Rev. Danny Fisher

Twice this year–here and here–I’ve blogged about corporate chaplaincy. In both instances, the unique chaplaincy program at Tyson Foods, Inc., was mentioned. The company currently employs about 125 mostly part-time chaplains to attend to the needs of their 104,000 employees.

These efforts have just earned Tyson some special recognition.

The work of these chaplains and Tyson’s commitment to be faith-friendly, have earned the company the 2007 International Spirit at Work Award. Tyson recently received the honor from the International Center for Spirit at Work, a worldwide non-profit organization for people who are integrating spiritual values, such as kindness, compassion and integrity, in the workplace.

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The Spirit at Work Awards Selection Committee was “most impressed” with Tyson’s Chaplain Services program and “the company’s emphasis on providing pastoral care and counseling to anyone regardless of his or her religious or spiritual affiliation.”

“We’re proud of our chaplaincy program and the positive ways it’s touching the lives of our Team Members and their families,” said Alan Tyson, director of Chaplain Services for Tyson Foods. “Our chaplains provide a ministry of availability, helping Team Members with personal concerns and issues, such as the loss of a loved one, illness, marital and family concerns or financial problems.”

The Awards Selection Committee also recognized Tyson’s involvement in Clergy Appreciation Days, the National Day of Prayer and the National Conference on Workplace Chaplaincy. It also noted Tyson’s Inclusion & Engagement Speaker Series and its Compassionate Conversations series, which allows Tyson Team Members to share personal stories of life altering change and experiences.

Tyson’s commitment to attending to the spiritual needs of their employees is admirable, but it seems to me that there is also room for growth. In their Core Values statement, the company states that they strive to be both “faith-friendly” and “a company of diverse people working together.” Yet they also talk about striving to “honor God.” What about employees who don’t think of things theistically? They can be people of faith too. (Like us Buddhists.) Don’t they contribute to a diverse company of people working together? How are they being attended to by their company and its chaplaincy program? Might they feel excluded by such rhetoric?

I hope this award will encourage Tyson to think about the ways in which it can expand upon and improve its commitment to caring for its employees.

From the American Bar Association this morning:

The American Bar Association today released the findings from their three-year study on state death penalty systems and called for a nationwide moratorium on executions. Based on a detailed analysis of death penalty systems in eight sample states, the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project identified key problems common to the states studied, including major racial disparities, inadequate indigent defense services and irregular clemency review processes – making their death penalty systems operate unfairly.

“After carefully studying the way states across the spectrum handle executions, it has become crystal clear that the process is deeply flawed,” said Stephen F. Hanlon, chair of the ABA Death Penalty Moratorium Implementation Project. “The death penalty system is rife with irregularity–supporting the need for a moratorium until states can ensure fairness and accuracy.”

While the ABA takes no position for or against the death penalty itself, since 1997 it has urged a moratorium in each jurisdiction that provides for capital punishment until the state conducts a thorough and exhaustive study to determine whether its system meets legal standards for fairness and due process.

For the past three years, teams of local legal experts have assessed their states using 93 protocols developed by the ABA as measuring points of the due process and fairness the state provides. The protocols have not been adopted as ABA policy, but are based on association policies calling for due process and fairness.

Of the eight state teams, five urged their own governmental leaders to impose a temporary halt on executions within the state until more complete analyses could be completed. The five states were Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Ohio and Tennessee. Arizona, Florida and Pennsylvania’s teams did not call for moratoria.

Like David P. Horigan, Esq., I find that “an abolitionist stance on capital punishment finds strong support in Buddhist thought and history.” (Particularly compelling is Holiness the Dalai Lama’s statement in support of a moratorium on the dealth penalty, which is also published at the Engaged Zen Foundation.) As such, I have been involved in anti-death penalty activism for the last ten years of my life. Regardless of one’s opinion about capital punishment in general, the current system is badly broken, and that’s reason enough for a freeze. I am heartened by this statement from the A.B.A.–their support is important.

