Health, wealth and vegetables

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Wuhan, China -- Religion and ancient customs all play a part when the Chinese opted for a meatless meal in the past. But now, as Thomas Hayes and Sarah Marsh find out, the reasons are often much closer to heart.

<< The eat-more-vegetables, kill-no-animals movement is gathering strength across China, like this outpouring of support in Wuhan city, Hubei province. [Photo by Deng Jia/for China Daily]

Vegetarianism is not new to China. When times were harder, rural communities ate mostly roots and greens, with meat slaughtered only on festive days.

With the spread of Buddhism, many Chinese adopted a meatless diet, often subscribing to the belief that all life is sacred and should not be taken.

Even those who do not take to vegetarianism full-time would go meatless on the first and 15th of each lunar month, these being sacred days, especially for those who worship the Goddess of Mercy.

No meat is served on certain days of the Lunar New Year as well, to accumulate good karma for the coming year.

According to John Kieschnick, reader in Buddhist studies at the University of Stanford, there are important religious traditions related to Chinese eating.

"In ancient China," he says, "Most of the instances of vegetarianism were a symbol of renunciation for a period of mourning upon the death of a parent. Buddhism also played a large role in the kind of altruism associated with vegetarianism, and eating meat at certain times came to be connected with bad karma."

Some of these influences survive today, although they are only one ingredient in the vegetarian melting pot.

China's status as a developing country means that social attitudes to meat are changing extremely quickly.

Yue Miao, 42, a journalist in Beijing who has been a vegetarian since 2005, told us that when her parents were growing up in the 1950s and 60s they could expect to eat meat perhaps once a year.

Over decades of economic growth, meat has come to be seen as a symbol of material prosperity.

Now, though, China, especially in its wealthier provinces, may have reached the stage where meat consumption is widespread enough for it to no longer carry the same weight as a symbol of success.

Great advances in infrastructure and logistics mean that many more kinds of food are easily accessible to ordinary people, and this certainly includes vegetarian cuisine.

Western influences on Chinese vegetarianism are also being manifested, often in tandem with and related to these symbols of progress and increasing wealth.

It is no coincidence that vegetarianism has seen such success in wealthy Western nations where the social prestige of regularly eating meat has long worn off.

Laura Fanelli opened her restaurant The Veggie Table about one year ago. Idyllically situated in a hutong opposite the Yonghegong Lama Temple, it may be tempting to identify a Buddhist vibe running through the establishment.

Yet according to Fanelli, The Veggie Table is not motivated by any spiritual agenda, but instead by reasons such as food safety. In her opinion, there are simply "no arguments in favor of eating meat".

Health concerns about food in China over recent years are a major factor in the number of people now turning to vegetarian alternatives.

Fanelli's own vegetarianism is motivated by a strong belief about the personal health benefits it entails.

The Veggie Table's clientele are a mixture of men and women, and are made up of expats and foreign tourists along with local Chinese.

Health is perhaps the major factor in the rise of vegetarian restaurants and lifestyles in China.

The groundbreaking study on health, The China Study, published in 2004, gathered research in the 1980s from 130 Chinese villages across many regions and counties, and used it to draw radical conclusions about the effects meat and dairy products can have on our health.

The study, directed by Cornell University, also included a research team at the University of Oxford headed by Sir Richard Peto and a team at the Chinese Academy of Medicine headed by Li Junyao. China Daily spoke to one of its authors, T. Colin Campbell, the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus at Cornell University.

"It is not only meat that causes health problems but dairy and eggs as well," Campbell says. "It is the collective activities of many nutrients in these foods that increase heart disease, diabetes, obesity, many cancers and other diseases."

This research remains a source of controversy in the West, but its importance is beginning to be understood in China; the text itself was mentioned by Wang Rui and other vegetarian restaurant owners in Beijing.

Campbell also acknowledges the social currents at work, suggesting that in developing countries meat and other high-fat products "indicate social status for many people".

