Buddhist Coalition for Democracy Blog
A Tyrant is Trying to Scare Us
Sometimes I hear from ordinary people who wish to do something about the multiplying threats to freedom and democracy that we face under the growing Trump tyranny, but fear that their activism may cost them dearly. Our country is on the road to a fascist state and the...
Two Kidnappings
On Thursday July 31, 2025 two members of my community were kidnapped by ICE immediately after attending their immigration hearings at the courthouse at 26 Federal Plaza in New York City. Both were Episcopalian parishioners from Westchester, N.Y. churches. Both were...
Am I Doing Enough?
Growing up in a Jewish family, I often wondered why more Germans didn’t resist Hitler’s rise to power. Living in America in 2025, I no longer have to wonder. The rise of authoritarianism with its minority of rabid supporters and its majority of the fearful, the...
The Constitution Promises Rights to Immigrants—Within Limits
Imagine one Maria Torres—a mother of three and an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. On a quiet morning in Phoenix federal agents knock on her door. She isn't under investigation. She has never committed a crime. But when her 12-year-old son asks, “Do we have...
Compassion and Interbeing
These are the last days that we will share with Joanna Macy, as the beloved Buddhist scholar and founder of The Work That Reconnects spends her remaining time in hospice care with her friends and family. Death comes for us all, of course. My Buddhist perspective on...
Mindful Town Hall
The greatest weapon authoritarians have at their disposal is their ability to demoralize the resistance by making its members feel isolated and powerless. When people feel alone and defenseless, they follow Aesop’s advice that it’s better to bend than to break; better...
The Theater of Cruelty
On a sweltering July afternoon in the Florida Everglades, Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Kristi Noem stood before a newly constructed immigration detention center newly built with cages and tents in a remote Everglades location where the heat and mosquitos kill as...
Justice by Geography: How Chaos Now Reigns Supreme
Over the course of his presidency and beyond, Donald Trump has tested the limits of federal power through executive orders, agency maneuvers, and constitutional brinkmanship. In the district and appellate courts, the legal response has been swift and withering:...
What’s Buddhist About Engaged Buddhism?
Previous versions of this article were published in Turning Wheel (2004) and The Existential Buddhist (2016). It still seems relevant today. What is it that is specifically Buddhist about engaged Buddhism? Are we simply conducting our old politics under a new banner,...