Suella Braverman is the UK’s Home Secretary—one of the four most senior members of Britain’s Conservative government and perhaps the most right-wing. She has made her name by demanding the hardest version of Brexit, speaking out against “political correctness” in the justice system, and projecting a tough anti-immigration stance—for example, making plans to fly asylum seekers to Rwanda in Africa to have their applications processed. She is ethnically Indian by birth, an outspoken member of the Conservative’s Brexiteer wing, and touted as a possible future party leader. She’s also a Buddhist by conviction—in fact, she’s a member of my own Buddhist sangha, the Triratna Buddhist Community.

Braverman’s politics could hardly be further from my own, which are the usual leftish-greenish mix that most people expect Buddhists to hold in Western countries. Her meteoric rise through British politics has made me question my assumptions about how Buddhists should regard politics—the need to tolerate others’ viewpoints and the importance of holding one’s own beliefs lightly. But her enthusiastic engagement in the culture wars has also helped me clarify the limits of that tolerance. 

I’ve met Braverman only once, in 2015, when she was a new MP, not long after she had become the first Member of Parliament to swear the traditional Oath of Allegiance on a copy of The Dhammapada. I didn’t know much about her politics, and we spoke mainly about the challenge of staying connected to her Buddhist aspirations amid the pressures of political life. I found her charming, intelligent, and evidently sincere in her Buddhist practice. Some years before, she had become a mitra (meaning “friend”) at Triratna’s London Buddhist Centre, and at one stage, she asked to join the Triratna Buddhist Order, of which I’m a member. Ordination is a much bigger commitment, and, though she later withdrew her request, doing so showed her seriousness. 

I was pleased to see a fellow Buddhist in a position of influence and with the potential to have much more. Politics is inherently tricky, and getting to the top of the political pile will never be ethically straightforward. It’s also a way to make a difference to the world. I wished Braverman well. I knew that she probably found herself out of step, politically, with many of her Buddhist peers in settings like Triratna study groups, and I admired her for sticking around. 

Braverman rose to prominence during the debates around Brexit—the UK’s decision to leave the European Union—as an ally of Boris Johnson. After the 2016 referendum came an acrimonious process of deciding how Brexit should be implemented, and she emerged as a leader of the no-compromise “hard Brexit” faction in the British Parliament. Her group eventually won, Johnson became Prime Minister, and in January 2020, he made her Attorney General. Her Triratna affiliation caused a PR problem at this point, as reporting of Triratna tends to focus on our founder’s sexual activity in the 1970s and ’80s, but Braverman’s connection with Buddhism never really landed. When Johnson resigned in a haze of scandals, she ran to succeed him, and the eventual winner, Liz Truss, made her Home Secretary, with responsibility for immigration and policing. Picking her way through the political chaos, Braverman survived Truss’s rapid downfall and remains a leading member of Rishi Sunak’s government.

Watching the rise of this “Buddhist Conservative” made me think more deeply about what tolerance means in a political context. I don’t buy the idea that Buddhists should necessarily skew left. The Buddha wasn’t a Democrat, and he may not even have been a democrat: his teachings just aren’t about that. And does it really matter? Anyone who follows the bodhisattva path, as I try to, undertakes to share Buddhist teachings with all beings, not just the left-wing ones; and if a Conservative like Braverman responds, do we really expect them to adopt liberalism along with the dharma? A liberal bias is common among Western convert Buddhists (though there are exceptions, including my own Buddhist teacher), but Buddhists from Asian immigrant communities are often at the conservative end of the political spectrum, and Buddhist countries divide politically just as Western countries do.

But being tolerant doesn’t mean you stop thinking critically, and Braverman’s politics is hard for someone like me to accommodate. She opposed compromise with the EU to reach a trade agreement after Brexit; she is seeking the toughest ways to deter the refugees who travel to the UK across the Channel in small boats, including the flights to Rwanda; she opposes the agreement that offers a solution to Northern Ireland’s problematic status post-Brexit; she wants the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights; and she demands that teachers don’t “pander” to trans pupils. 

If Buddhism means anything at all in a political arena, it should at least make a difference to how politics is conducted.

I don’t agree with any of these policies, but that political disagreement is, mainly, a political matter, not one that’s central to Buddhism and its teachings. I think she’s entitled to her views, that conservatives can be Buddhists, and that religious organizations shouldn’t police their members’ politics. But if Buddhism means anything at all in a political arena, it should at least make a difference to how politics is conducted. Here my problem with Braverman is more fundamental, and to explain what I mean I need to suggest the principles I think should guide Buddhists who want to engage politically.

***

The day I met Braverman I was in the UK Parliament for the launch of Mindful Nation UK, a parliamentary report I’d helped edit, which proposed that mindfulness practice should be supported by government, especially in the areas of Education, Health, Criminal Justice and the Workplace. If that sounds fanciful, the report was issued by a group of MPs, the Minister for Education spoke at the launch, and much progress has since been made. I’ve continued to advocate for mindfulness in this way, particularly in Wales, where I live. I don’t think mindfulness is a panacea for the world’s troubles, and I recognize the criticisms that some Buddhists make of the mindfulness movement. All the same, I think it can help, if we do it well and with integrity. For me, it’s an example of what Buddhists can contribute to society as Buddhists, drawing on our experience of Buddhist practice. 

Another influence has been the “Thought for the Day” talks I’ve done for seventeen years at prime time on the main BBC breakfast radio news program, commenting on current affairs from a Buddhist perspective (around ten talks a year). In this slot, I can’t take sides politically, and that has made me look for nonpartisan and clearly Buddhist responses to events. The most resonant starting points include compassion, nonviolence, and an understanding of the centrality of the mind. I also think the Buddhist teachings on conditionality imply a concern for the long-term implications of our actions and a rounded, holistic perspective to our challenges that chimes with environmental concerns. In areas like these, the connection to Buddhist principles seems clear, and I feel confident in advocating them, along with mindfulness, in public spaces.

This isn’t a Buddhist political platform. Even if Buddhists could agree that principles like these should underpin a Buddhist view of culture and politics, it doesn’t follow that we will arrive at the same political conclusions. Buddhist teachings are typically expressed in universal terms, and translating them into politics involves a long chain of reasoning, at every point of which we make interpretations. As Buddhist psychology tells us, these interpretations are influenced by our past, preferences, allegiances, and a host of other subjective, emotionally loaded factors. 

The Buddha taught that beliefs and opinions are important constituents of the fixed sense of self that both gives us a feeling of security but also causes us to suffer. He says in the Brahmajala Sutta, his magisterial analysis of ‘views,’ that even the most impressive-sounding beliefs at root are expressions of ‘the agitation and vacillation of those who are immersed in craving.’ Practicing Buddhism should therefore mean questioning our views about things like politics. I notice in myself an impulse to believe that what I think is correct, simply because it’s what I think, and I try to recognize how that feeling shuts down my curiosity and stops me listening.

There are degrees of rigidity in how we hold our beliefs, and some beliefs seem to have rigidity baked in—that would be my definition of an “ideology.” Rigid ideological beliefs grow from emotions like frustration and fear, and reinforce the same emotions by filtering our perceptions. Buddhist teachings tell us that the craving and aversion have always produced differing subjective realities, but the filter bubbles and echo chambers of our fragmented news and social media supercharge the process. The more insecure and defensive we feel, the more tightly we cling to our beliefs and the more estranged we feel from those who disagree with us. The result—in the words of the Buddha in the Madhupindika Sutta, is “taking up rods and bladed weapons, arguments, quarrels, disputes, accusations, divisive tale-bearing and false speech.”

Europeans look in horror at America’s cultural warfare and its fragmenting impact. The UK’s version is relatively mild by comparison, and we don’t have overtly racist political parties as some European countries do. But the Brexit process was deeply polarizing, and the wounds are still open. It’s obvious to liberals like me when these forces are at work on the conservative right, but escaping what the Buddha called the “morass,” or “thicket,” or “net” of views means something other than picking sides in the fight. We need to examine our own views (liberal in my case) for signs of our own ideological rigidity.