In China, as elsewhere, this kind of status is still of huge importance. However, the costs to healthcare systems, and the environmental damage caused by consuming high-fat, high-protein diets may be significant.

The recent rise in vegetarianism is just one of the many factors that indicate an increased awareness of healthy eating in China.

In some respects, this narrative conflicts with a desire for more wealth and the very best standard of living typical of a rapidly developing economy. Campbell, however, points toward winds of change, saying that he senses an increasing awareness of the importance of health over wealth.

"They are beginning to become aware that spending one's lifetime acquiring money is of little or no value if one gets sick and dies early."

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Bodhi sapling to be relocated

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Bhopal, India -- The Mahabodhi plant brought from Sri Lanka and planted at Sanchi by Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa during inauguration of International University of Buddhist and Indic Studies will now be shifted from the university site after collector of Raisen expressed his inability to ensure security of the plant.

As of now, the university site is being looked afte\r by Raisen administration. The plant at Amkheda, 8 kms away from Sanchi, is protected by iron fencing.

This Bodhi tree is symbolically significant as it is an offshoot of the same tree that was carried by Sanghamitra, daughter of king Ashoka, to Sri Lanka around 2,300 years ago.

?The Mahabodhi sapling planted at Sanchi has great significance for the proposed university as well as the Buddhist community. It needs to be protected well. Collector Raisen has written a letter to culture department to take the plant in its care. The department is mulling over the decision to shift the sapling to some other place till construction at the university site begins,? said Rajesh Gupta, Officer on special duty, for Sanchi University.

Confirming the news, director of culture department, Sriram Tiwari said, ?It would be difficult to deploy someone from an already under-staffed culture department at Sanchi to look after the plant. The sapling might be shifted to some other place for the time being,?

?A police picket consisting of 5 cops and two kotwars is deployed at the university site round-the-clock. Besides, staff of horticulture department is taking care of the plant,? said Mohanlal Meena, collector Raisen. He said that he had written to the culture department requesting them to take possession of the land. He hasn?t received any reply yet. The Mahabodhi sapling was planted on September 21 during the inauguration of Sanchi University.

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Eido Shimano to lead sesshin at Providence Zen Center in 2013?

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The Kwan Um School of Zen has offered an official statement on the matter of Eido Shimano booking a rental at their Diamond Hill Zen monastery in 2013. We are happy to announce that they have decided to decline renting out the space to Shimano and his followers.

<< Providence Zen Center (the international headquarters of the late Zen master Seung Sahn’s Kwan Um School of Zen) has reportedly offered Eido Shimano to lead a sesshin in 2013. They have since officially retracted the offer.

Here is the statement from Jason Quinn, the abbot of the Providence Zen Center, that we just received:

Adam Tebbe

October 4, 2012

Dear Jason,

I understand that the Providence Zen Center would like to offer an official statement on the May 2013 booking of Diamond Hill Monastery by the followers of Eido Shimano. I look forward to hearing back from you and wish these were more fun times. Thank you.

Warmly,

Adamj (typo)

Jason Quinn

October 5, 2012

Hello Adam,

Thank you for the message and respect to contact me directly. We have many people interested in renting space at both the Providence Zen Center and the Diamond Hill Zen Monastery. Our director is the contact person for exchanging information to rental groups about price and availability. After the exchange, the potential rental is discussed with the management team. The management team then evaluates each group to see if it is a good fit for the current situation. In this specific case, we decided not to rent to this group in 2013.

Hapchang _/l\_

Jason Quinn

Original October 2, 2012 posting

One must really pause to question the wisdom of any Zen institution that would offer Eido Shimano a place to teach and lead sesshin, knowing about his long and well-documented history of sexual and ethical misconduct that began when he first came to the United States in 1960. From where I am sitting, for any Zen institution to offer Shimano a place of teaching authority on their grounds is unconscionable. According to a letter from George Zournas to the Trustees of the Zen Studies Society dated 9/14/1982, one Dr. Tadao Ogura (then Senior Psychiatrist of the South Oaks Hospital) agreed, saying of Shimano: “Wherever he goes, he s[h]ould never again be given a position of primary authority.” That was the opinion of a highly respected psychiatrist dating as far back as 1982!

