I was recently given the honor of being a guest speaker at a conference organized by the Ulex Project / EcoDharma Center. Ulex is a political education organization based in Spain which provides training and educational resources for social movements to explore the deep and difficult questions of political strategy and its application to egalitarian ends. Ulex’s alter ego is the EcoDharma Center, a Buddhist organization which hosts or hosted meditation retreats and other residential programs at its property in rural Spain for radical/engaged Buddhists.

I highly recommend checking out Kazi Adi Shakti’s blog, Holo-Poiesis for more radical Madhyamika perspectives.

. . «B. R. AMBEDKAR, EL ICONO DE LOS MARGINADOS Y LA MISIÓN DEL NEOBUDDHISMO» – L. Zangtinlen Khongsai – (PDF – EN LÍNEA) . «B. R. AMBEDKAR, EL ICONO DE LOS MARGINADOS Y LA MISIÓN DEL NEOBUDDHISMO» – L. Zangtinlen Khongsai

. . “NAVEGANDO LA EXTINCIÓN: BUDDHISMO ZEN Y ECOANARQUISMO” – Kevin Holohan – PDF – EN LÍNEA . “NAVEGANDO LA EXTINCIÓN: BUDDHISMO ZEN Y ECOANARQUISMO” – Kevin Holohan

. . “EXPLORANDO LA INTERSECCIÓN ENTRE EL ANARQUISMO Y LA ONTOLOGÍA BUDDHISTA” – Gayr Neşriyatı – (PDF – EN LÍNEA) . “EXPLORANDO LA INTERSECCIÓN ENTRE EL ANARQUISMO Y LA ONTOLOGÍA BUDDHISTA” – Gayr Neşriyatı

Source: Getty Images Commentary At the end of her translation of the great Tibetan epic poem concerning King Gesar, Alexanda David-Neel relates this fascinating story about the author's encounter with an enigmatic Lama in the Changtang desert of northwestern Tibet. While the conversation itself is interesting enough, it could be interpreted in very different ways. For one, if we take it entirely at face value, it demonstrates the presence of an anti-colonial militancy and libertarian spirit among some of the Tibetan intelligentsia in the first decade of the 20th century.

Short bio of Augusto: I recently made the acquaintance of Augusto Gen’un Alcade Roshi, a Zen teacher from Argentina. He is also, as it turns out, a lifelong anarchist militant. As a youth in the 1970’s he participated in struggles against the American-backed civil-military dictatorship. Many dissident Argentines were disappeared during these years. Augusto was thankfully never subject to torture and disappearance, he tells me that the danger of disappearance was always looming over him and his comrades.

I stumbled across an interesting blog post on a Russian livejournal site from 2009 discussing Buddhism and Anarchism. I ran a machine translation and decided to republish it here. I find it especially interesting for its discussion of Bakunin’s negative dialectical method, which I have increasingly come to believe is extremely similar to the Buddhist dialectic. Sadly, accurate information about Buddhism was not available in Europe during Bakunin’s lifetime.

Alexandra David-Néel’s importance as an early explorer, student and translator of Sanskrit and Tibetan Buddhism cannot be overstated. Her books remain today some of the clearest and most intimate expositions of Tibetan Buddhism as it was practiced in Tibet at the start of the 20th Century. She was perhaps the first European to write about Tibetan Buddhism as a sincere student rather than an academic, critic or aspiring guru.

The Dharma of Dyer D. Lum, the First American Buddhist-Anarchist Dyer D. Lum Tonight, on my bike ride home from work, I was visited by the spirit of the forgotten Abolitionist, Anarchist, and Buddhist, Dyer Daniel Lum. Though he died by his own hand, he was truly a victim of those greatest of diseases, poverty and trauma. Reaching out across time, as any good historical figure does, he showed me the horrors of the battlefield, the constant uphill battle against a cruel and uncaring public opinion, the shame and sadness and frustration brought about by the incompatible needs to live and to work for a wage to merely survive.

