Second Precept: Dangerous Berry Harvests

Heads up: last week Nathan over at Dangerous Harvests (one of my favorite political Buddhist blogs) wrote a thought-provoking post on what it means to pick berries from unattended bushes that are technically "private property."  His questions resonate deeply with what we at BPF have been wondering about reclaiming stolen land. As Nathan puts it:

As a Buddhist, I have vowed to uphold the precept of not stealing. But in a society so colonized and commodified, to the point where even some simple counseling to support mental health has been turned into a product for sale, what is stealing? How can the man I spoke to about those apple trees, who does next to nothing to aid the growth of the trees, and lets the lion's share of the produce go to waste, claim ownership over them? Frankly, how can anyone claim ownership over the life of a tree or a berry bush?

Check out the whole post, and comments, and enjoy catching up on the Harvests.