And yet, the Providence Zen Center (the international headquarters of the late Zen master Seung Sahn’s Kwan Um School of Zen) has knowingly done just that. In an email from Ekyo Ursula Sapeta to Eido Shimano’s remaining group of followers, Sapeta writes:

“Eido Roshi kindly agreed to lead sesshin in USA in May 2013.The sesshin will be four and half days, starting Friday evening May 24th and finishing Wednesday May 29th, after lunch.

We have a reservation in beautiful place Diamond Hill Monastery at Providence Zen Center (http://www.providencezen .org).”

Fair enough. The assumption would be that the Providence Zen Center mistakenly booked the reservation for May of 2013, not knowing that the sesshin was to be led by Eido Shimano. This, sadly, is not the case. In an email exchange between the Providence Zen Center’s director Jeff Partridge and Rev. Kobutsu Malone dated October 02, the Kwan Um School of Zen’s head temple confirmed that Mr. Shimano would indeed be leading sesshin at Diamond Hill Monastery in 2013.

Kobutsu Malone:

Dear Friends,

I am writing to inquire if the Providence Zen Center has actually booked a reservation to host a sesshin conducted by Eido Shimano in May of 2013 as per the attached email?

Thank you in advance for your prompt reply,

Rev. Kobutsu Malone

Jeff Partridge:

“Hello!

Yes I’m working with Ekyo now on the details. Please let me know if I can help with anything else.

Thank you,
Jeff Partridge
Director
Providence Zen Center”

Unreal…

Source: http://sweepingzen.com/eido-shimano-to-lead-sesshin-at-providence-zen-center-in-2013

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Heian-Period Buddhist painting on display at Byodoin temple

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Kyoto, Japan -- The public got its first glimpse of a famous Buddhist painting on Oct. 6, when the Byodoin temple, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Uji, Kyoto Prefecture, unveiled the "Nissokan-zu."

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The painting, a national treasure, depicts a form of meditation from the Heian Period (794-1185). It will be on display at the temple's Museum Hoshokan through Dec. 14.

Since the establishment of the temple in the 11th century, only a small group of people have had access to the picture, which is painted on two door panels placed behind the Seated Amida Nyorai (Amitabha Buddha) statue, the principal Buddhist image of Byodoin temple.

The exhibition was planned following the start of major renovations of the temple's Phoenix Hall in September.

"Nissokan" is a form of ascetic training that involves contemplating heaven while facing the setting sun.

The original picture was painted on the two doors, each about 2.6 meters tall and about 1.2 meters wide. Painted on the left door is the sun setting over the sea, while on the right are mountains and a Buddhist temple.

Most of the temple's 10 paintings executed on doors--all of which are designated national treasures--were put in storage over the years due to severe deterioration, but the "Nissokan-zu" had remained in the Phoenix Hall.

The Phoenix Hall is currently closed to visitors due to construction work.

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Buddhist lama leads contemplative life in India

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Atlanta, GA (USA) -- Chungtsang Rinpoche, 47, is a senior lama at the Tibetan Buddhists’ Drepung Loseling Monastery, in Mundgod, in southern India. He is originally from the Kham region of Tibet, and has been on a cultural tour of the United States with the Mystical Arts of Tibet program.

<< Chungtsang Rinpoche, 47, is a senior lama at the Tibetan Buddhists’ Drepung Loseling Monastery, in Mundgod, in southern India. ADAM JENNINGS

In September, the group spent a week in North Carolina at Wingate University. The tour was arranged by the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta.

We spoke through an interpreter.

Q: What is the daily routine where you live?

At the monastery, people take classes and study. I completed mine; it took 25 years.

I teach in the morning, and meditate and pray. I also join in the debate about the study of Buddhist philosophy.

Q: At Christian monasteries, members often live apart from the world. Is it like that in Mundgod?

