Monday, February 1, 2010

defeat?

So I guess I can stop hiding now. I am in New York and feeling a bit down about it. I still had 2 more months of travel planned. I had even made it to Sri Lanka, the place I was most excited to visit. But I was really too sick to go on. I'm still feeling ill, resting a lot, finally eating again. But overall feeling bummed that I could not continue. Slightly ashamed in fact.

But maybe it wasn't meant to be right now. I am back in New York, spending quality time with family. I have been resting, a lot. My stomach seems to be doing pretty well, but my energy is still low.

Rest in Peace, Howard Zinn.

And by the way, he was not a lefty. He was lefter than the left.

Since most mainstream/Left/liberal accounts of Howard Zinn’s legacy are likely to gloss over the man’s actual politics, here’s a 2008 interview by AK author, Ziga Vodovnik.

——-

An Interview with Howard Zinn on Anarchism
Rebels Against Tyranny

By Ziga Vodovnik

Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor immigrant family. He realized early in his youth that the promise of the “American Dream“, that will come true to all hard-working and diligent people, is just that—a promise and a dream. During World War II he joined US Air Force and served as a bombardier in the “European Theatre“. This proved to be a formative experience that only strengthened his convictions that there is no such thing as a just war. It also revealed, once again, the real face of the socio-economic order, where the suffering and sacrifice of the ordinary people is always used only to higher the profits of the privileged few.

Although Zinn spent his youthful years helping his parents support the family by working in the shipyards, he started with studies at Columbia University after WWII, where he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in 1958. Later he was appointed as a chairman of the department of history and social sciences at Spelman College, an all-black women’s college in Atlanta, GA, where he actively participated in the Civil Rights Movement.

From the onset of the Vietnam War he was active within the emerging anti-war movement, and in the following years only stepped up his involvement in movements aspiring towards another, better world. Zinn is the author of more than 20 books, including A People’s History of the United States that is “a brilliant and moving history of the American people from the point of view of those who have been exploited politically and economically and whose plight has been largely omitted from most histories…” (Library Journal)

Zinn’s most recent book is entitled A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, and is a fascinating collection of essays that Zinn wrote in the last couple of years. Beloved radical historian is still lecturing across the US and around the world, and is, with active participation and support of various progressive social movements continuing his struggle for free and just society.

Ziga Vodovnik: From the 1980s onwards we are witnessing the process of economic globalization getting stronger day after day. Many on the Left are now caught between a “dilemma”—either to work to reinforce the sovereignty of nation-states as a defensive barrier against the control of foreign and global capital; or to strive towards a non-national alternative to the present form of globalization and that is equally global. What’s your opinion about this?

Howard Zinn: I am an anarchist, and according to anarchist principles nation states become obstacles to a true humanistic globalization. In a certain sense, the movement towards globalization where capitalists are trying to leap over nation state barriers, creates a kind of opportunity for movement to ignore national barriers, and to bring people together globally, across national lines in opposition to globalization of capital, to create globalization of people, opposed to traditional notion of globalization. In other words to use globalization—there is nothing wrong with idea of globalization—in a way that bypasses national boundaries and of course that there is not involved corporate control of the economic decisions that are made about people all over the world.

ZV: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon once wrote that: “Freedom is the mother, not the daughter of order.” Where do you see life after or beyond (nation) states?

HZ: Beyond the nation states? (laughter) I think what lies beyond the nation states is a world without national boundaries, but also with people organized. But not organized as nations, but people organized as groups, as collectives, without national and any kind of boundaries. Without any kind of borders, passports, visas. None of that! Of collectives of different sizes, depending on the function of the collective, having contacts with one another. You cannot have self-sufficient little collectives, because these collectives have different resources available to them. This is something anarchist theory has not worked out and maybe cannot possibly work out in advance, because it would have to work itself out in practice.

ZV: Do you think that a change can be achieved through institutionalized party politics, or only through alternative meanswith disobedience, building parallel frameworks, establishing alternative media, etc.

HZ: If you work through the existing structures you are going to be corrupted. By working through political system that poisons the atmosphere, even the progressive organizations, you can see it even now in the US, where people on the “Left” are all caught in the electoral campaign and get into fierce arguments about should we support this third party candidate or that third party candidate. This is a sort of little piece of evidence that suggests that when you get into working through electoral politics you begin to corrupt your ideals. So I think a way to behave is to think not in terms of representative government, not in terms of voting, not in terms of electoral politics, but thinking in terms of organizing social movements, organizing in the work place, organizing in the neighborhood, organizing collectives that can become strong enough to eventually take over —first to become strong enough to resist what has been done to them by authority, and second, later, to become strong enough to actually take over the institutions.