***

The Buddhist ethical guidelines I follow include four “speech precepts” (or “paths of action”) dating back to the Buddha, which tell me to avoid communicating in ways that are false, unkind, unhelpful, and foster disharmony; instead, our words should be true, kind, helpful, and harmonious. If we communicate in a skillful way, we will think accordingly and find a healthy relationship with the world.

The last of the speech precepts, addressing harmonious and disharmonious speech, is particularly relevant to politics. On the evidence of the Discourses (the ancient scriptures that are ascribed to the historical Buddha himself), this was important from the earliest phase of Buddhist history. The Brahmajala Sutta tells us that the Buddha was known to his contemporaries as “a reconciler of those who are divided and a promoter of friendships,” and spoke only in ways that were conducive to concord. According to the Madhupindika Sutta, when the Buddha was asked to describe his teaching, he simply said it was “the type of doctrine where one doesn’t quarrel with anyone else.” The Kosambiya Sutta tells us that when a conflict broke out between monastic factions, the Buddha advised the quarreling parties to treat each other with kindness and to examine their beliefs, asking whether they were conducive to calm or if they stoked the dispute. And in the Kalaha-vivada Sutta, he says that “Quarrels and disputes come from what we hold dear, as do lamentation and sorrow, stinginess, conceit and arrogance.” 

This didn’t mean that the Buddha believed all views had equal merit. He clearly thought his teaching was superior to others, and he says in the Maha-sihanada Sutta, that in declaring it he “claimed the bull’s place and roared his lion’s roar in the assemblies.” Before we take this as an invitation to act like a bull or a lion on our own assemblies, we should notice that all he claims for the content of his speech is that he “understands the possible as possible, and the impossible as impossible.” He was a pragmatist and wary of abstractions, let alone dogma and ideology.

Taken together, the four speech precepts challenge the assumption that our speech is justified if we think it’s true. It also needs to be kind, helpful, and conducive to harmony. That means considering whether what we say or write will bring people together or drive them apart. In politics, when we say that a message “fires up the base,” what we really mean is that it affirms certain emotions and encourages people to identify with a particular view of the world, regardless of whether it’s based in reality. That applies whether the base is on the left or the right, and it’s relevant to left-wing rhetoric that’s fueled by anger, if that overwhelms our capacity to listen to our opponents.

This brings us back to Suella Braverman, who takes strongly right-wing positions on every issue and speaks accordingly. She castigates her opponents for allowing fashionable beliefs to distort their understanding—in one memorable and much-derided outburst, this Buddhist vegetarian disparaged her Labour Party opponents as “the tofu-eating wokerati.” While some members of my Buddhist community are environmental activists, Braverman has led a government crackdown on disruptive protesters. She is happy to use emotive language about complex, racially charged subjects where strong feelings lie just below the surface—for example, describing the current wave of illegal immigration to the UK as “an invasion.” All this has made her a hate figure for many on the left, but she told the Times she doesn’t mind. “If I get trolled on Twitter I know I’m doing the right thing. Twitter is a sewer of left-wing bile.” Perhaps that’s understandable, but even some Conservatives are alarmed, and former Conservative cochair Sayeeda Warsi accuses Braverman of “racist rhetoric” and turning “almost every issue into a cultural race war.”

Personally, I don’t think Braverman is a racist. She sees herself as a clear-minded, outspoken straight-talker who tells hard truths that liberals can’t stomach and thinks that tough, decisive action on areas like immigration is the only way to cut through seemingly intractable problems. But none of this dampens my disappointment in Braverman as a Buddhist politician because, while I’m not questioning the sincerity of her Buddhism, it’s very hard to detect any Buddhist difference in the way she does politics. She is positioning herself as a conservative leader in the British culture wars —and what I see is someone throwing fuel on the fire when I think we should be dousing the flames.

No doubt, it’s unrealistic to ask a mainstream politician to live up to the high standards of the Buddhist scriptures—politicians have responsibilities to their party and voters and need to cut through the political clamor. In that sense, politics may be an impossible field for anyone who wants to live fully in accord with Buddhism. At the same time, for better or worse, it is also the realm in which a certain kind of highly consequential change is made. Can Buddhists afford not to engage? 

The question is how they do so. For all the pressures, politicians constantly make choices in how they speak and position themselves. If Buddhists do involve themselves in politics, or politicians become Buddhists, as Braverman has, they will make a Buddhist difference only by making those choices in the light of Buddhist values and ethical precepts. None are more important than the guidance on how to communicate.

The post Suella Braverman Is the UK’s Buddhist Home Secretary and a Right-Wing Culture Warrior appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Dharma Vote, a self-described “community of mindfulness practitioners dedicated to social political engagement,” is meeting every week until the US midterm elections on Tuesday, November 8. 

The Zoom sessions are held every Sunday from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern, during which time volunteers meditate and write letters together to encourage potential voters to engage in the democratic process. There will also be additional sessions throughout October with guest teachers and talks on social and political topics, including the environment.

“We care about a lot of things. We care about the environment, we care about reproductive rights, we care about economic justice, we care about so many different causes,” said Kristen Rae Stevens, a meditation and yoga teacher, Ayurvedic practitioner and consultant, and Dharma Vote’s lead organizer. “Come and bring your letter- and postcard-writing, tell us what you’re working on. Tell us about your local elections and local concerns.”

Dharma Vote was started in March 2020, prompted by Buddhist teacher Ethan Nichtern, asking a group of students what they might do ahead of the November 2020 presidential election. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns, Zoom became the only way for volunteers to meet, and letter-writing became the focus because it was one thing everyone could do together while online, Stevens said. After the 2020 election, Dharma Vote continued to write letters for the 2021 Senate runoff elections in Georgia that saw Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff elected, the Virginia gubernatorial elections in the fall of 2021, and community-oriented work with organizations including Black Lives Matter. 

Dharma Vote’s newsletter has more than 1,600 subscribers, and the Slack channel has more than 250 users from across the US. Stevens said that more than two years into the pandemic, inviting people to join in another virtual meeting can be a tough sell, but that the group is committed to creating an “open and heart-forward space” where the participants can talk about challenges, lift one other up, and find solidarity and support. 

Guest teachers have included Buddhist teachers Ethan Nichtern and Sharon Salzberg, and Reggie Hubbard, a yoga teacher, activist, and founder of Active Peace Yoga. Stevens said that the group hosts guest speakers involved in government and policy as well as dharma teachers. 

“A lot of what our community asks for is being held in the space by someone who is in deep practice, but also for information,” Stevens said. “We have a lot of people who are steeped in dharma practice but have very little political organization or political knowledge. And so they’re kind of like: How does this work?”

The group initially began with a nonpartisan focus, Stevens said, but has since slowly become more partisan, leaning left, and supporting Democratic candidates. 

“At this point, I don’t think if someone were to have differing ideas or thoughts that they would come to the meetings,” Stevens said. “I would hope that we would be able to hold a wider space for discussion, if it was a respectable discussion. But we haven’t had that opportunity,” Stevens added. “We’re also not a monolith—there’s a lot of representation in how people are seeing or experiencing what’s going on, even within more Democratic party lines.”

More information about Dharma Vote, including the newsletter sign-up and events schedule, is available on their website. 

The post ‘Dharma Vote’ Organization Meeting Weekly Until the Midterm Elections appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Traditional Buddhist literature says little about abortion. Scholars parse the few words offered carefully. How, when, and what makes a human being? Is an embryo a human or an “intermediate being?” Is it between a human and an animal? Is a human determined by the development of limbs, the emergence of sexual organs, or the ability to breathe? Giulio Agostini, a scholar of the Vinaya, or Buddhist code of ethics, notes in the Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies that various Buddhist sources say a human is formed at conception, in the fifth week, during the second month, the seventh week, eleventh week, third month, fifth month, and nineteenth week of pregnancy. Nevertheless, the conclusion of orthodox Buddhist scholars has long been that a human being appears at the moment of conception. Because human birth is a rare and precious gift, to deprive a being of the opportunity is a grave mistake. Therefore, a one-day-old embryo must be accorded the same protection as living human beings.

