Google Search

Sunday, October 30, 2011

China-based monk says self-immolations harm Buddhism

BEIJING (Reuters) - A wave of self-immolations by Tibetan Buddhist monks at a monastery in southwest China is a form of extremism that degrades the religion, state media reported a senior monk at a Beijing-backed organisation saying on Monday.

Eight young men in ethnically Tibetan parts of Sichuan province have set themselves on fire since March in opposition to religious controls by Beijing, which labels their exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, a violent separatist.

"The recent chain of self-immolation attempts by monks has triggered public bewilderment and repulsion, causing the public to gradually lose faith," said Gyalton, vice president of the Sichuan Provincial Buddhist Association, according to the official Xinhua news agency.

"Tibetan Buddhism stresses benevolence and caring, and is a complete system of faith and sublime values as a result of its opposition to blind superstition," said the monk, who Xinhua called a Living Buddha.

Gyalton said suicide for any reason is against human nature and deviates from the tenets of Buddhism.

China last week criticised the Dalai Lama for not denouncing the spate of self-immolations, calling his stance a violation of Buddhist principles.

The latest man to set himself on fire on Saturday was a 19-year-old former monk at the Kirti monastery in Aba prefecture in Sichuan province, an exiled Tibetan activist and the London-based Free Tibet group said.

Police extinguished the flames and beat the man, the activist said, adding that he did not die in the course of his protest but that his whereabouts were unknown.

China in August jailed three monks for their involvement in the March self-immolation by another monk named Phuntsog, which spurred a crackdown and the month-long detention of about 300 Tibetan monks.

At least three of the eight monks who have set themselves on fire are believed to have died.

China has controlled Tibet since Communist troops marched in 1950. It says its rule has bought much needed development to a poor and backward region.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama denies being a separatist and says he wants autonomy and not independence for Tibet.

(Reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Sugita Katyal)


View the original article here

Vietnamese Buddhist group evicted from Utah temple

SALT LAKE CITY — A complicated legal dispute has left members of a Utah religious group out in the cold.

Members of the Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Association of Utah worshiped outside Sunday morning, displaced from the temple at 1185 W. 1000 North.

A legal battle is brewing about who owns the property, and members of the congregation of more than 100 fear it could take the beloved temple away them.

The congregation was notified Saturday morning that it would not be able to access the temple until the matter is resolved in court.

Members of the congregation say their church is being threatened by religious abuse, greed and real estate fraud.

"I think we cherish the place of worship very seriously," said Thuan Tran, founder of the Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Association of Utah.

About 10 years ago, the Utah organization agreed to donate the property to the American-Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Congress in the USA, based in Monterey, Calif., for safekeeping and to provide spiritual guidance.

Last year, that deed was transferred to Buddhist monk Thich Tri Lang without the Utah group's knowledge. Now, the monk has evicted the group, and the temple is being used by a handful of the his local followers.

"Suddenly we were forbidden to do our service on the property where we (have been meeting) for the last 15 years," Tran said.

The eviction has been heartbreaking for those who have worshiped at the temple. The temple serves as a church as well as a sacred burial ground for loved ones who have passed on, including Tran's mother.

"We have the moral duties to safeguard and care for the ashes," he said.

The ashes of Diep Ngoc Thi Veong's husband also are at the temple. Veong, whose husband was a colonel in the former South Vietnamese armed forces, visits the site every Sunday and prays for him.

"Because I want him to hear every Sunday my prayers for him," she said through a translator.

Today, members of the congregation pray that their church will be returned to them.

"They love this place, and they love their religion," said April Nguyen, a member of the congregation, "and they will come here every day if they can."

On Sunday morning, the adult members of the congregation prayed outside the temple, while the children had Sunday school in the parking lot.

It's a testament to their faith, which has been unwavering in this time of hardship.

"Like today, it's very cold, and winter's coming," Tran said.

There are about 15,000 Vietnamese people in Utah, and about 75 percent to 80 percent of those are Buddhist, Tran said. The temple at 1185 W. 1000 North is one of several in the Salt Lake Valley.

Attempts to reach the attorney representing the American-Vietnamese Unified Buddhist Congress in the USA and Thich Tri Lang have been unsuccessful.

Contributing: Jared Page

Email:


View the original article here

10th Tibetan Buddhist Self-Immolates in Southwestern China

Tibetan monks pray during a candlelight protest march, saying harsh Chinese control pushes Tibetans into setting themselves on fire, in New Delhi, India, October 20, 2011. Tibetan monks pray during a candlelight protest march, saying harsh Chinese control pushes Tibetans into setting themselves on fire, in New Delhi, India, October 20, 2011.

A leading Tibetan exile group said Tuesday another Tibetan Buddhist set himself on fire in southwestern China, in the latest in a string of self-immolations aimed at protesting Chinese rule in the region.

The incident, reported by the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, is the 10th such self-immolation by protesting Buddhists in Sichuan province this year.

The group said the latest protest took place at the Kardze monastery about 150 kilometers from the flashpoint Kirti monastery where the nine previous self-immolations occurred.

Witnesses said the monk, Dawa Tsering, was engulfed in flames as he called for the return of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama from exile and the reunification of the Tibetan people.  His condition is not known.

The self-immolations started after the Chinese authorities in Beijing ordered a curb on religious freedom by forcing monks into re-education programs. They made monks renounce the Dalai Lama and study communism.  

The monks protested, so the Chinese authorities placed small police stations inside some monasteries and cut off water and electricity supplies in others.

Tibetan exile groups say the Chinese government is to blame for the deaths, while Western governments have released statements that generally concur with the view that Chinese tactics are contributing to the situation.

The Chinese government says the acts, which have sparked other protests around the region, go against the beliefs and scripture of Buddhism.  

The Chinese Foreign Ministry also said Beijing's primary concern is to keep "normal social order" in Sichuan and Tibet, and described the self-immolations as "splittist activities" and "terrorism in disguise."  The ministry said it has contacted Indian authorities to pursue terrorism charges against Tibetan exile groups based in northern India.

Last week, Beijing accused the Dalai Lama of encouraging monks to set themselves ablaze by glorifying the protests rather than condemning them, and said that foreign governments should refrain from commenting on the matter.

Chinese officials also responded to U.S. calls to respect the rights of Tibetan and other Chinese citizens by saying that Washington should not meddle in China's internal affairs.


View the original article here

The debate over comfortable Buddhist monks


10 October 2011 Professor Karen Lang: Professor Karen Lang: "Critics of the Buddha's modern disciples accuse them of living too well."

On 11 October in a Sydney Ideas event, Karen Lang, a Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sydney, will discuss how Buddha favoured moderation and would not have had a problem with modern monks living a comfortable life.

"The Buddha advocated a middle path between the extremes of luxurious living and harsh asceticism, which requires foregoing any pleasures," said Professor Karen Lang.

"Critics of the Buddha's modern disciples accuse them of living too well - of wearing fine clothes, living in beautiful monasteries and indulging in the eating of meat."

The talk will explore the Buddhist defence of moderation and the institutional power politics that shaped the debate over what the proper lifestyle of the religious elite should be.

"At issue was royal patronage and support for Buddhists and their large monasteries. During the medieval period in India, kings' patronage of Hindu and Jain temples eclipsed the generous support once given to Buddhists.

"In contemporary India similar disputes over government support for religious institutions and the proper behaviour of religious leaders continue."

Professor Lang will examine narratives from Buddhist and Jain texts that compare the comfort of Buddhist monks with the austerity practiced by Jains and other ascetic groups. Jainism is an ancient Indian religion which advocates non-violence towards all living beings.

Karen Lang is the 2011 University Buddhist Education Foundation Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Sydney.

She is a professor of Indian Religions in the Department of Religious Studies and two-time Director of the Center for South Asian Studies at the University of Virginia. Her publications include Four Illusions: Candrakirti's Advice on the Bodhisattva Path and Aryadeva's Catu?sataka: On the Bodhisattva's Cultivation of Merit and Knowledge, as well as numerous articles on Buddhist philosophy and literature.

She has been a member of the translation team that produced the first English translation of Tsongkhapa's The Great Treatise on the Stages of the Path to Enlightenment. Her primary research and translation interests focus on the work of the seventh-century Indian Buddhist philosopher, Candrakirti.

Event details

What: The Buddha's Middle Way: In Defence of Fine Clothes, Good Food and Beautiful Monasteries

When: 6pm, Tuesday 11 October

Where: Foyer, New Law Building, Camperdown Campus. See map and directions

Cost: Free and open to all, with no ticket or booking required. Seating is unreserved and entry is on a first come, first served basis.


Media enquiries: Verity Leatherdale, 9351 4312, 0419 278 715, verity.leatherdale@sydney.edu.au



View the original article here

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Buddhist religion cultivates inner peace, compassion

buddhism BLAIR LOCKHART / The Daily Reveille

Practicing Buddhist and English literature senior Zach Jenkins meditates Oct. 6 in front of Dodson Auditorium fountain.

Assume the lotus position, focus on breathing deeply, acknowledge thoughts as they present themselves, then let them go as you drift toward inner peace.

This is what Zach Jenkins, practicing Buddhist and English literature senior, does several times a week to meditate.

"Buddhism helps me maintain an aura of positive energy," Jenkins said.

Jenkins first became interested in Buddhism a year ago when working at Teavana, a national chain of tea shops. One day, a customer sparked a conversation with him about a Buddha-shaped teapot and a discussion about Buddhism ensued.

"I had always been interested in Eastern religions, so I went to check out the Buddhist Temple in town," Jenkins said.