ZV: One personal question. Do you go to the polls? Do you vote?

HZ: I do. Sometimes, not always. It depends. But I believe that it is preferable sometimes to have one candidate rather another candidate, while you understand that that is not the solution. Sometimes the lesser evil is not so lesser, so you want to ignore that, and you either do not vote or vote for third party as a protest against the party system. Sometimes the difference between two candidates is an important one in the immediate sense, and then I believe trying to get somebody into office, who is a little better, who is less dangerous, is understandable. But never forgetting that no matter who gets into office, the crucial question is not who is in office, but what kind of social movement do you have. Because we have seen historically that if you have a powerful social movement, it doesn’t matter who is in office. Whoever is in office, they could be Republican or Democrat, if you have a powerful social movement, the person in office will have to yield, will have to in some ways respect the power of social movements.

We saw this in the 1960s. Richard Nixon was not the lesser evil, he was the greater evil, but in his administration the war was finally brought to an end, because he had to deal with the power of the anti-war movement as well as the power of the Vietnamese movement. I will vote, but always with a caution that voting is not crucial, and organizing is the important thing.

When some people ask me about voting, they would say will you support this candidate or that candidate? I say: “I will support this candidate for one minute that I am in the voting booth. At that moment I will support A versus B, but before I am going to the voting booth, and after I leave the voting booth, I am going to concentrate on organizing people and not organizing electoral campaign.”

ZV: Anarchism is in this respect rightly opposing representative democracy since it is still form of tyranny tyranny of majority. They object to the notion of majority vote, noting that the views of the majority do not always coincide with the morally right one. Thoreau once wrote that we have an obligation to act according to the dictates of our conscience, even if the latter goes against the majority opinion or the laws of the society. Do you agree with this?

HZ: Absolutely. Rousseau once said, if I am part of a group of 100 people, do 99 people have the right to sentence me to death, just because they are majority? No, majorities can be wrong, majorities can overrule rights of minorities. If majorities ruled, we could still have slavery. 80% of the population once enslaved 20% of the population. While run by majority rule that is ok. That is very flawed notion of what democracy is. Democracy has to take into account several things—proportionate requirements of people, not just needs of the majority, but also needs of the minority. And also has to take into account that majority, especially in societies where the media manipulates public opinion, can be totally wrong and evil. So yes, people have to act according to conscience and not by majority vote.

ZV: Where do you see the historical origins of anarchism in the United States?

HZ: One of the problems with dealing with anarchism is that there are many people whose ideas are anarchist, but who do not necessarily call themselves anarchists. The word was first used by Proudhon in the middle of the 19th century, but actually there were anarchist ideas that proceeded Proudhon, those in Europe and also in the United States. For instance, there are some ideas of Thomas Paine, who was not an anarchist, who would not call himself an anarchist, but he was suspicious of government. Also Henry David Thoreau. He does not know the word anarchism, and does not use the word anarchism, but Thoreau’s ideas are very close to anarchism. He is very hostile to all forms of government. If we trace origins of anarchism in the United States, then probably Thoreau is the closest you can come to an early American anarchist. You do not really encounter anarchism until after the Civil War, when you have European anarchists, especially German anarchists, coming to the United States. They actually begin to organize. The first time that anarchism has an organized force and becomes publicly known in the United States is in Chicago at the time of Haymarket Affair.

ZV: Where do you see the main inspiration of contemporary anarchism in the United States? What is your opinion about the Transcendentalism i.e., Henry D. Thoreau, Ralph W. Emerson, Walt Whitman, Margaret Fuller, et al.as an inspiration in this perspective?

HZ: Well, the Transcendentalism is, we might say, an early form of anarchism. The Transcendentalists also did not call themselves anarchists, but there are anarchist ideas in their thinking and in their literature. In many ways Herman Melville shows some of those anarchist ideas. They were all suspicious of authority. We might say that the Transcendentalism played a role in creating an atmosphere of skepticism towards authority, towards government.

