21/09/2024
Ryan Lee Wong writes for the Buddhist magazine Bodhi Leaves: The Asian American Buddhist Monthly about collective liberation and including spiritual practice as part of that. Ryan says "The merging of dharma and action is, after all, what drew me to Brooklyn Zen Center. My teacher, once an anarchist and part of the Zapatista movement, brings that background to Brooklyn Zen Center when he speaks of collective liberation, when we host teach-ins on prison abolition or hold “undoing patriarchy” workshops. I can no longer understand dharma separate from social engagement, nor do I want activism separate from compassion and wisdom..... I wish for an American Zen Buddhism that, like Asian America, builds solidarity and community across differences. I wish for Asian American organizing, scholarship, and art to hold the cosmologies and belief systems of our ancestors, many of whom were shaped by Buddhism. I believe it’s possible because these two traditions—American Zen and the Asian American Movement—have each pointed me in the same direction: to form vibrant, engaged, and whole communities, and through those communities, to work for the liberation of all." For Ryan's full article, visit Bodhi Leaves or the international Buddhist journal Lion's Roar.