I confess to a degree of impatience with such a conclusion. The arguments are sometimes circular and often dogmatic. Traditional Buddhism is anti-birth, based in a celibate and solitary life outside the family. Sexual desire is said to turn the wheel of samsara, and procreative sex is a greater transgression for a monastic than nonprocreative sex. The uterus is a disgusting place and babies begin to decay at birth, yet women are told to sacrifice themselves for the sake of the embryo. Above all, this fundamentalist view is bloodless, aloof, far from the complications and dilemmas of daily life. A human body is so rare and precious that we must protect it from the day of conception? So why aren’t these scholars making babies? Wouldn’t the highest form of practice be to create more opportunities for human birth? 

Modern Western and Mahayana Buddhist views of abortion are somewhat more flexible. They tend to combine utilitarianism—creating the greatest good for the greatest number—and virtue ethics—basing action on a set of moral virtues. I can find myself in the utilitarian camp sometimes. From any relative view, keeping abortion safe and legal reduces harm and allows for the most good. (I try not to forget that doing good is one of the slipperiest of slopes.) I want to make choices from a morally defensible position, one based in justice, autonomy, kindness toward others. Again, keeping abortion safe and legal seems to support these values.

But there is dogmatism here, too. In common Mahayana arguments, abortion may be the lesser of evils, but it is still an evil. All involved must accept long-standing negative karmic consequences. The person choosing an abortion can be viewed with compassion, but it is compassion tinged with judgment. 

In the introduction to the often-cited 1999 volume, Buddhism and Abortion, the editor, Daniel Keown, notes that “the views of women are quite well represented” in the book. Eight out of ten chapters were written by men. Even today, much of what is written about abortion and Buddhism is by men, reflecting a widespread imbalance in scholarship and cultural power, and in Buddhist scholarship and authority in particular. The irony, of course, is all this effort by men is on a topic directly affecting the ability of women to engage equally in scholarship, culture, and authority. The Dalai Lama once said, “I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance.” But he didn’t say who should do the approving. Amy Paris Langenberg, a Southeast Asian Buddhist scholar, writes on the Institute of Buddhist Studies’s blog, Ten Thousand Things, “To neglect the issue of gender is to assume that all stakeholders approach the issue of abortion with the same vital concerns and existential pressures.” They do not. The Buddha said that we need to rely on our own experience to know what is true, that it is proper to doubt what we are told. “Do not go upon what has been acquired by repeated hearing,” he says in the Kalama Sutta (AN 3.65) . “Nor upon tradition; nor upon rumor; nor upon what is in a scripture; nor upon surmise; nor upon an axiom; nor upon specious reasoning.” We must investigate the words of dharma, and test them against our lives. Here are some of the tests I’ve taken: I have been pregnant twice, given birth once and had a miscarriage, adopted two children, and worked in an abortion clinic. 

I liked working at the clinic. It was intellectually challenging and emotionally satisfying. Every day I was able to help people through a difficult time. No one danced in. No one danced out. But every day I was able to relieve suffering. I saw women struggling with addiction, carrying fetuses with profound defects, living in poverty. I saw women in menopause and girls pregnant before they had regular periods. We cared for people whose health was at risk from a pregnancy, who had been abandoned or raped. I met people who were ignorant of their own biology, in denial about a pregnancy and in denial about terminating a pregnancy. But mostly I met people who were sad—a little sad or a lot—and clear-eyed about the rightness of their choice. 

Killing is an act that is always wrong, according to the precepts. But the precept is not merely about physical killing. It is a precept of ahimsa, non-harming. At the clinic, I was reminded on a daily basis that people don’t “get pregnant.” People are impregnated, by accident, by intent, and sometimes through violence. Forced pregnancy kills spirit, joy, freedom, opportunity, and hope. Abortion can be a rescue. 

I believe that reproductive choice for all people is fundamental to the Buddhist view, that supporting safe, legal abortion is a dharmic stand. Equality must be among the highest of our values—not only the equality of all to realize enlightenment, but to have equal chances to enter the practice. Human birth is precious because it allows us to meet the dharma consciously and engage in the discipline freely. A human life is the opportunity to confront suffering and karma, and change the course of both. If we condemn slavery because it denies the equal personhood of a being, we have to condemn forcing people to give birth. 

Senate Bill 8, recently passed in Texas, indulges in the delusion that pregnancy and pregnant people exist in a vacuum. Buddhism teaches interrelationship, the conditioned and dependent nature of all things. Nothing exists in a vacuum. We can’t talk about abortion without talking about racism, poverty, addiction, misogyny, climate change, and overpopulation. I am not saying that abortion has no moral or karmic consequences because every act has consequences. So does choosing not to act. Systemic failures abound in our society. If you are uncomfortable with abortion, what are you doing to alleviate the burdens that lead people to make that choice? What are you actually doing to reduce this suffering? 

Michael Barnhart, a scholar of Buddhist philosophy, examined the traditional arguments about when a human being comes into existence, and concluded that “rebirth is only the rebirth of elements, not of individuals.” This assertion (which appears in The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics) neatly encapsulates my experience. Pregnancy is the fluid process of becoming. A pregnancy is not separate; it is part of the body. What is developing is as incapable of survival away from that body as a severed ear or foot would be. The embryo may contain all the parts of a sentient being, as an ear and foot contains all the DNA of the larger body. But neither is a whole being. 

We must always rely on our own investigation to know what is true. Every human life will require difficult, ambiguous choices. Abortion is not a special case. I know that abortion can be undertaken with all the compassion, love, and generosity with which we welcome a wanted baby. It is an act that can increase happiness even as it decreases future suffering, and allow a person to be healthier, stronger, more whole. Abortion is health care, and people’s suffering will only be compounded as long as it is anything short of safe and legal.

The post Is There a Buddhist View on Abortion?   appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

How should people living in relative freedom and safety respond to terrible events happening in far-off lands? Admittedly, this is a #FirstWorldProblem, but for many well-intentioned people, there seems little more to do than to click the Facebook “share” button, mumble about how horrific it is, and perhaps give a small financial donation.

Further, how is the Buddhist practitioner to respond to a tragedy across the world? Or more specifically, the current crisis in Myanmar, the birthplace of the modern mindfulness and vipassana movement, following the February 1 military coup? Since many meditators have some connection to this land of dharma, be it direct or indirect, how at this moment can a debt of gratitude toward this spiritual home be repaid? 

Since the coup, I have seen three general types of spiritual bypass surrounding the crisis in Myanmar.

The first kind uses ostensible Buddhist wisdom as a cover. As author Clyde Ford describes it in an episode of the Insight Myanmar Podcast, it’s the attitude that: “All we really need is to have more metta and everything will be right in the world, so let me just do my metta practice and I’m not going to worry about anything else.”

The problem is not the words themselves, but the intention behind them. Inaction or disengagement are very different from compassionate detachment. A mature practitioner is able to be very engaged while remaining detached from the outcome. 

We have two wonderful examples in my post-coup interviews with Daw Viranani and Sayalay Chandadhka. Both Buddhist nuns stress the value of metta, to oneself and to all others, above all else. Both reference the role of karma and encourage the practitioner to seek a balanced mind. However, neither gives any indication that it is a simple matter of checking a box on our meditation checklist, while remaining disengaged. On the contrary, both engage deeply with the very messy and uncomfortable issues of the current reality in Myanmar, and both acknowledge that one’s personality and circumstances will dictate the degree and form of engagement. Their message is to generate metta and be empathetically engaged in whatever way feels right to the individual, while trying to stay detached from the outcome.

This first type of spiritual bypass rests on maintaining apparent equanimity in the face of challenges. However, equanimity is not apathy. Many teachers try to clarify this distinction because it is so easy to mistake apathy, a sign of spiritual bypass, for equanimity, a sign of spiritual growth. (See this video by Bhante Suddhaso at Empty Cloud Monastery.) Disengagement shows apathy; detachment shows equanimity. 

The tendency to sidestep worldly challenges is even apparent in some Western monastics living in Myanmar today. Several days after the coup, one monk wrote on social media, “No need to worry about us. We are fine in our far away mountain monastery bubble. Monks should not get involved in politics and should have more important things to do.” Here, this monk creates a false binary choice: Either a monk marches in the street or lives a contemplative life. It is a trap to use one’s privileged status to avoid compassionately interacting with the plight of those without that privilege. Thankfully, other Western monks connected to Myanmar have not fallen into this trap, which is evident from my recent interview with Bhikkhu Mokkhita, who revealed his own personal sacrifice and risk-taking to do all he could for the Burmese people at this time.

