you just you know just strangers in the street or the bank staff or the police actually probably fewer with actual protesters who do seem to have an agenda and be quite angry which is why I like doing meditative actions with the sangha

so what i feel Triratna could offer is how to engage with social activism with a wisdom perspective, with positive mental states, as spiritual practice with sangha – I mean I end up, you know, at the end of these things, I end up feeling like I’ve just been on a really strong meditation retreat or something but it feels like most people, most Order members people in Triratna, they don’t really want to go there because of associating activism with anger, blame, self-righteousness, burnout and that just feels such a devastating shame because people do want to do something and very often they don’t know what – so you know those mental states so you know those are dangers and there are dangers of wrong views about scientific materialism, misconstruing the bodhisattva ideal as fix the world yeah fix the burning house but just because there are near enemies to activism doesn’t mean that there aren’t skilful compassionate wise transformative ways of engaging with activism and you know we could model them – it could be really amazing