Radical media, politics and culture.

Gary Snyder, "Buddhist Anarchism"

Bureau of Public Secrets writes "Gary Snyder's article "Buddhist Anarchism" -- one of the first expressions
of what later became known as "socially engaged Buddhism" -- is now online
at Snyder.


"Although Mahayana Buddhism has a grand vision of universal salvation, the
actual achievement of Buddhism has been the development of practical systems
of meditation toward the end of liberating a few dedicated individuals from
psychological hangups and cultural conditionings. Institutional Buddhism has
been conspicuously ready to accept or ignore the inequalities and tyrannies
of whatever political system it found itself under. This can be death to
Buddhism, because it is death to any meaningful function of compassion....


"The mercy of the West has been social revolution; the mercy of the East has
been individual insight into the basic self/void. We need both.""