John A Martson's Articles on Lions Roar

Five Buddhist teachers who’ve made helping others through social and political action a keystone of their practice. Introduction by Hozan Alan Senauke. Engaged Buddhism recognizes that suffering—dukkha in Buddhism—isn’t just an individual matter. Suffering is caused both by our personal actions, our karma, and by the social systems we live in and create. The individual and society are inseparable, so Buddhists who have vowed to relieve suffering must address both. In 1964, Thich Nhat Hanh published a collection of essays entitled Engaged Buddhism. In coining this term, he was advocating that Buddhists step out from the meditation hall into the streets and fields to serve people. The essence of his Engaged Buddhism was political and social action, and such action was already evident in the visionary work of Dr. B. R. Ambedkar, who led a Buddhist conversion movement of India’s Dalits; in Sri Lanka’s Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement of uplift and self-governance founded by A. T. Ariyaratne; and in the radical Buddhist critique of Sulak Sivaraksa in Thailand; and the work of others across Asia. Unique to these movements was the integration of Buddhist teachings with Western principles of social justice. American poet Gary Snyder wrote of this integration in a 1961 essay, “Buddhist Anarchism”: “The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both.” With this view in mind, I came to Buddhist Peace Fellowship in 1991, having absorbed the seminal teachings of the elders profiled here—Thich Nhat Hanh, Robert Aitken, Joanna Macy, and Maha Ghosananda—while the excellent writings of Rev. angel Kyodo williams came a few years later. A vision of Engaged Buddhism was clear to me and my friends, but we got the message that many practitioners in the West saw Engaged Buddhism as merely leftism in Buddhist clothing. I’ve never accepted that, nor did our elders. We just bowed our heads, strengthened our backs, and pushed on. From the beginning, the Buddha was responsive to the society of his time. Seeing how people’s lives were defined by conditions of birth, which included gender, caste, color, and occupation, he created an alternative culture, a sangha, in which a person’s worth was based on his or her actions. Such Buddhist values and culture pervaded India and surrounding countries for more than a thousand years. In a society where life was so socially determined, the Buddha offered the remedy of a radical individualism embraced and embracing community. Today, with Western values of self-centered individualism poisoning our lives and spreading like a virus across the world, it may be that the deep social vision of Engaged Buddhism provides the remedy we search for. —Hozan Alan Senauke Rev. angel Kyodo williams. Williams was the first to give voice to the lived experiences of Black Buddhists, says Pamela Ayo Yetunde. Like many other African Americans back then, I was introduced to Buddhism in 2001 through a book written by someone who was not Black. Since then, a sea change in American Buddhism and Black religion has occurred in just one generation, and I attribute much of that change to Soto Zen priest Rev. angel Kyodo williams, a living guardian angel. There must be something in a name. Nearly two decades after rev. angel’s 2000 book Being Black: Zen and the Art of Living with Fearlessness and Grace was published, I attended one of her BIPOC retreats. There she recounted how she, and her book, were harshly criticized for not being Zen enough, because she wrote about being Black. As I listened to her I understood that she gave all later Black Buddhist writers a special kind of black Zen cushion that protected us. She took the hit of the initial white supremacist rage that would have landed hard on the rest of us if we’d been the first to write about our lived experiences as Black Buddhists. Rev. angel said that she then co-authored her 2016 book, Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love, and Liberation, because while Being Black was an open invitation to Black people, it was insufficient for white sangha transformation. Radical Dharma was needed to teach white Buddhists how to be hospitable across our racialized differences. How many of us are willing, as Rev. angel has been, to spend two or more decades of our lives working for the liberation of Black people from racist oppression and the liberation of white sanghas from racialized ignorance? Not many. Rev. angel is a living guardian angel, a Harriet Tubman–like bodhisattva in the spirit of Samantabhadra—engaging in liberative and loving activity throughout the world, skillfully using the media as a means to get her messages and practices across the globe. Supporting Rev. angel’s work, and receiving her blessings, has been an honor, and I’ve repeatedly incorporated her work into my scholarship. Her invitations to attend The Gathering I and II of Black dharma teachers were precious gifts. I feel that angel is on my shoulder, and