Alan
Clements, a former monk, journalist, activist, author,
and performing artist, was the first American to ordain
as a Buddhist monk in Burma where he lived in a monastery
for the better part of a decade during the 1970s and 1980s.
During this time he trained in Buddhist psychology and
Insight ( vipassana )
meditation with two of the most respected meditation masters
of the modern era, the late Venerable Mahasi Sayadaw, and
his successor the Venerable Sayadaw U Pandita.
Clements was forced to leave
monastic in 1984 by Burma's military dictatorship (no reason
given). He subsequently returned to the West, becoming an
evocative activist for global human rights and freedom, lecturing
and leading seminars worldwide. His efforts on behalf of
oppressed peoples led a former director of Amnesty International
to call Alan "one of the most important and compelling voices
of our times."
As a journalist, Alan has lived
in some of the most highly volatile areas of the world. In
the jungles of Burma, in 1990, he was the first Westerner
to witness and document the genocide of the ethnic minorities
by the military dictatorship, which
he wrote about in his first book, Burma: The Next Killing
Fields?, with a foreword by the Dalai Lama.
Invited to Croatia in 1993
by a senior officer for the United Nations, he lived in the
former Yugoslavia during the final year of their war, where
he consulted with staff members of NGO's and the United Nation's
on the "vital role of consciousness
in understanding human rights, freedom, and peace." At that
time Clements also wrote "Burning"-- a screenplay
about love, freedom, and nonviolence in the context of hatred,
totalitarianism, and war."
In 1995, Clements made a risky
journey back to Burma where he spent six months with
Burma's opposition leaders, all of whom had just been released
from prison. In
April 1996 he smuggled their taped conversations from Burma
that became The Voice of Hope, (Seven
Stories Press, NY)--the internationally acclaimed book of
conversations with Aung San Suu Kyi, 1991's Nobel Peace laureate
and leader of her country' nonviolent struggle for freedom.
The book also contained feature length interviews with the
two co-chairmen of Aung San Suu Kyi's political party, U
Tin Oo and U Kyi Maung.
Clements is also the co-author
(with Leslie Kean) and a contributing photographer to Burma's
Revolution of the Spirit (Aperture, NY)--a large format
photographic tribute to Burma's nonviolent struggle for democracy--with
a foreword by the Dalai Lama and essays by eight Nobel peace
laureates. In
addition, Clements was the script revisionist and advisor
for Beyond Rangoon (Castle Rock Entertainment),
a feature film depicting the crisis in Burma, directed
by John Boorman.
Watch
Alan Clements
on the "Fanny Keifer show"
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Alan's
most recent book, Instinct for Freedom (New World
Library, CA) chronicles his life-long spiritual journey and
his core philosophy on the nature of freedom, along
with an in-depth analysis of both the theory and practice
of meditation, as well as a rare look into the philosophical
underpinnings of Burma's nonviolent struggle for freedom,
known as "a revolution
of the spirit."
As result of Alan's activism in Burma,
in 1997 the dictatorship "permanently
blacklisted" him from reentering the country, branding him "Public
Enemy."
Aung San Suu Kyi was rearrested in 2001 and again in 2003,
where she remains incommunicado, along with nearly 1,500
other prisoner's of conscience.
Alan performs his acclaimed one-man
show, " Spiritually
Incorrect," to audiences around the world as benefits
for the Burma Project USA--a non-profit human rights organization--to
raise awareness of Aung San Suu Kyi's incarceration, as
well as her political party's urgent request for an international
boycott of travel to Burma.
Alan's one-man show uniquely combines
comedy, satire, drama, and activism into a stream of consciousness
series of metapysical-political monologues that serve to
obliterate contemporary sacred spiritual cows and geopolitical
propaganda that proclaims religious beliefs and moral values
as a justification for political and military aggression.
Clements has been interviewed on ABC's Nightline, CBS Evening
News, Talk to America, CBC, VOA, BBC, and by the New York
Times, London Times, Time and Newsweek magazines, Yoga Journal,
Conscious Living, and scores of other media worldwide.
In addition, Alan has presented to
such organizations as Mikhail Gorbachev's State of The
World Forum, The Soros Foundation, United Nations Association
of San Francisco, the universities of California, Toronto,
Sydney, and many others, including a keynote address at
the John Ford Theater for Amnesty International's 30th
year anniversary.
Based in Vancouver,
Canada, Alan lectures, performs, and leads retreats in
North America, Europe and Australia, to illuminate the
fundamental importance of understanding human consciousness
as the basis for true social, political and spiritual transformation.
  
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