Mission
The Buddha Sasana Foundation (BSF), a U.S. 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, is dedicated to preserving and sharing Myanmar’s profound Theravāda Buddhist heritage and the timeless teachings of the Buddha. Guided by the Dhamma, BSF promotes wisdom, compassion, nonviolence, human dignity, freedom of conscience, and peaceful coexistence.
Through education, meditation, dialogue, publications, documentary media, and global partnerships, the Foundation seeks to bring the liberating principles of the Dhamma into meaningful relationship with the challenges of our time, contributing to a more just, compassionate, peaceful, and awakened world.
Impact
The Buddha Sasana Foundation, World Dharma, and Burma Project USA represent interconnected expressions of a decades-long commitment to human rights, freedom of conscience, contemplative inquiry, nonviolence, and the protection of human dignity and our shared planet.
Through international campaigns, educational programs, meditation retreats, public dialogues, books, documentary films, archival recordings, audio, video, and digital media, we create and share transformative resources grounded in the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, compassion, nonviolence, and the inherent dignity of every human being.
Our work brings contemplative wisdom into dialogue with the urgent realities of the contemporary world, encouraging individuals and communities to recognize that inner freedom and human freedom are inseparable from our responsibility to one another.
Vision
The Buddha Sasana Foundation (BSF) is dedicated to preserving, protecting, and sharing the timeless teachings of the Buddha as they have been carefully safeguarded within Myanmar’s (Burma’s) Theravāda Buddhist tradition for more than two millennia. Guided by the liberating vision of the Dhamma, BSF seeks to foster wisdom, compassion, nonviolence, ethical responsibility, and respect for the inherent dignity of every human being.
We believe the Buddha’s teachings are not only a priceless spiritual inheritance but a living path for addressing the defining challenges of our time. Amid war, authoritarianism, injustice, ecological crisis, and social division, the Dhamma offers a universal framework for inner freedom, reconciliation, and peaceful coexistence. Its principles transcend nationality, ethnicity, religion, and ideology, inviting all people to cultivate mindfulness, loving-kindness, compassion, integrity, and wisdom.
Myanmar occupies a unique place within this living tradition. For centuries, generations of monks, nuns, scholars, teachers, and lay practitioners have preserved the Pāli Canon and sustained the practice of Vipassanā meditation, making an enduring contribution to Buddhist practice throughout the world. BSF honors this extraordinary legacy while recognizing that preserving the Dhamma is inseparable from safeguarding human dignity, cultural heritage, and freedom of conscience.
Grounded in the Buddha’s ethic of ahimsa—nonviolence in thought, speech, and action—the Foundation affirms the principles embodied in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including freedom of conscience and belief, peaceful expression, and the equal dignity and rights of all people. We believe that lasting peace cannot be separated from justice, compassion, ethical responsibility, and the courageous alleviation of suffering wherever it occurs.
Through education, meditation training, publications, documentary films, archival preservation, digital media, scholarly and public dialogue, leadership development, humanitarian partnerships, and international collaboration, BSF seeks to make Myanmar’s profound Dhamma heritage accessible to a global audience. We encourage creative partnerships among monastic communities, contemplative practitioners, educators, scholars, artists, filmmakers, scientists, human-rights advocates, and others committed to cultivating a wiser, more compassionate, nonviolent, and peaceful world.
In this spirit, the Buddha Sasana Foundation seeks to serve both as a guardian of one of humanity’s great spiritual traditions and as a catalyst for its creative expression in the twenty-first century—affirming that the Buddha’s timeless path remains a vital resource for awakening wisdom, protecting freedom and human dignity, advancing nonviolence, alleviating suffering, and inspiring a just, peaceful, and awakened future.
