What does it mean to be a Buddhist?
In โWhat Does it Mean to Be a Marxist?โ, Norman Geras distinguishes โthree meanings of โbeing a Marxistโโ: personal, intellectual, and sociopolitical. He writes that โfor someone to be a Marxist, in the first โ personal โ sense โฆ, he or she must (a) subscribe to a significant selection of recognized Marxist beliefs and (b) describe him or herself as a Marxistโ. About the intellectual meaning he writes that โa person can work โ as writer, political publicist, academic, thinker, researcher โ within the intellectual tradition begun by Marx and Engels and developed by later figuresโ, and about the sociopolitical...
Can an Anarchist Take Refuge?
The first of the Bodhisattva vows is to liberate all sentient beings (from suffering) and it isnโt a stretch to include sociopolitical liberation in that goal. It shouldnโt come as a surprise, then, that Buddhist anarchism has been a small, but persistent undercurrent within Buddhism and anarchism throughout the 20th and 21st centuries. One may wonder, however, whether it is really possible to be both a Buddhist and an anarchist, although this very much depends on the definitions of โBuddhistโ and โanarchistโ. The term โanarchismโ suggests that an anarchist opposes or rejects (แผฮฝ-) (coercive/opaque) power/authority (แผฯฯฮฎ) and the institutionalization thereof...