Rev. Danny Fisher

It was an extraordinary day today at UWest in that we had the tremendous honor of hosting a lecture by Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, Sri Lanka’s “Little Gandhi” and the founder of the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement there. Though he is perhaps less well-known in the United States than fellow socially engaged Buddhists Thich Nhat Hanh and His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Dr. Ariyaratne is every bit as celebrated and revered by practitioners (and others) the world over. Among the various honors he has received for his many years of service are the Niwano Peace Prize, the Gandhi Peace Prize, and the King Beaudoin Award. In 2005, he was a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Dr. Ariyaratne founded Sarvodaya in 1958, inspired in equal measure by the Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka and the Gandhian ethic. Today, it is the largest NGO in Sri Lanka. A grassroots movement dedicated to the “sustainable empowerment” of rural Sri Lankans “through self-help and collective support, to non-violence and peace,” Sarvodaya’s 1,500 person staff benefits 15,000 villages in 34 districts throughout Sri Lanka. Their website states:

It is not as much what we do to alleviate rural poverty but the way in which we do it which makes us so effective and sustainable–through the active participation and engagement of the villagers themselves.

Sarvodaya has also been instrumental in responding to national disasters in Sri Lanka, such as the tsunami that followed the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake.

I first learned about Sarvodaya and Dr. Ariyaratne through editors Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King’s book Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, which I read as an undergraduate. In a chapter of the book entitled “A.T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement,” George D. Bond rightly singles out Dr. Ariyaratne and Sarvodaya’s work as mold-breaking. He writes:

Sarvodaya…went farther than other groups in the [nineteeth and twentieth century Buddhist revival in Sri Lanka] in arguing that Buddhist liberation involves not only individuals but also society. The Dhamma entails dual liberation; there is a necessary and dependent relation between the freedom of the individual and the freedom of society. Neither the classical Theravāda monastic interpreters nor the other reformers stressed as clearly as Sarvodaya the implications of the Dhamma for social change. Sarvodaya affirmed the world by arguing that the path to individual liberation ran through social liberation. [1]

Dr. Ariyaratne has been on my radar ever since I read Bond’s piece nearly ten years ago. I was absolutely thrilled to meet him and hear him in person today.

Dr. Ariyaratne showed three short videos about the work of Sarvodaya and spoke on the subject of “Peace Through Consciousness Transformation.” I was struck by much of what he said–both on this subject and on others–and will offer reflections on the lecture in my upcoming podcast. Stay tuned for that.

I leave you with the photo below, which was taken by my good friend Julia Stenzel (who also took the picture of Dr. Ariyaratne and I that appears above).

WORKS CITED:

1. George D. Bond, “A.T. Ariyaratne and the Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement” in Engaged Buddhism: Buddhist Liberation Movements in Asia, ed. Christopher S. Queen and Sallie B. King, 122 (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1996).

From the Associated Press:

More than 100 Buddhist monks marched in northern Burma today–the first such march since last month’s deadly government crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations, two monks said.

The monks, in the town of Pakokku, did not shout slogans or make political statements as they marched for about an hour today.

The town was the scene of some of the monk-led pro-democracy protests that were stamped out after troops opened fire on demonstrators during the September 26-27 crackdown.

The monks started their march at Shwegu Pagoda in Pakokku, a centre for Buddhist learning with more than 80 monasteries about 630 kilometres northwest of the country’s commercial centre of Rangoon.

They marched for nearly one hour chatting Buddhist prayers without incident, and then returned to the respective monasteries, two monks said in telephone interviews.

The U.S. State Department and the Bush Administration are rightly under fire today for giving immunity to the Blackwater USA security contractors responsible for the shooting deaths of seventeen Iraqi civilians in September.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, who sits on two Senate panels that oversee the State Department and the Justice Department, called the immunity deal an example of “the amnesty administration.”

The offer for limited immunity has delayed the government’s criminal inquiry of the shootings that enraged the Iraqi government, and threatens to derail prosecution as investigators seek other evidence from the crime scene now six weeks cold.

“In this administration, accountability goes by the boards,” said Leahy. “That goes equally for misconduct and for incompetence. If you get caught, they will get you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence.”

This does not have to be tolerated. Join Amnesty International in demanding accountability for Blackwater. By signing your name to this petition, you do the vitally important thing of asking Blackwater to take their human rights responsibilities seriously and to cooperate with Iraqi and US investigations.

This is neither the first time nor an isolated incident of Blackwater personnel using lethal force against Iraqi civilians.

Sign your name to Amnesty’s petition here.

There’e a great catch today at the Tricycle Editors’ Blog: an opinion piece by Mark Aspillera at the Spartan Daily about whether to call the country “Burma” or “Myanmar.”

The military junta that took control of the country in 1962 changed its English name from Burma to Myanmar in 1989. The change was part of an effort to phase out the English spellings of native words used during the time of British colonial rule.

The name change was made without the approval of any legislative body and is not universally recognized.

The United Nations uses the name Myanmar, while the United States and United Kingdom use “Burma.”

In the media, the discrepancies are even more pronounced.

