A Pray-In for the Climate

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

This past Tuesday, January 15th, I was privileged to participate in a “Pray-In for the Climate” held in Washington D.C. The gathering was organized by the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC), a coalition of people from different faiths united in the recognition that we need to act—and act promptly—to stop the warming of our planet. The pray-in was deliberately scheduled for the actual birthday—rather than the official birth celebration—of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King. During his life Rev. King had been an outspoken critic of the “triple scourge” of racism, poverty , and militarism, and we all concurred that if he were alive today, he would have added climate change to this set.

The slow heating of the earth’s ecosystem not only threatens to unleash planetary disasters of unprecedented scale but also presents us with the most weighty ethical challenge we face today. The moral dimension of climate change emerges from the unbalanced distribution of its consequences between agents and victims. While the advanced industrial nations of the north, most notably the U.S. (and now China), bear primary responsibility for overloading the air and oceans with carbon emissions, the poor countries of the south pay the heaviest price. It’s East Africa and Southeast Asia, the Caribbean islands and Central America, that bear the brunt of the floods and droughts, the failed harvests and water shortages, that are driving their populations over the cliff of poverty and hunger. It’s the small island-nations of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific that must face rising seas, which are likely to swallow them whole and leave them no place to go. Though our sense of human solidarity should compel us to share their plight and take effective action, we normally just go about in the dull daze of complacency, absorbed in our personal affairs and pursuing “business as usual.”

Help on the Way: New Buddhist Global Relief Programs (Part II)

As a followup to our June 21 post on Buddhist Global Relief’s new programs, we are pleased to announce new support to communities in Sri Lanka and Vietnam:

Tam Binh Red Cross (hospital feeding)

For the fourth consecutive year, BGR continues to support Vietnam’s Tam Binh Red Cross’ program to help the poor feed family members who are hospitalized. Located in the Tam Binh district in the Mekong Delta region, a single hospital exists to serve more than half a million people. The price of a hospital stay does not include food, and poverty-stricken families who must carry the heavy weight of medical and hospital costs are further burdened by the need to buy food for their ill family members. BGR’s funding will allow the Red Cross to purchase in-season vegetables, tofu and charcoal for cooking for these patients. These funds are leveraged with the volunteer labor of more than 80 volunteers, who prepare the meals and serve lunch and dinner to the most vulnerable ill and poor people.

Tam Binh Red Cross (Scholarships)

BGR continues to support the scholarship program of the Tam Binh Red Cross with a third year of funding. Entrenched rural poverty in Vietnam has forced many families to make the difficult decision to keep their children at home to work in the fields rather than send them to schools where they cannot afford the basic fees. BGR funds will provide the annual enrollment fee, educational materials and basic health care for 150 students, enabling them to overcome the barriers of poverty and to continue their studies. 100% of BGR’s funds will be used for these scholarships, without any deduction for administrative costs. To qualify for these scholarships, each student must meet criteria for low income, high teacher recommendations, and good conduct. By providing educational opportunities to these promising students, BGR hopes to break the cycle of poverty in their families.

Sarvodaya (Kelwatte water supply)

This year, BGR is supporting its long-time partner, Sarvodaya (“Welfare of All”) USA with a life-saving project to provide reliable clean water supplies in the Kelwatte district of Sri Lanka. Currently, these residents obtain untreated water from an open and polluted stream. An assessment of the needs of these villagers showed a high rate of childhood disease from drinking unsafe water. Dry seasons threaten water shortages every year, putting crops, livelihoods and health at risk. BGR funds will help provide safe and clean water to hundreds of residents with a new gravity water supply system. The local community participates in the construction by providing direct labor through shramadana: “sharing work, knowledge, talents and time.” This project will empower the community, raise individual and self-esteem and be a model project for neighboring communities. Thus, the project will provide a foundation for personal and social awakening and offer the gifts of water and health.

In making these grants, BGR addresses the twin problem of pollution and poverty,  helps ill and vulnerable members of poor families, and acknowledges the critical role of education in escaping intergenerational poverty and hunger.

Help on the Way: New Buddhist Global Relief Programs in the U.S. and Africa (Part I)

Buddhist Global Relief is pleased to announce new support for a number of programs to help combat the chronic problem of hunger in urban communities in the United States and childhood hunger in West Africa.

City Harvest Healthy Neighborhoods Program, New York City, NY

One of BGR’s newest partners, City Harvest, Inc. of New York City, responds to the urgent needs of thousands of hungry NYC residents. It meets the challenges of urban poverty with a remarkably creative range of services, such as the rescuing of 29 million pounds of food this past year that would otherwise have been discarded at restaurants and grocery stores, and delivering it free of charge to food pantries and soup kitchens. This year, BGR funds will support City Harvest’s Healthy Neighborhoods, an integrated series of interventions in some of the most food-insecure areas in the United States, including neighborhoods in the South Bronx and Bedford-Stuyvesant. We’ll support mobile “farmer’s markets” that will provide some 800,000 pounds of fresh, free produce directly to neighborhoods with more than 2,000 low-income households. Addressing the links between poor health and poor nutrition, these “mobile markets” are also used as hubs to provide additional services such as food stamp screenings and health education.

