Burma Comments 8.8.08 — Union Square, San Francisco

Alan Senauke / Clear View Project

From what I hear this is a highly auspicious date for the Chinese. Maybe so, but for the Burmese and all of us who love Burma it is a date that brings up mourning and celebration together.

We mourn:
• The still unknown numbers of monks, students, activists, ordinary people lost on 8888. And we remember them.
• The potential and promise of democracy bravely raised 20 yrs ago. And we remember that democracy will come.
• Those who died and were disappeared in last year’s Saffron Revolution. We remember all of them, and wonder where are the monks
• The millions caught by Cyclone Nargis and abandoned by their own paranoid government, which thinks of nothing but survival. We remember them.
• All the junta’s victims, named and unnamed — Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, countless Burmese in forced labor, those who suffer rape and torture, and those in exile, even here among us now.

Still, we celebrate:
• The spirit of resistance that after 46 years, after 20 years, persists day by day.
• The astonishing qualities common to all Burma’s people — qualities of compassion, joy, effort, and patience — qualities taught by the Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed.
• The yearning for freedom and democracy whose flame cannot be extinguished. I know, we all know that tyranny cannot last, liberation is bound to come.

Today I bring a message of solidarity from Buddhist communities across the United States. Since last September, this is what I have been trying to do: bringing word of Burma to all the Buddhist temples and centers, so that with our prayers, with work, and with our generosity we can align ourselves with Burmese sisters and brothers in their nonviolent liberation movement.

There is much I could say, but today I want to remember one thing more. The dhamma or truth we manifest in our daily Buddhist practice has been carefully brought to us by our Burmese teachers and others from Asia. Without their sacrifice and effort for our sake, we would not hold this dhamma treasure. Holding it, we hold a debt to these teachers. We can fulfill this debt by working for Burma, returning precious gifts in another form.

So today we remember our comrades in Burma. And those in Tibet, Darfur, and in China itself, and all those places where people resist oppression. We call on the leaders of Burma and China to let go of their self-imprisoning fears and allow the flowering of freedom. And we urge brave peoples to rise nonviolently and claim their birthright of wellbeing and life that flows free like a river.

An Appeal from the Fundation for the People of Burma

URGENT
May 2008
BURMA UPDATE

Dear Friends,

We are not diplomats or politicians and despite the military’s promise to the U.N., we can’t predict when or if the logjam of desperately needed aid to Burma will clear. We do know time is of the essence.

The Foundation for the People of Burma has found ways to get aid and help in right now!!!

Since day two of the disaster, the FOUNDATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF BURMA has been on the ground delivering relief to the poor, the newly homeless, the children, the elderly, and all those trying to rebuild their lives.

The FOUNDATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF BURMA has mobilized its network of over 300 Burmese staff and volunteers in the most hard hit areas, and is now reaching over 70,000 people with hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical supplies, food, sanitation and rebuilding assistance. With heroic perseverance, the staff surmounts daunting obstacles to their work on a daily basis. Maung Lay, a student volunteer, drove a truck full of rice to 3 villages that had almost no food for 2 weeks. The military roadblock stopped him to confiscate the food. Maung Lay looked directly at the young soldiers and replied, “You will have to kill me first.” They let him pass and the food got through. Despite military harassment, threat of disease, and challenging logistics, the local foundation network has brought life saving relief and begun the rebuilding and replanting process in numerous delta villages.

The FOUNDATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF BURMA is the largest U.S. public charity focused exclusively on humanitarian needs in Burma. Established in 1999, it had developed a sturdy and agile infrastructure on the ground in Burma long before this emergency. As huge international aid organizations continue to negotiate with the junta for access, THE FOUNDATION FOR THE PEOPLE OF BURMA is already on the ground and providing effective relief. The problems are critical. The time to help is now.

Because the needs are enormous, we need as much money and support as you can give to help in this crisis. We have almost no overhead costs, and offer a direct way to get your help to thousands of children, the hungry and the sick. It is through the care and generosity of all of us who can that these Burmese people will survive.

To donate, go to www.FoundationBurma.org <http://www.foundationburma.org/> .

Please join us in this urgent and important support, and spread the news by sending this letter to your networks of concern.

With love,

• Jack Kornfield, Joseph Goldstein, Sharon Salzberg, Founders
Insight Meditation Society and Spirit Rock Center

• Robert Thurman, President Tibet House and Professor Columbia University

• Nena Thurman, Co-founder Tibet House

• Ram Dass

• Alan Senauke, Berkeley Zen Center, Clear View Project

• Sylvia Boorstein, Spirit Rock Center

• Gail Seneca, Board Member, Foundation for the People of Burma

• Norman Fischer, Everyday Zen Foundation, former abbot of SFZC

An Imperfect Storm — Burma’s Cyclone Nargis

An Imperfect Storm

Once again, our hearts go out to the people of Burma.

