American Buddhist Net

8 July 2008

Bangalore, India (ENI). A joint forum of Buddhist, Christian and Hindu minorities in Bangladesh is lobbying quietly for the restoration of a secular constitution that was abolished 20 years ago making Islam the state religion in the Muslim-majority nation.

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Jul 8, 2008

On July 1, Xian opened three newly-built ancient relics parks to the public free of charge. The three parks are the Tang Dynasty City Wall Relics Park, the Tang Dynasty Ci'en Temple Relics Park and Qujiangchi Relics Park.

Located near the Gaoxin Fourth Road, the Tang Dynasty City Wall Relics Park is a long corridor about 2.2 miles long and 100-meter wide. Displaying the Tang poems and calligraphy by stone carvings, the park is a nice place for visitors to savor the brilliant art and culture of the Tang Dynasty (618-907).

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Mainly a recap of recent events, but still well-worth reading in full. As we see it, nation states today cannot function without participation from citizens, including Buddhist clergy. The keys to Buddhist participation in politics and social movements should be wisdom, truth, positive effective action, compassion, and balance. It is our hope that the American Buddhist community will deservedly come to be seen as one of the wisest and most effective communities in the country. ABN
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Jul 9, 2008
By Megawati Wijaya

SINGAPORE - From Sri Lanka to South Korea, from Tibet to Myanmar, Asia's Buddhist clergy are in unprecedented numbers exerting their moral authority onto politics, abandoning their detachment from worldly events and giving rise to what at least one academic has referred to as a region-wide "angry monk syndrome".

...The recent surge in monk-led political ferment, usually towards the aim of giving voice to the often silent majority, seems to signal a political reawakening of Asia's Buddhist clergy. Well-organized and in most instances peacefully executed, the protests have provided a resounding reaffirmation to the Sangha's social relevance in modern times. It is also a potentially profound political trend, in that monks tend to speak out on behalf of the politically oppressed and economically downtrodden.

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PREMA NANDAKUMAR

THERI GATHAI — Pauththa Pikkunikalin Padalkal: (Tamil) A. Mangai; Sandhya Publications, Flat A, Nutech Vaibhav, 57-53rd Street, Ashok Nagar, Chennai-600083. Rs. 100.

Perhaps there was a time long, long ago when all the songs in Theri Gatha were known to the Tamil people. The land might have drawn comfort and inspiration from women renunciants like Sundari and Chela to produce a sublime epic like Manimekalaiyin Turavu (The Renunciation of Manimekalai). However, though we hail Sathanar’s epic, Theri Gatha, which forms part of the Pali canon, remains a closed book for the contemporary Tamil reader. A. Mangai has d one well to present them in a free translation (with helpful introductory notes), by relying mainly on the English version from Pali by Ms. T.W. Rhys Davids. Mangai’s own Tamil study has done the rest in making a comprehensible recording of the voice of women renunciants who lived 18 centuries ago. She is right in pleading for space to seek feminist thought in Buddhism instead of reading it only as an alternate religion.

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Monday, July 7, 2008

Government of Sri Lanka along with other Buddhist religious institutions in the island have decided to continue with the forthcoming Esala Perehara with increased security measures.

One of Sri Lanka’s paramount Buddhist cultural events, Esla Pererhara parades the only surviving relic of Buddha, a tooth, in a colourful pageant with the participation of dancers, elephants, and drummers.

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July 6, 2008
By HOLLAND COTTER

SAND is implacable here in far western China. It blows and shifts and eats away at everything, erasing boundaries, scouring graves, leaving farmers in despair.

It’s one of many threats to the major tourist draw of this oasis city on the lip of the Gobi desert: the hundreds of rock-cut Buddhist grottoes that pepper a cliff face outside town. Known as Mogaoku — “peerless caves” — and filled with paradisiacal frescos and hand-molded clay sculptures of savior-gods and saints, they are, in size and historical breadth, like nothing else in the Chinese Buddhist world.

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July 6, 2008

They seemed an unlikely pair — the Tibetan Buddhist monk who had spent 33 years in Chinese prisons and labor camps and the aspiring Japanese filmmaker.

The filmmaker, Makoto Sasa, said she first heard of the monk, Palden Gyatso, when she was in college in Japan. After she arrived in New York to study film, alone and speaking no English, she read his memoir, “The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk” (Grove Press, 1997). “His story made me think my problem is nothing,” she said.

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By MARGIE MASON – 6 hours ago

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Thich Huyen Quang, the patriarch of an outlawed Buddhist church in Vietnam who spent more than two decades in and out of house arrest, died Saturday after months of ailing health. He was 87.

The leader of the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam died of multiple organ failure a day after being transferred from a hospital to his monastery at his request, said Penelope Faulkner of the International Buddhist Information Bureau in Paris, which speaks for the outlawed church.

