06/03/2026
As recommended by Buddhist Coalition For Democracy .
"As liberation theologians, however, the starting point is the poor and the marginal, not a general “we.” By adopting this more specific standpoint, liberationists are not committing some metaphysical crime of dualism in defending a preferential option for the poor any more than a doctor who has a preferential option for treating someone with a severed leg over someone with a cold."
"This pointed attention is born of direct understanding that triaging suffering — and therefore attending first to material misery — is a requirement for a bodhisattva focused on ending dukkha (suffering) in the world."
"If the leg is used to ignore a cold or a cold the leg, the dharma (path) is lost.
As bodhisattvas, we can attend to the severed leg without losing empathy for the one with a cold. We can name catastrophic violence without exiling less severe forms of violence from our sense of concern. But the spiritual necessity of recognizing the latter should never lead us to negate acting to stop the enormous harm of the former."
"It is no small matter that while the Buddha never neglected the dukkha (suffering) associated with a life of protected indulgence, it was the lived, material suffering of the poor beyond the palace walls that drove him into a life of seeking the dharma. The scriptures are clear that the bodhisattva path is one of responding to the whole of interconnected suffering, yet some forms because of their dire immediacy must move us more urgently."
"Knowing that so many are engaged in resisting the current violences and attacks on democracy in our nation," writes Gregory Snyder, "my hope is that our Buddhist communities will continue to work to develop a place that encourages our political voices."