Buddhism is a tradition established in fifth century B.C. in India, said Paula Arai, associate professor of Asian religions.

"It was based on the teachings of Shakyamuni, a prince who asked questions on how to experience liberation and peace while knowing people suffer," Arai said.

She said Buddhism differs from other religions because it provides a path for followers to break the cycle of suffering, which is caused by three poisons – delusion, greed and hatred.

To be liberated from suffering, one needs to dissolve the three poisons, she said. Afterward, the person is left with the freedom to be compassionate.

"There are many kinds of meditation," Arai said. "All are effective tools to remedy the poisons of suffering."

Jenkins practices Zen Buddhism, a school of thought within Mahayana, the most popular of the three branches of Buddhism.

"The point is to focus on the here and now. With each new breath, new life enters you," Jenkins said.

The Buddhist said he likes how his religion is "really free" and does not condemn the tenets of other religions. Jenkins was born into a family that practices Catholicism, and he said his mother and friends are supportive of his religion.

"My father is a staunch Catholic," Jenkins said. "I consider our talks about religion as discussions of growth."

Arai said she has noted a high proportion of Buddhist converts come from a Catholic background. She said Buddhism is similar to Catholicism because they both involve daily rituals, and they both engage the body and mind.

Jenkins said the philosophy behind Zen Buddhism has helped him maintain mindfulness in his life.

"It helps me move past mistakes without lingering too much on the past," Jenkins said.

Jenkins said he always sees a variety of people when he visits the Tam Bao Temple on Monterrey Boulevard. There are people from all walks of life at the temple, from 40-year veterans to people just getting started, he said.

Thich Dao Quang, Abbot at the Tam Bao Temple, said attendance at his temple has increased since he began working there in 2003.

"Friday nights we have a meditation group of 65 to 70 people. Many are young people," Quang said.

He said many people visit the temple on Friday nights because the meditation and open discussion service are spoken in English, rather than Quang's native Vietnamese. Tam Bao Temple holds its English service every Friday at 7:30 p.m.

"There is tons you can learn from Buddhism; it helps develop skills which transcend all religions," Jenkins said.

____

Contact Josh Naquin at jnaquin@lsureveille.com


View the original article here

Buddhist temple expands

Parishioners who transcend religious backgrounds and an architect whose dying wish was for the opening of a Buddhist meditation hall will have their hard work fulfilled Saturday.

Nestled behind high hedges along Old N.C. 86, Chapel Hill’s Won-Buddhism Meditation Temple has served the community for nearly a decade.

And this weekend, it will add a new meeting space that follows the vision of Rev. WonGong So and architect John Hartley, who died of cancer in June.

Rev. So, a native of South Korea and graduate of the University of Maryland, came to Chapel Hill in 2003 to teach Won-Buddhism.

“I had a great hope that people would be interested in the benefits of these teachings,” she said.

Won-Buddhism, which began in the early 1900s, replaces the worship of Buddha with the “Won” — the Korean word for “circle” and a symbol that represents truth.

Rev. So said Won-Buddhism’s message of self-awareness and discovering order in a chaotic world has appealed to members of the Chapel Hill community.

“This place could help people find the way of peace and happiness,” she said.

Parishioners previously met in the living room of a converted house sold to the group by one of its members, Chon Shoaf, who is also a Baptist deacon,

But as more attended regularly, the space became cramped. By 2005 Rev. So and roughly 30 temple members began planning an expansion — a new dharma hall.

Over the next five years, members raised about $525,000 for the hall, and construction began in fall 2010.

Hartley, who was a member of the temple, led the planning and construction of the new hall. He was a career architect who had a passion for blending nature with architecture, Shoaf said.

“John was open-minded and always wanted to have fun and try different things,” he said.

Rev. So said the hall became a work of love for Hartley, who worked on plans until his death.

“John worked very sincerely and very joyfully,” she said. “He was very happy when he was working on the hall.”

Parishioners spread his ashes in a garden named for him.

“We pour so many blessings to his soul,” Rev. So said.

Parishioners said they are excited about the opportunities the new hall offers. The 2,600-square-foot space will fit more people and offer more room for stretches and exercises.

The hall’s dedication ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. Saturday and will be followed by lunch. On Sunday, there will be a meditation service and an open house.

John Delconte, a practitioner who grew up Catholic, said Won-Buddhism has appeal regardless of one’s spiritual experience.

“They don’t care if you practice another religion,” he said. “The ultimate goal is to drop our selfishness and find a more outward perspective.”

Contact the City Editor at city@dailytarheel.com.


View the original article here

Buddhist Meditation Center grows in size influence in Adelanto

ADELANTO • After searching far and wide for a quiet, peaceful place to build an expansive meditation center, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk purchased a 15-acre lot in the barren desert on Adelanto’s outskirts about seven years ago.

Many admired the ambitious vision of the Venerable Thich Dang Phap, but they questioned whether he could raise the money and support to see it through.

“I thought this one poor monk and he has such big plans and he’s old,” said Charles Serena, an American-born practicing Buddhist of Oak Hills who started visiting the Adelanto center in 2005, when it was little more than an 8-foot-tall statue and a few trailers. “And he’s made it all happen.”

Now approaching age 70, the soft-spoken monk, nicknamed “Tom,” has quietly built up a Buddhist worshipping place that draws visitors from throughout California and beyond.

He’ll tell you he’s far from done — he hopes eventually to expand to 50 acres — but he’s pleased to see his support base growing. He has put about $2.3 million in cash donations into the center so far, mostly through support from outside the High Desert, such as Buddhists in Orange County.

“I want to do this good for the community,” Phap said. “I want somebody having the happiness, the beauty.” He hopes after meditating at his temple, “you walk easy” and “heal, feel peace in your mind.”

On Saturdays and Sundays, up to 100 visitors will stop by, hailing from Orange County, San Diego, Northern California, Arizona and Nevada. On a recent Friday, families visited from Louisiana and Texas. Special occasions will draw monks from around the world.

Phap expects a special celebration to draw more than 2,000 to his temple on Sunday.

“It’s amazing to see something like that grow out of the desert,” said Eric Reed of Adelanto, a photojournalist who’s watched the temple grow and tries to track the High Desert’s Buddhist community. “I think there’s a pilgrimage aspect to it. People want to see how the faith is growing in other places.”

The Buddhist Meditation Center, on Highway 395 about 10 miles northwest of Victorville, is anchored by a 24-foot-tall, white marble statue of Quan yin, a Buddhist saint known for her infinite compassion and healing powers. Lily pads float atop a small pond around the 60-ton statue’s base.

Leading up to Quan yin are two rows of smaller white statues of various saints lining a concrete pathway, on which Phap leads 5 a.m. meditation walks on Sundays.

The center’s most recent addition was unveiled last month: a 6,700-square-foot main hall, most of which is occupied by a large temple with high-rise ceilings and a red carpet leading up to a shrine adorned with colorful orchids and offerings of assorted fruits.

Serena, a 59-year-old Vietnam War veteran, tries to visit the center a few times a month. He was introduced to Buddhism through his Vietnamese wife, Thao Serena, and he said the faith has helped him find inner peace.

“I’ve seen too many wars, and there was a lot of hostility that was within me that I’ve learned to put aside,” he said. “It’s a religion of peace and tolerance.”

Nash Munes, of Petra Engineering in Victorville, who took on the unusual project back in 2004, said he’s been surprised to learn how closely the Buddhist traditions and values align with his Christian beliefs.

The Buddhist population is small in the High Desert, but there are patches of both American-born and ethnic groups embracing the faith.

At the opposite end of the Victor Valley, some 35 miles east, a cluster

of small white buildings painted white with red trim house a different kind of Buddhist center in Lucerne Valley.

Here, an Americanborn group of about 80 to 100 regular members meet for ceremonies, meditation practice and retreats. There are no massive statues at the Desert Zen Center, just simple pathways alongside a few rose bushes and trees, and a vegetable and flower garden.

“We’re a humble little temple,” said Sande Simpson, 57, a Santa Monica native whose Buddhist name is Su Co Tam Huong.

“Buddhism is a lot like any religion, there’s all sorts of flavors, but the basic tenet is that there was a man, 2,500 years ago, who woke up and discovered that you don’t have to live in dissatisfaction,” she explained. “That’s the goal, to try and follow and understand what he figured out.”

As Phap, too, tries to teach people about Buddha’s enlightenment, he envisions adding to his center a kitchen, meditation hall, classroom/library and living quarters that can sleep up to 30 monks. He’s hoping to acquire more of the nearby land and overcome some of the obstacles he’s had during the San Bernardino County permitting process.

“At one time I would’ve said, ‘Yeah sure.’ At this point, seeing what he’s accomplished, I wouldn’t put it past him,” Serena said. “It’s really something special to see. It’s a place where you will find peace.”

For more information on the Adelanto center, visit http://ThienVienChanNguyen .org/tvcn.html.

For more information about the Lucerne Valley center, visit www.DesertZenCenter.org.

Get the complete story every day with the "exactly as printed" Daily Press E-edition, only $5 per month! Click here to try it free for 7 days. To subscribe to the Daily Press in print or online, call (760) 241-7755, 1-800-553-2006 or click here.

Form was NOT submitted.
Incorrect Code - Please enter the code below and resubmit the form. Form was NOT submitted.
Unknown error occurred. Please retry.

View the original article here

Sir Cyril de Zoysa - A life, committed to social service

Colombo (The Island/ANN) - The 115th anniversary of the birth of Sir Cyril de Zoysa falls on the 26th of October 2011. Known as a compassionate man of rare intellect, his birth will be commemorated on this day, by a grateful community. The Kalutara Bodhi Trust of which he was the founder has organised a number of events to honour his memory and to transfer merit to him according to Buddhist tradition.