I have been doing a deep dive on Mikhail Bakunin‘s philosophy. The Political Philosophy of Mikhail Bakunin, by G.P. Maximoff is an excellent resource. Most of Bakunin’s theoretical writings are scattered throughout various articles, letters, manifestoes and half-finished manuscripts, and as a result his theoretical contributions to anarchism are often overlooked. Maximoff’s book is a sort of “Bakunin mixtape” which collects and organizes all of his theoretical writings into a relatively coherent narrative.

dukkha cannot be clearly defined. But it is one of those things that you know when you see it. They say the origin of dukkha is the axle of a cart wheel. Its opposite is sukkha, meaning a wheel which is well formed and runs smoothly. dukkha, one can then imagine, is the squeaky wheel which never gets its grease. But one need not imagine ancient chariots.

English machine translation of Kim Yong-Ha’s article Buddhist Anarchism in Shin Chae-ho’s “A Tale of Strife Between Two Dragons”

Kim, Yong-Ha Editors Note: I recently bit the bullet and started using GPT-5 to translate some non-English sources I have been drawing on, pending a proper translation job (If anyone wants to do it, please let me know! I know of some academic departments that could get you paid). While not my ideal scenario, it is a big improvement on my old method, which used Google Translate to formulate search terms in languages I don’t speak and then using it to sort through and interpret results.

One Piece and Zen One Piece is my favorite anime, and quite possibly one of the greatest works of fiction, ever. Fight me. Note: read manga panels right to left I have so many thoughts about the importance of its themes that I struggle to write them down. While its anarchist themes are fairly self-evident, this video’s Buddhist interpretation is very interesting (glossing over any technical inaccuracies), and, I have to say, complementary to the political views espoused here.

Commentary on the Cakkavatti-Sihanada Sutta By Shaku Shin Gi Retrieved from I originally discovered this piece through the Spanish-language blog MAITRI, which hosts a number of articles on radical and anarchist Buddhism. I highly recommend checking it out: This article in particular is interesting for a number of reasons. It is from a Shin Pure Land perspective, which is somewhat rare for anarchist Buddhism.

Català | Español The Federation of General Workers Myanmar (FGWM) reports a labour strike currently going on at the factory of Sen Yu Clothings … Strike at Sen Yu Clothings (Myanmar) factory (used by ENCUENTRO Moda)

Archives of the buddhist peace fellowship The Buddhist Peace Fellowship was, at least in the West, the most influential organization of the “Engaged Buddhism” tendency in the late 20th Century. It is still active today but has declined in membership and influence since its heyday. To understand the politics of the BPF it is especially important to understand the politics of its founder and spiritual anchor, Robert Baker Aitken (1917-2010).

Buddhist Millenarianism and the radical Dharma “of the people” has been on my mind since writing about the White Lotus societies and their influence on popular rebellion in ancient China. The Ikko-Ikki played a similar, though quite distinct, role in medieval Japan. I am reposting this excellent blog series which summarizes one of the leading English books on the Ikki. Hopefully I will have more to write on them in the future, but for the time being why reinvent the wheel.

Authors: Rose Lenehan and Tracy Rosenthal PDF file size: 207 KB Download PDF This article by Rose Lenehan and Tracy Rosenthal originally appeared in … How to Organise Your Building We don’t just talk about philosophy and meditation here: the point of practice is not to benefit yourself, but to help others. Get your shit together, connect vividly and compassionately with others, then get shit done to build a better world.

NOTE: “Anarchist Compass: 29 Offerings for Navigating Christofascism” is an act of love and solidarity. It is intended for everyone who sees … Anarchist Compass: 29 Ways of Navigating Christofascism My favorite quotes : Compassion is a kind of strength. That means care for comrades, not only fighting against repression, but fighting for a world where we are kinder to each other.

Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternally creative source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too. — Mikhail Bakunin 1. Love it or hate it, the "Circle A" — scrawled on walls, carved in bathroom stalls, printed on punk merchandise or painted on rebellious banners — is among the most widely recognized symbols of anarchy and anarchism.

I have recently had the good fortune to find a radical Buddhism study group. This has been incredibly supportive, both for my practice and for this blog getting going again. During my hiatus from No Selves, No Masters I started an anarchist study group which would eventually become the Center for Especifismo Studies (CES). When we started studying we knew that we wanted to do something different than the usual "book of the month" style group.

Vimalakirti sutra quotation: Shariputra said, "Why don't you change out of this female body?" The goddess replied, "For the past twelve years I have been trying to take on female form, but in the end with no success. What is there to change? If a sorcerer were to conjure up a phantom woman and then someone asked her why she didn't change out of her female body, would that be any kind of reasonable question?"