Rev. Danny Fisher

Arun over at Angry Asian Buddhist points us to a teaching by my friend, UWest colleague and Pāḷi mentor Ananda W.P. Guruge that has been published in the latest Urban Dharma Newsletter.  Here’s just one nice snippet (the same one Arun singled out):

Now my last question: What role do we have as practicing Buddhists in the world today? Buddhism has come to most us as our birthright with the milk of our mothers. We are heirs to a long and chequered history with a magnificent spiritual heritage. There are with us who, after their intellectual quest for a set of beliefs and practices, have chosen Buddhism as their guide to life. We are all Buddhists and we have in our hands a priceless treasure from which the modern world can benefit enormously. How we share this with the whole of the humanity is a challenge that we have to meet especially in the century that begins in two years with the 2600th anniversary of the attainment of Enlightenment by the Buddha.

Venerable Members of the Sangha, Ladies and gentlemen,

Buddhism is not shared by merely communicating information and knowledge through teaching, publishing, mass media, Internet and the like. Our life, our dedication, our conduct, our commitment to human welfare, and our example alone will show the world that the humanism that guides us is what the rest of the humanity is searching for. This is our task for the new century and this is our challenge for the new millennium.

I’ve previously blogged about Dr. Guruge here, and I wrote about him in a piece I did for the Upaya Newsletter earlier this year.