Solomon de Zoysa, Notary Public, father of Sir Cyril de Zoysa born in Totamune Kankanangedera in Velitota, Balapitiya, travelled almost daily to and from his office in Ambalangoda in a buggy cart. Cyril was not too pleased with the fact that his father hired a buggy cart for the purpose. He pondered over this and came up with a solution. He presented his father with a brand new buggy cart and a bull, which he bought with the money he earned by giving private tuition to students. The cart and the bull both cost him five hundred rupees.

"My father blessed me. I realised that my gift was a source of great joy to him, which in turn was a source of joy to me". Thus did Cyril make his father indeed so very happy. Totamune Kankanangedera Vatta was the residence of Solomon and Harriet de Zoysa, Cyril's parents. As a Notary Public, Solomon had to work from time to time in several places such as Matara, Hingula, Akuressa etc. and on one occasion he had to take up residence in Galle. It was during this period when he was stationed in Galle that Cyril, second in a family of five children, was born. That was on the 26th of October 1896.

Soon after Cyril was born, his father decided to shift to Matara and open an office there. As the entire family moved to Matara it was St. Thomas' College, Matara, that Cyril had to attend from a very tender age. After some time, he left this school and entered Richmond College, Galle. There too he spent only about one year, bade farewell to Richmond and entered Royal College, Colombo. His closest friends at that time were John Kotelawela and Nicholas Attygala. Having passed the Cambridge Senior Examination in 1916 he was admitted to Law College.

After successfully completing the Law College examinations, he commenced his career in 1921 at the Balapitiya Police Courts. At this time his family was back at the ancestral home in Velitota Kankanangedera Vatta. Cyril_ did not practice too long at Balapitiya. He left Balapitiya to join the Kalutara Bar as an apprentice under Crown Proctor Arthur de Abrew. Very soon young Cyril made a name for himself as a clever lawyer.

This move to Kalutara paved the way for a host of changes in Cyril's life. From his early childhood, he derived great joy in pleasing his parents, also evincing devotion without measure to Buddhism. Among the sacred places of Buddhist worship, it was the Kalutara Bodhiya that became the prime object of his devotion. At this time the Government Agent of Kalutara had issued strict instructions to the Police to place a guard at the entrance to this sacred place, and to chase away anyone who seeks to enter the precincts to offer flowers or light a lamp.

Having heard of this, Cyril approached the place. He decided to construct by force an altar to place flowers (mal asana) and after a battle he constructed four such altars in all four directions, right round the Bodhi Tree. Thereafter, the people who had been kept away from the sacred place began to visit the place freely.

With the passage of time it occurred to Cyril that he could not make substantial progress by engaging solely in his practice as a lawyer. He therefore purchased a bus for passenger transport. This venture brought him increasingly steady profits. He invested in another bus and soon established the Swarnapali Bus Company. He issued orders to his drivers that they should stop the buses as they pass the Bodhiya and drop a coin into the tills placed by the roadside. This order was obeyed to the letter. A large sum of money was collected and every cent so collected was used strictly for the improvement of the Bodhiya.

With time, in 1941, Cyril became the Chairman of the Urban Council, Kalutara. He considered it his prime duty to develop and protect the Kalutara Bodhiya. With this, his own steady progress became increasingly evident. Soon the Swarnapali Bus Company became known as the South Western Bus Company. It had acquired a substantial fleet of buses and had become a prime business in the country. Cyril had also become the Director, so to say, controlling the affairs of the Bodhiya. Cyril often reflected on his conviction that his continuing success in all matters was due to his boundless devotion to the Bodhiya.

Cyril's efficiency and the attention he paid both to the public and to his employees led to his own rapid progress. It was he, who for the first time provided an opportunity to the people of this country to travel in a double decker, bus. It was at a time that Cyril was prospering in a manner never dreamt of, that the Government of the day decided to nationalise all bus companies. Cyril remained unruffled. Without any hesitation he handed over to the Government all buses, bus depots and all equipment. It was, as it were, that Cyril was more pleased with the take-over than even the Government! He saw it as a blessing in disguise as he embarked on a number of other ventures after this 'bus affair'.

He bought a large factory belonging to the Latex Corporation at Nagoda, Kalutara, and started a number of industrial ventures producing tyres, tubes, batteries, electric wires, cables etc. Now Cyril became the owner of five large factories. Much of his time was spent on social service work. He was President/member of a large number of societies such as the Boy Scouts' Association, Singhalese Sports Club, Kalutara Town Club, Ceylon National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis, National Council of the Blind and the Deaf, Child Protection Society, Law Society, Maha Bodhi Society, Colombo YMBA etc.

Everything he touched turned to gold. He rendered prime service to society eliminating corruption, protecting and fostering every cause he espoused. Cyril became the President of the Colombo YMBA at a time it had lapsed into inactivity. He turned it around, built a hall at the YMBA Headquarters in memory of his parents; thereafter the YMBA building in Colombo Fort became what it is today.

In addition, he donated his house and property in Kalutara for the purpose of building a school. The two popular schools known today as Kalutara Balika Vidyalaya and Kalutara Vidyalaya are the two schools he founded.

Having also observed that pilgrims to Kataragama faced many difficulties, he took steps to build a large Pilgrims' Rest at Kata raga ma.

Himself a lawyer, Cyril was President of the Law Society for full nine years. At this time, the Law Society was lacking in a building of its own. Cyril pioneered the construction of a building befitting the stature of the Society.

Cyril always had deep devotion to his religion and to religious affairs. He placed a premium on Dhamma education. To foster this, he ensured the publication of a large volume of Dhamma books, during his tenure as President of the Colombo YMBA.

Cyril de Zoysa was also a pioneer in paving the way for the establishment of the Department of Cultural Affairs under the Government. Amidst this busy schedule Cyril was appointed Vice President of the Senate. This is because the authorities, the Maha Sangha and various business sources considered Cyril a proverbial Midas who had the good fortune of turning into success everything he touched, a man with a compassionate heart and rare intellect. Titles, position and recognition simply followed him. He never sought after them.

He was appointed to the Senate so that the political arena may benefit by his encyclopaedic knowledge. He held the position of Vice-President for six years and thereafter he served for eight years as its President. However, busy his schedule became, the service he rendered was ever increasing, never decreasing. During this period he gathered together all the land, buildings etc. that he owned at Velitota Kankanamge Vatta in Balapitiya, and constructed a large textile weaving centre there. It was his intention to provide the villagers an opportunity of making a living without moving away from their homes. Thousands of villagers found gainful employment there.

Cyril, who as President of a large number of organisations rendered active and continuous service carrying each of them to the pinnacle of success and development. Such excellent service, unbroken and unwavering, earned the admiration and respect, sometimes even the awe, of many a person both at home and abroad. In recognition of his excellence he was honoured as a Knight of the British Empire (KBE).

Sir Cyril's practice was to wake up very early, around 4.00 a.m., each day, and commence the day's work by visiting the Bodhiya and there paying homage to the Buddha. Before going to bed he was unwavering in the practice of observing the Buddhist precepts and according to tradition, transferring merit to the Devas or celestial beings.

When he visited his village or travelled towards Galle, he invariably stopped his car near the tombs of his parents, alighted from his vehicle and paid homage to their memory, before proceeding further.

Sir Cyril de Zoysa was a man who dedicated all his life, wealth, time, labour and intelligence to his village, country, nation, religion and politics and spent the evening of his life very happily. On an occasion when he was interviewed by a journalist, this is what he had to say: "Now I am free. However much of wealth one possesses it is of no avail. They are all empty things. I was born without wealth and I shall die without wealth. My joy, my solace, my strength - all lie in the Buddha Dhamma. As long as I live I shall have the protection of the Devas."

It was not for his own wellbeing that Sir Cyril de Zoysa lived and amassed wealth; it was in the cause of the country, nation and religion. This great human being who lived a life committed to service, who in his twilight years had given up all attachments and who was at peace with himself passed away on the 2nd of January 1978.


View the original article here

In China, self-immolations add radical bent to Tibetan protests

Home Asia Pacific North Asia China

Nine suicides by young Buddhists in Sichuan province have unnerved the Chinese government and given momentum to the Tibetan movement.

Beijing, China -- Shopkeepers peer out from storefronts festooned with traditional Tibetan prayer flags at platoons of armed police, some carrying an unusual addition to their riot regalia: fire extinguishers.

<< Tibetan people in New Delhi rally to express solidarity with Buddhists in Tibet. (Tsering Topgyal, Associated Press / October 23, 2011)

A string of self-immolations by young Buddhist monks in Sichuan province is unnerving the Chinese government and giving a new, more radical momentum to the Tibetan protest movement.

On Monday, the ninth young Tibetan — and the first woman — killed herself in the small town of Aba by self-immolation in a protest against Chinese rule. She was identified by Tibetan exile groups as 20-year-old Tenzin Wangmo, a Buddhist nun.

A 19-year-old monk had set himself on fire two days earlier in the same town, which is near the Kiriti monastery, one of the largest Tibetan centers in China and the center of the recent unrest. In both cases, the monks shouted slogans calling for freedom of religion and the return of the exiled Dalai Lama to Tibet.

The self-immolations have set off a cycle of martyrdom and protest, inspiring demonstrations from New Delhi to Taipei. Tibetan blogs have filled with poems to the dead. The Dalai Lama, who lives in Dharamsala, India, led a day of prayer and fasting Wednesday.

