The reason I am writing this is that I am an American Buddhist. What the monks are going through is difficult and I practice for the end of suffering for them and all beings. It is all I can do and probably doesn't change anything, but it is what they would ask of me.
At the risk of speaking for them, I suspect they would be disheartened to think that people (like President Bush) would be willing to exploit their suffering for political gain.
I suggest that people follow them, instead of using them. What do I mean by that? The best I can do is to quote the late great Zen monk, Dainin Katagiri on how to act in the face of political emergency, in this case nuclear weapons. (from Returning to Silence)
When you look around at the human world you say this world is terrible, but this is you imagination. The world you have imagined, that you can see, is not all there is. There is still a chance for you to create a peaceful world.....
Actually, I don't know exactly how we should express our feelings for peace or our feelings against nuclear weapons, but there are a few important points to remember regarding this. If you have seen films of Nagasaki and Hiroshima after the atomic bombs exploded there, we should remember that nuclear weapons today are much more powerful. This is an emergency situation. It is something more than just politics, something more than philosophy, something more than a certain category of religious activity. We have to act, I feel this, but we should not be blind toward politics and the complications of human life. When people act individually, they can be very kind and nice, but when people act as a group something happens. They are taken over by the group and become blind. For example, during the Second World War in Japan, priests, philosophers, teachers, parents were all very nice as individuals, but these same people belonged to a certain group called "Japanese"; they belonged to a certain time called "World War II"; individuals were completely negated and they became blind.
It is important for us to help in this effort toward peace, but we must be careful. When individuals come together and act as a group things can happen that you would never expect. This is why we have to consider how to help each individual's activity. But this is not to discuss or to look at the problem from a distance. We have to think of how to inform people of this emergency and how to make people aware. I don't know how but we have to think about this.
So, the point is that this is a real emergency. It's not a situation in which we can have the kind of discussion where we decide how we feel about politics. It is completely beyond this. We should be careful, but we have to do something. So don't be too sensitive about politics, because, more or less, we are right in the middle of politics. If politics is at a distance, you can keep away from it. But if politics is already in front of you, politics is already in your life. In other words, if a bulldog comes from a distance, you can keep away from it. But if a bulldog is right in front of you, you must be careful. You must be calm; you cannot show your fear, or fight, or show anger. The bulldog knows immediately what you feel. So you stand up straight and still. Our situation is something like this. The bulldog, nuclear weapons, is already barking at us. What do we do?
What I can tell you is to please be judicious. It is not necessary to ignore the situation, nor do you need to be involved in it exclusively. You must act, but you must be careful and you must be thoughtful. It will not help to express your anger against nuclear weapons, because you are already right there. If you express your anger, nuclear weapons will keep barking at you, and there will be no end. Don't express your anger or hatred toward certain people, or towards politicians, or even toward nuclear weapons themselves.
Express your Peace.
I think Dailykos is a wonderful place for expression, but I personally see too much expression of anger. It is the anger pieces that get the most comments, the most recommendations. I don't recommend anger. It is not helpful.
I watch the news and see the pundits trying to force anger between candidates. They start using sports analogies and when that doesn't work they go into war analogies, such as drawing blood, sharpening spears...
If you want to honor our fellow beings in Burma, express your Peace. Understand they are not fighting, not doing and some dying for your peace not your anger.
Update from Time Blog
Hundreds, possibly thousands of troops now rule the streets of downtown Rangoon. All afternoon there has been gunfire to the east, some of it sustained, and each time it is over a great cheer goes up. Miraculously, despite the bloodshed, people are still protesting. And they are still chanting their defiant mantra — the tune must be stuck in everyone's head, protesters and soldiers alike:
Let everyone be free from danger
Let everyone be free from anger
Let everyone be free from hardship
There are reports of the dead arriving at hospitals. Blood on the floors of raided monasteries. Soldiers digging a mass grave in a football pitch near the Shwedagon. And army trucks with heavy Bren machine-guns cruising the streets, looking for prey.
It is 5 p.m., Rangoon time, and there is still hear gunfire — continuous gunfire, loud, high caliber, some of it very close, some of it caroming through the streets to the east. Reached by phone, a Burmese man who lives in the area and is holed up in his house, is asked what is happening. His heartbreaking reply: "They are hunting us."