The following address was given by Alan Senauke on 8.8.08 in Union Square, San Francisco — twenty years after Burma’s 8888 Uprising and one year after the Saffron Revolution.

From what I hear this is a highly auspicious date for the Chinese. Maybe so, but for the Burmese and all of us who love Burma it is a date that brings up mourning and celebration together.

We mourn:

• The still unknown numbers of monks, students, activists, ordinary people lost on 8888. And we remember them.
  
• The potential and promise of democracy bravely raised 20 yrs ago. And we remember that democracy will come.
  
• Those who died and were disappeared in last year’s Saffron Revolution. We remember all of them, and wonder where are the monks.
  
• The millions caught by Cyclone Nargis and abandoned by their own paranoid government, which thinks of nothing but survival. We remember them.
  
• All the junta’s victims, named and unnamed — Aung San Suu Kyi and all political prisoners, countless Burmese in forced labor, those who suffer rape and torture, and those in exile, even here among us now.

Still, we celebrate:

• The spirit of resistance that after 46 years, after 20 years, persists day by day.
  
• The astonishing qualities common to all Burma’s people — qualities of compassion, joy, effort, and patience — qualities taught by the Buddha, Christ, and Mohammed.
  
• The yearning for freedom and democracy whose flame cannot be extinguished. I know, we all know that tyranny cannot last, liberation is bound to come.

Today I bring a message of solidarity from Buddhist communities across the United States. Since last September, this is what I have been trying to do: bringing word of Burma to all the Buddhist temples and centers, so that with our prayers, with work, and with our generosity we can align ourselves with Burmese sisters and brothers in their nonviolent liberation movement.

There is much I could say, but today I want to remember one thing more. The dhamma or truth we manifest in our daily Buddhist practice has been carefully brought to us by our Burmese teachers and others from Asia. Without their sacrifice and effort for our sake, we would not hold this dhamma treasure. Holding it, we hold a debt to these teachers. We can fulfill this debt by working for Burma, returning precious gifts in another form.

So today we remember our comrades in Burma. And those in Tibet, Darfur, and in China itself, and all those places where people resist oppression. We call on the leaders of Burma and China to let go of their self-imprisoning fears and allow the flowering of freedom. And we urge brave peoples to rise nonviolently and claim their birthright of wellbeing and life that flows free like a river.