Unfortunately, today there is no real organized anarchist movement in the United States. There are many important groups or collectives that call themselves anarchist, but they are small. I remember that in 1960s there was an anarchist collective here in Boston that consisted of fifteen (sic!) people, but then they split. But in 1960s the idea of anarchism became more important in connection with the movements of 1960s.

ZV: Most of the creative energy for radical politics is nowadays coming from anarchism, but only few of the people involved in the movement actually call themselves “anarchists”. Where do you see the main reason for this? Are activists ashamed to identify themselves with this intellectual tradition, or rather they are true to the commitment that real emancipation needs emancipation from any label?

HZ: The term anarchism has become associated with two phenomena with which real anarchist don’t want to associate themselves with. One is violence, and the other is disorder or chaos. The popular conception of anarchism is on the one hand bomb-throwing and terrorism, and on the other hand no rules, no regulations, no discipline, everybody does what they want, confusion, etc. That is why there is a reluctance to use the term anarchism. But actually the ideas of anarchism are incorporated in the way the movements of the 1960s began to think.

I think that probably the best manifestation of that was in the civil rights movement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—SNCC. SNCC without knowing about anarchism as philosophy embodied the characteristics of anarchism. They were decentralized. Other civil rights organizations, for example Southern Christian Leadership Conference, were centralized organizations with a leader—Martin Luther King. National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) were based in New York, and also had some kind of centralized organization. SNCC, on the other hand, was totally decentralized. It had what they called field secretaries, who worked in little towns all over the South, with great deal of autonomy. They had an office in Atlanta, Georgia, but the office was not a strong centralized authority. The people who were working out in the field—in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi—they were very much on their own. They were working together with local people, with grassroots people. And so there is no one leader for SNCC, and also great suspicion of government.

They could not depend on government to help them, to support them, even though the government of the time, in the early 1960s, was considered to be progressive, liberal. John F. Kennedy especially. But they looked at John F. Kennedy, they saw how he behaved. John F. Kennedy was not supporting the Southern movement for equal rights for Black people. He was appointing the segregationists judges in the South, he was allowing southern segregationists to do whatever they wanted to do. So SNCC was decentralized, anti-government, without leadership, but they did not have a vision of a future society like the anarchists. They were not thinking long term, they were not asking what kind of society shall we have in the future. They were really concentrated on immediate problem of racial segregation. But their attitude, the way they worked, the way they were organized, was along, you might say, anarchist lines.

ZV: Do you think that pejorative (mis)usage of the word anarchism is direct consequence of the fact that the ideas that people can be free, was and is very frightening to those in power?

HZ: No doubt! No doubt that anarchist ideas are frightening to those in power. People in power can tolerate liberal ideas. They can tolerate ideas that call for reforms, but they cannot tolerate the idea that there will be no state, no central authority. So it is very important for them to ridicule the idea of anarchism to create this impression of anarchism as violent and chaotic. It is useful for them, yes.

ZV: In theoretical political science, we can analytically identify two main conceptions of anarchism a so-called collectivist anarchism limited to Europe, and on another hand individualist anarchism limited to US. Do you agree with this analytical separation?

HZ: To me this is an artificial separation. As so often happens analysts can make things easier for themselves, like to create categories and fit movements into categories, but I don’t think you can do that. Here in the United States, sure there have been people who believed in individualist anarchism, but in the United States have also been organized anarchists of Chicago in 1880s or SNCC. I guess in both instances, in Europe and in the United States, you find both manifestations, except that maybe in Europe the idea of anarcho-syndicalism became stronger in Europe than in the US. While in the US you have the IWW, which is an anarcho-syndicalist organization and certainly not in keeping with individualist anarchism.

ZV: What is your opinion about the “dilemma” of meansrevolution versus social and cultural evolution?

HZ: I think here are several different questions. One of them is the issue of violence, and I think here anarchists have disagreed. Here in the US you find a disagreement, and you can find this disagreement within one person. Emma Goldman, you might say she brought anarchism, after she was dead, to the forefront in the US in the 1960s, when she suddenly became an important figure. But Emma Goldman was in favor of the assassination of Henry Clay Frick, but then she decided that this is not the way. Her friend and comrade, Alexander Berkman, he did not give up totally the idea of violence. On the other hand, you have people who were anarchistic in way like Tolstoy and also Gandhi, who believed in nonviolence.

