Podcast - No Such Thing as Disengaged Buddhism, with Alan Senauke
Hozan Alan Senauke is a Soto Zen priest, social activist, folk musician, and poet residing at the Berkeley Zen Center, where he currently serves as Abbot. He is a former Executive Director of the Buddhist Peace Fellowship (BPF) and a co-founder of Think Sangha, a think tank affiliated with BPF and International Network of Engaged Buddhists exploring pressing social issues and concerns. In 2017, he founded the Clear View project (www.clearviewproject.org), which promotes Buddhist-based resources for social change in Asia and in the U.S. He serves on the Upaya Zen Center’s chaplaincy program faculty. The list of his public engagements and accomplishments is vast and prolific.
In today’s episode, we discuss the meaning of engaged Buddhism and what Alan Senauke calls “appropriate response” in today’s polarized society. We discuss his work with the Clear View Project and why it is important for him to be an internationalist. Next, Hozan talks about the role of music in his life and his path to discovering music that is not dissimilar to his discovery and embrace of the Dharma. Lastly, we touch on the crisis of the U.S. prison system and Alan Senauke’s decades-long friendship with Jarvis Jay Masters, a Dharma practitioner and writer who is currently on death row at San Quentin State prison in California.