We, the Dhamma Sila Parisa Collective, accept and affirm the teachings of The Four Noble Truths as taught in the earliest strata of the Buddha’s teaching. We hold the four levels of realizing nibbana (four fruits of attainment) in which one releases or weakens some or all of the ten habit energies of ignorance, craving, and aversion that cause rebirth to be foundational in describing who a realized being is.

We see taking refuge in the Three Jewels of Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha and commit to keeping the five lay precepts or renunciant monastic precepts as foundational practices.

We understand the community (parisa) in which these practices take place to be made up of the sangha of monastics and lay people.

We base our contemplative theory and practice on early Buddhist, Greater Magadha Yogic, and early Daoist traditions as well as later Asian traditions such as Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions as well as indigenous traditions around the world.

We are in solidarity with libertarian socialist and Buen Vivir movements based on anti-imperialism, secular humanism, the critique of electoral politics, and the engagement in mutual aid, redistribution of wealth, and ecological regeneration.

We welcome dialogue with agnostic humanists, Dharma orphans, and practitioners of other contemplative traditions. We ask dogmatic materialists to reflect on the extractivist roots of that doctrine and take seriously the contemplative empiricism of ancient shamanic and city-state yogic traditions.

We advocate for the integration of social ethics, simple and cooperative living and the decolonizing of education via ritual, regenerative and vegan agriculture, holistic medicine, contemplative practices, art, music, dance, film, and sustainable trade guilds of skilled labor. We support the integration of land, labor, and life force through wholesome cultivation practice that supports the fertility of the soil, sociopolitical harmony, and the liberation of all beings. 

We support the critical examination of religious traditions in order to recognize and uproot extractivist views and practices of racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, classism, ableism, speciesism and all other forms of socio-political and ecological oppression. We reject the dogmatic view of scientific materialism which claims that consciousness can be reduced to matter. We reject cognitive imperialism and the assumption that there is only a single lifetime.

We affirm the seeking of the three traditional goals of Buddhism, namely welfare and happiness in the present life, favorable rebirth, and realization of nibbana. We affirm indigenous pre-imperial worldviews and culture. We denounce all forms of extractivism. We affirm the right of every living being against discrimination and oppression and the right of every being to live in a healthy sustainable ecosystem. We affirm worldviews that are open to the experience of ancestors, spirits, deities, mysticism, and transpersonal states of consciousness.

In sum, we advocate for a Buddhist-influenced society based on libertarian socialist and Buen Vivir principles that nourish the fertility of the soil and the spiritual consciousness of our heart-minds.