The second kind of spiritual bypass I’ve seen recently is based on the assertion that Buddhist practice will survive in a Buddhist country, regardless of the government or what happens there. 

This was best expressed by one Burmese meditator on social media: “Buddhism was founded, grew and thrived under the governments of emperors and kings who were much more autocratic than the current military rulers of Myanmar. Therefore, as far as Buddhism is concerned, I do not see any problem whether Myanmar is governed by the Tatmadaw [military] or the NLD [National League for Democracy]. Members of the Myanmar military are themselves Buddhists. The coup has nothing to do with suppressing Buddhism. Buddhism is not in any way threatened in Myanmar. There is no suppression of Buddhism or any religious freedom there.”

Buddhism may have survived, but did not always “thrive” under autocratic rulers in Myanmar. Many Burmese kings were guided by Hindu and animist advisors, or driven by superstition. There are stories of mad Buddhist kings who actually tried to murder monks; some kings who used the sangha and a host of associated Buddhist doctrines to advance their own petty missions and egoism; or those who interfered with the monkhood to fit their own personal and political agendas. 

In more contemporary times, we’ve seen the military regime promote the causes of nationalist monks, arrest more progressive monks, or make it harder for more progressive teachers to teach. In an interview I did with monk Thabarwa Sayadaw in February last year, he noted how the stability and growth of his center in Myanmar was made possible only by the societal freedoms that came after the 2012 reforms that permitted journalists to publish their work without first submitting it to state censors. When I spoke with frontline protester Chit Tun this March, he spoke about the many monasteries that had long languished in poverty, unable to get donations or serve their communities, because the military would not allow their actual condition to be reported. All of this only covers recent history, since the 1990s. Go back a little further, and you have a country whose Buddhist masters are totally cut off from the outside world, with foreign monastics and yogis unable to enter, and the great teachers, such as Sayagyi U Ba Khin, unable to venture outside the country’s borders. The ability of traditions to grow and spread was stunted, and access to them cut off.

In this present crisis, there have been videos on social media claiming that the military dressed up lay people as monks to provoke the population—a position repeated by former monk and activist Inda Aung Soe on an episode of my podcast in February this year.

No, it has clearly not all been sunshine and roses for the sasana (teachings of the Buddha) in Myanmar, neither over the long arc of history, nor in more recent times. The reality is that the sasana is not secure just because it exists in Myanmar. This sentiment was perhaps put best during my interview with Ashin Sarana, who responded to this claim by remarking, “The idea that the military poses no threat to Buddhism, or that it is basically the same for the Buddhists whether there’s military or whether there’s democracy, is a very clear display of lack of knowledge about history, in Myanmar, and in other Buddhist countries as well.”

The third type of spiritual bypass I’ve encountered hides behind devotion to seeing the path maintained in the world above all else, whether or not that be in Myanmar. To paraphrase it: “Access to Buddhist practice and qualified teachers can now be found the world over. So while the current situation in Myanmar is sad, we have no real fear about the survival of dharma teachings, however bad it is there.”

A bypassing statement like this completely misperceives the richness, breadth and complexity of dharma practice in the Golden Land, instead privileging one’s own, perhaps Western, and perhaps even watered-down version of Buddhist community and practice. It seems to conclude—shockingly, and without any basis in fact—that by now, all the important elements of dharma practice have emigrated out of the Golden Land.

All of these forms of spiritual bypass serve only to make inaction and disengagement palatable, leading one away from acting positively in the world for the direct benefit of other beings. To me, this perspective is not what the Buddha taught at all, especially for lay followers, who, by definition, are choosing not to leave the worldly life.

The Burmese people and the health of the sasana in the Golden Land need more from us than concern, and if we are truly grateful for the treasures we have received from the Golden Land—in whatever form—we will transform that concern into some kind of action, whether great or small.

So, what to do?

Here are some suggestions for how a practitioner can get involved. I don’t intend for this list to seem like a prescriptive series of instructions, nor do I want these options to limit the creativity of what others may think of in addition to what’s here. These are merely some of the ways I’ve found to be of service:

• Offer moral support. It’s free, easy, and can only take a minute. When I ask Burmese friends how we can be of most assistance to them, this is consistently the first thing mentioned: just to be a friend. 
• Stay informed. Bear witness to the horrors now taking place by reading news, listening to podcasts, subscribing to newsletters, etc. The step before one can truly help is to first understand the issue. 
• Volunteer. A variety of organizations have either become formed, or were already existing and transformed their mission in order to respond to this crisis, and many are seriously understaffed and overwhelmed by the workload. Write some of these and ask how you can help.
• Contribute in kind. If you’re an artist, use your talents to support the democracy movement. If you’re a lawyer or accountant, see if any nonprofits can use free advising. If you’re in tech, check out how your knowledge of anything from building websites to cyber security can be of use now. If you’re a meditation teacher, yoga instructor, or therapist, see how you can help people suffering with trauma. Any of your skills can find a proper use at this moment.
• Take action. Sign or create a petition, talk to your local representatives, join or organize a protest, or reach out to local media.  
• Contribute financially. This doesn’t only mean giving yourself, but also supporting the overall fundraising effort by eliciting your local community and online networks. To see where our own donation funds have been used through our nonprofit Better Burma, please read here.
• Send metta, thoughts, prayers, and good wishes. Direct your spiritual energy toward the pain and suffering that people in the Golden Land are now experiencing as often as possible. 

While I am not suggesting that any one of these will tip the balance toward the cause of freedom, it is also very true that every little action counts, now more than ever. This is becoming a war of attrition, with each side trying to starve the other out of resources, funds, medicine and food, morale, communication, and access. Any small contribution that continues to feed the side of the people is a valuable support that helps to maintain their momentum. 

The post Spiritually Bypassing the Coup appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

I am writing this in May 2021, as large numbers of people are killed and injured and made homeless in Gaza, and Hamas rockets are raining down on Israel. But the tragedy is that most of the text was actually written before, in August 2006 during the war between Israel and the Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the same text was relevant in July 2014 and now today. And the tragedy is that the text of the article is the same because nothing has changed. War follows war, with temporary respite in between. Each frenzy of violence prepares the way for the next.

During the Lebanon War, I was in the line of fire in the ecological village of Clil in the North of Israel. The days were punctuated by loud blasts of Katyusha rockets, which had been landing intermittently, randomly, suddenly, anywhere—and I had given up seeking cover. At the same time, Israeli artillery was thudding continuously, day and night. Then as now, I feel the blasts in my being, feeling the violence and terrible tragedy and suffering that they bring. I feel a huge sadness and compassion for suffering that knows no boundaries and does not take sides.

Then as now, participants draw motivation from a consensus that “we are right,” “we have no choice” and “we must defend ourselves.” This view stands behind most wars and conflicts, and the encouragement of this view by groups or leaders prepares the ground for war by providing the necessary justification. The defense of “freedom” provided justification for the Vietnam war, and “Weapons of Mass Destruction” for the Iraq war. “We have to get them before they get us” is a common refrain that initiates slaughter, such as that of the First World War. And it always leads to this conviction that “we have no choice.”  This consensus somehow makes it possible to inflict so much harm and suffering on so many men, women and children. So it is crucial to ask if it makes any sense.

One ethical view would hold that genuine self-defense is possible, but only as a last resort and with the minimum force necessary to disable or restrain the attacker. The Buddhist tradition, for example, does not forbid self-defense, and has developed alongside techniques of martial arts  such as kung-fu and aikido that protect the attacked without hurting the attacker. Clearly this is not the case in the huge death and destruction in the wars being fought, as you read this, in Yemen, Syria, etc.