The University of the West (UWest) chapter of Amnesty International is very pleased to announce the launch of their official blog at:

http://amnestyuwest.blogspot.com/

Please do take a look.

I currently have the pleasure of serving as group coordinator for Amnesty (UWest), and I’m very excited by all that we’ve been able to do so far. (Regular readers might remember mention of our work on the recent campus fundraiser for both Amnesty’s Darfur campaign and the U.S. Campaign for Burma.)

At our meeting this week, we completed two urgent actions concerning political prisoners in Myanmar. All of them were involved in pro-democracy organizing and are currently at-risk for ill-treatment and/or torture. (These are the same urgent actions I blogged about in Wednesday’s post.) I have attached more information and links to the actions below. If you have a moment, I hope you will open the links and write a letter or two.

[Incidentally, the photos in this post were very kindly taken by my friend Ven. Rinchen Gyatso. Thanks, G!]

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MYANMAR – Hla Myo Naung (m), former student activist

Former student leader Hla Myo Naung was arrested in the city of Yangon on the morning of 10 October, as he sought medical treatment for a ruptured cornea. He is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. Unless operated on soon, Hla Myo Naung may go blind in this eye.

Hla Myo Naung, a former law student and member of the All Burma Federation of Student Unions (ABFSU), the main student organization in the Myanmar, was one of the leaders of nationwide protests against military rule in 1988. He was arrested in March 1990 and given a three year prison sentence. Those who took part in the protests are known as the 1988 Generation Students group.

Hla Myo Naung had been in hiding since 21 August 2007, when 13 other leaders of the 1988 Generation Students group were arrested in a crackdown by the authorities on protestors. He came out of hiding to visit an eye clinic in Sanchaung township to get medical treatment. He was arrested at the clinic by members of police special branch. According to reports, his doctor diagnosed a ruptured cornea which requires surgery, without which he may suffer permanent blindness.

It is not known where Hla Myo Naung or numerous other members of the 1988 Generation Students group who have been arrested since August 2007 are detained.

MYANMAR – Htay Kywe (m), aged 39; Mie Mie (also known as Thin Thin Aye) (f), aged 35; Aung Thu (m), aged 43; two other activists and one other individual

Six people, including prominent activists Htay Kywe, Mie Mie (also known as Thin Thin Aye) and Aung Thu, were detained in the early hours of 13 October in the city of Yangon as part of a continuing crackdown by the military authorities. The three are believed to be the last high-profile members of the 1988 Generation Students group who were still at large. There is no information on where they are being detained. Amnesty International is seriously concerned for the safety of all six people, who are at grave risk of torture and ill-treatment.

According to an eyewitness report, about 70 members of the security forces raided the house where the six were in hiding. Together with Htay Kywe, Mie Mie and Aung Thu, two other members of the 1988 Generation Students group and the owner of the house were also arrested. Htay Kywe is reportedly in poor health.

Htay Kywe, Mie Mie and Aung Thu were involved in the early protest marches in August, but were soon forced into hiding as the authorities launched a manhunt for those they perceived as the leaders of the protests, in particular Htay Kywe. On 21 August, 13 key activists of the 88 Generation Students group were arrested in an overnight operation.

Shortly before his arrest, Htay Kywe said from hiding that “the international community must stand clearly to prevent further violations.” He also called on “the international community to help as much as it can” to prevent further violations.

Continued arrests fly in the face of the promises made this week by the Myanmar authorities to cooperate with the United Nations. On 11 October the UN Security Council strongly deplored the violent crackdown and stressed the importance of the early release of all political prisoners.

Htay Kywe, Mie Mie and Aung Thu have all been imprisoned previously for their peaceful activism for human rights and democracy. Htay Kywe was one of the leaders of the nationwide protests against military rule in 1988. He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment in 1991 under sweeping national security provisions often used to criminalize peaceful dissent, including the 1950 Emergency Provisions Act. His sentence was later commuted to 10 years, but under the 1975 State Protection Law, he continued to be held for more than three years beyond the expiry of his sentence in 2001.

