Tag: Buddhism


  • Huffington Post Article about Ariyaratne, Leading Gandhian Buddhist Leader of Sri Lanka

    I met Aryaratne over twenty years ago in Cambridge, had a wonderful dialogue with him about Buddhist and Jewish approaches to compassion. Laurence Simon of Brandeis University, my old colleague and friend, introduced us, and I have been grateful ever since. Here is an honest article about this extraordinary man and his movement, the Sarvodayah Movement.

    A.T. Ariyaratne: Leading Sri Lanka’s Largest Civil Society Movement for 50 Years
    By Anuradha K. Herath

    The meek 77-year-old Ariyaratne, often called the “Gandhi of Sri Lanka,” has become popular for his massive meditation sessions in which hundreds of thousands of people converge to pray for peace. His Sarvodaya Shramadana Movement, which Ariyaratne established 51 years ago, is based on Buddhist and Gandhian principles — Sarvodaya in Sanskrit means “awakening of all” and Shramadana “to donate effort.” The organization is the largest civil society movement in the country. By its own estimations, it

  • HOW MUCH SHOULD THE DALAI LAMA GIVE AWAY FOR PEACE?

    Nicholas Kristoff’s very revealing piece on the Dalai Lama’s latest offer to the Chinese, if it is true, raises many fundamental issues about the price for peace.

    Kristoff’s piece raises important questions that face the Dalai Lama regarding the future of his people, and the compromises that may be necessary with the Chinese regime in order to forestall the cultural genocide that is underway in Tibet. Should he settle with the Chinese finally? What is he surrendering, what is he getting for his people?

    Where does justice fit in? Well, I hardly can imagine where it fits in. This conflict is so asymmetric and one side is so powerful that it hardly seems possible to hold out for justice as the cultural genocide and displacement of Tibetans by Han Chinese continues apace.

    It seems to me that at the Dalai Lama’s age, and given the frustration of the youth who …

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