Related: War or Peace? Thinking Outside the Box

In fact, cases of genuine self-defense are actually extremely rare, and in virtually all cases of conflict there are wise and heartfelt solutions that are not seen and not taken. We have no choice generally means We don’t have the wisdom to act differently. Most wars, including this one, depend on fear, insecurity, anger, or revenge. These are individual and national emotions, often stoked up by media and political leaders. The emotions create a national blindness in which neighbors become demonized and labeled as “the enemy.” Then it becomes impossible to really communicate with the “other” and sort out any problems together. Fear and insecurity are dangerous: it is human nature to want to destroy the object or source of anxiety and fear, which are uncomfortable emotions. Most wars are fought in the name of peace, but in reality, they are actually fought in the pursuit of comfort. Instead of dealing with the fears or their root causes, they attempt to destroy their external source.

If we clearly see these emotions that sweep through the social atmosphere, then we can take responsibility for them, take care of them, and not allow them to lead to needless death. Without identifying with these emotions and without believing in the views that arise from them, everything looks different. All of a sudden, the so-called terrorist becomes a Palestinian boy who has suffered dearly and needs to be heard. The so-called Zionist aggressor becomes an Israeli family man whose parents were murdered in the Holocaust. The Israeli soldier and the Hamas militant can both be seen as young, patriotic men, resentful and suffering while giving and receiving violence. If we are unable to do this, we have severely limited our vision and our freedom to act sanely. If we will not put ourselves in the others’ shoes, listen to them, understand their fear, anger, and pain that drives them to fight, and know what we ourselves can do to help each other resolve conflict, how can we say there is no other choice?

There is a choice to see things entirely differently.

To see “us” and “them” as a habit of mind and not a reality; to see how much we are connected, not separate. Pain and joy, love of life, and fear of death know no boundaries of us and them. We can all wake up to realize that our happiness depends on the happiness of our neighbors and vice versa, and our real safety is in togetherness, not intractable conflict.

In the case of the current Gaza war, many assume it started when Hamas fired rockets into Israel. Clearly this was not the beginning. Hamas fired rockets after violence in Jerusalem and the eviction of Palestinians. It also may be connected to years of siege by Israel on Gaza, which happened after the previous Gaza wars. The chain goes back and back for generations. 

Violence comes in chains. Each act of violence breeds another act of violence, creating the conditions, especially the emotional climate, for the next one. Each act of violence makes it harder to initiate acts of peace. And each act of violence conditions the collective consciousness to feel that peace is impossible and that violence is the only option left. But it doesn’t take much wisdom to see this process happening and unroll it in another direction.

It is possible to create chains of peacemaking, to turn acts of aggression into acts of healing, to look for windows of opportunity for communication, dialogue and understanding of “the other.” Where this is not done, it can hardly be said that “there is no choice.” There is. To stop the chain. To take another road. You might be surprised to see “the other” relieved and ready to sit down with you over a cup of coffee. 

Nonviolence does not mean doing nothing. It means an energetic attempt to create another climate. This requires strength and steadiness, qualities that are shown by genuine peacemakers. Mahatma Gandhi said, “Nonviolence is the weapon of the strong.” We can always make this choice.

Related: Meet a Sangha: Israeli Engaged Dharma

This raises some questions: What are the real intentions? What is the real vision for the future? The habitual reactions and the basic assumptions: Are they about peacefulness or about conflict?  Do we really and deeply yearn for peace or do we just say so? Each side must ask: Are we really trying to make peace? 

If we longed for peace, our speech, our motivations and our actions would be peaceful, and war would not arise. We all would begin a process of dialogue, healing and support with the same resources and determination with which we wage war. An Israel intent on peace might not  take land and water from West Bank Palestinians, settle all over their territory or lay siege to the whole population of Gaza. Palestinians with a willingness to let go of past hurts might utterly discourage the madness of rockets, and might spread friendliness and appreciation for Israelis in the media and schools. In such a climate, neither side would have any incentive to bomb anyone. If we yearn for peace, we would have it, and the region would be a light to the world. 

One time, on a peace walk with Jews and Arabs in the city of Acre, organized by a peacemaking organization I founded called Middleway, the rabbi of Acre asked a Bedouin mukhtar (leader) who was walking with us: “Tell me, grandfather, how do you intend to make peace?” The old man said, “You see, Rabbi, when we walk together in the street and someone shouts at me, “Go away, Arab!” and I don’t respond, I absorb their violence and let it go, and in this way I have contributed a little bit to peace.”  

This article was updated May 18, 2021.

The post Do We Really ‘Have No Choice?’ appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Aung San Suu Kyi once again under house arrest. Tanks in the streets. Protesters massing, chanting slogans in defiance of a military coup. In just days, the generals who seized control of Myanmar’s government on February 1 have tried to turn back the clock on a decade of democratic gains. 

But it’s not quite that simple. From the remote hills of Chin state—which only recently got an airport—to the 20-lane highways of Naypyitaw—ironically built by generals to better isolate themselves from threats—to meme-fluent centennials in Yangon: almost all of Myanmar is resisting.

“We need to show our students what is right and wrong,” a teacher said in a video shot by a journalist at a protest on Friday in Yangon, Myanmar’s biggest city. Does she worry about being fired? “If it happens I will accept it.” Another was more blunt: “We want to be role models. I want them not to accept this situation.” With the pandemic still a threat, both wore masks and face shields. But they also had red ribbons pinned to their uniforms. The color of the resistance.

Red is also and aptly the color of Aung San Suu Kyi’s political party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). But democracy has been the exception to long periods of violence and military rule in Myanmar. Suu Kyi’s father was assassinated by rival factions in 1947. The country gained its independence in 1948, but quickly descended into instability as disenfranchised ethnic rebels challenged the new post-colonial government. Periods of turbulence were the norm until General Ne Win seized power in 1962. Aside from what may be generously called quirks—he was rumored to bathe in dolphin’s blood to stay youthful—Ne Win embodied the xenophobic, Burmese Buddhist nationalist strongman, a role played today by current commander-in-chief Min Aung Hlaing.

The 64-year-old senior general was appointed to lead the armed forces, called the Tatmadaw, in 2011, just as Myanmar’s reformist generals were ending decades of successive military dictatorships and opening the country up to the world. They abolished censorship laws, paved the way for a boom in smartphone use, and invited American multinational businesses like Coca-Cola, Ford, and the much-anticipated Kentucky Fried Chicken to open in the country. In 2010, Suu Kyi was released from her Yangon villa, where she had lived under long stretches of house arrest since 1989. 

Suu Kyi has been the face of opposition to military rule since the 1988 student uprising, after which she rose to prominence as a human rights icon, winning the Nobel prize in 1991. During a total of 15 years under house arrest, Suu Kyi continued to lead the movement as her allies and supporters languished in prison, were tortured, or fled into exile. When she finally emerged she went on a whistlestop global tour, came home, and quickly won a seat in 2012 by-elections, bringing her previously banned National League for Democracy (NLD) to parliament. Three years later the NLD triumphed with an electoral landslide in the first free and fair general election since the end of direct military rule.

But there was always an underbelly to the story, and that began to show. Press freedoms dwindled, a fraught peace process with ethnic armed insurgents stalled, and Myanmar’s armed forces appeared uncomfortable with the messy freedoms of democracy. They stubbornly clung to the 25-percent share of parliamentary seats gifted to unelected military MPs in a 2008 constitution drafted by the military. It was approved in a sham referendum held just days after a cyclone devastated Myanmar, killing hundreds of thousands. The military’s fierce attachment to power resulted in the only outcome possible: more violence. 

On January 29, 2017, U Ko Ni, a prominent lawyer and Suu Kyi ally whose grand mission was to get rid of the tainted constitutional charter, was shot and killed outside the Yangon airport in a plot that included former military officers. The murder shocked the country with a clear message: Change is okay, but too much of it will get you killed. At the time, I was living in Yangon in a small apartment right across the street from Ko Ni. Something in the air changed after the killing. Little errands cast sinister shadows. A paranoia took hold.

What happened later that year was one of the most appalling developments in the predominantly Buddhist country’s long history of persecuting ethnic and religious minorities. In August, the military launched a series of “clearance operations” against Rohingya Muslims in what was billed as a crackdown on militants who had carried out deadly attacks on police posts. But it soon turned into what the UN has called a “textbook” case of ethnic cleansing, as more than 740,000 Rohingya Muslims were driven into Bangladesh by a campaign of murder, rape, and the wholesale destruction of villages. 