Cyclone Nargis struck the Irrawaddy Delta of Burma (Myanmar) on Friday, May 2 with winds that reached 135 miles per hour, and a 12-foot storm surge that has left vast areas of the delta completely submerged. As of today, the official death toll has reached 25,000, but with dozens of towns and villages underwater, and countless coastal Burmese unaccounted for, the numbers will certainly go much higher. The storm moved up the delta, devastating Rangoon itself, with thousands of buildings destroyed. Shari Villarosa, the charge d’affaires of the US embassy in Myanmar, said: “The information that we’re receiving indicates that there may well be over 100,000 deaths in the delta area.” Five regions — Yangon, Ayeyarwady, Bago Divisions and Mon and Kayin States have been officially designated as disaster areas.

The scope of this disaster cannot yet be measured, and it comes just a week before Burma’s military junta, SPDC, plans to hold a referendum on a new constitution that would consolidate the generals’ illegitimate hold on power for the foreseeable future. The amount of energy and expense the junta has spent over these last months suppressing opposition to a forced referendum, hunting down and imprisoning dissidents, stands in sharp contrast to their failure to give timely warning to the delta’s population — when the likely path of the storm was evident to meteorologists all across South Asia. It stands in contrast to the government’s slow and deadly response to the storm itself, and to the obstacles it places to the receipt and distribution of disaster relief funds and materiel.

And yet the vote goes on, with a minor concession postponing the referendum in the flood zone until May 24. So we see the terrible possibility of disaster settled upon disaster — an imperfect storm of suffering.

Buddhist Peace Fellowship and the new Clear View Project encourage the wider Buddhist community to respond in the following ways.

1. Offer humanitarian aid now to those directly affected by Cyclone Nargis. Emergency relief efforts can be directed towards BPF’s affiliate, the Foundation for the People of Burma (FPB), which already has some funds in Burma, and has the resources and connections in country that assure proper distribution and use of your generous gifts.

Foundation for the People of Burma
225 Bush Street, Suite 590
San Francisco, CA 94104
Phone: (415) 217-7015
Fax: (415) 477-2787
www.foundationburma.org
Email: info@foundationburma.org

2. Write or email the Myanmar Embassy, expressing your compassionate concern for the Burmese people in this natural disaster, in hopes that the government of Myanmar will wholeheartedly devote all its considerable military and civilian resources to rescue those trapped in the path of the cyclone; will allow the free flow of international relief aid; and will indefinitely postpone the constitutional referendum until such a time as there can be a full and open vote — internationally monitored by respected parties acceptable to all sides.

The Honorable Ambassador U Linn Myaing
Embassy of the Union of Myanmar
2300 S Street NW, Washington D.C. – 20008
info@mewashingtondc.com

— Hozan Alan Senauke
for Clear View Project & Buddhist Peace Fellowship
5.9.08

On Tibet (1)

Here is a statement I drafted several days ago for Buddhist Peace Fellowship on the troubles in Tibet.

BPF Statement on the Uprisings in Tibet
Friday, March 14, 2008

As hundreds of Buddhist monks and ordinary citizens take to the streets of Lhasa protesting Chinese occupation of Tibet, like their brothers & sisters in Burma last September, they have been met with beatings and bullets.  Lhasa’s Drepung, Sera, and Ganden monasteries have been closed and surrounded by troops for the last three days. Yet the monks are undeterred, and continue to protest in Tibet’s cities wherever possible.

In solidarity with the people of Tibet, our brothers and sisters in dharma, we condemn the Chinese government’s suppression of peaceful demonstrations, the closing of monasteries, and the broad imposition of martial law. The violent response Chinese security forces only adds fuel to fires that they set many years ago.

The Chinese occupation, in place since 1951, continues throughout Tibet, amounting to de facto ethnic cleansing, destroying indigenous Tibetan culture by a massive Chinese population transfer and economic infiltration, backed up by the barrel of a gun. According to the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT), “In Tibet’s cities and fertile valleys, particularly in eastern Tibet, Chinese outnumber Tibetans by two and sometimes three to one.”

We agree with John Ackerly, President of ICT, who says:

The recent events in Tibet and reported deaths of Tibetans are a tragic consequence of decades of Chinese misrule in Tibet. The only lasting solution for the Tibetan problem is for the Chinese government to react positively to the Dalai Lama’s call for a negotiated solution for Tibet.

A statement from His Holiness the Dalai Lama appeals “to the Chinese leadership to stop using force and address the long-simmering resentment of the Tibetan people through dialogue with the Tibetan people…I also urge my fellow Tibetans not to resort to violence.”

We second the Dalai Lama’s appeal, and condemn the violent repression of natural and proper protest of China’s longstanding repression of Tibet.  We ask all friends of Tibet - people and governments - to do the same. We call on the government of the People’s Republic of China to release all Tibetans held on political charges.  Finally we encourage the brave and patient people of Tibet to stay strong, and to uphold the Buddha’s teachings of nonviolence.

 — Hozan Alan Senauke for Buddhist Peace Fellowship