In a panic, Chinese authorities have blanketed Aba with heavy security. Rare footage taken last week by Agence France-Press showed the streets brimming with riot police.

Tibet analysts say China's heavy hand is unlikely to stop the wave of immolations.

"There is a copycat dimension to this," said Dibyesh Anand, a Tibet expert at the University of Westminster in London. "'If I immolate myself, my friends are under pressure to do the same to show they are just as patriotic.'"

The ritual suicides, he added, are a sign that young Tibetans are moving away from the Dalai Lama's teachings about nonviolence.

"He has always said that people should not harm themselves or others," Anand said. "People respect him, but they are frustrated and they want to protest."

Tibetan activists see parallels with the aggrieved Tunisian fruit vendor who set himself on fire last December to protest corruption, setting into motion the "Arab Spring" protests that have dislodged leaders in three countries.

"The self-immolations of the eight young monks were revolutionary acts of ultimate sacrifice to rouse the Tibetan people to action, in much the way as Mohammad Bouazizi's self-immolation woke up the oppressed people of the Middle East from many, many decades of fear, apathy, cynicism and weariness," Jamyang Norbu, a prominent Tibetan radical, wrote on his blog this month.

Among Tibetan Buddhists, self-immolation had been unheard of before 2009 and until this year was very rare.

Relations between Tibetan and Chinese authorities in Sichuan province, which abuts the Tibet Autonomous Region, had been relatively calm until a few years ago. Tibet experts say the change came about because of attempts by the authorities in Beijing to intervene in religious affairs, forcing monks to attend "patriotic education" classes where they study communism and renounce the Dalai Lama.

In response to protests in the monasteries, authorities have at times cut off water and electricity and installed police booths inside the monasteries, said Robert Barnett, a Tibet scholar at Columbia University.

"These provocative police tactics have been counterproductive," Barnett said.

Of the monks who have set themselves on fire, all are believed to have been under 24. Several were related. Some had been kicked out of monasteries by Chinese authorities for participating in protests, experts say.

"They are not trained to do anything but to be monks or nuns," Anand said. "If they don't give them any jobs or hope, they are radicalizing them unconsciously."

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Thursday that authorities were maintaining "normal social order" in Sichuan.

"China firmly opposes ethnic separatism, will resolutely protect national sovereignty and territorial integrity, and firmly oppose any country using the excuse of the so-called Tibet problem to interfere in China's internal affairs," Jiang said at a briefing in Beijing.


View the original article here

For Vietnamese Buddhists in south Alabama a goddess of mercy is a powerful figure

Home The Americas US South

BAYOU LA BATRE, Alabama (USA) -- Down a gravel road, on the grounds of a Vietnamese Buddhist temple, the statue of a female figure rises 30 feet tall. Her name is Bodhisattva Quan Am.

<< At the Vietnamese Buddhist temple in Bayou la Batre, Al., the Bodhisattva Quan Am rises among the pines. A bodhisattva, says the temple's monk, Thich Thien Thai, is an enlightened being who helps show people the path to understanding and knowledge. Quan Am, found throughout many Asian countries, can be likened to a goddess of mercy, says the monk. (Roy Hoffman/Press-Register)

A bodhisattva is an enlightened being who helps show ordinary people the path to understanding, says the temple’s monk, Thich Thien Thai.

Lighting incense, people kneel before Quan Am, recite prayers, and ask for blessings. Women are especially prone to beseech her favors, he says.

Thai likens her to a goddess of mercy.

"You have no son, you pray for son," Thai says in his basic English. "No daughter, you pray for daughter.

"If there is danger in family, you pray for safety."

While rare in south Alabama, Quan Am’s image is prominent in many parts of the world, including China, where she is called Quan Yin. Other countries that practice Mahayana Buddhism — including Japan and Korea, along with Vietnam — invoke her.

In countries rooted in Theraveda Buddhism, like Cambodia and Laos, Quan Am is rarely found, Thai says. Her name in Sanskrit, Thai explains, is Avalokithesvara, meaning "hearer of cries."

Quan Am, says the monk, "listens to the sounds of the suffering people."

To Thai, who arrived in this coastal fishing community two years ago, Quan Am is a daily presence.

As the monk sits in his residence adjacent to the temple, he looks up at a wooden replica of Quan Am on his kitchen table.

When Thai rises and walks through the sanctuary to the front door, he passes a brightly colored statue of Quan Am sitting next to the Buddha.

On the temple’s landing, at the top of stairs, he looks out at the giant statue of Quan Am across the yard. She stands on a lotus flower with a lotus leaf over her head, symbols of purity and enlightenment.

In her left hand, he points out, is a pitcher. 

"It is filled," he says, "with the water of compassion."

Her right hand, by tradition, makes the sign of the Buddha, palm facing outwards, thumb touched to middle finger.

But this Quan Am’s right hand is missing — a vandal knocked off her hand, he says sadly.

Thai, 44, grew up in the Vietnamese coastal city of Nha Trang, in Khanh Hoa province.

After deciding at age 13 to become a monk, he says, he studied Buddhism, going to India and other places, then returned home.

Prior to south Alabama he was stationed at a Buddhist temple in Houston.

A local Vietnamese association brought him to the bayou area "to teach knowledge," he says.

Ten years ago, the statue of Quan Am was brought to the bayou and erected near the temple. She withstood Hurricane Katrina and other storms, Thai says.

Quan Am will be moved in the near future to a new temple being constructed several miles away. Across the street from the temple is a seafood processing plant; a few blocks away is Alma Bryant High School.

Over a fence are mobile homes and small houses. A block further are shrimp boats and fishing docks.

The encircling property of the temple — named Chua Chanh Giac, meaning, says the monk, "temple of enlightenment" — is like a world apart.

On the wall of a reflecting pool in front of the large Quan Am — the water is muddied by weather — another figure of the bodhisattva sits, small and serene.

To her right is a bowl with sticks of incense burned out.

Thai lifts the small Quan Am gently, moves her back toward the edge of the wall, then situates the incense in front of her. He pauses, regards the arrangement, evens up the statue and the bowl.

Several days have passed without rain, and Thai takes up a garden hose and begins to water the flowers around the pool.

Bamboo acts like a curtain around parts of the pool.

Squinting in the afternoon sun, he peers up at Quan Am.

A person who comes to her feet may look up and implore, he says: "I have hurt. I have pain. I need for bodhisattva to listen."

Then the sun passes behind Quan Am and she gazes down, as though ready.


View the original article here

Friday, October 28, 2011

Myanmar to hold grand religious function to mark 2600th anniversary Shwedagon Pagoda

Home Asia Pacific South East Asia Myanmar

YANGON, Myanmar -- Myanmar is making preparation to hold grand religious function to mark the 2600th anniversary of the world's famous Shwedagon Pagoda in Yangon, the official daily New Light of Myanmar reported Monday.

<< Shwedagon pagoda

Renovation work on the Shwedagon pagoda is underway for the event falling on a full-moon day of Myanmar calendar in March 2012 under the supervision of the Yangon region government.

Newly tiling of prayer halls and shrines for convenience of pilgrims, installing of elevators at museum, repository of Buddhist scriptures and archives of the pagoda, building separate staircase to Buddha's Life Museum with landscape gardening, modernized display of life of Buddha at the museum are being done, the report said.

Colorful illumination during the anniversary Buddhist function, offering Lord Buddha with 84,000 pieces of blooming flower and construction of two gateways of grandeur to the pagoda are also underway, the report added.

The Shwedagon Pagoda, enshrining four Buddha hair relics, was built by King Okkalapa and two-brother merchants in B.C. 588, the year when Lord Buddha gained enlightenment.

Over the past 2600 years, the height of pagoda increased from 20 meters to 99 meter through repeated renovations in different dynasties and eras.

Shwedagon Pagoda, a symbol of Myanmar, traditionally remained famous to the world.


View the original article here

Burmese monks hold meditation session

Home The Americas US Northeast

Princeton, New Jersey (USA) -- Exiled activist and Buddhist master U Pyinya Zawta and two of his companions led meditation and Q-and-A sessions on Tuesday as part of a three-part program to commemorate the fourth anniversary of the 2007 Saffron Revolution in Burma.

<< Photo by Ananda Zhu
Burmese monks host a discussion in McCormick 101 on Tuesday.

All three monks are active in the All Burma Monks’ Alliance and participated in the 2007 Saffron Revolution, an anti-government protest led by Burmese monks.

The event, which was sponsored by the Princeton Buddhist Students’ Group, started with a meditation session.

“We thought meditation was important because it’s what we do, and it’s a huge part of their lives,” event co-organizer Cristina Stanojevich ’12 said.

Co-organizer Gabriel Greenwood ’12 also noted that the meditation fit well with other parts of the program, which focused on raising awareness about Burma’s political situation.

“To them, meditation and political activism are part of the same spirit,” Greenwood said.

Over two dozen students participated in the meditation, including many students who had meditated in the past.

“It was like other meditation sessions but shorter and very relaxing,” Rebecca Smaha ’14 said, adding that she is active in the Princeton Buddhist Students Group.

The second part of the program consisted of a showing of the controversial documentary “Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country.” The documentary includes prominent appearances by U Gawsita, one of the monks who attended the event.

The film emphasized the brutal reality of the Saffron Revolution, during which monks who decided to take a peaceful stand against the military regime faced violence and long jail sentences.

Immediately following the screening, audience members had a chance to ask the monks questions about their views and experiences. A noticeable theme in the monks’ answers was that the situation has not yet improved in Burma in the aftermath of the revolution.

