For the past 2 years Jamyang has hosted the ‘Mother’s Manifesto’ group of activists, providing a safe haven for a group of Mothers engaged in a courageous activity. We invited Mother’s Manifesto, and Buddhist Student and practioner, Emma Hopkins to share a little about the group and its activities.
Could activism be part of our practice?
By Emma Hopkins of Mothers Manifesto
On Mothers Day 2023 a group of mothers, myself included, as part of Mothers Manifesto held a six day hunger strike to call for action on food insecurity here in the UK and globally, as well as the escalating crisis of food security increasingly driven by the climate and nature crisis as well as issues of social and racial injustice. This was an act of love and compassion felt strongly by all the women taking part as well as those supporting us. We stayed at Jamyang Buddhist Centre and joined their daily morning practice. Staying at Jamyang helped to hold us both emotionally and physically during this time and also to help ground us in our motivation of love, care and compassion as well as see the expanse of possibility.
In a similar way to recognising all beings as having been our mother to develop our mind of bodhicitta, similarly we can think of all beings as having been our children, to me as a mother this feels really powerful. As a mother we can love our child more than ourselves, a love which is unconditional and boundless for this being. Yet it amazes me how when we have a subsequent child, from the moment they are born that love is equaled, we do not love our three year old any more than our new born. Our love is limitless. We are the ones limiting our great capacity for love to just a few but our Buddhist practice shows how we can expand this love to all sentient beings, developing our bodhicitta and unconditional limitless love and compassion.
Mothers go to extraordinary lengths to protect and care for their children. Indeed in the UK mothers are regularly skipping meals as they do not have enough money for even the basics such as food to feed themselves and their children. Many mothers will sacrifice their own needs for those of their children. Still many are going hungry with over a million children living in destitution and 4.2 million living below the poverty line. It’s shocking in such a rich nation when you talk to people and hear their stories – you cannot help but be deeply moved. Globally we know the situation is absolutely dire.
To imagine your child dying from something utterly avoidable when there is enough food in the world to nourish everyone is beyond heartbreaking. I lost my own child many years ago and so I know how devastating it is to lose a child, but I’m sure we can all imagine how this must be whether a mother or not. 2.3 million children die every year from malnutrition, this is not inevitable, famine is always a political choice. From 2005 – 2014 world hunger dropped by a third, which shows that this is possible. It has since gone into reverse. We need a political shift to bring the rapid positive changes needed.
As Buddhists I feel we need to look at our own impact, whether we are bringing more suffering through our choices or helping to alleviate suffering now or in the future, to take responsibility for our actions and seek ways in which we can benefit others. Our meditation practice is of course important and precious but if our child needed food we would also feed them. In these times of global crisis as practitioners we need to consider how best we can serve, the practical measures we can take. There are many options and countless opportunities.
The Hunger Strike led to two meetings in Parliament and support from many MPs as well as some of the key organisations also calling for change. We have held several shorter strikes throughout last year and another long strike from Mothers Day 2024, where we had huge amounts of positive press on a daily basis including TV, radio and papers, on the Monday of the strike we were in 22 different papers. This is important in order to reach many people and in order to change the narrative of what’s possible.
The new Labour Government has already committed to three of our demands or calls to action including minimum wage being a true living wage linked to the cost of living, no new licences for oil, gas or coal and a ban on fracking, and scrapping the Investment Allowance loophole tax for oil and gas companies windfall profits. But there is so much more to be done. Our social security needs to guarantee life’s essentials, we need to revoke oil and gas licensing given in 2023, and we need to cancel world debt crippling the poorest nations and keep our promises on aid. We will continue to call for these changes.
Next Mothers Day we are holding 24hr regional strikes. If you are interested to get involved and support this please do get in touch. We also have a fundraiser in order to widen our engagement and maximise our impact, paying for a part time creative Comms person and to enable more diverse groups of women to join us.
Lama Yeshe always thought of ways we could bring about socially engaged Buddhist practice, to me I see actions such as Mothers Manifesto as manifesting such practice. Do get involved in whichever ways you can, imagine what can be achieved together.
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