This week visiting home, I’m pulled to revisit some family papers. Today, under Trump’s ascendancy, I am the exact same age as my maternal grandfather was when Hitler rose to power. Maybe there’s something in here I can use. ...

Stories matter. Many stories matter. Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign, but stories can also be used to empower and to humanize. Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity. – Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Nigerian writer *This article by Mushim Patricia Ikeda originally was published on Turning Wheel Media on October 28th, 2014. In the coming mont ...

The 1999 WTO protests in Seattle marked the beginning of what has become a rapid militarization of U.S. police departments all across the country. BPFers in the Bay Area decided to take on this dangerous trend with the power of song. ...

A little over a week ago, I co-taught a workshop with Mushim Patricia Ikeda at the Buddhist Peace Fellowship's National Gathering entitled "Movement for Right Action: Yoga for Socially Engaged Buddhists." Since then, I have been practicing what I preached there. Yesterday, for example, I opted to squat during part of a meeting at my zen center. When one of my fellow board members asked me if I needed a chai ...

Beautiful iris. Soon this photograph will be all that is left. Some might say the same of the Earth itself. That because nothing lasts, we shouldn't care that much if fracking has become a worldwide activity, or species extinction is happening at an alarmingly fast pace these days, or that the rainforests that many of these disappearing species live in are also disappearing, being shredded for profit. It's ...

There's been much excited discussion online about the recent comments of actor Russell Brand during a BBC interview. Given how vapid so much of pop culture is, I get it that anytime a celebrity says something smart in public it's almost a cause for celebration. Furthermore, the fact that Brand called out the rottenness of our economic system and even suggested that a revolution may be coming is a surprising ...

(This is the last of 5 short selections from an interview with Waging Nonviolence co-founder Nathan Schneider. You can read the first installment of the interview series here, here and here.) Nathan will be the featured guest for BPF's monthly phone call this Sunday October 27th.) Why should people take nonviolent approaches seriously? What is to be gained?  What are some of the benefits you've personally e ...

All this talk about violence and non-violence made me think of koans. Old Zen masters. And how their experiences may or may not help us address what right action might look like in social activism. A monk asked Zhaozhou, “For a long time, I’ve heard of the stone bridge of Zhaozhou, but now that I’ve come here I only see a simple log bridge.” Zhaozhou said, “You just see the log bridge; you don’t see the sto ...

(This is the fourth of 5 short selections from an interview with Waging Nonviolence co-founder Nathan Schneider. You can read the first installment of the interview series here, here and here.) Nathan will be the featured guest for BPF's monthly phone call on October 27th.) On the Waging Nonviolence website, it says, "For us, to wage nonviolence is to embrace conflict, so we try to embrace such conflicts in ...

(This is the third of 5 short selections from an interview with Waging Nonviolence co-founder Nathan Schneider. You can read the first installment of the interview series here and here.) Nathan will be the featured guest for BPF's monthly phone call on October 27th.) We can't talk about nonviolence without talking about police — partly because many nonviolent movements choose to push or break laws in some w ...