Gary Snyder's "Buddhist Anarchism"

[Bureau of Public Secrets]

Gary Snyder's article "Buddhist Anarchism" -- one of the first 
expressions
of what later became known as "socially engaged Buddhism" -- is now 
online
at http://www.bopsecrets.org/CF/garysnyder.htm .

"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."



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