Flick and Tick

Flick off that switch tonight it's Earth Hour again. Started in 2007 in Sydney, Australia when 2.2 million individuals and more than 2,000 businesses turned their lights off for one hour to take a stand against climate change Earth Hour is your chance to show you care for our world and all the beings on it.

Earth Hour 2011 will take place today the 26th of March at 8.30PM (local time). This Earth Hour the aim is to go beyond the hour, so after the lights go back on think about what else you can do to make a difference. Together our actions add up.

Tomorrow, Sunday the 27th, if you're in the U.K. it's your chance to Tick the Box for Buddhism as you fill in the 2011 national Census. As in the last Census in 2001 this year you are again asked "What is your religion?"

For an excellent appraisal of why you should "Tick the box for Buddhism" and of why you might well be reluctant to do so read this from the Network of Buddhist Organisations.

The Dalai Lama, Vishvapani and the Census

The Dalai Lama announced on Thursday that he was stepping down as political leader of the Tibetan government in exile.

"As early as the 1960s, I have repeatedly stressed that Tibetans need a leader, elected freely by the Tibetan people, to whom I can devolve power," the Dalai Lama said. "Now, we have clearly reached the time to put this into effect."

The Dalai Lama has long seen himself as "semi-retired" from political leadership with an elected prime minister already in place in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala. He remains Tibet's spiritual leader.

On Friday Vishvapani delivered BBC radio 4's "Thought for the Day" on the subject of the Dalai Lama's stepping down from his political duties. You can hear it HERE on our Audio Page "Thought for the Day" section. As mentioned in a previous post the number of Buddhist Thought for the Day talks is directly linked to the percentage of Buddhists in the U.K. as identified by the census. So on March the 27th, "Tick the Box for Buddhism".

The Census and Vishvapani

An illustration of the importance of the 2011 census for Buddhism in Britain was given from this morning's "Thought for the Day" slot on the Today program. The speaker was Vishvapani, a Buddhist. Now regular listeners to the Today program may have noticed that we don't get a Buddhist "thought for the day" very often.

The BBC allocates the number of slots roughly in line with the proportion  of each affiliation acording to the latest census. So,in terms of faith background, 78% of presenters were Christians, 8% Jews, 4% Muslims, 4% Sikhs, 3% Hindus and 2% Buddhists. Relative to the 2001 census of population of the UK, and excluding those with no religious affiliation or none stated, Christians were under-represented as presenters (93% being their expected share, given Thought for the Day’s current brief).

By contrast, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and Buddhists were over-represented in leading Thought for the Day, with the representation of Muslims nearly right in terms of the census (although their numbers have increased considerably since that time).

If you meditate, value compassion and live your life by the principals extolled by the Buddha and want to hear more excellent talks by Vishvapani "Tick the Box for Buddhism" in the census on March the 27th.

You can listen to Vishvapani's talk on an "ethical foreign policy" and the events in North Africa in our Audio Section under the Thought for the Day page.

Tick the Box for Buddhism

Yesterday I received a publicity pack for the "Tick the Box for Buddhism" campaign being run by NBO, the network of Buddhist organisations. The 2011 Census will take place on the 27th of March and will be asking the question "What is your religion?".

As the NBO say in their campaign material "Many thousands of British people support or live by the teachings of Buddhism in various ways: they may meditate, practise mindfulness, agree with the Buddhist approach to life - and still prefer to avoid labelling themselves Buddhist. This is very understandable."

It's important however for the Government to know the depth and scale of this commitment that people have made in their lives especially as there are rumours of this being the last ever national census. If they know how many of us there are our voice will carry more weight.

Personally I do not call Buddhism a "religion", but I will still be ticking the box. This is a story we will be coming back to.............

The 2011 Census - Say if You're Buddhist!

Having recently received a rather strange email from Census Recruitment Networking saying...

"One of the largest current campaigns in the UK has begun as recruitment gets underway to fill over 29,000 temporary part time and full time vacancies to make the 2011 Census a success – and we need your help!

We would really appreciate the help of Buddhism: West Wight Sangha, Buddhist Group in recruiting local people by spreading the word about the vacancies and directing people to our dedicated recruitment site:"

I thought it appropriate to quote this from the Buddhist Society,

CENSUS 2011

The next UK Census takes place on 27th March 2011.

The previous Census, in 2001, was the first to ask people to identify their religious affiliations, if indeed they had any.

Buddhism was included as one of the 6 major religions represented in the UK.

This was the first opportunity to measure the number of Buddhists in Britain and resulted in 152,000 people ticking the Buddhist box—roughly 0.25% of the total population.

As before, the religion question is once again a voluntary one.

The Buddhist Society encourages all members and friends—whether they formally follow a particular Buddhist School, occasionally practice Buddhist meditation, or just feel a great affinity with the Buddha’s teaching—to take this opportunity to identify themselves as Buddhist.

This will help to give a balanced view of the numbers of people living in the UK who are inspired by the Buddha’s Path of wisdom and compassion, and ensure that the Buddhist community is properly represented in our national life.