It’s like that. We are separated from the town. The monastery becomes home for the monks, who receive an education there – philosophy, the science of the mind and emotion – to learn to deal with the positive side of things.

Where monasteries can be located is slightly different in Tibet. In India, the government chooses the location. Some monasteries are inside or within sight of a town.

The monastery buildings are the same as in America, in that there are huge halls for group prayers. At our monastery in India we have 3,000 monks. The monastery has 25 chapels in separate buildings. The monks have their own rooms where they eat or sleep. The entire monastery is very large.

Q: What do they eat at the monastery?

It depends on what is farmed. The Indian government gave us huge fields for crops like rice. The diet is also based on donations from people. Because of the weather – like if there isn’t good rain – there can be problems with what is raised in the area. Then we get help from the Tibetan government in exile.

We are vegetarian. The food is rice and maize (corn) and vegetables.

Q: Do you have visitors there?

Yes. They come to see friends and relatives. Some come to pray and meditate. Our monks originally from Tibet have fewer visitors than those born in India.

We also have many visitors from the United States and Europe. Tourists come to see what we look like. American Buddhists come to study and train in our meditation method.

Q: How old were you when you left Tibet?

I was 13. The culture, the language, the food, the climate and the land are all different. Some who escaped from Tibet deal with health problems and difficulty getting used to the climate and have to return to Tibet.

Q: Do India and especially the United States strike you as exotic?

There is a huge difference between living in Tibet and the United States. In Tibet there is no freedom. In India and the United States, you can use your freedom.

There are other differences between India and America. The first time I came to the United States, I didn’t see anyone outside – which is very much unlike India. I saw the shopping malls and thought no one was allowed to go outside! Now I am used to them.

Q: Right now, you’re wearing a sleeveless, collarless maroon cassock. Is that what you ordinarily wear?

Yes. It is part of being a monk.

Q: You’re also wearing eyeglasses and a wristwatch. Do you wear these at the monastery?

I didn’t wear glasses before; now I always do because I have eye problems. I wear this watch because I have to know the time.

Source: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/09/28/3562784/buddhist-lama-leads-contemplative.html#storylink=cpy

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Brainwashed into quitting medical school

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PETALING JAYA, Malaysia -- A group of Universiti Sains Malaysia medical students has allegedly been brainwashed into leaving their studies by a Buddhist monk.

Young Buddhist Association of Malaysia lay adviser Chong Hung Wang said the student Buddhist association from the campus in Kubang Kerian, Kelantan, had voiced its concern that around 30 medical students had shown behavioural changes and disinterest in their studies after returning from a trip to Thailand with the monk in August.

"These students were led to believe that patients should not receive medical treatment for their condition as sickness is the result of their karma.

"They are convinced that they should not become doctors as the act of treating patients will interfere with karma," said Chong.

It is believed that the monk had approached the students in March this year and had gained a following through religious activities conducted off-campus.

The monk also allegedly claimed that he had supernatural power and was able to tell the past and predict the future of the students.

"Compassion is central to Buddhist beliefs. What the monk had propagated about leaving patients to their sickness is wrong.

"We hope to curb the spread of misleading religious beliefs among students by creating better awareness on the true teachings of Buddhism," said Chong.

The students are said to want to leave the medical school and transfer to other programmes such as nutrition and sports science.

They are also having strained relationships with their family members following their decision to quit medical studies.

It was understood that some of the students were in their third and fourth year of studies.

A university official confirmed that three students had applied to transfer to other courses.

Vice-chancellor Prof Dr Datuk Omar Osman said none of the students had received approval to switch courses and the university viewed the matter of students being influenced by misleading religious teachings seriously.

"We do not want the students to simply switch courses because they are very good students and had worked very hard to gain a place to study medicine," said Prof Omar.

He added that the university was reaching out to the students through counselling.

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Monk protest in Bangkok against Bangladesh unrest

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BANGKOK, Thailand -- About 300 Buddhist monks demonstrated in the Thai capital Bangkok on Wednesday against recent attacks by Muslim mobs targeting temples and houses in Bangladesh.

