Yoga: Not Just For Young, Skinny White Girls. A Trans Guy Walks Into a Yoga Class. Project Bendypants: Practicing Yoga While Fat. Just a few intriguing titles from popular articles in a new online project: Decolonizing Yoga. Remember the controversy over Yoga Journal and the Hyatt boycott?  And how some yoga practitioners staged an asana protest outside the hotel?  That compassionate confrontation is the or ...

People get used to anything. The less you think about your oppression, the more your tolerance for it grows. After a while, people just think oppression is the normal state of things. But to become free, you have to be acutely aware of being a slave. Assata Shakur (who lives in exile in Cuba, and just became the first woman on the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List) was referring to the oppression of Black p ...

It's been a sobering and inspiring month with you, exploring an institutional take on the Second Precept, or a Buddhist look at systemic stealing.  Thank you for joining us in this process of learning and reflection. To close out our month, and in honor of May Day tomorrow, we want to leave you with the insights of author, historian, and journalist Vijay Prashad, on the recent tragic and infuriating deaths ...

Amidst the recent US-Korean tensions, which stretch back a long time, with many causes and conditions, BPF would like to share this letter, forwarded to us from our friends and colleagues at the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. Although we feel ill equipped to comment meaningfully on many geopolitical issues, we support the letter and hope to learn more about how anti-imperialists in Korea and th ...

Yesterday was the final chance to submit public comments to the White House in hopes of changing the President's mind on the Keystone XL Pipeline.  Now, the executive decision to continue or discontinue construction of the pipeline rests in Obama's hands.  But he is not the only one who will decide how events unfold. Between Idle No More, the Native Resistance Network, Indigenous Environmental Network, Grea ...

In one scene of Disney's shockingly progressive movie musical Newsies (now adapted for the Broadway stage), which sets the New York City newsboys strike of 1899 to infectious song-and-dance numbers, two newsies have an illuminating exchange on the ethics of theft. David [with disdain]: Our dad taught us not to steal. Jack [dryly]: Yeah, well mine taught me not to starve, so I guess we both got an education. ...

A central question for me, as a Buddhist organizing for collective liberation from oppression, capitalism, and needless material suffering, is how to resist and reclaim in a spirit of love.  In a discussion here on Turning Wheel, seth nathanson raised an important point for discussion: I can understand the frustration. It seems like the rich are taking from everyone else, so in order to rectify the injustic ...

SAN DIEGO—Following seven straight years of long hours at the office and sacrificed weekends and holidays, all of account manager Sam Hemstead's hard work and single-minded devotion to Pinnacle Automotive Insurance has finally paid off for CEO Charles Pardahee, Pardahee said Friday. Beneath the many layers of The Onion's satirical journalism, there often lies a kernel of truth. (Do onions have kernels? Mayb ...

Native American feminist scholar and activist Andrea Smith argues, “In order to colonize peoples whose societies are not based on social hierarchy, colonizers must first naturalize hierarchy through instituting patriarchy.” In the third installment of The System Stinks, a systemic look at the Five Precepts of Buddhist ethical conduct, we’re facing the ways in which hierarchies of sexuality and gender have b ...

(Warning: graphic images. Photo credits Dr Samira Alani/Al Jazeera.) As Buddhists engaged in the political realm, we try to remain open yet solid.  "Not Turning Away."  In describing her teacher in the Zen tradition, one of our BPF Board members writes, "What inspires me most is his imperturbability.  He feels deeply, yet is not shocked or rattled off center." At 4 a.m. this morning, I was, I confess, leani ...