There is one central characteristic of anarchism on the matter of means, and that central principle is a principle of direct action—of not going through the forms that the society offers you, of representative government, of voting, of legislation, but directly taking power. In case of trade unions, in case of anarcho-syndicalism, it means workers going on strike, and not just that, but actually also taking hold of industries in which they work and managing them. What is direct action? In the South when black people were organizing against racial segregation, they did not wait for the government to give them a signal, or to go through the courts, to file lawsuits, wait for Congress to pass the legislation. They took direct action; they went into restaurants, were sitting down there and wouldn’t move. They got on those buses and acted out the situation that they wanted to exist.

Of course, strike is always a form of direct action. With the strike, too, you are not asking government to make things easier for you by passing legislation, you are taking a direct action against the employer. I would say, as far as means go, the idea of direct action against the evil that you want to overcome is a kind of common denominator for anarchist ideas, anarchist movements. I still think one of the most important principles of anarchism is that you cannot separate means and ends. And that is, if your end is egalitarian society you have to use egalitarian means, if your end is non-violent society without war, you cannot use war to achieve your end. I think anarchism requires means and ends to be in line with one another. I think this is in fact one of the distinguishing characteristics of anarchism.

ZV: On one occasion Noam Chomsky has been asked about his specific vision of anarchist society and about his very detailed plan to get there. He answered that “we can not figure out what problems are going to arise unless you experiment with them.” Do you also have a feeling that many left intellectuals are loosing too much energy with their theoretical disputes about the proper means and ends, to even start “experimenting” in practice?

HZ: I think it is worth presenting ideas, like Michael Albert did with Parecon for instance, even though if you maintain flexibility. We cannot create blueprint for future society now, but I think it is good to think about that. I think it is good to have in mind a goal. It is constructive, it is helpful, it is healthy, to think about what future society might be like, because then it guides you somewhat what you are doing today, but only so long as this discussions about future society don’t become obstacles to working towards this future society. Otherwise you can spend discussing this utopian possibility versus that utopian possibility, and in the mean time you are not acting in a way that would bring you closer to that.

ZV: In your A People’s History of the United States you show us that our freedom, rights, environmental standards, etc., have never been given to us from the wealthy and influential few, but have always been fought out by ordinary peoplewith civil disobedience. What should be in this respect our first steps toward another, better world?

HZ: I think our first step is to organize ourselves and protest against existing order—against war, against economic and sexual exploitation, against racism, etc. But to organize ourselves in such a way that means correspond to the ends, and to organize ourselves in such a way as to create kind of human relationship that should exist in future society. That would mean to organize ourselves without centralize authority, without charismatic leader, in a way that represents in miniature the ideal of the future egalitarian society. So that even if you don’t win some victory tomorrow or next year in the meantime you have created a model. You have acted out how future society should be and you created immediate satisfaction, even if you have not achieved your ultimate goal.

ZV: What is your opinion about different attempts to scientifically prove Bakunin’s ontological assumption that human beings have “instinct for freedom”, not just will but also biological need?

HZ: Actually I believe in this idea, but I think that you cannot have biological evidence for this. You would have to find a gene for freedom? No. I think the other possible way is to go by history of human behavior. History of human behavior shows this desire for freedom, shows that whenever people have been living under tyranny, people would rebel against that.

Ziga Vodovnik is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ljubljana, where his teaching and research is focused on anarchist theory/praxis and social movements in the Americas. His new book Anarchy of Everyday Life – Notes on anarchism and its Forgotten Confluences will be released in late 2008.

Monday, January 25, 2010

minor setback.

Dear friends and family,
Please do not worry. You may have heard, I just got out of the hospital (spent 2 days there) with amoebic dysentery. I am alive, not exactly well. But thank you for all your love. I will head to Bangkok tonight and make a decision about my health and travel plans... If I feel well enough, I will carry on to Sri Lanka tomorrow.

love, michaela.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

cambodia.


Relentless. Constantly aware of the sun and finding the nearest shadow and how to get under it. Relentless. Emotional landscapes, both outer and inner. Cambodia is thick; the air, the history, the present are haunting. I wish I could spend more time here.


