Rev. Danny Fisher

Yesterday, Amnesty International put out an urgent action appeal regarding U Gambira, the 27-year-old Buddhist monk who led last year’s monastic uprising in Myanmar as head of the All-Burma Monks Alliance (A.B.M.A.). Amnesty considers U Gambira and two other protest leaders (including his brother) to be prisoners of conscience in danger of (further) torture and ill-treatment and even death.

Buddhist monk U Gambira and his brother Aung Kyaw Kyaw have recently been charged under a vaguely worded security law. Similar politically motivated charges have also been brought against labour rights activist Su Su Nway, who is in poor health. They are being held in Yangon’s Insein Prison, where they risk being tortured or otherwise ill-treated. Amnesty
International considers them to be prisoners of conscience, held solely for exercising their right to freedom of expression and peaceful association.

U Gambira and Aung Kyaw Kyaw were charged at the end of January under Section 17/1 of the Unlawful Associations Act, which carries a maximum sentence of three years’ imprisonment. A hearing on their charges scheduled for 4 February was postponed and no new date has been given by the authorities. U Gambira was earlier reported to have been charged with treason, which carries a sentence of life imprisonment or the death penalty.

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Su Su Nway has reportedly been charged under sections 124, 125 and 505 of the Penal Code. Sections 124 and 505, which relate to sedition and incitement to offences that damage ‘‘public tranquillity’‘, have been used over the years to criminalize peaceful political dissent. Su Su Nway was reportedly due to stand trial on 6 February in Yangon’s Bahan Township, but there is no news of what happened in the proceedings.

Amnesty’s report states that U Gambira has been stripped of his monk’s robes, and that he and his brother have both been tortured in detention. It is not known whether they have been granted access to a lawyer. Su Su Nway suffers from a longstanding heart condition and her health is said to have deteriorated in prison. She has also not been allowed to visit her family or receive parcels from them.

Here’s what you can do: write letters. Amnesty International is asking concerned citizens throughout the world to write letters to Myanmar’s Senior General Than Shwe and its Minister of Foreign Affairs Nyan Win about the situation. You are asked to do the following things in your letters:

The Worst Horse points us to a piece in Salon.com that is largely about young Buddhist teachers Ethan Nichtern and Noah Levine. The article, written by Whitney Joiner, also discusses the not-so-changing face of American Buddhism and how the work of teachers like Nichtern and Levine might turn things around.

Between them, [Nichtern and Levine are] reaching people–most of them 35 or under–who might never walk into a traditional Buddhist center.

It might be just what American Buddhism needs. Ever since Buddhism gained a foothold during the late ’60s and early ’70s, when Asian teachers emigrated to America, the American face of the tradition hasn’t really changed. It’s just grown older. Most members of the 230 or so American Buddhist centers are over 48 years old, according to a 2001 Baylor University survey quoted in a recent article in the pan-Buddhist magazine Shambhala Sun. (Numbers are sketchy for “convert” Buddhists, ranging anywhere from 100,000 to 800,000.)

Nichtern and Levine have a lot of interesting things to say, and I’d encourage you to read the piece. (My friend Sumi Loundon, who was interviewed for the article, beautifully articulates what’s so neat about these guys when she compares their references to popular culture and such with the Buddha’s use of agrarian imagery to reach the people of his time and place.)

Personally, though, I was most struck by this call to action from my dear old Naropa professor Reggie Ray, who was also interviewed for the piece:

Buddhism will never survive in the West until it separates itself from the cultural forms that are specifically Tibetan or Japanese or whatever. In the ’70s, we had a whole generation of people who tried to be Tibetans, and the young people now see that not that much happened with an awful lot of those people. We should have a bunch of enlightened teachers, and we don’t. Young people look at that and say, ‘Huh, I don’t think this is what I want to spend my life doing.’ The lazy hippie dharma isn’t going to work anymore.

Let’s go to work.

Last month, I shared a video of Richard Gere discussing his Buddhist faith with Sally Quinn for the “Divine Impulses” segment of On Faith. This week, Quinn presents another interview with a Buddhist: U.S. Vice General Director of Soka Gakkai International Bill Aiken. Watch their discussion below.