04.24.2026 Activate the Antidote A few months ago, despite all that was going on in America vis-à-vis politics and our usual preoccupations with sports and entertainment, it was a group of Buddhist monks that captured the country’s attention. Starting from Texas, the monks of Huong Dao Vipassana Bhavana Center made their way, on foot, through cities and small towns, to Washington, D.C. Not to protest. Not to demand. Their “Walk for Peace” was simply that. In contrast to the greed, anger, and ignorance that plague modern citizenry, they offered the generosity of their presence. Even when face-to-face with those who found their presence challenging or even offensive, they were a model of open-heartedness, wisdom, and calm. It wasn’t mere spectacle that drove countless Americans to roadsides to support the monks. It was something deeper. In a time when so many of us feel we’re drowning in outrage and worn down by bad news, here were our fellow humans, choosing peace. They were offering a glimpse of the antidote for what ails us, in motion. Because that’s what these times demand: an antidote. All too often, greed, aversion, and ignorance — the three poisons to well-being the Buddha identified millennia ago — flourish unchecked in our institutions, our media, and our daily lives. We see greed in systems that prioritize profit over people and planet and in the attention economy that exploits our focus for clicks. We see aversion in our political tribalism, in the way we demonize those who think differently, and in our collective inability to listen across divides. We see ignorance in our fragmented attention spans, in willful denial of climate science and inequality, and in short-term thinking that refuses to take long-range consequences into account. Despite being more “connected” than ever, we find ourselves isolated, anxious, overwhelmed. Division deepens—socially, politically, personally. But as the monks show us, there’s an antidote. For over 2,600 years, Buddhism has offered practical, tested tools for transforming the heart and mind. Not dogma, but medicine. It leads us to cultivate generosity as the counter to greed, loving-kindness and equanimity as the counter to hatred, and wisdom as the counter to ignorance and delusion. But this “antidote” only works if we actually take it. It’s not enough to subscribe to peace as a concept; it’s something we need to practice. Compassion isn’t just a nice idea; it’s a quality in ourselves that we strengthen through use. Wisdom doesn’t arrive through wishing; it develops through our attention and insight. We must actually engage the practice. The challenge is that it takes time, care, and commitment. Your practice may falter. You may feel tired or discouraged. The good news is that these tools are always available. What matters is showing up again, sticking with it. The alternative — living with fear, negativity, exploitation, and division — is unsustainable. Everything we can do to counter it is worth doing. The monks’ trek didn’t fix everything; it didn’t heal all our divisions. But it offered living proof that another way is possible, that we can choose steadiness rather than reactivity, wisdom rather than confusion, compassion rather than contempt. That possibility is at the heart of the May 2026 issue of Lion’s Roar magazine, where we explore how to transform the three poisons into clarity, compassion, and freedom. You and I probably won’t walk across America. But there are many steps we can take. The practices are here. And they’re needed now — individually and collectively. Thank you for reading, and thank you for your practice. —Rod Meade Sperry, Editor, Lion’s Roar Foundation The Antidote to Greed, Hatred & Ignorance Buddhism teaches that the three poisons — greed, hatred, and ignorance — are the root causes of all suffering, yet through practice we can learn to recognize these forces and respond with clarity and care. Rev. Marvin Harada, Karen Maezen Miller, Alisa Dennis, and Pamela Ayo Yetunde explore ways to cultivate inner peace, break free from harmful cycles, and create a more compassionate world. So, how do we overcome our greed, or any of the three poisons? Is there a cure, a remedy, an antidote? Various Buddhist traditions offer differing ways to approach this problem. Some might say you have to suppress or squash those poisons. I find that difficult, if not impossible. For example, if you are on a diet and your weakness is chocolate cake, you may say to yourself, “Don’t eat chocolate cake!” But you end up thinking of chocolate cake all the time. Does it really work to suppress or squash our desires? ADVERTISEMENT Detox Your Mind: 5 Practices to Purify the 3 Poisons Five Buddhist teachers share practices to clear away the poisons that cause suffering and obscure your natural enlightenment. The poisons are symbolized by three animals: rooster (want it — attachment), snake (don’t want it—anger), and pig (no effect on me — don’t care). These metastasize into what are called the eight worldly concerns, ways we divide the world into what’s good for us and what’s not. Traditionally these are described as four pairs — happiness and suffering, fame and insignificance, praise and blame, gain and loss — but in reality the worldly concerns are infinite, because ego divides up everything that way. Of course, this doesn’t mean we seek out suffering or there’s anything wrong with happiness or pleasure. The problem is that we are slaves to our basic self-centered orientation and the poisons and suffering it creates. What is it like to detox our mind of ego and these three poisons? We already know. Pema Chödrön’s Three Methods for Working with Chaos Pema Chödrön describes three ways to use our problems as the path to awakening and joy. How do we work with our resentment when our boss walks into the room and yells at us? How do we reconcile that frustration and humiliation with our longing to be open and compassionate and not to harm ourselves or others? How do we mix our intention to be alert and gentle in meditation with the reality that we sit down and immediately fall asleep?