This past week I have had the honor and pleasure to meet the incredible staff of the Brahmavihara Cambodia AIDS project and meditate and work with them. (www.brahmavihara.cambodiaaidsproject.org) After learning Reiki, I was allowed to visit patients with the staff. After one period of meditation and beautiful chanting, we set out for the hospital. Entering the room, with my face sweating under my mask, my heart sank and opened immediately. Death and sickness right there, exactly as it is. I followed Ramo to watch him do Reiki, healing touch and massage. The other Bodhisattvas of the group each went to a bed to visit with someone. First, Ramo talked to a slight man with deep brown eyes, likely asking how he was feeling, what's been causing pain lately. The man pointed to his shins which had many scars and bruises; his legs were very thin. Ramo nodded and took out the "monkey balm" which is like tiger balm, everyone loves it here. He massaged the man's temples, forehead and neck, who in turn became extremely calm. I realized that I became calm as well. I looked around the room and realized that Soeun, Sok Ny and Preoungh had all started Reiki on their patients. What began as a somewhat hectic room with children running around, people coughing and yelling, suddenly was transformed. The whole hall was quiet, the settledness was palpable. Focused loving energy was being channelled. The patients looked so at ease. I had never seen anything like this...
more in a bit...

Monday, January 18, 2010

i know i know.

I'll bet a lot of people apologize for their inadequate blog updates. This apology is sincere; I am sorry! I've had a hectic couple of days, a crazy bus ride from Tuyen Quang province, a border crossing adventure into Cambodia and a new skill unlocked today as I learned Reiki, the Japanese healing technique. I am in Phnom Penh which is a lot less modern, a bit more tropical and slightly less honking horns than the cities in Vietnam. I will write a proper update soon...

Saturday, January 16, 2010

more photos.




some photos






Up the coast we travelled. A busload of singing nuns. We even paddled around some caves...


Friday, January 15, 2010

Green Vietnam.






"Wherever you see green, thats our land. Where its empty and dry, thats some other farmers'."






I just spent a few wonderful days out at the organic farming project "Green Vietnam" with Quang, the manager of the project, and his amazingly kind family.




You do not have to be a very experienced farmer to notice that something is terribly wrong with the farming practices of Tuyen Quang Province. There are many patches of land, with the property lines visible, with nothing growing. After a few days with Green Vietnam I am starting to understand why. Quang tells me, "They have bad varieties, bad techniques and no markets. And now they are poor and desperate." About ten years ago, someone from the department of agriculture gave seedling and trees to the farmers but it was a bad variety and never yielded any crop. Many farmers have turned to cassava, a labor intensive, ecologically unsound and not profitable crop and also to genetic corn. "It's a mess." He tells me.




Arriving to this farm, however, I see rows and rows of orange trees, with pinapple or chilis as the undercrop. I also see several small vegetable gardens and a woman kneeling down, gathering greens for dinner. Chickens roam freely, doing their part in the gardening. Green Vietnam obviously has a different perspective.


Friday, January 8, 2010

full ordination for women.


In October, in Perth, Australia, four women were fully ordained as Bhikkhunis in the Australian Thai forest tradition. Since this is not allowed by the Thais, Ajahn Brahmavamso has been excommunicated and a backlash of conservatism has ensued.


"The truth is that male religious leaders have had -- and still have -- an option to interpret holy teachings either to exalt or subjugate women. They have, for their own selfish ends, overwhelmingly chosen the latter. We are calling on all those with influence to challenge and change the harmful teachings and practices -- in religious and secular life -- that justify discrimination against women and to acknowledge and emphasize the positive messages of equality and human dignity." Jimmy Carter, Parliament of world religions



Some links:

selected comments made on public fora about gender equity in Theravadan Buddhism (read at fourfoldsangha.org references and Alliance for Bhikkhunis at http://www.bhikkhuni.net/)
letters written in support of Bhikkhuni ordination (read at http://www.supportbhikkhunis.org/)
scholarly articles outlining the legitimacy of Bhikkhuni ordination (seen as a necessary response to Ajahn Thanissaro's refutation of the validity of the Bhikkhuni ordinations in October in Perth, Australia) (read at fourfoldsangha.org references and Alliance for Bhikkhunis at http://www.bhikkhuni.net/).