“We haven’t seen the real change yet,” U Zawta said through a translator. “We say that because there are still political prisoners and they also have fighting between the military leaders and the ethnic groups that are at the border.”

Of the over 200 monks originally imprisoned, only 40 to 45 have been released because their prison time was fulfilled. The remaining monks face at least five to six more years of jail time.

However, U Zawta also noted that the uprising had improved relations between the monks and the people but led to further deteriorations in relations between the government and the military regime.

When asked about the relationship between the monks and the Burmese people, U Zawta stated that monks serve as the moral authority in Burma but lack political authority.

“Monks always have close contact with the people because most of the people are Buddhist and [the monks] know how the people have been suffering from the government,” U Zawta said.

Besides University students, the event also attracted local residents interested in meditation and Burma.

 “I just heard about it and I was interested to see the monks,” local resident Allison Cryon said. “I thought it was especially valuable to hear authentic information.”


View the original article here

World Buddhism relic specialists to meet in Taipei

Home Asia Pacific North Asia Taiwan

Taipei, Taiwan -- Renowned Buddhism heritage specialists from around the world are scheduled to meet in Taipei Oct. 21-22 to discuss how to protect the birthplace of Buddha and rebuild the historical site into a cultural heritage for the whole world.

The 2011 Oriental Cultural Heritage Sites Protection Alliance international academic symposium will take place at the Taipei National University of the Arts in Guandu, Taipei, under the theme "From South Asia to Taiwan -- Cultural Heritage, History's Memories, Buddhist Art."

German Tibetologist Christophe Cueppers, director of the Lumbini Research Institute in Nepal, will be one of the main speakers at the symposium and talk about the "sacred site Lumbini."

Yukio Nishimura, a Tokyo University professor and an adviser to the Paris-based Oriental Cultural Heritage Sites Protection Alliance, will also speak on the UNESCO program for the preservation and development of world cultural heritage sites, focusing on the birthplace of Buddha at Lumbini, Nepal.

Basanta Kumar Bidari, a chief archaeologist with the Lumbini Development Trust in Nepal, will speak on the "role of religious communities in the world heritage property of Lumbini."

Roland Lin, a specialist for UNESCO World Heritage Center and a researcher with the Far East Research Center of University Paris, Sorbonne, France, will speak on the Afghanistan Bamiyan Buddhas in the Bamiyan Valley 10 years after they were destroyed.


View the original article here

Grotto artistry

Home Arts & Culture

Shanghai, China -- Three replicas of the restored Mogao Grottoes fresco paintings is to be built and exhibited along with ancient Buddhist sutras, replica of colorful sculptures and other relics of Dunhuang culture, which dates back to the 4th to 14th century in northwestern China's Gansu province.

<< The highlight is a huge statue of Buddha lying peacefully in repose.

This is one of the major attractions for this year's China Shanghai International Arts Festival, courtesy of Gansu, the guest province. The show will be at a special site at the Expo Memorial Exhibition Hall from Oct 25 to Nov 18.

Among the exhibits will be Grotto 159, which features a huge statue of Buddha lying peacefully in nirvana pose.

The replica is made four-fifths of the original size, allowing audiences to observe from a closer distance.

The fresco from Grotto 29, replicated for the first time and with mineral pigments, will show off the magnificence of the original art presenting as much as possible, according to Zhang Zhengfeng, the representative of the Gansu province at the festival.

He was introducing a series of cultural events from Gansu during the festival.

On Oct 25, a performance of Dunhuang Rhyme will be at the Shanghai Grand Theater, when music and dance portrayed on the frescoes will come alive on stage.

The Expo Memorial Exhibition opened at the former Puxi area of the Expo Park on Sept 25, showcasing highlights of last year's World Expo.

The exhibition is a preview for the World Expo Museum, the only official museum for the Bureau International des Expositions based in Paris scheduled for completion in two years.

More than 14,000 items have been collected for the museum, among which 2,000 will be on show at the preview memorial show, at the former Pavilion of Footprint, on the western bank of Huangpu River.

A digital animation project presents a panoramic view of the Expo Park on screen of 90 meters long and 4.5 meters wide, featuring ingenious pavilion architectures, and a record of some of the most exciting events.

"The project was made by the team that created the most popular digital scroll of Along the River During Qingming Festival," says Yu Li, deputy curator of the World Expo Museum.


View the original article here

Reclaiming Ashoka - An Iron Age Interfaith Exemplar

Home Personality

New Delhi, India -- Approximately 2280 years ago, Emperor Ashoka, third regent of India’s Maurya Dynasty, ascended the throne. This Iron Age family ruled India’ first empire, stretching from eastern Iran to Burma, including most of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Scholars dispute the details but agree that Ashoka ruled for about four decades in the middle of the third century BCE.

<< The  four-headed “Ashoka Lion Capital,” originally placed on  Ashoka’s pillar in Sarnath (in today’s Uttar Pradesh), was adopted by India’s national emblem.

Once in power, Ashoka proved a tyrant. Growing up in the Kshatriya warrior caste, the young prince had burnished his reputation as a fierce, merciless fighter and hunter. Though one of the youngest of King Bindusara’s many sons, he proved his father’s best protector, mastering both negotiation and an iron fist for keeping the hinterlands quiet. He out-maneuvered his brothers, who perished by his hand, and developed strong enough allies in the court so that when the king died, father’s succession wishes were upended and King Ashoka took over. For most of the next decade he marched his armies through west and south Asia, becoming the most powerful, fearsome man on Earth.

Eight years into his reign Ashoka fought a bloody war to conquer Kalinga (roughly equivalent to the state of Orissa today), a small, sophisticated kingdom that had kept its freedom and had a significant army. It had no chance, though, against Ashoka’s military machine. “One hundred and fifty thousand were deported, one hundred thousand were killed and many more died (from other causes),” the king later confessed.

A Stunning Transformation

Ashoka’s conversion story after Kalinga is nearly unprecedented in the annals of religious history, though one comparison comes to mind. Several hundred years later a Jewish leader, Saul of Tarsus, was converted on the road to Damascus and became known as St. Paul, the point-person for spreading Christianity throughout the Middle East and Europe.

Within a year of Kalinga’s defeat , Emperor Ashoka converted to Buddhism and transformed from tyrant to philosopher-king. He changed what it meant to be king from divine representation to servant of the sangha, the Buddhist community. He envisioned and implemented a culture of peace that cares for all living beings. Along the way, his well-funded proselytizing took Buddhism from Italy to his west to Vietnam to his east.

What generated such a incredible turnaround!? Competing explanations abound, as one might imagine. One legendary answer, frequently quoted, provides this confession: What have I done? If this is a victory, what’s a defeat then? Is this a victory or a defeat? Is this justice or injustice? Is it gallantry or a rout? Is it valor to kill innocent children and women? Do I do it to widen the empire and for prosperity or to destroy the other’s kingdom and splendor? One has lost her husband, someone else a father, someone a child, someone an unborn infant.... What’s this debris of the corpses? Are these marks of victory or defeat? Are these vultures, crows, eagles the messengers of death or evil?

Whatever the details, Ashoka’s violent ambition morphed into a benevolent support for citizens of the empire and those beyond. For next 30 years, he turned into the good ruler people have dreamed about for centuries, or so the legend went. Of course, for nearly 2000 years most of what was known about Ashoka came from Buddhist texts written four to six hundred years after his death. The Vedic community, which he had abandoned, paid him no attention until 1915, when a linguistic puzzle was finally solved and Ashoka’s historic legacy finally swung into view.

The story goes back to 1828 when a brilliant Anglo-Indian archeologist and philologist, James Prinsep, managed to translate the ancient Brahmi language. Brahmi was the preferred language for the 33 “Edicts of Ashoka,” inscriptions we have today, carved in stone on huge, 50-ton “Ashoka Pillars “ as well as massive boulders and cave walls. Some of the inscriptions are brief, others run to hundreds of words. They were carved repeatedly in sites across the empire. The collection of 14 “Girnar” edicts, for instance, has been found at five sites and a shortened version in two others.

In these ‘letters’ to his people are more intimate than official. Ashoka refers to himself “Beloved by the Gods, King Piyadasi,” which means, “he who regards everyone with affection.” Not until 1915, when the last of the Edicts was discovered, do we find reference not just to King Piyadasi, but to Ashoka, confirming his connection to them all. What had been consigned to legend gained historic currency. Who emerged was a leader who championed equality, social just, religious tolerance and more. H.G. Wells wrote, "Amidst the tens of thousands of names of monarchs that crowd the columns of history, their majesties and graciousnesses and serenities and royal highnesses and the like, the name of Asoka shines, and shines, almost alone, a star."

The discovery woke India up to its hidden historical treasure. By the mid-twentieth century Ashoka’s reputation throughout south Asia returned to what it was over 2200 years ago. At the center of India’s flag is the Ashoka Chakra (see left), an image found on a number of the Edicts, representing virtue. Though he became a Buddhist, Ashoka’s achievements as a ruler are a matter of national pride today.

The Edicts themselves offer a personal glimpse into Ashoka’s world and what he hoped to engender. They tend towards the practical. In the first of the Girnar inscriptions, we read, “Formerly, in the kitchen of Beloved-of-the-Gods, King Piyadasi, hundreds of thousands of animals were killed every day to make curry. But now with the writing of this Dhamma edict, only three creatures, two peacocks and a deer are killed, and the deer not always. And in time, not even these three creatures will be killed.”  Promoting vegetarianism, but gradually.

