Sometimes wise action means blocking the doors to a police weapons expo. Support Buddhists learning dharma wisdom and nonviolent action tools for social justice.

Buddhists, Native Americans, and white environmentalists unite against fracking in California.

Buddhist Peace Fellowship used the peacefulness of our sitting meditation posture to interrupt the flow of foot traffic at the downtown Oakland Marriott Hotel, which was hosting Urban Shield, a weapons expo and militarized training site for police. The Marriott was not happy with our peaceful protest, and immediately called the cops to remove us. Still, we continued sitting.

By the time we arrive at the Fourth Noble Truth, the Buddha offers us the medicine that helps to bring an end suffering. He teaches it as the Eightfold Path, a set of interdependent practices that help us to untangle the knots of greed, ignorance, and hatred.

I'm sitting in my home in Oakland, California, meditating as police helicopters fly overhead. I am not at the protests demanding justice for Mike Brown, even though I live only a few minutes from where they are taking place.

In the face of violence and brutality, we should develop "samma kodha" — Right Anger — for the sake of all beings.

"Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity."– Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer

When it comes to the education of low-income students of color, mindfulness can easily mystify the structure of social oppression, shifting the analysis of school reform from the systemic level to the individual. I hope for a future in which mindfulness is grounded in notions of interconnectedness and social benefit, rather than focusing on individual growth.

We are constantly yearning for peace and harmony. Yet, the transformation requires us to destroy a life system that we depend upon — a system that is artificially bound together by the dominance of one living being upon another.

For many years, the two preoccupations of my life, “meditation practice” and “environmental science”, were two streams that ran parallel to each other.

Buddhist Peace Fellowship and allies decided to stage a group meditation blockading the doors of a Marriott Hotel in Oakland, California. The reason? Police violence and institutionalized hatred.

Spirit Rock Meditation Center is offering an unprecedented number of scholarships for people of color and young people to attend the month-long and 2-month retreats in early 2015.

Mushim Ikeda, contributor to BPF's The System Stinks curriculum, is launching another year of the Practice in Transformative Action (PiTA 2) yearlong program at East Bay Meditation Center! Application deadline is August 15, 2014. ​

"In this place, everyone is welcome."These were the words of Romeo Sosa, the Executive Director of VOZ this week, in front of the small trailer in southeast Portland, Oregon, where the local day laborer training and education center is located.

Lizandra Vidal and I did our yoga teacher training together back in 2011, in Washington, DC. I'm very excited to have reconnected with her and learn what she's up to — teaching yoga in Port Au Prince, Haiti, with the country's first and only yoga studio, Project Zen.

This Keynote event is open to the public and we’d love to have you join us. The event will also mark the beginning of a weekend-long BPF National Gathering: multigenerational Buddhist activists from around the country, meeting face-to-face to deepen our practice in social justice and spiritual awakening.