Aaron J. Lee blogged under the pseudonym “arunlikhati” for roughly a decade beginning around 2007 before losing his battle against cancer in 2017. His blog, the Angry Asian Buddhist, was at the forefront of an ongoing conversation about race and representation in American Buddhism and Western Buddhism more broadly. His work challenged stereotypes and held the mainstream Buddhist press accountable for its representations of Asians and Asian Americans.

A group of friends touched by his generous spirit and activist work have taken upon ourselves the task of preserving his blog. Doing so has forced us to relocate the work from its original servers while ensuring that it will outlive any one of us as it has already outlived its creator. All original content has been preserved here; however, comments were not easily moved, and thus some have been lost while others have been packed uncomfortably into a single comment on each post.

Because Aaron is no longer with us and cannot respond to new comments, the archivists have elected to close all comments on this blog. We have set up a memorial blog where we can write new posts and continue the conversation started by the Angry Asian Buddhist.

Despite the moniker of “angry,” those who knew Aaron will agree that he was so much more. Passionate in equal measures about the Dharma and representation, his work was a needed voice in a Buddhist media landscape too often dominated by white voices and limiting perspectives on what it means to be Buddhist in America.

We would like to thank Aaron’s family, especially his parents, for helping us preserve his work. And our anonymous hacker friend for freeing his blog from the confines of its original Blogger platform.

We are deeply grateful for Aaron’s work and his legacy. May the merit generated by this blog benefit all sentient beings.

The Archivists
Chenxing Han
Funie Hsu
Scott Mitchell