<< Bangladeshi monks studying Buddhism in Thailand display signs and pictures of destruction in their country as they hold a demonstration calling for an end to attacks against Buddhist communities in Bangladesh, in front of the United Nations regional office in Bangkok. (AFP - Christophe Archambault)

Holding signs reading "No More Violence We Want Peace" and "Stop Muslim Terrorism on Bangladesh Buddhist", the monks from Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand massed outside the UN offices to call for a probe into the unrest.

"We don't want to blame anyone, but we want this barbaric incident to stop because now Buddhist followers have to seek protection from police around the clock," one of the event organisers, Kanraya Tasanasarit, told AFP.

Bangladesh police said Tuesday they had arrested nearly 300 people in connection with the violence, which saw Buddhist temples and homes damaged or set on fire.

Buddhists, who make up less than one per cent of Bangladesh's 153 million mostly Muslim population, are based mainly in southeastern districts, close to the border with Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Sectarian tensions have been running high since June when deadly clashes erupted between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingyas in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

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Pakistan struggles with smuggled Buddhist relics

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ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Lacking the necessary cash and manpower, Pakistan is struggling to stem the flow of millions of dollars in ancient Buddhist artifacts that looters dig up in the country's northwest and smuggle to collectors around the world.

<< Photo credit: AP | In this photo taken on July 6, 2012, A Pakistani official looks at Buddha statues confiscated by custom authorities in Karachi, Pakistan. Lacking the necessary cash and manpower, Pakistan is struggling to stem the flow of millions of dollars in ancient Buddhist artifacts that shadowy criminal gangs dig up from the country’s northwest and smuggle to collectors around the world. (AP Photo/B.K. Shakil Adil)

The black market trade in smuggled antiquities is a global problem that some experts estimate is worth billions of dollars per year. The main targets are poor countries like Pakistan that possess a rich cultural heritage but don't have the resources to protect it.
The illicit excavations rob Pakistan of an important potential source of tourism revenue, as valuable icons are spirited out of the country, and destroy any chance for archaeologists to document the history of the sites.

"We are facing a serious problem because Pakistan is a vast country, and we have very meager resources," said Fazal Dad Kakar, head of the government's department of archaeology and museums. "We have no manpower to watch the hundreds of Buddhist sites and monasteries in the country, most of which are located in isolated valleys."

Many of the sites are in the Swat Valley, a verdant, mountainous area in the northwest that was once part of Gandhara, an important Buddhist kingdom that stretched across modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan more than 1,000 years ago.

Police seized a large container filled with nearly 400 artifacts in the southern port city of Karachi in July that were being trucked north to be smuggled out of the country. About 40 percent were found to be genuine, including nearly 100 Buddhist sculptures up to 1,800-years-old worth millions of dollars, said Qasim Ali Qasim, director of archaeology and museums in southern Sindh province.
There were effectively no restrictions on whisking Buddhist relics out of Pakistan's northwest in the first few decades after the country achieved independence from Britain in 1947, said Malik Naveed, a former police chief of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where the Swat Valley is located.

That changed in 1975 when the government passed a set of laws criminalizing the practice. But Kakar, the federal archaeology chief, said the laws are difficult to enforce given a lack of funds, and people who are caught rarely receive punishments severe enough to act as much of a deterrent.

Police arrested several people connected to the seizure in Karachi in July, but they have yet to be formally charged.

Two men who were arrested last October for excavating a statue of Buddha from a site in Swat were only fined about $50 each, far less than the maximum punishment of a year in prison and a fine of more than $800 they could have received, said Syed Naeen, a public prosecutor in the area.

