Politics

Bat Nha Back and Forth

| arun

Ven. Kobutsu Malone writes on the Buddhist Channel to offer another perspective on the events at Bat Nha monastery.

It appears the “Buddhist world” is getting behind the Thich Nhat Hanh followers without question. There are however, a lot of questions: It is obvious that the Thich Nhat Hanh people have a well-oiled propaganda machine going. The http://helpbatnha.org/ site purported to represent the monastery only represents the voice of the Thich Nhat Hanh clergy at the Bat Nha Monastery. The site is registered to Deer Park Monastery, Thich Nhat Hanh’s facility in Escondido, California. Is it possible that this perhaps inflames the local residents who may feel that the Thich Nhat Hanh followers had taken over their temple?

His thoughts drew a quick reply from Visakha Kawasaki.

Cracking down on Thich Nhat Hanh and his followers might just prove that his work for human rights and community development is proving too successful for the Communist party to tolerate. If the monks and nuns who look to Thich Nhat Hanh as their leader are being beaten and humiliated by police and mobs, does it make sense to blame them rather than see them as victims whose human rights are being violated? Perhaps the rulers of Vietnam regret loosening the rules and allowing Thich Nhat Hanh to return at all. Perhaps they just want to reassert their control and remind everyone who is really the boss.

The discussion over the situation at tu vien Bat Nha involves local, national and global issues and relationships. I am personally most concerned with the individual rights of monks and nuns. I’m much less concerned about the political exchanges between Thich Nhat Hanh and the Vietnamese authorities. But I need to have a grasp of both situations (and more) to have a better understanding of what exactly is going on at this monastery in central Vietnam—especially if I’m only reading news reports in English.

More Background on Bat Nha

| arun

Reuters’ Faithworld blog provides a broader picture behind the situation of monks and nuns at Bat Nha monastery in Vietnam.

A local government document from last month obtained by Thich Nhat Hanh’s followers and shown to Reuters stated that the group was not recognised by the state or the official Buddhist congregation and was staying at Bat Nha illegally. The roots of the problem may go back, in part at least, to Thich Nhat Hanh’s late 2007 visit to Vietnam. During that trip, he told Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet that the government should abolish the arm of the police that tracks religious groups and disband the government’s Religious Affairs Committee, which regulates religious activities.

In the same shoes, I probably would have avoided giving a Communist leader unsolicited political advice, although I heartily agree that Viet Nam would be better off without the Religious Affairs Committee.

Thoughts on a Fist-Bump

| arun

Lama Choyin Rangdrol writes about the Dalai Lama’s fist-bump and what it means in the context of today’s world.

When I began my discussion some years ago no one imagined a black president would become the center of global politic, and that China would be nudging itself into a dominant position in global resource acquisition. I tried many times to bring my concerns to the Office of Tibet and His Holiness the Dalai Lama. My teacher, abbot of Namgyal Monastery, the Dalai Lama’s personal monastery, made many attempts to connect me with inside sources to no avail. There simply was little or no interest. I credit my late teacher, Khempo Gyurmed Tinly, with the vision to foresee the necessity of bridging this divide. He died in 2005. They know who he was, and know he tried. I also reached out to Obama folks; after all I live in Hawaii. But the change they were looking for at the time did not foresee the complexity of an American, Chinese, Tibetan matrix that would create pivotal sound bites, images, and editorials to be examined by competitive world leaders.

His thoughts are very much worth reading.

Core Scriptures

| arun

In a post reacting to a Texas law on biblical literacy, Barbara O’Brien expands on a suggestion for teaching scripture from all great religions by providing her own ideas for Buddhism.

So today’s just-for-fun question is, if you were asked to create a lesson on Buddhist scripture for Texas public school children, how would you go about it? Although there may be sutras equal in number to the sands of sixty thousand Ganges, I find there’s very little in them that makes sense “out of the box” to people with no knowledge of Buddhism. The entire Mahayana canon is way too metaphysical for children, in my opinion, as is much of the Pali canon. You have to keep in mind that the educators teaching the classes probably won’t know any more about Buddhism than the kids do. Further, while the Buddhist scriptures may present incomparable wisdom, most are a slog to read. Sorry, but it’s the truth. There are always the Old Reliables — the Metta Sutta, the Kalama Sutta, the Dhammapada, and the the Jataka Tales for the younger ones. Anything else?

By what criteria are the Metta Sutta (which Metta Sutta?) the Kalama Sutta, the Dhammapada and the Jataka Tales the Old Reliables? Restrict your purview to this set, and certainly they are old and also the reliable way to understand how the Buddhist neophytes of the West view Buddhism. Just remember not to read the whole texts or to think about them in context.

Metta Sutta Politics

| arun

As with many other concerned newswatchers, I was dismayed to hear that the Burmese government banned numerous monasteries from reciting the Metta Sutta on the past full moon day. It is a shame that the words of Lord Buddha have become so politicized. In response, Rev. Danny Fisher posted a YouTube video of himself reading the Karaniya Metta Sutta. His act of solidarity with the Burmese monastic community was publicized on Shambhala SunSpcace, Barbara’s Buddhism blog, Precious Metal, Go Beyond Words, and Bodhipaksa also recorded himself reading the Metta Sutta. But I worry that this act comes as a reaction to the Burmese junta, that we might be a little too trigger happy when it comes to dragging religion into defining political boundaries. After all, this sutta belongs to all of us. I certainly encourage you to recite the Metta Sutta every day, but when we chant in solidarity with the Burmese monks and nuns, we should also be emanating goodwill toward the very military dictatorship that oppresses them. We should wish them happiness, freedom from stress and suffering, freedom from animosity, freedom from oppression, freedom from trouble, and that they may take care of themselves with ease. When we recite words of loving kindness, it should be with the goal of emanating sincere loving kindness. We should be wary of hijacking Buddhism for the sake of political backlash.