Here is an excerpt from prachathai.com: http://sujato.wordpress.com/

Buddhist circles have recently received important news. The Sangha of Wat Nong Pa Pong in Ubon Rajathani province announced they were expelling Bodhinyana Monastery of Perth, Western Australia from its membership. This is because the Sangha of Bodhinyana performed bhikkhuni ordination. From now on Bodhinyana Monastery will not be a member of the Ajahn Chah circle of monasteries, and will no longer be supported by the Department of National Buddhist Affairs and the Council of Elders.
The reason behind the expulsion is that ordination of bhikkhunis is against the order of the Sangharaja Krom Luang Jinavornsirivatna of 1928 in which he forbade the Sangha in Thailand to give ordination to women. The Sangharaja’s order was re-affirmed in the meetings of the Council of Elders in 1984 and 1987.

I am not surprised at the punishment because it is a familiar technique for the Thai Sangha to punish a group of people who think differently by making them ‘the other’. It is the same technique used on the ‘Santi Asok’ group, and tried unsuccessfully with the ‘Dhammakaya’ group.
I am not surprised that the Bodhinyana Sangha went ahead regardless, as the stand on bhikkhunis which the Sangha of Bodhinyana has taken up is in line with the social value of respect for gender equality, and also emphasizes the spirit of the Buddha’s same message of equality.
Bearing in mind the spirit of the Buddha and the right to gender equality in contemporary society there is no reason to follow the stern ruling of the Thai Sangha.
One who has some understanding of Buddhism knows that originally the Buddha did not allow women to be ordained. But when Ananda asked if women were capable of equal spiritual attainment, the Buddha confirmed that they did, and for that reason he allowed women to join the Sangha.
We may call that this the reason ‘according to the true nature of humanity’, which affirms the truth that men and women both have equal potential to be enlightened. Thus everyone should have the same opportunity to study and practice towards enlightenment.
However, the status of being ‘ordained’ in Buddhism, apart from being a status to allow individuals to study and practice towards enlightenment, is also a ‘social status’ that depends on social and cultural context. Therefore when the Buddha gave permission for women to be ordained there were also tight conditions as seen in the eight garudhammas, starting with the rule: ‘A bhikkhuni ordained even for 100 years will pay respect to a monk ordained but that day.’
This reflects the social context within Indian society which did not recognize gender equality. In Brahmanistic culture not only were women not allowed to be ordained, they were not allowed even to read the Veda. But in Buddhist culture women were given opportunity to study and to practice towards enlightenment since the time of the conception of Buddhism.
Therefore when the Buddha allowed women to become bhikkhunis, in spite of the fact that women have the same spiritual potential to become enlightened like men, there was also the social context of the time where there was no gender equality to be taken into consideration.
But now Buddhism is in the modern world, which accepts and recognizes more of the equality between men and women. If we accept the reason ‘according to the true nature of humanity’, to accept ordination of women in the present social context would be much easier than in the Buddha’s time.
But the reaction of the Thai Sangha to the Sangha of Bodhinyana Monastery (and to Bhikkhuni Dhammananda few years earlier) reflects how the Thai Sangha is not ready to face any new challenge. Not to mention the new challenges which come with the globalization in economics, society, or politics, even when it comes to an old challenge like bhikkhuni ordination, the Thai Sangha can only make them ‘the other’. They push their own people who are more progressive to become ‘the other’. This is not solving the problem but pushing it away.
From now on, the monks who remain warmly preserved in the arms of the Thai Sangha and the Department of National Buddhist Affairs will be only those monks who are good at making amulets and engaged in business under the name of Buddhism, taking money from the public by various means. These monks in fact are ‘the others’ from the true teaching of the Buddha, but become the same flesh and bone with the Thai Sangha. Meanwhile the Sangha who are truly following the teaching and the spirit of the Buddha are being pushed out and become more and more ‘the other’.
In fact, if we look closely at the case of Bodhinyana Monastery having ordained bhikkhunis and being pushed out, the problem does not lie with the Sangha of Bodhinyana Monastery but with the Thai Sangha. It is an attempt to cover up the true reason for ordaining women as accepted and initiated by the Buddha. It is the problem of adjusting and changing to accommodate co-existence in the modern world.
Let me speak very frankly: this is a problem of isolating oneself from reason and truth in the modern world. Eventually it will be a case of missing the boat when the Thai Sangha is not able to adjust Buddhist teaching to accommodate and benefit the modern lifestyle. The Buddhist leaders the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh both emphasise that ‘the world still has Buddhism to free society from suffering.’

Thursday, January 7, 2010

I am just a visitor here...