Glide Sustainable Nutrition Program, San Francisco, California

Located in the heart of San Francisco’s poverty-stricken Tenderloin district, the community group Glide has provided help to the homeless and hungry since 1969, when a dedicated group of community members gathered to offer a free potluck dinner to anyone in need of a meal. Since then, Glide has skillfully developed its Sustainable Nutrition Program that provides food and nutrition and wellness education. BGR is partnering with Glide this year to support this multi-pronged program. Our program funds will help provide three healthy meals each day to anyone in need, healthy meals and snacks for children in the local childcare center, workshops on family nutrition cooking, information on healthy food sources, youth classes in gardening, ecology and health, and visits to local farmers’ markets.

Helen Keller International Child Feeding Program, Côte d’Ivoire

Building on its past partnerships with Helen Keller International, one of the oldest international relief organizations devoted to reducing malnutrition, this year BGR is funding a program to support improved infant and young child feeding practices in Côte d’Ivoire. This country is one of the poorest in the world, ranking 149 out of 169 countries on the U.N. Human Development Index. Over 40% of the population lives in poverty, and more than a quarter of its population are children under the age of five. Poor infant and young child feeding practices is one of the leading causes of chronic malnutrition among children under two, and malnutrition during this critical developmental window can condemn these children to a lifetime of poor health. BGR’s program funds will be used to educate and train women-led community based volunteer care groups about optimal feeding practices, including the importance of breastfeeding of children under 6 months and providing micronutrient-rich complimentary foods to children under 2 years old. Education and training will be provided to more than 100 volunteers, who will then help hundreds of households with young children.

These programs will make a difference in the lives of so many poverty-stricken families, extending a compassionate helping hand to reach those both close at home in the United States and children in the poorest continent in the world.  You can extend your helping hand, too, at www.buddhistglobalrelief.org.

My Keynote Address at UN Vesak Celebration

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

I have been extremely busy reviewing the proofs of my translation of the Anguttara Nikaya, which Wisdom Publications intends to publish in the fall. Wisdom is offering a very generous discount of 40% on pre-publication orders placed before August 15th. So, if you are interested, don’t delay!

Because I’m now committed to reading through almost 2,000 pages of proofs, and then (after proofing) making up indexes for the book, I haven’t been able to devote time to this blog. But on May 7th, in the window between first and second proofs, I gave the keynote address at the United Nations Celebration of Vesak, held at the General Assembly Hall of the UN Headquarters in New York. This was the second time that I gave the keynote at this function. The first was in the year 2000, the first time the UN commemorated Vesak. This time the talk was shorter–just ten minutes–since there were some fourteen delegations each allotted six minutes. It was particularly interesting seeing the three-minute videos each delegation had prepared about Buddhism or Buddhist remains in their country.

Sri Lanka’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations has put up the text of my talk here. The crowding of words in this online version was not in my original document, but must have resulted from the image processing of a printout. However, the document is still readable. The texts of several other talks are available on the website.

Once my proofing and indexing of the Anguttara Nikaya is finished, I will have more time to devote to this blog. There are a number of issues concerning social justice, food justice, food sovereignty, and Buddhist engagement that I intend to explore. Meanwhile Charles Elliott, a BGR board member and environmental attorney, will be blogging.

First-Ever White House Conference of Dharmic Faiths

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

Until recently conferences on interfaith cooperation in the U.S. have almost always centered on the Abrahamic religions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Yet over the past forty years America has become a much more diversified and pluralistic society. The relaxing of restrictions on immigration, followed by the post-war upheavals in Southeast Asia in the 1970s, has dramatically transformed our population. Large numbers of Americans now have  religious roots that go back, not to the deserts of Judea and Arabia, but to the plains, mountains, and villages of ancient India. For convenience, these are  grouped together under the designation “the Dharmic faiths.” They include Buddhists, Hindus, Jains, and Sikhs, and their national origins range from Pakistan to Japan, from Burma to Vietnam, and from Mongolia to Sri Lanka. Not all are immigrants. At least one whole generation of people of Asian descent has been born and raised in America, and think of themselves principally as Americans following a Dharmic religion.

L to R: Sikh, Jaina, Hindu, & Buddhist delegates offer prayers

Eager to translate their faith into programs of social justice and humanitarian service, followers of these Dharmic religions have sought dialogue with the U.S. government in order to find pathways along which they can contribute more effectively to their  communities, their nation, and the world.

