“A CONVERSATION IN THE TIBETAN DESERT”

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 […]

“The mountain that becomes a path” by Augusto Gen’Un Alcalde

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 […]

Buddhism and Anarchy (Буддизм и анархия)

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 […]

“Pour la Vie” (1901): Alexandra David-Néel‘s Forgotten Anarchist Philosophy of Life

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 […]

“Forgetting Self That Man Alone May Gain”

The Dharma of Dyer D. Lum, the First American Buddhist-Anarchist Tonight, on my bike ride home from work, I was visited by the spirit of the forgotten Abolitionist, Anarchist, and Buddhist, Dyer Daniel Lum. According to Tricycle, he was the first American to publicly claim to be a Buddhist, in 1875, which might make him […]

Perpetual War is the Price of the State’s Existence

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 […]

Dukkha

Dukkha cannot be easily defined. But it is one of those things that you know when you see it. Suffering only begins to scratch the surface of 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. […]

Buddhist Anarchism and Divination Beliefs in Shin Chae-ho’s The Fierce Strife Between Two Dragons

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

The Aspects of Buddhist Anarchism Reflected in Shin Chae-ho’s “Declaration of the Korean Revolution”

Translation of Kim Yong-Ha’s article about the Buddhist and Anarchist thought of revolutionary Shin Chae-Ho

THE DRUMS OF LIBERATION

One Piece and Zen One Piece is my favorite anime, and quite possibly one of the greatest works of fiction, ever. Fight me. 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 […]