Mie Mie was also a leader in the 1988 protests when she was still a high school student. She was a member of the Burma Federation of Student Unions and the Democratic Party for a New Society. In 1989, she was detained for four months because of her political activities. During the large student demonstrations in 1996, she was arrested and sentenced to seven years’ imprisonment.

Aung Thu was arrested for the first time in March 1988. He was arrested again in 1990 and was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

There is more sad news from Myanmar to report, I’m afraid. But there are also more things you can do.

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Activists marked Nobel Peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi’s twelfth year in captivity yesterday with twelve major protests in cities around the world.

Joining with the protestors, the Nobel Women’s Initiative, a group of six other female Nobel Peace laureates (Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi, Wangari Maathai, Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Betty Williams, and Mairead Corrigan Maguire), published an an open letter to the United Nations concerning Suu Kyi’s imprisonment yesterday as well. The letter’s release also coincided with another historic event: the sixty-second anniversary of the U.N. It reads in full:

Today, as the U.N. celebrates its 62nd birthday, Aung San Suu Kyi will have spent a total of twelve years in detention in Burma.

On January 8, you/the U.N.S.G. called on Senior General Than Shwe to release Aung San Suu Kyi. It is a grave disappointment to us all that the Burmese regime has chosen to ignore this.

Since Burmese monks courageously took to the streets in September to call for democracy, the Burmese regime has enforced a vicious crackdown on peaceful demonstrators and democratic opposition leaders. Amidst mounting reports of torture and ill treatment, we fear for the safety of the brave people of Burma.

The Burmese regime must not be allowed to continue in its perpetration of gross violations of human rights. The detention of Aung San Suu Kyi is the most visible manifestation of the regime’s brutality but it is only the tip of the iceberg.

As women leaders from around the world, we will work together to ensure that Burma does not slip from international view and ensure that real progress is made. The U.N. has a central role to play in our collective endeavour.

Sixty-two years ago, the U.N. was established to enable governments of the world to respond to grave crises of this kind. It must now do more to live up to its mandate and take decisive action to secure the release of Aung San Suu Kyi and her fellow prisoners of conscience.

Suu Kyi herself spent part of yesterday in her first meeting with the senior Burmese military official appointed to “liaise” with her.

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For those of us wondering about the day-to-day lives of both lay and monastic citizens in Myanmar post-crackdown, the Washington Post and the New York Times offer chilling reports.

The Post‘s piece offers an unnerving view of everyday people living in fear.

She does not know if the police have her picture. But that uncertainty has not eased her fear.

Twice soldiers have entered this woman’s Rangoon neighborhood. They came at night, with photos taken during pro-democracy demonstrations. “They look at everyone and then they take you,” she said in a low voice, speaking on condition she not be identified. “I don’t sleep.”

The nighttime raids began last month, after Burma’s military junta violently put down the country’s largest protests in nearly 20 years, led by Buddhist monks. At least 10 people were killed in the crackdown, the government has acknowledged, and thousands were arrested. The arrests have continued even after an 8 p.m. curfew was lifted last week. This woman joined the protests, and now she waits to be taken next.

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[They talk] only in whispers, looking over their shoulders to see who might be listening. The government has blocked access to several Internet chat and e-mail sites, and people assume their phone conversations are not private, given that the government controls all the country’s telecommunications.

“The people, we all feel so cramped up inside,” said a 66-year-old man in Rangoon. “We cannot talk. We cannot do anything. This government, they are killers. They have guns, but the people have nothing.” He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his eyes. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have anyone to talk to about these things.”

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Rangoon feels like a forgotten city.

In the Times piece, which leads with the arresting image to the left of a single monk in a mostly empty meditation hall, the effects of the crackdown on the Sangha are made devastatingly clearer.

As the lunch gong chimed through a tree-shaded monastery, several hundred monks in burgundy robes lined up on a mid-October day, all holding alms bowls.

It is a common scene in Myanmar, formerly Burma, where one out of every 100 people, many of them children, are monks. But the lunch line at the Mahagandhayon Monastery, the country’s largest, used to be much longer.