On April 20, 2012, these efforts were rewarded by a historic conference convened at the White House, Community Building in the 21^st Century with Strengthened Dharmic Faith-Based Institutions. Buddhist Global Relief was honored to be one of the Dharmic faith organizations invited to attend. Many Hindu, Jain, and Sikh organizations, as well as other Buddhist organizations, also participated. I went as the representative of Buddhist Global Relief. I was delighted to meet a number of old Buddhist friends and to make a few new ones. Among these was the popular Buddhist blogger Danny Fisher, who had interviewed me a few times by email over the years but whom I had never met in person.

Permaculture Gardens at Mqatsheni, South Africa

These photos show the permaculture gardens at Mqatsheni, South Africa. The gardens are being built with a grant from BGR through the Khuphuka Project of our partner, Dharmagiri Outreach. The Mqatsheni area has been severely impacted by the HIV/AIDS pandemic and food insecurity.  More than 80% of the program beneficiaries are women, and 92% are unemployed.  The project’s goal is to increase local food production in the community, and to provide the community with seedlings and plants now available only from remote nurseries. The garden will also be used as a training center to facilitate the knowledge transfer of gardening skills to the surrounding areas.

In addition to the photos below, please visit the album of Photos at Picasa from this project.

Tackling Childhood Malnutrition

Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

The prestigious international relief organization Save the Children has just issued a report on the danger of chronic childhood malnutrition, entitled  A Life Free from Hunger. The report says that chronic childhood malnutrition puts almost half a billion children at risk of early death or permanent damage over the next 15 years. According to Carolyn Miles, President and CEO of Save the Children, malnutrition afflicts one in four children around the world and takes the lives of 300 children every hour.

Chronic malnutrition means lack of proper nutrition over time. Because chronic malnutrition is a persisting condition, it rarely captures headlines or attracts public attention in the way that acute malnutrition does, as seen during a food crisis. Yet chronic nutrition is far more widespread, and its consequences much deadlier. Even when it does not directly result in death, it weakens young children’s immune systems, making them more likely to die of childhood diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria. It leads to 2 million child deaths a year, three times as many as result from acute malnutrition. It also leaves children more vulnerable to extreme suffering and death when an emergency food crisis hits.

Why Does BGR Focus On Global Hunger? Part 3

 Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi

 When I got back to Balangoda after my first rains retreat (Vassa), spent at Island Hermitage, my teacher, Ven. Ananda Maitreya, had already returned from his rains retreat in England. By now I had steeled my resolve to discuss the diet with him and make him understand my needs. He kindly heard me out and told me he would see what he could do.

Shortly afterwards he gave me a piece of good news. He had spoken to a well-to-do ayurvedic physician, a supporter of the temple who lived across from the rice fields, and asked him to provide for my daily meals. The physician took this as an honor. He would give money to a villager who lived down the road from the temple. The villager would cook at his home and bring me my mid-day meal each day.

Why Does BGR Focus On Global Hunger? Part 2

In the previous installment of this essay I said that I suggested BGR make hunger and malnutrition the center of our mission on the basis of my personal experience of hunger during my first years as a monk in Sri Lanka. Here is the first part of this account, which will continue in the next post.

I arrived in Sri Lanka at the end of October 1972. A week after my arrival I traveled inland to the town of Balangoda, where months earlier, while I was still living in Los Angeles, I had arranged to take ordination under Ven. Balangoda Ananda Maitreya Mahanayaka Thera, a prominent English-speaking Sri Lankan scholar-monk, who was then 77 years of age. In Sri Lanka, Buddhist monks take as their first name the name of their native town or village. This explains why Ven. Ananda Maitreya’s first name is identical with that of the town where his monastery was located. I intended to stay with him and to study Pali and Theravada Buddhism under his guidance.

Why Does BGR Focus On Global Hunger? Part 1

Buddhist Global Relief was born in response to an essay I wrote in 2007 for Buddhadharma magazine about the need for Buddhists in the U.S. to be more vocal advocates of social and economic justice in today’s world. I saw this task, not as a “politicization” of Buddhism, but as a natural extension of the Buddha’s mission of saving sentient beings from suffering. Too often, I felt, we use the notion of “benefiting all sentient beings” as an excuse for inaction. We think it’s sufficient to subscribe to such vague and sentimental slogans while investing most of our energy in a private spiritual quest aimed at personal fulfillment.

This call for greater engagement is in no way intended to devalue the role of contemplation, meditation, and Dharma study. These constitute the core of the classical Buddhist quest and are central to my own life as a monk. But, I felt, a balance between contemplation and ethical action is critically necessary, and under present circumstances, responsible ethical action entails more than simple adherence to precepts of abstinence and restraint. The very foundations of civilization are in danger, being eroded by a free-for-all economy driven by greed and religious fundamentalism driven by dogmatism and hate. To usher in a more just and equitable social order we are called to act: to act from the ground of the wisdom and compassion generated by our practice, to act on the basis of what I call “conscientious compassion,” a compassion that takes responsibility for the fate of humanity and sentient life on earth.