A Manhattan art dealer, Subhash Kapoor, is under arrest in neighboring India for allegedly smuggling millions of dollars in antiquities out of India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that he sold to museums and private collectors from his gallery in New York and online, according to police investigators involved with the case.
Rather than dig up Buddhist relics, some Pakistanis have focused on making replicas, such as the ones seized in Karachi, that they often try to pass off as the real thing -- although this practice is also illegal in the country. Many operate covertly around the ancient Buddhist site of Taxila, a short drive from the capital, Islamabad.
"I learned the practice from my fellow villagers in my childhood and can fake anything using cement, small stones, some colors and chemicals," said Salahud Deen, who works out of his home in a village near Taxila.

The 30-year-old high school dropout was contacted by The Associated Press through the owner of a tea shop in the area and showed off a sample of his wares, including a small statue of the Buddha's head. He said he recently received an order from a man in Sri Lanka to make a 3-foot tall "fasting Buddha" statue and expected to make a little more than $200 in the process.

Locals who deal in real Buddhist artifacts they have stolen from sites in the northwest likely make much more money, but it's almost nothing compared to what people higher up the food chain earn. Looters receive on average less than 1 percent of the final sale price of an item, while middlemen and dealers get the other 99 percent, according to the former head of the U.N. Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, Sandro Calvani.

Kakar, the federal archaeology chief, tried to stop Christie's auction house in New York from selling a "fasting Buddha" from the 3rd or 4th century last year as well as dozens of other Buddhist relics he claimed were smuggled out of Pakistan illegally.

Christie's went ahead and sold the Buddha for nearly $4.5 million and has asked Pakistan to provide proof of its claims, the auction house said.

Kakar was more successful with two shipments of Buddhist artifacts from Dubai and Tokyo that were seized by U.S. customs authorities in 2005, he said. He was able to prove the sculptures came from Pakistan by analyzing the age and composition of the stone, and the U.S. returned them, said Kakar.

Neil Brodie, an expert on the illicit trade in antiquities at the University of Glasgow, said it was critical for authorities to put pressure on private collectors and museums whose demand for ancient relics is fueling the black market. Some museums, particularly in Italy and Britain, have become more diligent about avoiding antiquities with questionable histories, but those in the U.S. have much more work to do, he said.

"You are losing the archaeological record on the ground by the destruction that is entailed by digging these relics out," said Brodie.

___

Associated Press writers Sherin Zada in Mingora, Pakistan, Adil Jawad in Karachi, Pakistan, and Ashok Sharma in Chennai, India, contributed to this report.

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Rioters torch Buddhist temples, homes in Bangladesh

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Ramu, Bangladesh -- Thousands of rioters torched Buddhist temples and homes in southeastern Bangladesh Sunday over a photo posted on Facebook deemed offensive to Islam, in a rare attack against the community.

<< The burnt Buddhist temple of Shima Bihar in Ramu. Thousands of rioters have torched Buddhist temples and homes in southeastern Bangladesh over a photo posted on Facebook deemed offensive to Islam, in a rare attack against the community.

Officials said the mob comprising some 25,000 people set fire to at least five Buddhist temples and dozens of homes in Ramu town and its adjoining villages, some 350 kilometres (216 miles) from the capital Dhaka.

The rioters claimed the photo allegedly defaming the Koran was uploaded on Facebook by a Buddhist man from the area, district administrator Joinul Bari said.

"They became unruly and attacked Buddhist houses, torching and damaging their temples from midnight to Sunday morning," he told AFP.

"At least 100 houses were damaged. We called in army and border guards to quell the violence," he said, adding that authorities had temporarily banned public gatherings in the area to prevent further clashes.

It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties, and authorities did not say if any of the rioters were arrested.

The country's home minister, industries minister and national police chief rushed to the scene Sunday morning.

Police officer Rumia Khatun said about "25,000 Muslims chanting God is Great" first attacked a Buddhist hamlet in Ramu, torching centuries-old temples, and later stormed Buddhist villages outside the town.

Witnesses said the rioters left a trail of devastation at the Buddhist villages.

"I have seen 11 wooden temples, two of them 300 years old, torched by the mob. They looted precious items and Buddha statues from the temples. Shops owned by Buddhists were also looted," said Sunil Barua, a local journalist on the scene.