What makes Ashoka singularly fascinating among great reformers in history is that he actually had the power to give expression to his vision. A practical administrator, he built accountability systems into his reforms. From the Edicts we can discern that…

He promoted equality, peacemaking, social justice, women’s rights, religious freedom, education, science, kindness to prisoners, sustainability, and universal free medical care for animals and birds as well as people.He developed major public works projects including hospitals, clinics, and universities. Rest houses between cities were built with wells, fruit trees and shade trees for weary travelers.He banned deforestation, most hunting, and sought to improve the lives of slaves.Socially, he called for respectful behavior, generosity, and moderation as consumers.Personally he advocated kindness, self-examination, truthfulness, gratitude, loyalty, and self-control, claiming that the power of love is greater than the power of the sword.

An Interfaith-Friendly Empire

Ashoka’s religious conversion changed his life and India’s. His Edicts, while steering away from rituals, dogma, and festivals, promoted Buddhist values in everyday living. His broad agenda expressed his understanding of Buddhist “dhamma” (from Pali) or “dharma” (from Sanskrit), a word rich in meanings about the disciplines which make life fulfilling and meaningful. Dhamma, in essence, calls for kindness to all life, truth telling, respect, and generosity. To promote the Dhamma, Ashoka built thousands of stupas (Buddhist worship sites) throughout the empire. He sent Buddhist teachers and priests to Syria, Iran, Egypt, Greece, and Italy; to Nepal, Tibet, and China; to Miramar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, and he sent his daughter, Sanghamitta, and his son on Mahinda, both ordained monastics, to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). The young king, and the nation followed. Essentially, Ashoka’s missionary efforts transformed a young Buddhist reform tradition into a world religion.

Buddhist proselytizing sounds oxymoronic today, to be sure, but Ashoka’s doesn’t fit your stereotype of a missionary. He was not a philosopher or priest, instead working to improve peoples day-to-day living, albeit, with Buddhist values. Simultaneously, he had an interfaith agenda he pursued as seriously as Buddhism. He called for mutual respect among us all, regardless of religion. He encouraged non-Buddhist educators and asked all schools to teach about and appreciate all religions. Hindus, Jains, and Pagans were as fully welcome in this empire as Buddhists. He observed that harming someone else’s religion harms your own.

Ashoka’s new kind of civilization faded away, becoming legendary within 50 years of his death. Gradually Hinduism in India absorbed Buddhism back into the mother faith, and Buddhism was left to thrive beyond India’s borders in lands where Ashoka had sent missionaries.

Then 22 years after the 1893 World’s Parliament of Religions, history’s veil rolled back more than two millennia to reveal a global leader who achieved a peaceful, constructive, interfaith culture that lasted the better part of a century. His achievement is a prod for those who share similar dreams about the future. We should all be studying the Edicts of Ashoka.

----------
Quotations from Ashoka’s Edicts were translated by the Ven. S. Dhammika in his The Edicts of King Asoka: An English Rendering (1993), which is freely distributed online by Dharmanet International. Bhikkhu Dhammika is spiritual director of the Buddha Dhamma Mandala Society in Singapore.


View the original article here

Bhutan and the pursuit of happiness

Home Asia Pacific South Asia Bhutan

Bhutan, sandwiched between India and China, is proof that happiness does not necessarily come with high income.

Timphu, Bhutan -- BHUTAN is still buzzing in elation over a royal wedding. Its hugely popular, Oxford-educated King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, 31, has just presented them with his new queen, the beautiful commoner Jetsun Pema, 21.

The Oct 13 ceremony was colourful and steeped in tradition and Buddhist religion at a monastery in the ancient capital of Punakha.

Noticeably, there were no foreign princes, no visiting heads of state at the ceremony. Just the royal family, thousands of nearby villagers and the rest of the country's 700,000 people watching the live telecast of the ceremonies on their television sets.

For the Bhutanese, the wedding was very personal. They love their young king and the kings before him and totally believe their kings love them back. Their faces flush with pride and joy when they talk of them and they directly attribute their happiness to the "humble, kind and wise" kings who have always placed their people's welfare and well-being at the top of their agenda.

The Bhutanese have much to be proud about.

Their Druk Yul (Land of the Thunder Dragon) has mountains that are still thick with trees. Their glacier-fed rivers are teeming with fish. The air is clean and, in many places, naturally pine-scented. Breathtaking mountain scenery is common.

They still grow their food in traditional ways. While we call it organic and pay a premium, it's everyday fare for the mostly vegetarian Bhutanese. The nation is an environmentalist dream.

Visitors are unlikely to see beggars or homeless people. The Bhutanese sense of family takes care of that.

Crime is rare even though many people live in poverty and have to trek hours on foot to get from one place to another.

Sexual norms are considered fairly liberal but Bhutanese are raised to observe decorum in dress and behaviour in public.

A couple come together as man and wife once they get their parents' blessings. No fuss. A man can have more than one wife. And in this fair-minded land, a woman can have more than one husband, even though this is less common.

And the surprises continue. Children streaming out of schools in traditional dress give visitors friendly grins and are quite happy to chat - in English. Yes, English is the medium of instruction.

For tourists, shopping and sightseeing is easy. There's no need to struggle in the local Dzongkha as guides and shopkeepers speak English, albeit with a heavy Indian accent as many teachers are from India.

Education and health care is free.

The Bhutanese know they have something special and they plan to keep it.

Clearly, it's a country with a unique view of life and living. Pure economic growth is not the end but just one of the means to achieve a more important objective - happiness.

This philosophy, clearly enunciated by former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, an absolute monarch who voluntarily abdicated after drawing up a roadmap to democracy, underpins Bhutan's push forward into modernisation.

Bhutan's government has taken this beyond a philosophy and beyond the usual conventional markers for GDP.

The Centre for Bhutan Studies, the government's think tank, did an exhaustive sample survey and determined that a happy society involves the four pillars of economy, culture, environment and good governance measured by 72 indicators clustered under nine domains.

A Gross National Happiness Commission (GNHC) has been formed and this commission reports directly to the prime minister and bears a heavy and two-fold responsibility.

It conducts surveys once every two years based on the indicators, crunches the results to establish where the nation's well-being is at that point and then screens all policy initiatives to ensure they enhance GNH. The first survey was conducted in 2008 and the next one in 2010.

"Every policy in the government, irrespective of where it originates, goes through the GNHC," said Karma Tshiteem, the commission's secretary in an interview while he was on a visit to Malaysia.

He said the nine domains included four - health, education, living standards, and to some extent, environment - found in conventional policy-making frameworks.

But the survey found five more domains that people care deeply about - psychological well-being, time use, community vitality, culture and good governance - often overlooked by governments but included in the unique Bhutanese approach to development.

Each of these was then broken down into indicators that total 72. Psychological well-being, for instance, includes general psychological distress indicators, emotional balance indicators, and spirituality indicators.

The community vitality, for instance, consists of family vitality, safety, reciprocity, trust, social support, socialisation and kinship density.

The first survey offered up interesting revelations, said Tshiteem.

Among others, the survey in this deeply Buddhist land discovered that 90% of Bhutanese don't meditate at all. Meditation is an indicator under psychological well-being.

Tshiteem said: "So what did we do with that knowledge? We introduced a whole set of activities which we call education for GNH in schools. One of these activities is meditation.

"It's not that our children have to sit in the lotus posture like some accomplished practitioner. The idea is to get them to experience stillness every day in their lives because that stillness is very powerful to stop all the distractions that life is made up of.

"It's been proven that this activity builds calmness.

"Like many habits that children carry into their adult lives, we hope that it will become part of their lifestyle. We feel that, irrespective of religious background, meditation has proven to be a very healthy activity for psychological or mental well-being - particularly with dealing in problems related to stress that people face in this modern work environment.

"In this case, it was just a policy response that we needed and we have introduced this throughout all schools."

However, some matters needed responses that required resource allocation, creative ideas and lengthy discussions with relevant sectors, he said.

"From the survey we saw that the indicator of trust among neighbours is poor in urban areas. We have to get creative and come up with ideas on what we need to do to build trust.

"So we look at what we used to do in our villages, which was what Bhutan really was until we started modernisation.

"In a village setting, the soul of the village is the temple. It is not only a place for worship, but the most important social space where people meet.

"So we could apply similar strategies in the urban areas. But this will require money - one of our responsibilities is identifying priorities and allocating resources - so we allocate resources to good ideas that we think about and leads to this. And of course, a lot of that will be learning whether we achieved what we want," he said.

Sometimes, the challenge is not just a direct response, strategy or resource allocation.

It's about "creating incentives for the types of choices we think are desirable," said Tshiteem who then used time use as an example.

"We have 24 hours in a day. We want to keep as a policy the use of these 24 hours equal among the three aggregates - work, leisure and rest.

"And we believe that for a truly sustainable and happy life, you cannot compromise these three for an extended time. You can go without sleep for one night, maybe, but after the second night I think it will have a tremendous impact on your well-being if you continue.

"Similarly, if you work too hard, however meaningful your work is, it will have a detrimental impact. GNH is about balance - leading a very balanced life.

"The policies involved in these new domains require time and not money. And you know, time is the only thing even money can't buy.

"If you look at the five new domains, you can see that you have to take the work-life balance very seriously.

"If you do not have enough time, then you cannot work on these areas because these areas, like the relationship between friends, will only flourish if you invest the time. There is no substitute for that," he said.

"We have created a GNH policy screening tool. It's almost like wearing spectacles. We put on this glass and look at the policy in question and we make sure all these other domains that are normally not considered in policy are given due weight.

"So, for instance, if the policy we're debating is joining WTO, we'll say 'what is the likely impact of joining WTO on stress levels in society? Is it likely to increase it, decrease it, be neutral, or do we not know what its effects might be?

