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About Joanna Macy and Sulak Sivaraksa

Joanna Macy:
Information about Joanna Macy is from her website www.joannamacy.net.

Eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, Ph.D., is a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory, and deep ecology. A respected voice in movements for peace, justice, and ecology, she interweaves her scholarship with four decades of activism. She has created a ground-breaking theoretical framework for personal and social change, as well as a powerful workshop methodology for its application.

Her wide-ranging work addresses psychological and spiritual issues of the nuclear age, the cultivation of ecological awareness, and the fruitful resonance between Buddhist thought and contemporary science. The many dimensions of this work are explored in her books Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age (New Society Publishers, 1983); Dharma and Development (Kumarian Press, 1985); Thinking Like a Mountain (with John Seed, Pat Fleming, and Arne Naess; New Society Publishers, 1988); Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory (SUNY Press, 1991); World as Lover, World as Self (Parallax Press, 1991); Rilke's Book of Hours (1996, 2005) and In Praise of Mortality (2004) (with Anita Barrows, Riverhead); and Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World (with Molly Young Brown, New Society Publishers, 1998). Joanna has also written a memoir entitled Widening Circles (New Society, 2000).

Many thousands of people around the world have participated in Joanna's workshops and trainings. Her group methods have been adopted and adapted yet more widely in classrooms, churches, and grassroots organizing. Her work helps people transform despair and apathy, in the face of overwhelming social and ecological crises, into constructive, collaborative action. It brings a new way of seeing the world, as our larger living body, freeing us from the assumptions and attitudes that now threaten the continuity of life on Earth.

Joanna travels widely giving lectures, workshops, and trainings in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia. She lives in Berkeley, California, with her husband Francis Macy, near her children and grandchildren.

Sulak Sivaraksa:
Information about Sulak Sivaraksa is from his website www.sulak-sivaraksa.org

Sulak Sivaraksa, born 1933, is a prominent and outspoken Thai intellectual and social critic. He is a teacher, a scholar, a publisher, an activist, the founder of many organisations, and the author of more than a hundred books and monographs in both Thai and English.

Sulak's life and times
Educated in England and Wales, Sulak returned to Siam in 1961 at the age of 28 and founded Sangkhomsaat Paritat (Social Science Review). This became Siam's foremost intellectual magazine, dealing with numerous political and social issues during the time of the military dictatorship. Sulak's work editing Sangkhomsaat Paritat led him to become interested in grassroots issues. He learned that to truly serve society, one must stay in touch with the poor people. Beginning in the late 1960s he became involved in a number of service-oriented, rural development projects, in association with Buddhist monks and the student activist community.

During the 1970s Sulak became the central figure in a number of non-governmental organisations in Siam. These include the Komol Keemthong Foundation (named for a young teacher killed in 1971), the Pridi Banomyong Institute (named for the father of Thai democracy), the Slum Childcare Foundation, the Co-ordinating Group for Religion and Society, the Thai Inter-Religious Commission for Development and Santi Pracha Dhamma Institute. Through his involvement with these organisations, Sulak began to develop indigenous, sustainable, and spiritual models for change. Since then he has expanded his work to the regional and international levels. He has co-founded the Asian Cultural Forum on Development and the International Network of Engaged Buddhists.

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