Leaving in an hour or so for a month’s journey in India.  Flying endlessly to Mumbai, via Frankfurt, next day transfer to Nagpur, where I will teach for a week at Nagaloka/Nagarjuna Training Institute–a school for young Dalit men and women from all over India. (For details about the school and Dalit Buddhsits, see my piece in the new issue of Buddhadharma or the essay in The Bodhisattva’s Embrace).  I will be trwxching a “unit” on gender and society, beginning with the role of women in early Buddhism.  Gender is still a very difficult question in the patriarchal society, and the source of violence against Dalit women

Then a two-week study tour with “Think Sangha” friends from here and Asia, including David Loy, Ouyporn Kuanchaew, Jon Watts, Mangesh Dahiwale, Anchalee Kurutach, et al.  We will be investigating engaged Buddhist community while engaging with several communities in north and south India.  Along the way, we will share and reflect and write about our own root communities.

Planning to blog about all this along the way, as time and internet access allows. I expect to be back home on 23 March, jet-lagged but glad to sleep in my own bed.

A couple of other things.  I saw the opening of Youth Musical Theater Company’s Parade last night, which starred my sixteen-year-old son Alexander.  A very powerful and excellently written play about anto-Semitism, race, and politics in 1914 Atlanta. It is a beautiful and deeply moving show.  I walked out in a kind of daze. Very proud of Alex and pole-axed by the very real emotional intensity of the drama, which is a true story.  Two more weekends of shows.  See this link: YMTC-Parade.

Enjoyed coffee yesterday morning with an old friend–Stephan Salisbury of the Philadelphia Enquirer.  I recommend his excellent boo, Mohamed’s Ghost. Stephan will be presenting tonight in Oakland at the Islamic Cultural Center of Northern California.

Got to go.

Love, Alan