The man in charge of the military and overseeing those operations? Min Aung Hlaing, who is now overseeing the destruction of democracy as head of the State Administrative Council, the official name of the new junta-led government, which has already appointed new ministers to fill posts vacated by force. As of February 8, 170 people, mostly officials and lawmakers but also activists, have been arrested or detained since the coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners. 

The first week of the coup brought a torrent of “I told you so” analysis from the upper echelons of the Myanmar expert cohort, with many arguing that the Tatmadaw’s actions added up. But none of it really made sense. Why seize power when they already had significant political influence, a mountain of wealth through military-owned businesses, and guarantees of immunity? Why remind a population that you never had to answer for your crimes under the previous junta by starting a new one? Why oust Aung San Suu Kyi when she defended the military’s actions, even asking the UN International Court of Justice in 2019 to drop charges of genocide? The answers came in droves. It was Min Aung Hlaing’s ruthless ambition. Or maybe the military saw a chance to use Trump-like charges of voter fraud to hop back into the driver’s seat. Or Myanmar never had a democracy in the first place, and this lifted the mask on who was really in charge. 

But the truth is no one knows, at least not yet. Trying to understand events in Myanmar can sometimes be like looking back over the course of your own life, piecing together narratives and stories to give meaning to something that is mainly a chaotic series of unpredictable events. Of course, you have to try.

One certainty is the growing revolt in the country, which is not ready to give up the freedoms it earned the hard way. The freedom to write what you want, say what you want, communicate with the outside world, travel, gather, assemble, debate, argue, disagree, tweet, retweet, comment, post, email, chat. Celebrities, students, doctors, teachers, monks, aviation industry employees, state media workers, food delivery drivers, even—reportedly—soldiers and police have expressed opposition to the military. Parliamentarians blocked from taking their seats swore in a virtual session over Zoom and established a shadow government, which has to be a first in the pandemic era. The military’s attempts to ban Facebook led to more Myanmar Twitter users. Then the military went after Twitter and eventually the entire internet on Saturday, ordering a temporary nationwide shutdown in order to curb what it called fake news and instability. Services were restored on Sunday, however, as the largest demonstrations since the 2007 monk-led Saffron Revolution took place near Sule Pagoda in downtown Yangon. Even more marched on Monday, while the reported shooting of protesters in the capital Naypyitaw on Tuesday is guaranteed to fuel resistance. There are now daily protests where thousands of ordinary people bang pots, honk horns, and hit whatever object is at hand to “drive the devils out” in a cacophonous rebellion.

The coup is destined to fail because it has the potential to unite people in a way that Suu Kyi’s administration failed to do. That is already happening. As protesters adopted the three-fingered salute from the Hunger Games movies in a nod to pro-democracy forces over the border in Thailand, photos emerged of Rohingya refugees making the same gestures in camps in Bangladesh. They were signalling support for protesters in Myanmar even though many of those same protestors had not spoken up when the Rohingya needed it most. “Thank you,” one woman wrote on social media. “We were not with Rohingya when they need [sic] us. But they are with us. . . After this revolution, we must stand for them.” Tun Khin, a Rohingya activist based in London, told me that since the coup he has received “many messages” from people in Myanmar apologizing for their lack of support during the 2017 operations and admitting they were lied to about what had happened. “I hope that when people see Rohingya in the refugee camps and around the world showing solidarity with them, they will see we should be working together against a common enemy, the military.” 

The post Opinion: Why the Myanmar Coup Will Fail appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

As I write this at least one looming civilizational disaster has been averted: a second term as US president will not happen for Donald Trump, the man whom biographer David Cay Johnston called “the greatest con artist in the history of the world.” Buddhists, or at least this Buddhist, can greet this news with joy. The election results have concrete benefits for those who have been hurt by the policies of the Trump administration or are vulnerable to such harm—which actually includes every living being because Trump’s ecological policies have contributed to hastening the destruction of the environment and causing the deaths of billions of wild animals every year. Whatever one thinks of President-elect Joe Biden, his victory seems to have moved us away from the dark timeline and toward the possibility of positive change for the world. 

Some will object to a Buddhist weighing in on politics. They may not believe that Buddhism has a political heart or that its tenets can guide our political aspirations and commitments, or they may hold that the separation of church and state should be upheld in all situations. But Buddhism has never been entirely separate from the political world, and pretending otherwise makes us likely to repeat the mistakes of the past.

History shows—abundantly—that there is no magic shield to protect Buddhism from exploitation by ill-intentioned politicians and intellectuals. The 20th Century furnishes us with many examples. In the 1930s, Julius Evola, an Italian fascist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, wrote a glowing appreciation of the teachings of the historical Buddha called The Doctrine of Awakening. In the Pali canon, he found a heroic “Aryan” morality; the fact that Buddhists were using the term to subvert the then-popular notion that nobility comes from an ethnic heritage was apparently lost on Evola. Meanwhile, in Japan, some Zen Buddhist teachers used teachings on emptiness and not-self to justify “selfless killing” in the service of the country’s imperialist war. 

More recently, Buddhists in Sri Lanka and Myanmar have declared war against ethnic minorities in order to defend their Buddhist homeland against perceived ideological threats. In Myanmar, the military atrocities have risen to the level of outright genocide. 

All of this might lead us to believe that Buddhism is itself politically pernicious or, at best, neutral and capable of being bent to suit whatever worldview may be surging with power. Yet that would be a mistake. 

The examples above run counter to Buddhism’s central principles and teachings, which occur repeatedly in the most authoritative texts and voices of the tradition—and they obscure a radical political heart that beats at the center of the dharma.

Some of the oldest discourses present the Buddha as against discrimination based on the color of one’s skin (Vasettha Sutta; SN 3.9, Assalayana Sutta; MN 93), as anti-war, committed to absolute nonviolence towards humans and animals (Kakacupama Sutta; MN 21, Yodhajiva Sutta; SN 42.3), and opposed to the destruction of trees and plants (Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta, MN 38). The Buddha also proposed what we would today call a universal basic income. Mahayana expansions of these teachings, in the form of the bodhisattva ideal, valorize extreme generosity and care for others, and question religious and social hierarchies (Vimalakirti Nirdesa Sutra). 

As a tradition overwhelmingly shaped and recorded by men, the record on sexism is more inconsistent. The Buddha affirmed the full potential of women and crafted a monastic order to allow them to leave their usual social roles, one with inbuilt protections against male violence and domination, such as giving women control over ordination, requiring them to travel in groups when in the wilderness, and allowing them to keep simple weapons for self-defense. Yet at other times the tradition sought to undo these gains, limiting the scope of attainment possible in a female body, subjugating nuns to monks and presenting the Buddha as a reluctant liberator.  Occasionally, luminaries such as Zen master Dogen critiqued such sexism. But generations of women have needed to hack their own paths to freedom in the patriarchal jungle. 

We should not fear asking what political trends resonate with the dharma, but we can be cautious in answering the question.

In the last century, teachings of holistic liberation that resonate with the radical heart of the dharma have become the centerpiece of many traditions, which serve as counterexamples to the sometimes horrific ways the dharma has been used. Chittadhar Hrdaya’s classic 20th century Nepalese telling of the Buddha’s life, which he wrote from prison, imagines a  picturesque Buddhist utopia where government programs protect the ecology, eradicate poverty, provide free healthcare, and foster culture and the arts. Thai Buddhist monk Ajahn Buddhadasa (1906-1993), who has been called the most important Buddhist thinker in contemporary Thailand, argued for “Dhammic Socialism,” a term he coined in the late 1960s. His work inspired Thai activist and writer Sulak Sivaraksa, who has spent the last few decades advocating for a Buddhism that fosters peace and positive social change. Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master Thich Nhat Hanh is famous throughout the world for his anti-war efforts and advocacy on behalf of global ecology, refugees, and inter-cultural unity and understanding. Modern Taiwan has seen an incredible proliferation of socially engaged Buddhism groups like Tzu Chi, headed by the Chan master Cheng Yen, a Buddhist nun for whom “compassionate service to others is the principal way to cultivate the self.” Tzu Chi runs everything from kindergartens to schools to medical clinics. In the West, organizations like the Zen Peacemakers, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, Buddhist Global Relief, and many others pursue anti-militarist, anti-racist, and egalitarian agendas.  