Barua, himself a Buddhist, said 15 Buddhist villages were attacked and more than 100 houses were looted and damaged. "The villages look like as if they were hit by a major cyclone," he told AFP by phone.

Buddhists, who make up less than one percent of Bangladesh's 153 million population, are based mainly in southeastern districts, close to the border with Buddhist-majority Myanmar.

Sectarian tensions have been running high since June when deadly clashes erupted between Buddhists and Muslim Rohingya in Myanmar's western Rakhine state.

Although Bangladesh, where nearly 90 percent people are Muslims, has witnessed deadly clashes between Muslims and Hindus in the past, sectarian clashes involving Buddhists are rare.

In recent weeks tens of thousands of Muslims have hit the street across the country to protest a US-made anti-Islam mocking the prophet Mohammed.

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Religious sensitivities no excuse for violence in Muslim world

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Ramu, Bangladesh -- Religious sensitivities cannot be used to justify violent attacks. A perceived insult against one’s faith is simply not an excuse for breaking the law. And it is not an excuse to persecute people with different religious beliefs.

The looting and destruction of Buddhist temples and monasteries in Bangladesh by thousands of Bangladeshi Muslims is the latest example of this dangerous and warped way of thinking.

The mob’s rationale: they were angry about a photo of a burned Koran allegedly posted on Facebook by a Buddhist boy. While these protesters demand respect for their religion, where is their respect for the religion of others?

The Buddhist minority in Bangladesh, a country of 150 million, has traditionally coexisted peacefully within the majority Muslim society; however, there are now fears of further sectarian violence. For its part, the government blamed the attack on Islamists, as well as on Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar.

But the incident is not an isolated one; it comes on the heels of last month’s protests in Muslim countries over the offensive depiction of the Prophet Mohammed in a low-budget film produced by an Egyptian Copt living in the U.S.

This pattern of intolerance is alarming, and should concern religious leaders, as much as governments, because the violence is being committed in the name of Islam, and subverts what the religion actually stands for. Of course, minority religions across vast swaths of the world are subject to attacks, but religious minorities in the Muslim world, including Baha’is, Ahmadis, Zoroastrians and others, are particularly vulnerable because of the failure in many countries to guarantee freedom of religion, as well as the rise of Islamist governments in the wake of the Arab spring.

In Egypt, Christian Copts are concerned about the erosion of their religious rights. In Pakistan, the country’s blasphemy laws were recently used to arrest a Christian girl with mental disabilities who was accused of desecrating the pages of the Koran. A furious mob demanded she be punished. Last year, the country’s national Minister for Minorities – a Christian and a critic of the blasphemy law – was shot dead, In Nigeria, churches in the North have been destroyed by Boko Haram, the militant group trying to establish an Islamic state.

These acts of persecution against should be condemned. Entire communities should not have live in terror that a perceived insult of one’s faith will prompt indefensible acts of aggression.

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The Price of Faith: Chinese Buddhist Sites Plan IPOs

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China’s four most sacred Buddhist mountains are hatching plans to list on the Shanghai stock exchange.

Beijing, China -- In China today, there’s little that money can’t buy — even when it comes to faith. Many of the country’s most popular Buddhist sites are chock-full of cure-all tonics and overpriced incense.

<< TIM STELZER / GETTY IMAGES
Buddhists pray at Putuo Shan, Zhejiang Province, China.

For the most part, people seem happy, or at least willing, to oblige. That changed this summer, though, when it emerged that China’s four most sacred Buddhist mountains were hatching plans to list on the Shanghai stock exchange.

In July, Mount Putuo Tourism Development Co. announced it would attempt to raise 7.5 billion yuan in a 2014 initial public offering. The company operates the tourist facilities at Putuo Shan, located on an island 20 miles (32 km) off Shanghai. Chinese state media quoted representatives of Wutai Shan in Shanxi province and Jiuhua Shan in Anhui province as saying they too had plans to raise funds on the capital markets. The fourth of China’s sacred mountains, Emei Shan in Sichuan province, completed a public listing in Shenzhen in 1997, under the incredibly auspicious ticker symbol “888.”

