An Important Update/Correction to My Latest Shambhala Sun Space Post
by Danny Fisher
The New York Buddhist Church. Photo by the author.
Yesterday, I posted about my latest Shambhala Sun Space post — an op-ed of sorts about anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. from yours truly. I’ve just added an important update/correction:
Despite having posted about it at my personal blog weeks back, I neglected to mention The New York Buddhist Church and Rev. T.K. Nakagaki’s stalwart support of the Cordoba Initiative. This was careless and forgetful on my part, and I apologize sincerely for leaving them out of this write-up. Their friendship should not be overlooked, especially considering the fact that the Cordoba Initiative itself has singled them out for special appreciation. To learn more about The New York Buddhist Church’s efforts, I recommend this write-up on The Huffington Post.
You can read the rest of the piece here.
Sincerest apologies and mad love to the good folks at The New York Buddhist Church!
Ａｈ， ｇｏｏｄ ｆｏｒ ｙｏｕ． Ｉ ｕｓｅｄ ｔｏ ｗａｌｋ ｄｏｗｎ ｔｈｅｉｒ ｔｅｍｐｌｅ ｏｎ ｔｈｅ ｗａｙ ｔｏ ｗｈｅｒｅ ｔｈｅ ＺＣＮＹ ｗａｓ ｗｈｅｎ Ｉ practiced there.
Peace.
I don’t think you need to feel quite so overwrought, Danny. After all, it was an oversight, and anyway why should you be expected to know everything that happened in the Buddhist world? You don’t even live in NYC, for goodness sake. I mean, I belong to New York Buddhist Church, and it’s not like I’m offended. I’m just glad you’re doing your part to stick up for Muslim-Americans. Thank you.
Anyway, since you raised the subject, I guess I should point out that our Shin Pure Land Buddhist temples in the Buddhist Churches of America lineage have been quite active in defending our Muslim brethren. Besides NYBC, many other temples have spoken out. For example, in the last few weeks I’ve delivered talks in Chicago, Vista, Los Angeles, and Anaheim on why Shin Buddhists have a responsibility to resist the anti-Muslim fearmongering that is going on, and I’ll be speaking in Honolulu and elsewhere on the subject as well. Some of the ministers at these temples said they’ve been delivering similar messages in their weekly Dharma talks. So there’s actually plenty of Buddhist educating/activism going on that doesn’t make it into the mainstream media. Plus, in the BCA we’re very temple-oriented and thus not inclined to run blogs or Twitter about what we’re doing. But that doesn’t mean we’re silent–it just means we don’t generally choose to use the same social/media networks you’re tapped in to. Which is probably good, because a diversity of approaches (national network of temples, Internet-based, MSM-based, etc) is probably the best way to get the message out to many kinds of people.
Jeff:
I guess I feel like if I’m going to write an editorial like that, I owe it to those who are speaking up to be comprehensive. And I felt silly forgetting them the folks at the New York Buddhist Church since I’d mentioned them earlier. And thanks for the the updates about BCA.
I don’t know that it’s so much about online/social media networks so much as it is about just being readily apparent. (If anything, I think I might have inadvertently minimized the role of Buddhist bloggers in my piece.) It’s really not hard to find statements from, say, progressive Christians and Catholics and Jews supporting the Muslim community–whether it’s in newspapers, online, on TV, in religious publications, or elsewhere. One has to work a little harder to find stuff from Buddhists on this issue anywhere.
DCF
[...] previously blogged about the New York Buddhist Church in this post, this [...]