Before I left for Vietnam I had watched man

y video clips and read articles on the attacks on Bat Nha monastery. I expected at least some discussion about it given that I have visited dozens of temples in Vietnam so far. It seems to me to be the elephant in the room, atleast in my room. It has been quite hush-hush. Why? I'm just trying to listen, have quiet conversations, get a feel for why no one in the Vietnam Buddhist world seems to be doing anything about this. There are probably many things I am not privy to, coming as an outsider with my idea about how to speak out about injustice. I have never lived under a communist/socialist government so I cannot claim to know the best way to act under these circumstances. Especially since the temples here seem to be well-funded and well supported by the government. Next to the Buddhist flag, flies the red flag at most temples. For now, I am listening. Watching. Meeting everyone with a gentle curiousity. I have to say I have heard many nuns and monks describe a real reverence and admiration for Thich Nhat Hanh. I have no doubt that he is well loved here. Ok, I must head back to the temple.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

"socially engaged Buddhist women"


In a way, this phrase is redundant. It seems as though, from many of the presentations, that Buddhist women see their religious vocation as implicitly for the benefit of society, and thus their social action is quite seamless. It is not some special thing they do. It is inherent in why they became nuns or devoted laywomen. Several papers talked about the Buddhist nun in Taiwan, Zhengyan who is the founder of the Tzu Chi, or Ciji, Movement, the Buddhist Compassion Relief Merit Association. This organization has grown immensely worldwide taking on projects of social welfare and ecological issues. They operate a hospital, medical school, and a university as well as disaster relief.


The woman in the picture is wonderful. She lives in Cambodia and continues much of the work of Maha Gosananda. Right now she is working on a peace walk which will take place in Cambodia this March. The walk will incorperate many social causes ... I will write more when I run upstairs and get the beautiful write-up ... sorry for the delay ...

Her friend, BethGoldring is an American Zen priest living in Cambodia. She runs an AIDS hospice in Phnom Penh. She and her staff help people find as much peace as possible within their situation. They provide emotional and spiritual support, listening and counseling, and material aid as well, including medicine, foodand transportation. They use Reiki and Healing Touch as well as Khmer chanting ceremonies and Buddhist ceremonies. She presented a beautiful slide show of the staff and patients and told stories of their lives. I will write more about Beth in a few weeks when I visit her project.


Buddhist women, lay and ordained run projects dedicated to children, the poor, victims of disasters, both human and natural, animals, the environment and the terminally ill. Paper after paper, we heard about dozens of women and their inspiring life's work. I will continue to post these stories. For now, I am sweaty and need water.

Whew.


So the conference has ended. What a whirlwind. Our days began at 6 AM and didn't end until 9Pm. We heard 66 papers and had a workshop every afternoon, there were atleast 9 to choose from each day. The meals were a great time to chat and meet each other. I'm pretty sure I met women from every country that attended.


I have finally gotten a good nights sleep. I feel refreshed and ready for this week's tours. We will visit many temples, travelling all the way up to Hanoi with the Sakyadhita group.

With the final dedication of merit, I had my hands in gassho (palms together) and suddenly my mala burst off of my wrist. Beads went everywhere. It was the mala I recieved on my jukai day. Auspicious.

Friday, January 1, 2010

the conference...

This is a picture of me and Susmita Barua, the Buddhist Peace Fellowship ambassadors... Susmita is leading a workshop called "Deep Conscious Capitalism"... We hope to share our experiences of the conference with the socially engaged Buddhist community and everyone else soon...

Feeling all at once like an insider and outsider, between nun and laywoman, half-academic half-religious... These seeming contradictions leave a burden. I arrived with the question: Is the current state of women in Buddhism oppressive or liberative? Are things a mess and going to hell or is the future bright with equality? Both. (of course) The theme of this years International Conference on Women in Buddhism is "Eminent Buddhist Women". Each day we have heard dozens of papers about amazing female teachers, devoted laywomen and agents of social change from many countries. There are women from Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Bhutan, Korea, India, Nepal, Australia, England, Tibet, Taiwan, China, US, Germany, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Mongolia, Bangladesh and more. History is being written, from our perspective now. We are documenting our teachers, our challenges, our practice, our lives. The complete sangha is coming to life again.

Happy New Year

This video is from the ceremony of offering light (candles) for New Years...