Buddhist Coalition for Democracy Blog
Walk Together Children, Don’t You Get Weary
It felt like 8℉ as we stood outside the White Plains Federal Courthouse. Everyone was chilled to the bone, and my gloves weren’t warm enough to allow me to keep holding up my protest sign. Eventually, I folded up my sign and kept my hands in my pockets for warmth....
A New Template for Conflict, But Cuba Poses the Same Old Problems
Let’s examine the recent United States military strike on Venezuela not only as a spectacle, but as a test case. What happened in Caracas in early January was not simply the removal of Nicolás Maduro. It was a demonstration, to Cuba and the world, of how quickly...
Neo-Royalism
It’s hard to find the exact right word—le mot juste—that best describes the Trump regime. Words like “fascist,” “illiberal,” “personalist dictatorship,” and “authoritarian” are often used, but none seems completely satisfactory. Imagine my pleasure, then, when I...
Say Her Name
The New Year has begun, and it was only three days into the new year that the Venezuelan head of state and his wife were kidnapped for the expressed purpose of grabbing Venezuela’s oil. When asked by the New York Times whether there was anything that could stop him...
BCD Statement on U.S. Military Intervention in Venezuela
The Buddhist Coalition for Democracy issues this declaration in response to the recent military actions by the United States against the sovereign nation of Venezuela and the capture of its head of state, Nicolás Maduro. These events must be examined through the...
Our Courts and Hitler’s
In a recent holiday message, I expressed optimism that one year into this administration our district courts, courts of appeals, grand juries, and criminal and civil court juries were still upholding the rule of law in the face of Trump’s propaganda, manipulation and...
A Note of Holiday Cheer (Amidst General Awfulness)
The relentless pace of events continues. In just this past week: 1) Trump commented on the murders of Rob and Michele Singer Reiner, 2) the DOJ failed to comply with the congressional order to release all of the Epstein files, 3) the Department of Energy suspended all...
Five Life Tasks for Political Activists
Stephen Batchelor, a prominent secular Buddhist, has reframed the Four Noble Truths of Buddhism as four tasks: 1) Embrace life as it is (both its joys and sorrows), 2) Let reactivity be, 3) See the ceasing of reactivity, and 4) Actualize a Path. Batchelor’s four tasks...
Cycles of Belonging: A Migrant Story for Our Time
Hearing my friend, an elementary school teacher, say she had to undergo training on what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) showed up at her school did it for me. After that conversation, I couldn’t sleep for days. What the Moment Revealed It wasn’t...
The Supreme Court Stands on its Head
In Trump v. United States (2024), decided 6–3 on July 1, 2024, the Supreme Court ruled that a former president enjoys (1) absolute immunity for actions within his “conclusive and preclusive constitutional authority,” (2) presumptive immunity for other “official acts,”...
The Brave Little Parrot and the Fire of Apathy
There’s an old Jataka tale about a small parrot trying to put out a forest fire. You’ve probably heard some version of it. The fire doesn’t start as an inferno. It begins as a barely visible line of orange, like someone dragging a hot wire across the horizon. The...
MAGA’s Collective Reactivity II: A Deeper Dive
In a previous post published here in October, I wrote this essay, in which I began to piece together what I had hoped would be a useful perspective through which we liberal Buddhists might take a more compassionate view of our various friends, colleagues, and family...
The Alchemy of the Book Club
It is a wonderful occurrence when you can share something you love with someone who is as enamored of it as you are. This kind of connection is one of the joys of life. In a world where we are digitally connected more than ever before, are we losing the personal...
Heroes Without Headlines
They arrive quietly, often unseen by the cameras that prefer the spectacle of the border or the flash of a crime scene. Yet the pulse of immigrant America beats in laboratories, kitchens, hospitals, and disaster zones across the country. It moves through the hands of...
The Open Wound: Buddhism, Immigration and the Violence of Belonging Nowhere
As a member of the coordinating committee for the Buddhist Coalition for Democracy—an organization that supports democracy through methods consistent with Buddhist principles of wisdom, compassion, Right Speech, and nonviolence—I was tasked with writing about our...