Jun Yasuda is a Buddhist nun from Japan's Nipponzan Yohoji Order, whose late founder, Nichidatsu Fujii, a friend of Mahatma Gandhi, began building the massive stupas, or peace pagodas, in response to the atomic bombing. There are now 80 peace pagodas worldwide, including in Grafton and Leverett, Mass.
Last fall, Yasuda joined an international anti-nuclear march that began at uranium mines in Australia and passed through Japan. They traveled through the north, the now-crippled nation's hardest-hit region. They stopped in the city of Sendai, which is near the epicenter of Friday's 9.0-magnitude temblor that killed thousands of people, leveled cities, left hundreds of thousands homeless and damaged nuclear power plants.
Japan, a country roughly the size of California, has 55 nuclear power plants. By comparison, there are 104 nuclear plants across the U.S., including six in New York.
Yasuda has devoted the past 40 years to walking thousands of miles bearing witness to peace by banging a drum slowly and chanting prayers. She advocates an end to nuclear power by replacing it with alternative energy sources such as geothermal, solar and wind. She advises citizens to remain skeptical of government reassurances and corporate ads touting the safety record of nuclear energy. She has met many people who suffer from cancer and other illnesses as a result of radiation exposure. She has kneeled in around-the-clock prayer vigils outside nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel dumps across New York state and beyond.
Yasuda prays that the devastation in Japan will return in a karmic way to heal the world.
On Mar 18, 2011 Mia Tagano wrote:
Jun Yasuda is a Buddhist nun from Japan's Nipponzan Yohoji Order, whose late founder, Nichidatsu Fujii, a friend of Mahatma Gandhi, began building the massive stupas, or peace pagodas, in response to the atomic bombing. There are now 80 peace pagodas worldwide, including in Grafton and Leverett, Mass.
Last fall, Yasuda joined an international anti-nuclear march that began at uranium mines in Australia and passed through Japan. They traveled through the north, the now-crippled nation's hardest-hit region. They stopped in the city of Sendai, which is near the epicenter of Friday's 9.0-magnitude temblor that killed thousands of people, leveled cities, left hundreds of thousands homeless and damaged nuclear power plants.
Japan, a country roughly the size of California, has 55 nuclear power plants. By comparison, there are 104 nuclear plants across the U.S., including six in New York.
Yasuda has devoted the past 40 years to walking thousands of miles bearing witness to peace by banging a drum slowly and chanting prayers. She advocates an end to nuclear power by replacing it with alternative energy sources such as geothermal, solar and wind. She advises citizens to remain skeptical of government reassurances and corporate ads touting the safety record of nuclear energy. She has met many people who suffer from cancer and other illnesses as a result of radiation exposure. She has kneeled in around-the-clock prayer vigils outside nuclear reactors and spent nuclear fuel dumps across New York state and beyond.
Yasuda prays that the devastation in Japan will return in a karmic way to heal the world.
Source: Times Union Article