Whether or not we want to use these loaded terms, the dharma teaches nonviolence, universal compassion, goodwill, non-possession, and advocates for the alleviation of poverty. It also deconstructs identifications with the body, which include race, birth, and gender. (Thus should we be surprised that His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama has said on several occasions that he is a “socialist” and “a Marxist monk”?) The dharma teaches interdependence and the clear-eyed understanding of causality: what actually leads to what. 

Surely we should ask ourselves what political platforms and principles most accurately reflect these teachings. We should not fear asking what political trends resonate with the dharma, but we can be cautious in answering the question.

Political candidates who reject racism and nationalism, who advocate for the noninjury of the Earth and all beings, who view our resources not as individual possessions but as goods to share, and who are in favor of the guarantee of basic resources to all—money, food, medicine, shelter, education—are surely advocating action in harmony with the traditional, nonsectarian essence of the dharma. With the hope held out to the world by seeing Trump defeated, the time is ripe for us to rededicate ourselves to expressing the values of the dharma in our politics. Buddhists will always live in the world, and Buddhism will always have a political voice. Let’s make sure that voice is calling for compassion and not hate.

The post Opinion: Buddhists Can Be Happy Trump Lost appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Holy Buddha. . .it’s almost the election. There’s no doubt that there is a lot going on, so it’s natural to feel paralyzed or despondent. But we invite you to consider what you can do in this moment and the moments to come: vote, volunteer, and take care of yourself and others. At the very least, we encourage you to pause before refreshing the homepage of your most frequented newsite as the results roll in. 

To help you out, we’ve put together the following guide to keeping your head in the days before, during, and after the 2020 election. 

Preparing for Election Day:

You might be feeling powerless lately. But one thing that is within our control is the ability to vote. “True acceptance is not inertness,” writes meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg. “In my mind, voting is a direct reflection of the Buddha saying everyone has innate dignity, or innate worth.” In fact, voting may serve as an antidote to despair.

But first, make a plan to vote. Whether you decide to do early voting, complete a mail-in ballot, or vote in person, make a concrete plan and stick to it. To find out more about voting in your state, check out vote.org for more information.

Maybe you’ve already cast your ballot—you can volunteer your time to help get more people to the polls. For one vipassana practitioner, the desire to encourage people to vote (and understand people across political lines) led her to “deep canvassing”—a practice with many similarities to meditation, she found. 

If you’re feeling anxious the night before Election Day, join Tricycle for Stability in the Storm, a pre-election day sit with Sharon Salzberg at 7:00pm EST. Sharon will lead two short meditations, helping us to ground ourselves in the breath and send lovingkindness to ourselves and others. (If you can’t make it, check out other online resources in our online meditation calendar.)

The Day:

If you do decide to vote in-person on Election Day, you may encounter unusually long lines. You can treat the lines and other setbacks as a chance to practice. Here are some good practice guides for treating liminal space like the cushion: 

1. “Any time we want life to be different than it is, we are caught in impatience,” vipassana teacher Michele McDonald writes. Here are her tips for tapping into the power of patience. 
2. Or maybe you’d rather treat this time standing more like walking. If so, try moving through the voting queue as if you’re practicing walking meditation. In this article, Thich Nhat Hanh offers his tips for “walking like a buddha.” (For more guidance, we recommend these audio instructions by Claire Villarreal.) 
3. Waiting in line to cast your ballot in a significantly anxiety-inducing election may not initially seem like the most opportune time to reflect on joy. However, as meditation teacher Scott Tusa recommends, meditating on joy is, actually, quite radical. 
4. And if all the masks, social distancing guidelines, and other safety protocols activate fear or even claustrophobia, pop in your headphones and listen to this guided meditation on creating spaciousness. 

After Polls Close:

You voted. For the most part, there’s nothing more you can do right now. Of course, with so much at stake, it’s hard to do nothing. Instead of constantly checking the news to ease your anxiety (while it probably does more to feed it), use that time to check in with yourself. 

You don’t have to tune out entirely, but it might be better to limit your news consumption. Make sure you don’t get stuck in a scrolling spiral by setting a timer. After 10 minutes, stop refreshing your feed—things aren’t going to change for a while—and tune back in at a designated time. 

There are many things you can do in the time between these news checks. Below is a sample itinerary with ideas for practicing on Election Night; we encourage you to customize it to your needs (and time zone).

6:00–7:00 p.m. (EST) –  At 6:00 p.m., Indiana and Kentucky will be the first states to close their polls. As the tallying starts, pundits on TV will be trying to predict the winner, even though it will be hours—or possibly days—before we know the final outcome. Rather than trying to predict the future, practice maintaining a don’t-know mind. Or, if you’re feeling burnt out after a long and stressful election season, engage in a restorative meditation practice or mindful activity. Metta practice—sending oneself and others lovingkindness—might offer some relief as you shift your focus from political divisions to interconnectedness. 

7:00–8:30 – It will still be a while before the media have much to report. After 7:00, exit polls and early tallies will start coming in from Florida, Georgia, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Virginia, but there’s no need to check them yet. Instead of doom-scrolling, go eat something. Mindfully prepare a nourishing dinner, appreciate each bite, and then wash your bowl, so to speak. (For more on mindful cooking, download the Tricycle Teachings: Food e-book.)

8:30–8:40 – News check #1: With North Carolina and Ohio closing their polls at 7:30 and Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, and Pennsylvania at 8:00, tallies from most central and eastern states, including many significant swing states, will start coming in now. The final results will be far from certain, but at this point a picture will start to take shape. Go ahead and check the forecast, but don’t get too caught up in the speculation. 

8:40–9:00 – There’s a good chance that you’re more anxious than you were ten minutes ago. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, take a moment to listen to “Working with Strong Emotions” from our For the Moment podcast. Or use this time to check in with friends and family. Talking to people in your community—whether online or in person—may be more helpful than trying to practice alone. 

9:00–9:25 – If the weather allows, go for a walk—or do some mindful movement indoors. 

9:25–9:30 – Optional news check. If you enjoy the horse race, you might want to check in at around now to see the early results from states that close their polls at 9:00. This is not really necessary, so set your timer to just 5 minutes. Or feel free to skip it.

9:30–10:30 – Ready to wind down for the night but can’t shake the election jitters? Here’s a practice for working with anxious thoughts. And if you need more community support, join the Upaya Zen Center’s election night live stream, “Bearing Witness Together on Election Night,” with Roshi Joan Halifax.

10:30–10:40 – News check #3: At around 10:30 p.m. polls will remain open in only five states (California, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska). It’s possible that a winner may be confidently predicted at this point, but nothing is certain. 

10:40–11:30 – It’s getting late, and it might be hard to stay awake during a seated meditation practice. Check out this month’s Film Club feature, listen to a podcast or music you enjoy, or do something that you find relaxing and restorative.

11:30–11:45 – News check #4. People will still be voting until 1:00 a.m. in Alaska, but the polls will be closed everywhere else. Do a final check-in at around 11:30. If the outcome is a landslide, that will start to become clear around this time. If it’s a close race, you might stay up all night and still not know who the winner is. The results will be the same in the morning. 

11:45–12:00 – Engage in a brief gratitude practice for everyone who participated in the election process, and then go to sleep. If you are having trouble, try a relaxation or sleep practice. 

After Election Day: 

Your candidate won or lost. Either way, your job isn’t done. For inspiration on how you can combine your Buddhist practice with community engagement, check out our Real Change podcast series, featuring five practitioners and activists who are creating change in their communities. And while Buddhists aren’t big on “hope,” we still think it’s a fruitful endeavor to contemplate what democracy means to a Buddhist—and how we can continue to take the values we treasure in our tradition and help bring them to manifestation in the world. 

***

As a final offering in this toolkit, we present a Buddhist prayer penned by Tricycle’s former editor, Helen Tworkov. 

Prayers for October 2020

I take refuge in the Buddha

(therefore I vote)

I take refuge in the dharma

(therefore I vote)

I take refuge in the sangha

(therefore I vote).

