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Institutional Buddhism has been conspicuously ready to accept or ignore the inequalities and tyrannies of whatever political system it found itself under. This can be death to Buddhism, because it is death to any meaningful function of compassion.

— Gary Snyder Buddhism and the Coming Revolution (1961)

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More quotes by Gary Snyder

Better, the perfect, easy discipline of the swallows dip and swoop, without east or west.

If, after obtaining Buddhahood, anyone in my land
gets tossed in jail on a vagrancy rap, may I
not attain highest perfect enlightenment.

The national polities of the modern world maintain their existence by deliberately fostered craving and fear.

Buddhist Anarchism (1961)

The Bodhisattva lives by the sufferer’s standard, and he must be effective in aiding those who suffer.

Buddhism and the Coming Revolution (1961)

I recalled when I worked in the woods
and the bars of Madras, Oregon.
That short-haired joy and roughness—
America—your stupidity.
I could almost love you again.

All Gary Snyder quotes →

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Gary Snyder (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.