emphasizes in the West, given perhaps the West's peculiar attitudes toward social action and political activism and perhaps even progressive politics. Well, yes, so let's stay with the West rather than make statements that are kind of universal about Buddhism. What I see happening in the Buddhism first came here, I think, more or less in 1893 at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago, when you had the first representatives of Asian Buddhists coming over here. And so it hasn't been here very long. And more realistically, it's been in the last 40 or 50 years that you've had practice available in a wide way to people in the West. You know, unlike Asia, people in the West are usually coming from some religious tradition to a Buddhist practice with the exception of probably, and this is really important, the majority of Buddhist practitioners in this country who are Asian or Asian-American.

[01:21]

And peculiar American way, our sort of chauvinistic way, we overlook that. You know, Americans think that we've invented everything. And we haven't. We owe this incredible debt to the Asian teachers who came here. And they came here because they, mostly they came here because they were interested in something that they felt kind of in the air that they could do here. And so they're very open-minded, but it's challenging. And then the communities that brought, whole communities that bring their Dharma practice over here, and that manifests in a whole variety of ways. But I think if you're looking at, for want of a better term, uh... western buddhism or what one scholar calls uh... import buddhism us people like myself being the importers what you see uh... three three particular characteristics that uh... very important one is that the practice is available to lay people uh... but even though

[02:42]

I am a priest. Most everybody who practices Berkeley Zen Center are lay people. They're not monastics. I'm not a monastic. I'm not a monk. And so you have laicization and you start breaking down the distinction between lay people and ordained. That's an important kind of democratizing tendency. In the same kind of democratic way, what you have is a feminization, that you have increasing numbers of women teachers and women leaders on completely equal status with male teachers, which is also something that's pretty revolutionary. Even the Buddha had to have his arm twisted to ordain the first women. And so we have all kinds of changes in the way the Dharma is manifesting here that's much more horizontal and much more equal, gender equal, which I think is, and that's having a worldwide effect.

[04:00]

There's a feedback loop that's created that affects actually what's happening in Asia to some extent. And the third, The third trend that I think marks Buddhism here in the West is increasingly social concern and social action. It's not uncommon nowadays in many Buddhist centers to find people working with homeless or serving meals, doing hospice work, and also doing more that we might see as conventional social action or social transformation work. I mean, I think that there was really an outpouring of concern from Buddhist groups around the events in September, not just not just work in concern for people who were killed or harmed by the attacks here, but also concerned about the bombing, concerned about the efficacy of a military campaign, and also concerned about, because Buddhists try to have an understanding of cause and effect, of looking at what are the effects going to be for the causes that we're

[05:33]

or the reactions that we're purveying in Afghanistan and other places in the world. I cited earlier a definition of engaged Buddhism as the application of Buddhist teachings to the resolution of social problems. You've mentioned a few of the problems already, but I wonder how that gets translated. In other words, is it a personal decision for, let's say, a Buddhist who belongs to BPF, or any Buddhist, as to what he or she might think is the social problem or is the social problem among other problems that they want to tackle. How does one go about assessing urgency and priority in a world where there seem to be a lot of problems and a lot of people who think something like A is a problem but somebody else might think A is not a problem at all? It's really hard. Particularly if you proceed from a place that acknowledges what you don't know, that acknowledges at once what you don't know and the reality, the deep reality of interconnection.

[06:50]

It makes it very hard. Several of us have been talking. There's not what one might call a socially engaged Buddhist movement. BPF is an organization that promotes socially engaged Buddhism, but it's still left to individuals, individual centers, to enact this. And the connections between all of those individuals and organizations is still very tenuous. And it's not clear whether there should be a movement as such. What would that entail? I think that's a very large question that has yet to be taken on, not only by BPF, but by other people who are close to us and who've been thinking about this. Well, you took over, I'm speaking with Alan Sanaki, he is a Soto Zen priest in Berkeley, who is the executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and you took over

[07:59]

the helm of the organization in 1991 during the Gulf War and so, and of course there's peace in the name of the organization, so I assume much of your effort would be devoted to pacifism and somehow combating warmongering. I'm wondering, in the last decade, how you've been able to cope or respond to what seems to be, if not a growing, at least a very consistent drumbeat of using violence and weapons as a way to resolve problems. Well, I'm kind of wary of the word pacifism because it seems to me it gets heard as pacifism. But what I do deeply believe in is active nonviolence. Active nonviolence being sort of the nonviolent strategy as you

[09:02]

as we've experienced historically from Gandhi and Martin Luther King and others. It's a nonviolence where one puts oneself in the face of what one believes and what one feels to the core of one's being. One puts oneself at risk for those beliefs. And so it's very challenging. It's a challenging position. And I think this is one that we're all, in various degrees, trying to explore and move towards. But during the Gulf War, mostly what we could offer was a place where people could speak what they were feeling. And then along with that, we were also trying to offer materials that related to what the U.S.