“We usually have 1,400 monks here,” said a senior monk. “Because of the situation, parents took 1,000 of them home.”

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As of Oct. 6, the government said it had detained 533 monks, of whom 398 were released after sorting out what it called “real monks” from “bogus ones.” Monks and dissidents contend that many more were detained.

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The junta also used divide-and-rule tactics, by persuading the state-sanctioned Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee, which oversees the clergy, to take its donations and to order monks to stop protesting or face punishment.

“Some of these senior monks are bribed by the regime,” said an editor at a Yangon magazine. “They have accepted so many good things in life–cars, televisions, big houses, telephones and mobile phones–that they simply have to listen to the regime.”

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[Fear is] still palpable at Mahagandhayon, where monks chanted mantras over their last meal of the day, a late-morning lunch of vegetable soup, eggplants, rice and a treat from a donor–instant noodles. But they were still reluctant to discuss the military’s crushing of the demonstrations in late September.

“They are afraid of guns!” a senior monk said before vanishing into the dining hall.

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At a Yangon temple, sitting before a golden Buddha figure, two middle-aged monks spoke with resignation and anger.

“We learned a lesson from 1988,” one monk said of the large pro-democracy uprising that the military put down, leaving hundreds, perhaps thousands, dead. “If it changes nothing and only gets worse, why risk our lives?” The other monk said: “We would like to love our government. We tried but couldn’t. We want to like to go out and demonstrate again, but we know they are out there with their guns.”

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In mid-October at Mahagandhayon, the monks were going about their daily routine. The senior monk said he hoped that the rest of the students would return in a month or so. One young monk who had remained said, “Please go out and tell the world exactly what really has happened in this country.”

He added, “I am scared just talking to you about this.”

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But there are some glimmers of hope. Two stories come to us courtesy of Sujatin Johnson, the great Amida blogger and Buddhist chaplain across the pond. The first story concerns former U.S. president and Nobel Peace laureate Jimmy Carter’s offer to serve as a mediator in Myanmar.

“If the leaders of Myanmar would accept my presence, I’d be delighted” to serve as an envoy, he told Guardian America. Mr. Carter has been known for his decades of involvement in international political and humanitarian crisis since leaving office.

The second tells of a tough-talking U.N. human rights expert’s upcoming visit to Myanmar to determine the full extent of the junta’s crackdown.

A U.N. human rights expert said yesterday he would demand access to Burma’s prisons when he visited the country next month and try to determine the number of people killed and detained by the regime in last month’s crackdown on protesters.

“If they don’t give me full co-operation, I’ll go to the plane, and I’ll go out,” said Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the U.N.’s independent rights investigator on Burma, who was given a green light by the junta to visit.

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Mr. Pinheiro said yesterday he planned to visit Burma after U.N. envoy Ibrahim Gambari, whose return trip has been moved up to the first week in November.

“My task is to offer an honest, complex, objective picture of…the immediate origins of the crisis, the crisis itself, the excessive use of force,” Mr. Pinheiro said. “I will be particularly concerned to verify the numbers, whereabouts and conditions of those detained, as well as an accounting for the numbers killed during the protests,” he said.

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Mr. Pinheiro said that since the crackdown, he had continually received “worrying reports of death in custody, torture, disappearances, ill-treatment, and lack of access to food, water or medical treatment in overcrowded, unsanitary detention facilities across the country”.

He said he also received regular reports of night raids by the army and militia going house to house searching for people.

According to unidentified sources, he said, between 30 and 40 monks and 50 to 70 civilians had allegedly been killed, while 200 were beaten.

Here’s hoping Mr. Pinheiro makes good on his promises.

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So what can we do? Here are a few more opportunities for action on your part:

Amnesty International has two urgent actions concerning Burmese political prisoners who may currently be subjected to the kinds of ill-treatment Mr. Pinheiro promises to investigate. You can print out the actions here and here and write letters to the generals and ministers listed.

