Welcome to a Month of: Decolonizing Our Sanghas

As we journey through our 2013 Buddhist activist curriculum, The System Stinks, we've been asking what the Five Precepts of Buddhist ethics might look like when applied at an institutional scale, for collective liberation.

So far we've covered the Second Precept (not stealing) in "Stolen Land, Stolen Culture, Stolen Time;" the Third Precept (not engaging in sexual misconduct) in "Sex, Gender, Power;" and the Fourth Precept (not lying) in "The Lies That Build Empire." Each theme has helped us to view Buddhist principles of non-harming, compassion, and refusal to turn away from suffering in a mode that remains thoroughly engaged, socially aware, and consciously interconnected.

Now we arrive at the Fifth Precept: abstaining from intoxicants that can cloud the mind, mislead judgment, and lead us to break our observation of the other ethical guidelines.

Contemplating the systemic version of this precept, we found ourselves thinking of certain common techniques of colonialism as akin to intoxicants.

Engendering forgetfulness: erasing history and trying to blur the past out of relevance.

Promoting addiction (to raw materials) that blunts compassion and may cause colonizers to steal or kill to get what they want.

Warping perception: inventing hierarchies of value (in race, gender, sexuality, ability, age, and more) that facilitate domination.

From Palestine to Turtle Island; from the struggle to stop the Belo Monte dam in the Amazon; to calls for the U.S. to leave the Philippines; to efforts to end solitary confinement and uranium mining on Native land; indigenous and anti-colonial liberation movements are happening all across the globe.  As natives, settlers, migrants, people in diaspora — how can we come together and clear our collective heads, in pursuit of justice?

We're excited to explore this theme with you, O lovely digital sangha.  We'll be sharing essays and images from fellow social-justice-loving Buddhists, and asking ourselves the question:

What does it mean to Decolonize Our Sanghas?

Can't wait to find out.

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Top photo by BPF Co-Director Katie Loncke: members from Los Angeles dance group La Cuauhtemoc speak and perform at a rally in Corcoran, California, to support this month's historic prisoner hunger strike against solitary confinement.