"The tool is very simple but what it does is it fosters debate. Because it fosters this debate, I believe that, hopefully, the choices we make will be better and more sustainable ones. But it's still very early," he said.

Tshiteem is "absolutely" sure that Bhutan is on the right path as determined by the former king's logic of why happiness should be the object of development policy.

"Just look at every country. They are pursuing a model of development where they want double-digit growth. Everybody wants to become rich. Can you imagine what will happen if every country achieves this? I think there will be no planet left.

"It is just not sustainable. There is something badly wrong with the model of development that we have been taught, which is basically about endless and high growth, but in a world with very definite and finite resources. And yet we all continue to take this path.

"What we hope with GNH is, because you look at things in its entirety, you make different choices. And our hope is that as small as we may be, maybe we can influence development and hopefully change the agenda and the way people look at development.

"As our fourth King always said, 'You cannot divorce development from what people want from life. They are one and the same thing'.

"But somehow, we are pretending that what people want from life can be very different from development.

"Eventually, development must be about a happy life, a life where people evolve. I guess that would be a genuine measure of progress. The wealth of experiences, family, relationships and not money are the true measure of progress," he said.

However, Tshiteem was frank about the challenges ahead, pointing out that Bhutan remained dependent on development assistance from abroad.

For decades, India has been its primary donor in terms of money and the source of skilled workforce needed in many sectors, including construction, road building and hydroelectricity projects. The Indian rupee is used side-by-side with the local Ngultrum in Bhutan.

In return, Bhutan sells its hydro-electricity to India. Ironically, electricity revenue provided no less than 60% of the government's entire revenue in 2009, dramatically boosting its GDP, but only 66% of Bhutanese households and 39% of its villages are electrified.

Other donors are the Scandinavian countries, Japan and institutions such as the World Bank, United Nations and the Asian Development Bank.

Good repayment

According to the Royal Monetary Authority's annual report 2009, Bhutan's external debt was at US$779.9mil, 61% of GDP, mostly tied to hydropower projects, which have good repayment capacity.

"We still have high levels of poverty in Bhutan which is why, even as we talk about GNH, you can be sure our focus is very much on reducing poverty. Poverty reduction is the number one objective and our target is to reduce it from its current 23% to 15% or less in five years.

"And towards this end, we have a number of interventions such as building roads, irrigation, the usual conventional investment activities like drinking water, electricity, mobile activity," he said.

In addition, the young constitutional king, who retains the authority to grant land to people, had already gone "literally door-to-door" through many of the 20 provinces in the country giving out land to those who need it, Tshiteem said.

"Fortunately, land is something we have in plenty. So with all this, we have confidence that we will be able to address poverty reduction quickly," he said.

Each Bhutanese is entitled to own at least five acres but cannot own more than 25 acres.

Tiny Bhutan's GNH has already received much international interest and appears to have inspired the 34-member Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD) happiness index, more tentatively called YourBetterLife Index, which was launched in May as the OECD celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

The index covers 11 areas - housing, incomes, employment, social relationships, education, the environment, the administration of institutions, health, general satisfaction, security and the balance between work and family - and is the first concrete result of a report by former Nobel economics prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz.

The Paris-based OECD hopes to make the index applicable to other countries soon, beginning with emerging economies such as Brazil, according to OECD officials quoted by news reports.

In July, the United Nations General Assembly passed, without dissent, a Bhutanese-initiated resolution recognising the pursuit of happiness as a fundamental human goal and noting that this goal is not reflected in GDP.

Modernisation means change. But change is what the GNHC has to manage by continuing to tweak its GNH model to keep track of what the Bhutanese people care about and make sure the fledgling democratic government continues to deliver well-being to its people.

As Tshiteem puts it, "we are in the early stages of this very exciting journey".


View the original article here

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Waking Up from the Nightmare

Home Issues

Buddhist Reflections on Occupy Wall Street
 
Boulder, CO (USA)
-- In a Buddhist blog about Occupy Wall Street, Michael Stone quotes the philosopher Slavoj ?i?ek, who spoke to the New York Occupiers at Zuccotti Park on October 9:

They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is turning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cat reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down!

As Slavoj and Michael emphasize, we are beginning to awaken from that dream. That’s an interesting way to put it, because the Buddha also woke up from a dream: the Buddha means “the awakened one.” What dream did he wake up from? Is it related to the nightmare we are awakening from now?

From the beginning, Occupiers have been criticized for the vagueness of their demands: although clearly against the present system, it wasn’t clear what they were for. Since then more focus has developed: many protesters are calling for higher taxes on the wealthy, a “Robin Hood” (Tobin) tax on trades, and banking reform to separate commercial and investment banking. These are worthy aims, yet it would be a mistake to think that such measures will by themselves resolve the basic problem. We should appreciate the general, unfocused dissatisfaction that so many people feel, because it reflects a general, unfocused realization that the roots of the crisis are very deep and require a more radical (literally, “going to the root”) transformation.

Wall Street is the most concentrated and visible part of a much larger nightmare: the collective delusion that our present economic system – globalizing, consumerist, corporate capitalism – is not only the best possible system but the only viable one. As Margaret Thatcher famously put it, “There is no alternative.” The events of the last few years have undermined that confidence. The events of the past few weeks are a response to the widespread realization that our economic system is rigged to benefit the wealthy (the “1%”) at the expense of the middle class (shrinking fast) and the poor (increasing fast). And, of course, at the expense of many ecosystems, which will have enormous consequences for the lives of our grandchildren and their children. What we are waking up to is the fact that this unfair system is breaking down, and that it should break down, in order for better alternatives to develop.

It is not only the economy that needs to be transformed, because there is no longer any real separation between our economic and political systems. With the “Citizens United” Supreme Court decision last year – removing limits on corporate spending to influence elections – corporate power seems to have taken control of all the top levels of federal and state government, including the presidency. (Obama has received more campaign contributions from Wall Street than any other president since 1991, which helps explain his disappointing choice of economic advisors.) Today the elite move back and forth easily – from CEO to cabinet position, and vice-versa – because both sides share the same entrenched worldview: the solution to all problems is unfettered economic growth. Of course, they are also the ones who benefit most from this blinkered vision, which means the challenge for the rest of us is that the people who control this economic/political system have the least motivation to make the fundamental changes necessary.

Although the Democrats have not become as loony as the Republicans, on this basic level there’s really not much difference between them. Dan Hamburg, a Democratic congressman from California, concluded from his years in the U.S. Congress that “the real government of our country is economic, dominated by large corporations that charter the state to do their bidding. Fostering a secure environment in which corporations and their investors can flourish is the paramount objective of both [political] parties.” We still have the best Congress money can buy, as Will Rogers noticed way back in the 1920s.

From a Buddhist perspective, the point is that this integrated system is incompatible with Buddhist teachings, because it encourages greed and delusion – the root causes of our dukkha “suffering.” At the heart of the present crisis is the economic, political, and social role of the largest (usually transnational) corporations, which have taken on a life of their own and pursue their own agenda. Despite all the advertising and public relations propaganda we are exposed to, their best interests are quite different from what is best for the rest of us. We sometimes hear about “enlightened corporations” but that metaphor is deceptive – and the difference between such “enlightenment” and Buddhist enlightenment is instructive.

The burgeoning power of corporations became institutionalized in 1886, when the Supreme Court ruled that a private corporation is a “natural person” under the U.S. Constitution and thus entitled to all the protections of the Bill of Rights, including free speech.

Ironically, this highlights the problem: as many Occupy Wall Street posters declare, corporations are not people, because they are social constructs. Obviously, incorporation (from the Latin corpus, corporis “body”) does not mean gaining a physical body.

Corporations are legal fictions created by government charter, which means they are inherently indifferent to the responsibilities that people experience. A corporation cannot laugh or cry. It cannot enjoy the world or suffer with it. It is unable to feel sorry for what it has done (it may occasionally apologize, but that is public relations).

Most important, a corporation cannot love. Love is realizing our interconnectedness with others and living our concern for their well-being. Love is not an emotion but an engagement with others that includes responsibility for them, a responsibility that transcends our individual self-interest. Corporations cannot experience such love or act according to it. Any CEOs who try to subordinate their company's profitability to their love for the world will lose their position, for they are not fulfilling their primary – that is, financial -- responsibility to its owners, the shareholders.

Buddhist enlightenment includes realizing that my sense of being a self separate from the world is a delusion that causes suffering on both sides. To realize that I am the world – that “I” am one of the many ways the world manifests – is the cognitive side of the love that an awakened person feels for the world and its creatures. The realization (wisdom) and the love (compassion) are two sides of the same coin, which is why Buddhist teachers so often emphasize that genuine awakening is accompanied by spontaneous concern for all other sentient beings.

Corporations are “fuelled” by, and reinforce, a very different human trait. Our corporate-dominated economy requires greed in at least two ways: a desire for never-enough profit is the engine of the economic process, and in order to keep the economy growing consumers must be conditioned into always wanting more.

The problem with greed becomes much worse when institutionalized in the form of a legal construct that takes on privileges of its own quite independently of the personal values and motivations of the people employed by it. Consider the stock market, for example. On the one side, investors want increasing returns in the form of dividends and higher stock prices. On the other side, this anonymous expectation translates into an impersonal but constant pressure for profitability and growth, preferably in the short run. Everything else, including the environment, employment, and the quality of life, becomes an “externality,” subordinated to this anonymous demand, a goal-that-can-never-be-satisfied. We all participate in this process, as workers, employers, consumers, and investors, yet normally with little or no personal sense of moral responsibility for what happens, because such awareness is lost in the impersonality of the system.