Sign Avaaz.org’s petition on Myanmar and ask your friends to do the same. This organization has been able to do astonishing things and gather incredible support. In an email recently from the Avaaz team, they counted among among their accomplishments 789,479 petition signatures (hand-delivered to UK Prime Minister and UN Security Council member Gordon Brown), $315,000 raised for the Burmese democracy movement, 33,403 emails to EU leaders urging targeted sanctions, 1,952 messages sent to Singapore’s Foreign Minister George Yeo, more than 100 protests in cities worldwide against the Burmese regime, and 1 global ad campaign (including a full-page ad in the Financial Times pushing China to act).More as it arrives.

[This post has been updated as of 10.25.07.]

This past weekend, I was in the San Francisco Bay Area for the 2007 Buddhist Spiritual Care Symposium at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City. It was the third annual symposium of this kind, but the first that I have been able to attend. In addition to Redwood City, my visit also took me into San Francisco proper and nearby Fremont. It was quite a trip, and I have lots of pictures to share below. (Click on any picture for an enlarged view.)

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My girlfriend Jennifer and I spent Thursday evening and most of the day Friday in San Francisco. Friday afternoon actually turned into something of an impromptu walking tour of the city…

Haight-Ashbury–the intersection of the Haight and Ashbury streets near Golden Gate Park. As I’m sure many readers know, this was ground zero for all things “counter-culture” in the 1960s. Both the hippie and Beat movements have deep roots in this area. As a beneficiary of the teachings of both hippies and Beats, I was happy to have visited “The Haight” during my time in San Francisco.

City Lights Bookstore. Like Haight-Ashbury, this was another spot I just wanted to be in the presence of–if only for a moment. Sandwiched between the North Beach and Chinatown neighborhoods of San Francisco, City Lights is the independent publishing house perhaps most famous for printing a little something called Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg in 1956. This act thrust City Lights and its founders Lawrence Ferlinghetti (an important poet in his own right) and Peter D. Martin into the national spotlight a year later, when offended and over-zealous customs officials seized around 500 copies bound for London. In the subsequent obscenity trial that followed, the court found in favor of City Lights (represented by the American Civil Liberties Union), with the judge even declaring that Howl was a poem of “redeeming social importance.”

Alcatraz Island. I know it was a lighthouse, a Civil War fort that never saw action (though individuals aiding/supporting the Confederacy were imprisoned there), and a notorious federal penitentiary, and that it is now a tourist attraction. Other than that, all my information about the site comes from the eponymous and remarkably mindless action movie The Rock. This being the case, I think I’ll stop right there with my description of Alcatraz.

The Palace of Fine Arts. This is a very well-known and lovely spot in the Marina District. As it turns out, though, it houses no actual fine art.

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On Friday evening, I rendezvoused with some of my UWest classmates and headed to Fremont, where we were guests of most generous hosts at Wat Buddhanusorn, a magnificent Thai temple and monastery. Arrangements with the temple were made by my friend, colleague, and fellow chaplain Somya Malasri, who I have written about before here at the blog–in this post and this post. Somya is currently a chaplain candidate in the U.S. Army, set to become the very first Buddhist chaplain in the Army.

I think I speak for everyone when I say that our stay could not have been more pleasant. There is a lot of life and a lot of peacefulness at the temple, and I was touched by the good humor, encouragement, and gentleness of the abbot, Phra Videsdhammakavi. He’s an extraordinary man, and I hope our paths cross again soon.

Here are some of the pictures I took at Wat Buddhanusorn…

The main temple.

The Buddha statue on the altar. Photo by Ed Barth.

Our group photo with the abbot, taken by a kind young monastic.
(From left to right: Ven. Hyun Gak, Ed, Daphna, Ven. Aroon Seeda, Somya, Phra Videsdhammakavi and friend, Nate, Ven. Rinchen Gyatso, and yours truly.)