I know many others also feel the sense of guardianship that can only come from someone who laid the path decades before we even knew there was a path. Thank you, angel. Teaching: Prophetic Wisdom. Rev. angel Kyodo williams on the unconventional prophets called for in these times. With the exception of Malcolm X, the Black prophetic voice has been erringly associated with Christianity. The prophets called for in these times necessarily arise from, to paraphrase Dr. Ibrahim Farajajé, organic (post-, trans-, and) multi-religiosity. Prophetic wisdom, while likely drawing on the particular religious and spiritual inspiration of its conveyor, transcends dualism or any frames that would limit the creative emergence of truth. Rather than adherence to our containment by particular ideology, its starting point is that fundamental wisdom and basic goodness are inherent. As a result, it pivots away from salvation toward liberation. Not “liberation from,” which mirrors salvation, but rather “liberation for the sake of it,” which presupposes that it is always there. Collectively, its practitioners are bound by an allegiance to what I refer to as a new dharma. It is an approach rather than a method. Dynamic, rather than static. Emergent, rather than preconceived. A how, rather than a what. It is the way in which dharma—universal truth—embedded within and across wisdom traditions, whether East, West, Indigenous, ancient, tribal, or revealed, expresses itself in this culture in this moment of time. Dharma is a Sanskrit word meaning universal truth, teachings, that which is firm, living in accordance with natural order, among other things. The religions that have historically been associated with it date back over five thousand years. Though it should be noted that while they are often referred to as the oldest, they are practically new compared with the collective religions of ethnic indigenous peoples. New dharma embraces the mash-up of those ancient teachings coming into contact with traditional Western religions, and earth-based spiritualties…. New dharma also integrates emerging fields of study that draw heavily across traditions, theories, methodologies, pedagogies, and practices. It is willing to embrace the revelations of new sciences while recognizing they are only revealing what has always been known by peoples and wisdoms since lost or never validated within the narrow scope of Western ontology. Joanna Macy. For David Loy, Macy is a the ultimate ecosattva, a bodhisattva dedicated to saving the earth. If the ecological crisis is the greatest challenge that humanity faces today, then Joanna Macy is unquestionably one the most important teachers of our time. Whenever I reflect on the path of the ecosattva—the bodhisattva dedicated to saving the earth—Joanna is the model that comes to mind. Joanna (everyone calls her Joanna) first encountered Buddhism while working with Tibetan refugees in northern India, and later practiced in the Theravada tradition. It is no exaggeration to say that she is the founder of the ecological movement within contemporary socially engaged Buddhism. Her work relates Buddhist principles to systems theory and to the deep ecology movement founded by Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess. She is the creator of a training now known as The Work that Reconnects to transform what she calls the “great unraveling” of our modern industrial growth society into a more sustainable and just civilization. Her most important books include World as Lover, World as Self; Coming Back to Life and her 2007 memoir Widening Circles. Grief is a central theme in her work. Her books offer exercises that can help us deal with our despair about what is happening today, grounded in the insight that grief is an appropriate response to what we are doing to the planet and ourselves. The Work that Reconnects offers a transformative spiral that starts with coming from gratitude, which enables us to honor our pain for the world. This is followed by seeing with new eyes, and only then by going forth to participate in what she calls The Great Turning. Beginning with gratitude—remembering to appreciate the beautiful web of life that creates and sustains us—provides the foundation for the whole process. Instead of begrudging our fate, we can learn to cherish it. “I feel so fortunate to be alive now,” she says. “People might think I’m crazy, but just speaking personally, it’s an incredible thing to be alive with my fellow humans at a time when the future looks so bleak…. Since the outcome is uncertain, we have to enjoy doing something exhilarating and useful without knowing for sure if it’s going to work out.” Those of us engaged in the work of ecodharma have been inspired not only by her writings but by her personal example. An early and important activist in the anti-nuclear movement, Joanna is someone who definitely “walks the talk.” Recognizing her importance, Naropa University has established...

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