[10:07]

interest was in that war and taking it down to the individual, to the individual, bringing it to the individual dimension. What's my interest in that war? What's your interest in that war? Because we can never step outside the reality of being citizens in this particular nation. So the ability that you, CS, and I have to sit in this nice warm room with this wonderful technology abounding is also based on privilege that comes in part because of weapons. You know, what the Buddha said, because there is this, there is that. So the question is, what do we want? How much of this privilege, is this privilege really useful to us?

[11:10]

How do we, is there a way to set it aside? Is there a way to make the this on one side more closely balanced than that on the other side? Instead of having the huge of wealth and resources and privilege that fall between the developed and the, what should I say, it's not the undeveloped, it's the undeveloping world. the world that we're, you know, robbing from. And so economic justice might be very much... Economic justice is a dimension of active non-violence. Environmental justice is an expression of that. So what I think one of the things that distinguishes Buddhist Peace Fellowship is that we have a way of looking at the world in in terms of systems and structures that are not simply mechanically or sort of arithmetically bunches of people, but bunches of people who are working, you know, who work knowingly or unknowingly in a kind of systemic way.

[12:36]

And we like to look at the suffering that kind of evolves from those systems. And so, just to maybe make it a little more explicit, systemic violence would arise from what? From things like what some people on the left might call the isms, racism, sexism, patriarchy? Sure. Poverty. All of those things are systemic. They're not, you know, you don't have one bad guy, you know, imposing this on everybody. It's because there is a large participation, conscious or unconscious, in various forms of oppression that they become systemic. What do we do about it? I mean, I know BPF has thousands of members and there are practitioners all over this country and the world who are cultivating compassion and non-attachment and their peaceful instincts, and yet it just seems like there is such an overwhelming momentum in another direction that one wonders at times, I think, what a few people here and there can do

[13:57]

in their personal lives, in their social action that might change things. Do you, and I know obviously despair is not a part of Buddhism, but I just wonder how one reconciles one's own personal work with what appears to be at least an ongoing trend in mass kind of a mob mentality toward revenge and violence. Well, I don't know that, no, despair is not a Buddhist, it's not a Buddhist value, but it certainly is a reality. It's the working of the mind. And I think of Joanna Macy, who's been for years doing despair and empowerment work, which helps people to uncover the power that they have in the workings of their minds, in the workings of their body, which can be turned, the amount of energy that we put into despair, can it be turned into positive action?

[15:07]

You know, especially as we come together and recognize, oh, I'm feeling this despair and she's feeling this despair and you begin to recognize in a community setting that that's shared and the realization of that helps one be able to turn it. But as to the actual mechanism or mechanisms, I don't know. What I do feel is this is not something that one can do just by oneself, which is why, again, in the context of Buddhism, and Buddhism is not the only way, and spirituality may not be even be the only way, but it's what I'm working with here. So the Buddha had the three jewels of Buddhist practice.

[16:10]

Buddha, which is kind of the principle of enlightenment, Dharma, which is the teachings or the way things work, and Sangha, which is the community of practitioners. as I was saying about other principles, these are inseparable. And so the notion that one can fix things by oneself or even embody power just by oneself, it won't work. You know, especially it won't work in the kind of mass society that we have. So there have to be groupings of people in in different circumstances and different settings coming together to examine what their concerns are and to examine what they might want to do. This is something that's very hard. It's not just hard for Buddhism, it's hard for Americans. You know, I mean, American society cuts against the grain of this. You know, we see this again and again in history, you know, in any histories of the left.

[17:14]

you know, there are, there's comings together, and then there's splintering into different factions and fragments. And it's one of the weaknesses of the kind of individually based, it's more than ideology. It's the kind of individual basis on which this country is founded. So that's what we have to work with. Right. Ellen Sinaki, executive director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship. You can check them out online at www.BPF, as in Buddhist Peace Fellowship, .org. The show is Living Room. I'm C.S. Song sitting in for Chris Welch. We'll be back in a moment. you and you're listening to KPFA 94.1 FM.

[18:44]

The show is Living Room and my guest today is Alan Sanaki. He is a Soto Zen priest and he has been the director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, which is based in Berkeley for 10 years. We'll be stepping down in a matter of days. And I wanted to spend some time talking about BPF over the last 10 years and what you've learned in the growth and development of the organization, some of its challenges, some of its successes, as you understand them. Maybe we could begin with the mission of BPF and then how you feel that mission has been elaborated upon since 1991. Well, I think that the mission of BPF is to really be a voice for socially engaged Buddhists, and to some degree that means raising Buddhist principles of non-duality, or of the way each person is related to another, of not creating a kind of sense of us and them,

[20:03]

So part is to bring that to the society and to progressive movements as a whole, and the other is to bring a social justice or social transformation vision to the Buddhist community. And so we've been working in both of those directions, and we've been doing it You know, through our journal, we have a wonderful journal called Turning Wheel, which comes out four times a year. And it's available to members and in a limited way available on the newsstand. And also through some of the programs that we've been involved in and that we've developed over the, particularly over the last 10 years. Such as? One thing that comes to mind, and I've personally experienced this, is a growing community of Buddhist practitioners within the prison system.