The Associated Press, whose style guide the Spartan Daily follows, and the New York Times refer to the country as Myanmar. In contrast, the BBC, Reuters and The Guardian, a British newspaper, use Burma in all references.

[...]

Does using Burma mean a news service disregards the relevance of the United Nations? That they condone years of British colonialism?

Likewise, does reference to Myanmar show apathy towards the plight of a country oppressed by its own military? Does saying Myanmar imply a willingness to give legitimacy to a junta that overthrew a democratic republic?

Readers may have noticed that I favor Myanmar (in deference to the United Nations). I admit, though, that this is certainly an unsatisfying moniker. Ultimately, I’m with Aspillera on where the true source of the country’s name lies:

The only real source is the country’s people themselves, and as of right now, they’re not exactly in a position to speak.

In other Burma/Myanmar news, Charles London has an excellent piece at The Nation in which he suggests how the Sangha and dissidents within the Burmese military might work together for democracy:

Burma is a devoutly Buddhist country, and the sangha is the most respected sector of society. The abuse the monks are suffering is deeply offensive to many members of the Burmese public. In early October, Ye Min Tun, a Burmese diplomat with ten years’ experience, resigned from the embassy in London. “I have never seen such a scenario in the whole of my life. The government is arresting and beating the peaceful Buddhist monks,” he told the BBC. His resignation presents another possibility for the future of Burma.

If the Burmese army is a microcosm of Burmese society, as the US Army is a microcosm of American society, insurrection within the army might not be an impossibility. It will take great courage for members of the military to stand up to the regime, as Ye Min Tun did, but for every indignity suffered by a monk there is certainly anguish in the heart of some soldiers.

The hope for Burma, then, is much like the hope for any society in turmoil: not external sanctions and policy statements but the will, courage and good faith of individuals who refuse to watch idly as their fellow men are wronged. The Burmese army is estimated at around 500,000 soldiers. There are about 500,000 monks in Burma. They are the two most powerful sectors of Burmese society. Set against each other, they reap the destruction and bloodshed we are witnessing. Together they could topple the junta, something sanctions, diplomatic overtures, democracy activists and political opposition leaders have been unable to do for the past forty years. It all begins with an upturned beggar’s bowl and a soldier acting on faith rather than following orders.

The Christian Science Monitor is currently running an interesting series on military chaplaincy at their website. There is the addition this week of an interview with Doris L. Bergen, University of Toronto professor and author of the new book The Sword Of The Lord: Military Chaplains from the First to the Twenty-First Century. It’s an informative, intriguing read–well worth a look. Below is a snippet I was struck by.

[Doris L. Begen:] Chaplains were particularly important in combat because the idea of the chaplain is both to bring the blessing of the God or the gods to the cause of the army, but also to strengthen the fighting power, the morale, of individual soldiers [and] of providing the sacrament to soldiers who are prepared to kill other people… And also soldiers who are risking being killed themselves–the idea that they go in a blessed state to their death.

It’s only really in the 20th century that you get the idea that a chaplain also has a kind of a counseling role.

[The Christian Science Monitor:] Do you include in that moral counseling to commanders?

[Doris L. Begen:] That is the most interesting question, particularly in the context of the war you’re looking at right now [Iraq]. That role has never been the official job of a chaplain. Even in cases where the discussion has been, for example, [that] a chaplain has a duty to be the conscience of the military, that has been a very contested role for chaplains. Chaplains who have taken that upon themselves have frequently found that it’s not a role that their military superiors welcome from them.

[For example] Kermit Johnson, who opposed the Reagan administration’s policies regarding nuclear weapons and El Salvador placed himself in an untenable position. He was basically pushed out of his position as chief of chaplains.

[The Christian Science Monitor:] Was there a moment in time when chaplains began to do this?

[Doris L. Begen:] The Vietnam War was a big turning point in many ways for the American chaplaincy. One of the things I’ve been so struck by–if you talk to Vietnam vets–[is] that military chaplains tended to be viewed by soldiers as very much hand in glove with the military establishment. They, like military psychiatrists, were often viewed by regular soldiers as people whose job it was to prop you up and send you back out, no matter what you thought about what you were doing. The questioning, in many ways, came after the fact, by chaplains and other church people [who thought] the credibility of the [chaplain] institution had been undermined.

So you got a lot of soul-searching afterward.

[The role of the chaplain] remained contested. [In our book Sword of the Lord, the historian, Anne Loveland] talks about the notion–the question of what is the chaplain’s role? Is the chaplain the moral counselor, the conscience? If it isn’t simply to be blessing the weapons and giving people the comfort of religious tradition under the terrible pressures of war, what is it? And I think that question really has been contested both inside and outside the chaplaincy.

The importance of the chaplaincy from very early on was not only about boosting morale, but also lending legitimacy to a particular war effort. And generally chaplains [were] selected on the basis of whether they were willing to play that role. But you don’t run into conflict so much until you have large numbers of chaplains who are trained and supported from outside the military, so they have a position of some independency vis-à-vis the military and then you do begin to get those kinds of dilemmas.