Sulak Sivaraksa at the Garrison Institute's Satyagraha Event

Sivaraksa as one representative articulating one approach to "Engaged Buddhism."  He has had an interesting life filled with jail time and activism.  In this video, he calls says strongly that, "The West has been thinking too much."  This goes along with what Tsoknyi Rinpoche speaks about in many of his teachings regarding the subtle body problem that seems to be manifest in the western experience - too much thinking creates blocks, cultural blocks, in the body.

This is a good video to show in a discussion about the definition of Engaged Buddhism - what is it?  who is engaged or not engaged and how to we figure that out?  But, best to give some context about Sivaraksa's life and where his motivation arises to do the work he is doing. 

RSA Animate - Drive: The surprising truth about what motivates us

Anil showed this in class the other day to highlight the concept of proper motivation in the workplace and to pose the question, "is there a proper motivation in the workplace?" The model presented here which is replicated in many places is -
1. Autonomy
2. Mastery of Skill
3. Purpose

He compared things to the Buddha's life in terms of the 8fold path.

Secret Powers of Time

Past Oriented - 1. past positive - focus on the 'good old times' 2. past negative - focus on regret/failure
Present Oriented - 1. Hedonistic - live for pleasure avoid pain.  2. My life is fated (by religion, poverty) Fatalism
Future Oriented - 1. We've learned to work rather than play, and avoid temptation.  2. Life begins after the death of the mortal body.

shared time perspectives characterize nations ---  culture too?

The Geography of Time - Robert Levine
Pace of Life - Time Perspective - How people divide their experiences into partitions
Time Duration - are you bored?  are you excited?

Different cultures have a different pace of life.

Education? Purpose of school is to make present-oriented beasts into future oriented adults (some cultures make them past-oriented).


Kids need to be in a situation where they feel like they are controling something (video games...)
all of our educational systems are designed toward future-oriented kids, yet, they already know the cultural time perspectives - future-oriented kids succeed in school as we have it set up.  How to teach present-oriented kids?

Kids are totally different than we were - revolution of time.

"Many of life's puzzles can be solved simply by understanding our own time perspective, and the time perspective of others.  Conflict we have with other people is simply conflict we have with each other's time perspectives.  Once we're aware of that, we stop making negative attributions like 'you're dumb' or 'you're childish' or 'you're pig-headed' or 'you're authoritarian'.  It's really the most simple idea in the world."

RSA Animate - The Secret Powers of Time

Malaria In Nepal

One teacher of mine often gives an "Intro to Nepal" talk that includes statements about pre-WWII malaria barrier that prevented the British from crossing the jungly Terai belt of southern Nepal and conquering the Rana regime in control of the Kathmandu Valley for the last 300 years. 

It is common knowledge that one of the first USAID projects in Nepal was the planned eradication of malaria in 1951.  The intended aim of which was to reduce mortality rates in this southernmost region.  Opportunity for hill tribes to move south to more arable, malaria-free land was an unforeseen consequence which leaves more than imprints of hostility on the Madeshi (native peoples) of this Terai area, complicating the constitution-writing process in various ways.

However, it seems that USAID was not successful - while malaria is not considered a risk in the higher-altitude areas of Nepal, including the Kathmandu Valley, there still remains risk in the terai belt. 

Democracy Is...

B&D - Course Content Resources - Thailand and Sri Lanka

Articles that may have relevance to course content....
Trying to develop more of a Theravadin perspective as we move along... starting from the begining (8-fold path, establishment of Buddhist Ethics... Maybe I should have started with that rather than jumping in to Ashoka.  But we can do this in a backward-buildup sort of way)

Susan M. Darlington -Rethinking Buddhism and Development: The emergence of Environmentalist Monks in Thailand.   This article might fit well with the book Greg gave: Socially Engaged Buddhism by Sulak Sivaraksa.

Tessa Bartholomeusz - In Defense of Dharma: Just-War Ideology in Buddhist Sri Lanka.
Also possible to draw more and more context - I need some resources on the history of the conflict rather than just throwing these articles out to the students. 

I need more grounding.  :/