[21:11]

And the Buddhist Peace Fellowship has a prison project, which is very active. And that project is involved in correspondence with prisoners, providing them with Dharma materials, teaching Buddhism under different guises within the prison system. Sometimes it gets in as Buddhism. Sometimes it gets in as meditation. Sometimes it gets in as stress reduction. Sometimes the psychologist will bring it in. But whatever it is, it's a way of beginning to teach dharma within those awful institutional settings. I've been doing this, a number of us have been doing this, and here in the Bay Area there's a prison meditation network which we work with, and there are people in virtually every prison and jail in the Bay Area who are leading groups, and what we try to develop is that

[22:24]

is a sense that this is not about, you could use this as a kind of pacification technique, you know, to make people, you know, more comfortable in their surroundings. And that's not, that's not the way I see it. You know, I'm not about fomenting rebellion within the prisons necessarily, but the whole system needs to be looked at. How did people get there? What is the you know, what are kind of the rules and pressures of society. And so that comes up in some of the discussions that we have inside. How receptive have folks who are incarcerated been to some of these programs, people maybe who've never been exposed to Buddhism before? Well, I mean, those, they vote with their feet or with their butts. Either they're there because they wanna be or they're not. There's no other reason to be there.

[23:25]

In the same way that there is no other reason for anybody to come to any meditation center. If it's not working for you or if it's uncomfortable, you leave. But we found is, you know quickly in in the prisons where you have stable populations uh... generally people come people make a a strong commitment and it's very important to them you know for many of them it's like the only place in the course of a week where they can find some quiet and find some sense of safety among other prisoners. Can you share with us maybe a particular story or maybe something from a piece of correspondence you received in response to a BPF program in a prison, some prisoner who had some epiphany or perspective to share based on his or her experience?

[24:27]

Well, you know, what really comes to mind very strongly is a friend of mine who I've been working with for a number of years his name is Jarvis Masters and I visit him he's on death row in San Quentin actually in the adjustment center because he was convicted of involvement in the murder of a guard about 18 years ago and you know in that time uh... i mean he went into san quentin for an armed robbery that he did and he was a very angry young man and in that time he found some dharma teachings that were meaningful to him uh... and you know he has however difficult it is you know a sense of

[25:32]

peace and it's also a sense of you know doing the work that he has to do uh to make his innocence known uh but but also creating some sense of uh harmony around him in relation to the guards in relation to the prison system and it is not easy uh but that's the work that he does and i i visit him regularly there's a number of us who who've been working with him, and his writings are, he has a wonderful book called Finding Freedom, and other more recent writings are generally available from time to time in Turning Wheel. And so that's pretty inspiring, to go and basically talk about the Dharma, not in any abstract way, but how are we trying to live our lives? Me, on the outside, And Jarvis, I see him across about an inch of plexiglass.

[26:37]

That's as close as we've ever gotten. And yet there's a very close tie. Ellen Sanaki, director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship, and another program of BPF is BASE, Buddhist Alliance for Social Engagement, that also started in the past decade. What is that about, and how does that fit within BPF's mission? Well, I think BASE is really unique. I can't think of any other Buddhist organization that's doing anything like it. BASE is kind of a way in which people can carve out a practice of social action, a dedicated practice of social action, for a fixed period of time. So usually it'll go, a base program will go from six months to a year, and there'll be from eight to 12 or 15 people in a group, and each of those people will be doing

[27:39]

large amount of either volunteer or paid social service or social change work. They'll come together once a week, once or twice a week to do meditation together. They also, in those times when they come together, they will do some study, they will do some reflection on how their work is going. They'll also often do some kind of group process work because in the in the course of six months to a year you get to know each other people get to know each other quite well too well you know and the rough edges you know the rough edges show and you have to work on your relationships and that's part of that's part of the of the work of sangha the work of community is actually you know how do you relate to people you know you may not have chosen to be with this person and yet you're deeply held beliefs pull you together. So that's been, and then they also do, they'll do a monthly day of retreat and usually a longer retreat at the beginning and end.

[28:51]

And then often they stay, people stay in touch or stay together after that time is over. So there have been, I think, close to 200 people who've gone through this program over the last five years and they begin to create their own sort of network And it's been really remarkable. One of the things that we imagined that this would do would be kind of raise the consciousness of Buddhist practitioners about social action. And the unforeseen consequence, which has really surprised us, is it's moved quite a number of hardcore activists into the world of really dedicated Buddhist practice. That they've seen that this is a really necessary way of integrating all that they are, what they'd like to be in the world. So it's been a really wonderful program.

[29:54]

So in other words, people who apply don't have to be hardcore Buddhists. no in advance not really i mean they have to have some kind of they do have have to have some kind of practice uh... and it's uh... a pretty careful screening process i mean basically the groups we try to put together a group if we're doing it here we try to put together a group that looks like it's going to work but sometimes also groups uh... we encourage people to start their own groups in their own neighborhoods in their own communities so uh... i think beginning in February, the latest, newest group that's going to start in the Bay Area is going to be one where the focus is going to be on issues of race and diversity. So the group itself is going to be highly diverse, as many of them have been, and also everybody will be doing work on issues of of race and diversity not necessarily within the buddhist community but but that'll be there also well let's talk about race because

[31:02]

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