One might argue, in reply, that some corporations (usually family-owned or small) take good care of their employees, are concerned about effects on the environment, and so forth. The same argument could be made for slavery: there were a few good slave owners who took care of their slaves, etc. This does not refute the fact that the institution of slavery is intolerable. It is just as intolerable today that our collective well-being, including the way the earth's limited “resources” are shared, is determined by what is profitable for large corporations.

In short, we are waking up to the fact that although transnational corporations may be profitable economically, they are structured in a way that makes them defective socially. We cannot solve the problems they keep creating by addressing the conduct of this or that particular example (Morgan Stanley, Bank of America), because it is the institution itself that is the problem. Given their enormous power over the political process, it won’t be easy to challenge their role, but they have an umbilical cord: corporate charters can be rewritten to require social and ecological responsibility. Groups such as the Network of Spiritual Progressives have been calling for an Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment (ESRA) to the U.S. Constitution which would mandate that.  If our destiny is to remain in corporate hands, corporations must become accountable most of all not to anonymous investors but to the communities they function in. Perhaps Occupy Wall Street is the beginning of a movement which will accomplish that.

If so, it won’t be enough. There’s something else at stake, even more basic: the worldview that encourages and rationalizes the kind of economic nightmare that we are beginning to awaken from. In Buddhist terms, the problem isn’t only greed, it’s also ignorance.

The theory most often used to justify capitalism is Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”: pursuing our own self-interest actually works to benefit society as a whole. I suspect, however, that CEOs are more often motivated by something less benign. It’s no coincidence that corporate influence grew at the same time as the popularity of social Darwinism, the ideology that misapplied Darwin’s theory of evolution to social and economic life: it’s a jungle out there, and only the strongest survive. If you don’t take advantage of others, they will take advantage of you. Darwinian evolution eliminated the need for a Creator and therefore the need to follow his commandments: now it’s every man for himself…

Social Darwinism created a feedback loop: the more people believed in it and acted according to it, the more society became a social Darwinist jungle. It’s a classic example of how we collectively co-create the world we live in.  And this may be where Buddhism has the most to contribute, because Buddhism offers an alternative view of the world, based on a more sophisticated understanding of human nature that explains why we are unhappy and how to become happier. Recent psychological and economic studies confirm the destructive role of greed and the importance of healthy social relationships, which is consistent with Buddhist emphasis on generosity and interdependence.

In other words, the problem isn’t only our defective economic and political system, it’s also a faulty world view that encourages selfishness and competition rather than community and harmony.

The modern West is split between a theism that’s become hard to believe in, and a dog-eat-dog ideology that makes life worse for all of us. Fortunately, now there are other options.

Buddhism also has something important to learn from Occupy Wall Street: that it’s not enough to focus on waking from our own individual dream. Today we are called upon to awaken together from what has become a collective nightmare. Is it time to bring our spiritual practice out into the streets?

If we continue abusing the earth this way, there is no doubt that our civilization will be destroyed. This turnaround takes enlightenment, awakening. The Buddha attained individual awakening. Now we need a collective enlightenment to stop this course of destruction. Civilization is going to end if we continue to drown in the competition for power, fame, sex, and profit.           (Thich Nhat Hahn)


View the original article here

Thailand monks save ancient Buddhist texts from floodwaters

Home Asia Pacific South East Asia Thailand

AYUTTHAYA, Thailand -- Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University, a monk university in Ayutthaya, Thailand was swamped by floodwaters.

Buddhist monks raced against rising floodwaters to keep Buddhist Tripitaka, books containing Buddhist texts, dry and above water.

Monks waded in floods and formed a line on the steps of the university to transfer the books, wrapped in paper.

"The books are priceless because it is the heart of Buddhism," said the university's Assistant Professor Siriwat Srikhruedong.

The Tripitaka represent Buddha's teachings from more than 2500 years ago, held sacred by Buddhists.

Several books have already been damaged, as water levels of at least 1.5 meters (5 feet) inundated the university, known to be a centre for Asian monks.

Half of around 90,000 Buddhist books kept in a room has been damaged by the floods.

Relief goods such as bottled water were also distributed to flood affected communities.

At least 283 people in Thailand have been killed by heavy monsoon rain, floods and mudslides since late July and 26 of Thailand's 77 provinces are inundated, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation said on Thursday.

More than 2 million people are estimated to have been affected by the floods which has covered about a third of the country.


View the original article here

Buddhist monks live simple life at rural temple

Home The Americas US South

Hurricane Creek, Alabama (USA) -- Up a dirt road, on five acres of sloping wooded grassland, Buddhist monks chop wood and carry water. Following a centuries-old balanced daily practice of meditation, physical work, formal ceremonies, vegetarian meals and discussion of the teaching, the monks of the small remote mountain temple welcome those who join them in search of inner peace.

<< Courtesy photo/Linda Sutch Buddhist monks, Reverends Meido Tuttle (left) and Clairissa Beattie, stack wood at the Wallowa Buddhist Temple on Hurricane Creek.

Sounds like a scene from ancient China?

It's happening right here in Wallowa County, about a quarter-mile uphill from the Hurricane Creek Grange, at the Wallowa Buddhist Temple.

Visitors come from afar to retreat for a week or so, usually one-by-one. Local folks take time for inner reflection, individually or in small groups meeting Sundays and Wednesdays for a morning of meditation and discussion.

Walking paths wind through pine and aspen on the forested temple grounds, ideal for quiet contemplation. Sitting quietly on a bench along Hurricane Creek, a guest or a resident monk may find solace by the tumbling glacial waters.

Speaking with the priest of the temple, Reverend Meido Tuttle, one may find a spiritual refuge. A familiar brown-robed figure in the county since she came to settle here nine years ago, Rev. Meido freely offers a kind ear, a cup of tea, and good practical wisdom to those who ask it of her. After more than 30 ears as a contemplative monastic, Rev. Meido has come to embody the compassionate teaching of her tradition. Also practicing at the temple under her guidance is Reverend Clairissa Beattie, a younger monk who came from Portland last October after 10 years of monastic training.

The Wallowa Buddhist Temple is a log cabin heated mostly with wood, so the monks are kept busy splitting and stacking firewood. During the summer heat, Rev. Meido waters young fruit trees by hand where drip hoses don't reach. Seeing her carrying water in buckets recently, a neighbor couple kindly insisted on the monks using their nearby faucet.

Living simply, day-to-day practice is pretty down to earth. Monks are vegetarian, celibate, and endeavor to live on alms. The tradition is known in Japan as Soto Zen, also referred to as "farmer Zen" because of the emphasis on training within the conditions of a normal everyday life, making it possible for anyone to practice.

Here at the Wallowa Buddhist Temple, the practice is called Serene Reflection Meditation, and scriptures are sung in English to western plainsong accompanied by a church organ.

A small congregation and other benefactors from the community provide the monastics with the basics of food, clothing, medicine, and shelter. The temple monks offer a place dedicated to this practice and the teaching, which springs from a lifelong commitment to follow the path of the Buddha. A man who lived over 2,500 years ago in India, the historical Buddha found within himself the key to ending suffering, and offered a way for all to do the same by looking within.

Buddhists attempt to live life in accord with the Precepts: to cease from that which may cause harm, to do only good, and to do good for others. One place to start is by caring gently for all creatures. On a recent Sunday morning, a memorial was held in the small ceremony hall for a beloved cat who passed away. Buddhist memorials for humans are held at the temple as well, as are weddings, and naming ceremonies for children.

The temple has become a part of life for many in the county, Buddhist or not. Now known far and wide is the traditional Indian meal held at Russell's at the Lake restaurant every spring, a sell-out event organized by congregation members Erin Donovan and Jane Harshman who began the Friends of Wallowa Buddhist Temple to offer their support.

Last autumn they also organized the first "Sitting Potato" benefit dinner held at the Coffin House for about 40 people. "It was a cozy gathering of friends around simple, delicious food and then a thought-provoking film," Donovan said.

These evenings were so successful that Donovan, Harshman, and a fundraising committee headed by Chris Geyer decided to combine the potato bake with a silent and live auction Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Wallowa Lake Camp (the Methodist campground).

There will be musical entertainment and the chance to bid on some unusual items, ranging from art and vacation homes to gift certificates and experiences. All these have been donated by some 50 local artisans, musicians, businesses, and individuals who value the temple.

"The monks offer so much, this is our way to give back," comments Harshman. "The time that I spend in the temple is very peaceful, and from that I gain so much - from the sitting times, the spiritual counseling that is offered, and the community gatherings. Participation in these benefit events gives me an opportunity to use what I have learned from Buddhism."

The Oct. 22 benefit, dubbed "Sitting Potato's Big Night," is focused on raising funds toward building additional retreat accommodations at the temple. The congregation and friends of the temple are enthusiastically coming together to volunteer building materials, expertise, and labor for the project. Construction is planned for 2012.

Geyer was moved to help generate funds for the project through a sense of community spirit. He explains: "The second annual Sitting Potato Dinner and Auction is an opportunity to support the Wallowa Buddhist Temple. It is a wonderful reminder that we are all connected. When we focus on what we have in common and not what differentiates us, we can accomplish great things."

The temple is generally open for visitors and offers meditation instruction upon request. While the Wallowa Buddhist Temple depends entirely upon donations for its continued existence, all of its activities and services are offered without charge. If you would like to come for a visit or wish to offer your help toward the building project, please call ahead at      541-432-6129 to make arrangements.


View the original article here