Roar: Sulak Siviraksa and the Path of Socially Engaged Buddhism

by Matteo Pistono

The life story of one of the most important Buddhists in the last one hundred years. A household name in Thailand but still relatively unknown in the United States, Sulak Siviraksa joins with the Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hahn in articulating a Buddhism that engages fully to advocate non-violently for social justice. Siviraksa, who founded the International Network of Engaged Buddhists, spent the the latter portion of 2017 under arrest and charged with lèse majesté (insulting the king) in Thailand. His story is of particular relevance to today's United States.

Sivaraksa's life exemplifies what 21st century leaders and activists need -- mindfulness, skillful means, and a fiercely kind heart. Roar weaves together Sulak Sivaraksa's struggle for social justice together with his spiritual life and his own equally challenging inner battles. For his activism, writings, and firebrand speeches, Sivaraksa has been exiled from Thailand twice, jailed and harassed, and repeatedly prosecuted for defaming the Thai monarchy. Still, no authority has been able to silence his roar.
Roar is the biography of this renowned Thai Buddhist activist, critic, and indomitable defender of the disenfranchised. Pistono's deft prose weaves together the story of Siviraksa's over fifty years of social-justice work and the leader's struggles with his spiritual life, inner demons, and work to balance meditation and family life with his tireless campaigns to affect change. Over forty vintage and historical black-and-white photos illustrate both Sulak's life and a turbulent period in Thailand's history. As a remarkable figure in the Asian Buddhist world, Siviraksa has given us a blueprint for peaceful, nonviolent social activism in the 21st century.

Genres: Buddhism, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2019

About the author

Matteo Pistono is a writer and meditation teacher. His books include Breathe How You Want to Feel: Your Breathing Tool Kit for Better Health, Restorative Sleep, and Deeper Connection, Meditation: Coming To Know Your Mind (Hay House, 2017), Fearless in Tibet: The Life of the Mystic Tertön Sogyal (Hay House 2014), and In The Shadow of the Buddha: One Man’s Journey of Discovery in Tibet (Dutton Penguin 2011).

Matteo began studying Buddhism and yoga in Nepal in the early 1990s, and later lived and worked in Tibet for a decade. Pistono's writings about meditation, Buddhism, yoga, Himalayan and Southeast Asian cultural, political, and spiritual landscapes have appeared in The Washington Post, BBC, Buddhadharma, Tricycle, Men's Journal, Kyoto Journal, and HIMAL South Asia. Matteo earned a Masters in Indian Philosophy from the University of London. He has engaged regularly in extensive meditation retreats over the last twenty-five years, and he maintains a daily yoga asana, pranayama, and meditation practice.

Pistono was born and raised in Wyoming, completed his undergraduate degree in Anthropology from the University of Wyoming, and in 1997 he obtained his Masters of Arts degree in Indian Philosophy from the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. After working with the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C. on Tibetan cultural programs, Pistono lived and traveled throughout the Himalayas for a decade, bringing to the West graphic accounts and photos of China’s human rights abuses in Tibet, which he wrote about in In the Shadow of the Buddha. He sits on the Executive Council of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists. Matteo and his wife Monica reside in Southern California.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

I won this book on Goodreads. This book details the life of Sulak Sivaraksa and his activism. He tends to rub people the wrong way and I respect what he is doing but I don't agree with all his concepts. It is too bad that Sulak seems to be out of the country of Thailand most of the time when bad things happen to his country. A very small part of the book discusses Edmund Burke and his philosophy but Burke supported the American Revolution and the people's rights, so it wasn't that he was pro monarchy but saw the French Revolution would end in disaster. Granted this was only a very small part of the book. Sulak also chastises Thich Nhat Hanh for contributing to the carbon footprint on Earth for bringing a large party of people somewhere, but Sulak falls into the trap that this green ideology is beneficial to humankind but in reality it is just another form of power and control over people just expressed in a different way. He also criticizes the Dalai Lama for drinking a Coke-Cola and tells him that these "large transnational companies do so much harm." Yet Sulak drinks wine, to me, isn't it the same thing? Wine, to a lesser extent though, is transnational as well and part of this same perceived problem. Sulak is against the corporate greed, consumerism, and capitalism but contributes to it the same way as everyone else by drinking his wine which he states he will not give up. Again, I understand and respect what Sulak is doing but there are some problems in how he goes about it. I enjoyed this book overall but struggle with how the means to end those struggles are being remedied.

[Lolo Onda · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won this book via the giveaway and really enjoyed the flow of this book. I was previously fairly unaware of many of the basic concepts of socially engaged Buddhism. I found the perspective of Sulak's big 'B' Buddhism and little 'b' Buddhism to very interesting. Pistono did an excellent job of showing all sides of Sulak throughout the duration of the text.

[Vince · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Straightforward, chronological portrait of Sulak's life. The writing isn't poetic, but it's good enough to convey how this man came to be so influential in Thailand, and how he elevated and championed the idea of engaged Buddhism globally.