A mural depicting the Buddha at Bodh Gaya, a place that has twice been my home. (In a modern touch, the Mahabodhi Mahavihara is visible behind the Buddha.) Ven. Aroon tells me that the man who painted the murals inside the temple is quite famous in Thailand.

A fountain and garden near the main temple.

An explanation courtesy of Ven. Gyatso: “This is a naga, a kind of mythical serpent….Ven. Aroon told us a story of a disciple of the Buddha complaining that a naga was bothering him while he tried to meditate, so the Buddha told him to ask the naga for the jewel it kept in its throat. Apparently, nagas release the jewel at night to attract animals to eat, so if it gives away the jewel it will die. The disciple asked for the jewel the next time the naga showed up, and it went away never to bother him again.”

A sign hanging on a tree behind the main temple.

Some of the many cats living on the temple grounds. With a little organization, they could easily rule the place.

A monk mopping the temple steps before breakfast on Saturday.

Our venerables bundled up and waiting for breakfast.

Me at our ridiculously massive breakfast feast. Two minutes after this picture was taken, someone put a plate of submarine sandwiches on that little corner of table beside me–no kidding! Photo by Ed Barth.

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The symposium was all day on Saturday. I could tell you about it, but, frankly, Lt. Jeanette Shin does a much better and more engaging job of it than I could:

We began with meditation, followed by an opening Dharma talk by Tom Kilts, a CPE administrator of the Vajrayana tradition, who presented an outstanding lecture and discussion on the forms of authority implicit in chaplaincy work. Following his talk, everyone introduced themselves, and then we had a great vegetarian lunch! After lunch, we had a talk by guest speaker Dr. Dhammaratna Rina Sircar, a Dharma teacher of vast experience in pastoral care. She is originally from Burma; everyone was deeply moved to hear her relate her concern for the welfare of her family in Burma. She led us in a beautiful refuge-taking (Vandana Ti-Sirana), followed by a prayer to the 28 Buddhas. Her message was about her experience in care for elderly patients; she emphasized for us to cultivate tolerance, and especially patience. She concluded her talk by leading us through the Loving-Kindness Meditation. After another short break we had simultaneous breakout sessions on current issues in chaplaincy. We wrapped up around 1630, and concluded with Dedication of Merit to the people of Burma and all those suffering in conflicts throughout the world.

Though I was similarly affected and edified by the presentations and the break-out sessions, what I most appreciated about the symposium was simply getting to meet so many of my Buddhist brothers and sisters in chaplaincy. In many cases, I was putting faces to names I have emailed with in the past.

And it was also wonderful to see my old friend and Naropa colleague Marshall White, who was one of the conference organizers. Marshall and I were friends at school and did our first units of Clinical Pastoral Education (C.P.E.) together. I was able to visit with him, his wonderful wife, and new son a little bit, and that was certainly a special part of the day.

Here are two pictures from the symposium:

Among the many cool things that happened during the symposium, our UWest venerables were invited to offer a blessing before our delicious vegetarian lunch. I was proud of my colleagues as they each offered something special from their respective traditions of Theravāda Buddhism, Drikung Kagyu Tibetan Buddhism, and Chogye Korean Soen.

An incomplete group photo, taken by Bella Cloake.
(From left to right, back row: Lesley, Wil, Ven. Hyun Gak, Nate, Ven. Aroon, Jeanette, Somya, me.
From left to right, front row: Julia, Daphna, Ed, Ven. Gyatso, Tina.)

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If you’ve been following the news in the last few days, you’ve probably heard a lot about the devastating wildfires raging across southern California. During our drive back from the Bay area on Sunday, we encountered (we think) three of them. Below are some images of those.

[Incidentally, my friend Michael at The Brainy Gamer mentions some things you can do to help those affected by the fires in his latest podcast. I'd like to join him in recommending that you support the American Red Cross in their relief efforts.]

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Sunday ended with a few us going to a Santa Monica yoga center for a dharma talk by Dean Sluyter, who is an author, Dzogchen Foundation teacher, and prison chaplain.

All in all, it was an extraordinary weekend. I’m already looking forward to next year’s conference.