An outspoken proponent of religious freedom and human rights, Quang had long been confined to the Nguyen Thieu Monastery in the southern province of Binh Dinh.

"He was a real pioneer, and that's why Vietnam kept him isolated and they wanted to keep him out of the way," she said. "He kept determined to the very end."

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The Hualien-based relief organization sent cash cards and goods for daily use to homeless families in the states hardest hit by recent flooding

Saturday, Jul 05, 2008

Taiwan’s Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation launched a large-scale delivery of daily necessities to flood-hit Midwestern US states to help victims get through the difficult times, a spokesman for the foundation said yesterday.

The delivery this weekend is part of the foundation’s efforts to help ease the suffering of those left homeless by flooding, who are either waiting to return home or wondering where their future shelters will be, the spokesman said.

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HANOI (AFP) — Thich Huyen Quang, the head of the Vietnamese Buddhist movement that has refused to come under communist government control, died on Saturday aged 87, his supporters said in a statement from Paris.

"Most Venerable Thich Huyen Quang, 4th Supreme Patriarch of the outlawed Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam (UBCV), passed away today at the Nguyen Thieu monastery," said the International Buddhist Information Bureau.

He died peacefully at his monastery in central Binh Dinh province, where he had returned from hospital Friday at his own request after spending more than a month in intensive care for heart, lung and kidney ailments, the bureau said.

His death was announced by the UBCV's deputy leader Thich Quang Do, the presumed successor, who has like Quang spent decades under house arrest and police surveillance, and who led a morning prayer ceremony for Quang.

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Among the greatest minds in Indian philosophy and Sanskrit literary traditions was Prof. G.N. Chakravarthy. This scholar, who constantly renewed his understanding of the ancient knowledge systems to tackle the problems of the present, passed away last Friday.

Friday, Jul 04, 2008

...While the West scoffed at the Indian approach of seeking solutions for individual and civilizational issues in the spiritual realm, dogmatic Oriental scholars who nurture a standpoint that is as one-sided as this, seek all answers in the transcendental and mystical, refusing to see its historical basis in the material world. It was for these reasons, that towards the end of his life, he was interested in studying Buddhism and its relationship with the Vaidika tradition.

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TURTLE FEET: The Making and Unmaking of a Buddhist Monk,
by Nikolai Grozni.
Riverhead Books. 326 pages. $24.95.

BY BETH TAYLOR
Special to the Journal
Sunday, July 6, 2008

Nikolai Grozni, who lives in Providence, was a gifted pianist from Bulgaria who, in the midst of absorbing Coltrane, dope, and booze at Berklee College of Music, suddenly decided to leave behind materialist, “finish line” careerism and head to India to train as a Buddhist monk.

His Bulgarian parents were not pleased, having nurtured his musical genius as a ticket out of Communism and the limits of a childhood reading Das Kapital. But Nikolai had always resisted institutional thought and he believed the monks would teach him how to live a life liberated from frivolous and mindless habits.

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HANOI (AFP) — Human Rights Watch called on communist Vietnam Thursday to lift any restrictions on the liberty of an activist Buddhist monk who disappeared on the day he was released from prison last week.

Tim Sakhorn, an activist for the Khmer Krom ethnic Cambodian minority of southern Vietnam, was freed Saturday, but his whereabouts were unknown since he was last seen together with government officials, the rights group said.

"While his release from prison is welcome, as a peaceful activist and human rights defender, Tim Sakhorn should never have been imprisoned in the first place," said Brad Adams, Asia director of the New York-based group.

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Thursday, July 03, 2008

LAHORE: In the forest of Sravasti there lived some ascetics who scoffed at the teachings of Buddha and questioned his greatness. In order to put an end to this controversy, King Paranjit (or Parshajita) of Sravasti decided to invite the hermits as well as Buddha.

In an enormous hall a large gathering assembled for the occasion. The arrival of Buddha was awaited, that moment a dense cloud drifted in and slowly as it evaporated Buddha was seen standing in the centre.

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Human Rights Defender Released from Prison, but Whereabouts Unknown

July 3, 2008

The Vietnamese authorities should immediately lift any restrictions on the liberty of Buddhist monk Tim Sakhorn, who was released from prison in Vietnam on June 28, 2008, Human Rights Watch said today. Sakhorn’s whereabouts are unknown. He was last seen in the company of government officials.

On June 30, 2007, authorities in Cambodia arrested and defrocked Sakhorn and sent him to Vietnam. On November 8, 2007, a criminal court in An Giang province sentenced Sakhorn to one year of imprisonment on charges of “undermining national unity” under article 87 of Vietnam’s penal code. Sakhorn reportedly had no legal representation during his trial. Human Rights Watch said that the politically motivated prosecution of Sakhorn was a thinly veiled attempt by the Vietnamese and Cambodian governments to stop peaceful dissent by the Khmer Krom minority in both countries.