I pray that all beings have happiness and the causes of happiness 

(therefore I vote)

I pray that all beings be relieved of suffering and the causes of suffering 

(therefore I vote)

I pray that all beings rest in evenness, free from attachment and aversion 

(therefore I vote)

I pray to accept the impermanence of all phenomena

(therefore I vote).

I pray to recognize that all things are empty in essence

(therefore I vote)

I pray to recognize the inseparable union of emptiness and clarity 

(therefore I vote)

I pray to recognize the inseparable union of samsara and nirvana

(therefore I vote)

I pray to recognize the innate ground of compassion

(therefore I vote). 

And so this voter, a hopeless vehicle for the Buddha’s teachings, alive in this chaotic world of confusion, implores everyone, in the full display of emptiness and clarity, to awaken to the dance between this and that, and vote as if this dream is all that matters. 

The post How to Survive Election Night and Beyond appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

On a scorching day in July 2019, sweating and shaking with nerves, I knocked on the door of an immaculate house in Staten Island, New York. A sweet-faced young woman opened it, eyeing me curiously. I took a deep breath and launched into my script.

“If you had two minutes to tell President Trump about the job he’s doing, what would you say?” I asked. She had voted for Trump, she told me, but didn’t like the callous way he treated people. On a scale from zero to ten—where zero meant she would definitely vote Republican and ten meant definitely Democrat—she put herself at a three.

“When I vote,” I said, “it’s a political act, but it’s also personal, a gift to someone I love.” I told a story about a teenager I had mentored in a writing program. I loved her for her brilliance and talent, and also for her willingness to resolve the initial conflicts between us. “I’m curious,” I went on. “Does this make you think of someone you love?” She wouldn’t discuss a particular person but said she wanted her gay friends to be free to live as they chose. When I pointed out that she and I shared a value of caring about others—a value that the president’s behavior rarely displays—she moved from a 3 to a 5.

This exchange was my first experience of “deep canvassing,” a method of voter outreach that aims to bypass political speech by connecting with people emotionally and engaging with their sense of ethics. It’s based on the principle that facts and opinions don’t change people’s minds, values do.

I’d finally found a form of political action that matched my own convictions. For the past twenty years, I’ve practiced vipassana, or Insight Meditation. Since the 1960s, I have also participated in political action—marches against the Vietnam War, demonstrations toward a more sustainable climate future, and protests against the war in Iraq. But by the time of the Iraq War, I’d become uncomfortable with angry chanting and strident rhetoric demonizing political enemies, which felt at odds with the shift in thinking about dealing with conflict brought about by my Buddhist practice. I’m absolutely anti-Trump, but I don’t want to hate Trump voters. I want to understand them. And it was now clear to me that not only did anger feel wrong, it was also an ineffective strategy in a country so divided.

While texting for Democratic candidates before the 2018 midterms, I had an exchange with a woman in Michigan that made me wish I could dialogue with Trump supporters and learn how they thought. So when I heard about deep canvassing in spring 2019, I jumped at it. Once I began knocking on doors and talking to voters, I began to realize how similar it was to some of the mental training I was doing in meditation. 

Developed in 2008 by Dave Fleischer, director of the Leadership Lab of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, to advocate for marriage equality, the technique has since been used to address prejudice toward immigrants and transgender people. A 2020 study of three canvassing operations targeting this issue concluded that the “nonjudgmental exchange of narratives durably reduced exclusionary attitudes for at least four months.” In other words, approaching people in an open, nonjudgmental way and telling a story can shift their attitudes more effectively than arguing a particular position.

“Everyone likes to think of himself or herself as a good person,” cognitive linguist George Lakoff wrote after the 2016 election. “Your moral system is a major part of your identity—who you most deeply are. Voting against your moral identity would be a rejection of self.”  

Deep canvassing requires that the canvasser show up at someone’s door with empathy and real curiosity. I learned how to tell the voter a story about someone I love that reveals my own vulnerability, and ask the voter if this makes them think about someone in their life. My expression of vulnerability usually helps the voter feel safe sharing a personal story. Some refuse, but others describe a loving parent, an autistic child, or a devoted friend. I then compare the compassion or kindness that their stories always express to the president’s track record of divisive, selfish behavior. My hope as a deep canvasser is for them to begin to see that voting for Trump means voting against their own values. As Jordyn Sun, a field organizer and canvasser for the Leadership Lab, put it, “The person’s mind is changed not by the canvasser’s story but by their own, which makes them reconsider the implications of the values they say they believe in.”

In many ways, deep canvassing resembles Insight Dialogue, a form of interpersonal meditation that emphasizes deep listening “to open ourselves up as fully as we can to the worldview of someone else,” Gary Singer, who teaches this practice, explained in an interview with Tricycle. “When we meet each other on common ground, we can begin to thaw and listen more deeply.”

Oren Jay Sofer, an Insight Meditation teacher who explored meditation’s relationship with communication in his book Say What You Mean (and in a Tricycle Dharma Talk), agrees. Deep canvassers’ ability “to connect at the level of feelings, needs, or values, not getting into an argument about ideas or views,” is “a skill of shifting your attention from the content of what someone says to the deeper meaning in their heart,” he told Tricycle.  

It’s also significant, Sofer said, that “the connection [in deep canvassing] is happening across stories. We’re polarized by our fixation on ideologies and views. Talking about people we love, why something matters to us, circumvents some of that fixation in the heart, leaving space to develop a connection based on what we have in common.”

In 2017 community organizer Adam Barbanel-Fried created Changing the Conversation Together (CTC), the Brooklyn-based organization I work with, to apply deep canvassing to the 2018 congressional race in conservative Staten Island. Over 300 canvassers had 1,900 conversations with voters there, helping flip the district to a Democrat. CTC’s post-election survey showed that canvassed voters “were 14 percent more likely to vote and 20 percent more likely to vote Democratic than their non-canvassed neighbors.” Since last November, I’ve been deep canvassing with CTC in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, targeting swing and infrequent voters. (During the initial coronavirus lockdown we switched to the phone; now some have returned to door-knocking, with strict safety precautions.)

It’s no exaggeration to say that approaching Trump supporters as I approach the thoughts and feelings that arise in my practice—with empathy and curiosity—completely changed my mindstate. Listening intently to how people think and what motivates them opened my heart to their points of view. It was like working with a difficult person in metta practice (in which you direct lovingkindness toward a series of people, including someone you find hard to deal with)—only instead of doing it as a visualization, I did it live.

Throughout my time as a deep canvasser, I’ve found myself calling on skills I had begun to develop in meditation: non-judgment, compassion, empathy, and especially deep listening—since making the case to vote Democratic depends on reflecting back the values that voters themselves express. When a welder with custody of his small daughter described how he worked constantly, but could barely pay rent and child care, I listened quietly and attentively, sympathizing with his resentment.

Whatever the outcome of November’s election, our country will remain dangerously polarized. But deep canvassing makes it possible to see someone you disagree with as not the enemy. My fellow canvasser Ellen Chapnick, retired Dean for Social Justice Initiatives at Columbia Law School, spoke to a Doylestown, Pennsylvania, man who intended to vote for Trump because he believed the Democrats would take his guns away. Nothing she said moved him. But as she turned to leave, the man asked Ellen if she would take a moment to speak to his seven-year-old-daughter. “We don’t have women like you in our lives, who are informed, have opinions, and stand up for what they believe in,” he explained. “I don’t agree with you on most of it, but I want my daughter to know she can grow up to be like that.” Chapnick had a “lovely conversation” with the girl, she told me. “I was incredibly moved.”

Deep canvassing should continue past the election, Chapnick believes, since it enables “people who wouldn’t ordinarily talk to each other to reach across unbridgeable chasms.” I agree: talking to those we disagree with may not be easy, but we’d do well to pay attention to what we have in common.

The post Canvassing Like a Buddha appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.

Noam Chomsky recently warned that we are now living through the most dangerous moment in human history. He cited the climate crisis, threat of nuclear war, and rising authoritarianism, but a long list of other issues can be added, among them the COVID-19 pandemic, economic breakdown, increasing social polarization… and the November election, in which many of those problems are at stake, perhaps including the very future of our democracy. No wonder so many of us are feeling anxious these days.

The post <i>Don’t-Know Mind</i> and the Election of Our Lives appeared first on Tricycle: The Buddhist Review.