Bhikkhu Bodhi, building a more equitable world

I’ve been attending a two-day retreat led by Bhikkhu Bodhi, the inspiring Buddhist scholar, teacher, and monk who created Buddhist Global Relief. He’s concerned about the “rising global tendency toward autocracy,” particularly in the USA. 

A great many of us are concerned about that, and Bhikkhu Bodhi says our responsibility is to practice with a commitment to social action. As a scholar and translator of Buddhist texts, he says our practice is not for personal or individual attainment of peaceful states (often popularized by a cartoon of someone “blissing out”). Rather we meditate in order to commit ourselves to “radically transformative action.” We commit to building a world in which all beings can flourish, a world with systems that do not support the hoarding of wealth and power by an oligarchy.

I’m all for it. I went for a walk during one of our breaks. The sidewalks were mobbed with people.