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July 2, 2008
By Chris Musson and Joanne Curran

THE Russian student who squatted in her dead lover's Scottish flat did a runner before being evicted yesterday.

The Record told in January how Tatiana Chebotareva had moved into the property while she battled James King's relatives for a share of his £250,000 estate. Chebotareva, 22, a failed asylum seeker, battled in court with 55-year-old James's Buddhist nun sister.

She lost her case and was ordered to be evicted from the one-bedroom flat in Stirling.

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Tue, 01 Jul 2008

Taipei - A Taiwan Buddhist monk has been sentenced to 80 days in jail for masturbating in public, a newspaper said Tuesday. Chen Poh-ming, 42, masturbated in front of a female guide on February 16 while visiting the Paper Museum in Puli, central Taiwan, the United Daily News reported. He performed the lewd act while wearing a yellow monk's robe.

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2008-07-01

KATMANDU, Nepal (AP) - A group of Tibetan monks and nuns trekked for days through the treacherous Himalayan mountains from Nepal's capital and were set to protest at the Chinese border Tuesday against a crackdown in their homeland. Tashi Dorje, an activist coordinating the march, said the group of 42 people reached the border point at Tatopani, about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Katmandu, late Monday.

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Interesting piece, worth reading. ABN
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Peoples of the Buddhist World by Paul Hattaway, Piquant Editions, Carlisle, 2004.

Reviewed by Allen Carr

Some Western drug companies spend millions of dollars developing and marketing a new drug only to have the health authorities later discover that it has dangerous side-effects and then ban it. Needing to recover their investment and unable to sell their drug in the West some of these companies try to market their dangerous products in the Third World where public awareness of health issues is low and indifferent governments can be brought off. Some might say that Christianity is a bit like this.

Having lost much of their following in the West, churches are now beginning to look for opportunities elsewhere. Of course the Islamic world is out of the question. Even the most optimistic evangelist knows that the chance of spreading the Gospel amongst Muslims is nil. The obvious targets are Africa, India and the Buddhist countries of Asia. There are now several evangelical organizations dedicated just too evangelizing Buddhists. The Asia Pacific Institute of Buddhist Studies in the Philippines offers missionaries in-depth courses in Buddhist doctrine, the languages of Buddhist countries and the sociology of various Buddhist communities – the better to know the enemy.

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The Associated Press
Published: June 30, 2008

JAKARTA, Indonesia: The curator of a museum in central Indonesia was sentenced Monday to 18 months in jail for helping steal six ancient Buddhist statues and replacing them with replicas to cover up the crime, a judge said.

Suhadi Darmodipuro, who was among four people arrested for the 2006 theft at the Radya Pustaka Museum, said he regretted his involvement in the scam and would not appeal.

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June 30, 2008

JAKARTA - THE curator of a museum in central Indonesia was sentenced Monday to 18 months in jail for helping steal six ancient Buddhist statues and replacing them with replicas to cover up the crime, a judge said.

Suhadi Darmodipuro, who was among four people arrested for the 2006 theft at the Radya Pustaka Museum, said he regretted his involvement in the scam and would not appeal.

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For Rosana Tositrakul, righting wrongs is part of being an engaged Buddhist

Sunday June 29, 2008
BY KARNJARIYA SUKRUNG

...For [Tositrakul], practising Buddhism is not only about talking philosophy or sofa meditation; it is acts of compassion, courage and understanding to help alleviate suffering.

"Engaged Buddhism is about getting your hands and feet in the mud, putting your practice into action," she said. "Whatever comes in life, I'll take them as lessons to help me practise the path."

This means keeping her mind calm, unshaken and compassionate, despite being criticised as a "backward" and "left-wing" thinker who would drag the country down the economic road to ruin, and despite having been taken to court in several lawsuits by high-ranking officials and politicians in power. Getting death threats or having a bomb explode near her office are also part of the deal.

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Friday, June 27, 2008
By Johna Strickland

Ontario — Obon starts with cucumbers for Anna Nagaki.

Thursday morning she and other members of the Idaho-Oregon Buddhist Temple gathered in the temple’s basement kitchen to prepare the first of the traditional Japanese food sold at the 62nd Annual Japan Night Obon Festival Saturday in Ontario.

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06/28/2008

...The monks have channeled aid materials into stricken regions and turned monasteries into soup kitchens and refugee camps since the May 2-3 storm.

Their outreach to survivors — many of whom received little or no government help — highlighted the monks' power and the possibility they could clash again with Myanmar's ruling forces. Some monks are even building secret stashes of makeshift weapons, clerics say.

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http://bahai-library.com/personal/jw/other.pubs/nagarjuna/

Jonah Winters

Bachelor's Thesis
Advisor Kees Bolle

Reed College, 1994