The IPO plans have not played well. The four mountains are revered by Chinese Buddhists as the earthly homes of four bodhisattvas — holy people who have attained enlightenment but have returned to earth to help others attain nirvana. Now, though, they have become symbols of commercial excess, with critics charging that they have crossed an invisible spiritual line. “Does Buddha Love Money Too?” asked a provincial newspaper in Hunan. “Buddhist Mountain IPOs Bring Shame,” screamed a headline in the National Business Daily. “These temples are sacred places, they shouldn’t be listed, it goes against the idea of religion,” Jiang Zhaoyong, a well-known social commentator and former editor of a Hong Kong newspaper, says. “This is a spiritual thing — how can you measure that with money?”

The officials who run the sites disagree. They emphasize that hundreds of thousands of pilgrims and tourists visit the sites every year and argue that the listings are necessary to maintain the mountains and develop facilities for visitors. Indeed, in an interview with the Shanghai-based Dongfang Daily, the head of the Putuo Shan tourism office said that the funds raised through the IPO would be used to improve accommodation, transportation and restaurants on Putuo island and nearby areas.

The strategy is not entirely new. Perhaps the most infamous ecclesiastical entrepreneur in China is the abbot of Shaolin Temple, spiritual home of Zen Buddhism and site of the world-famous martial-arts school. Since Shi Yongxin, the youngest abbot in the history of the temple, took charge in 1999 he has launched several ambitious moneymaking ventures, including a Hollywood-style movie based, very loosely, on the history of the temple, a franchise operation to license the Shaolin name to other temples, and an online store selling, among other things, a book called The Secret of Shaolin Martial Arts. The book retails for $1,500.

Critics see such revenue-generating ventures as gateways to religious commercialism, even corruption. On a recent visit to Putuo Shan, Li Chengpeng, a top social commentator in China, was accosted by groups of fortune-telling monks looking for money. “I got up at 4 a.m. to visit the Puji Temple on the mountain and ran into a group of shaven-headed monks dressed in traditional cassocks who jumped on me, telling me ‘You should do some good deeds to ensure a prosperous future,’” Li recalls. He says his offer of 200 yuan was rebuffed. “They demanded 400 [yuan] instead. Later I realized they are all cheats. Real monks are all in their morning classes at that hour. How could they be walking around and asking for alms?”

And it’s not just a couple of crooks, Li contends. He sees religious IPOs as just another example of the national obsession with gaining wealth. “How can you tell when a generation is in trouble?” he asks. “It’s when its religion, its priests, its temples and its churches are all for hiding their faith in order to achieve ulterior motives.” Liu Wei, deputy director of the No. 1 Division at the State Administration for Religious Affairs, said at a press conference earlier this summer that temples should operate as nonprofit organizations, serving the religious needs of the public. “Looking at other countries in the world, there are no other examples of religious sites listing publicly,” he said. “There have to be boundaries in the development of a market economy.”

Nonetheless, business is booming. Emei Shan’s share price has risen 17% since the start of the year, and analysts are feeling optimistic. “Since a rising of ticket price is very likely, and the Chengdu–Mt. Emei Express Railway is going to be put into operation in 2013, we are confident about [Emei Shan’s] growth in 2013–2014,” Haitong Securities’ analyst Lin Zhouyong wrote in a recent report. It seems that despite the moral outrage, investors have faith.

Source: http://world.time.com/2012/09/27/the-price-of-faith-chinese-buddhist-sites-plan-ipos/#ixzz27xpsBfQd

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Sri Lanka East’s excavations suggest Buddhism was early bird

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Colombo, Sri Lanka -- Three years after the end of the war, archaeologists are hard at work in the country’s Eastern province. Teams from the Department of Archaeology have been exploring areas that were previously inaccessible for decades due to fighting. As these excavations are taking place, controversies regarding the history of these areas and who exactly arrived first are once again starting to arise.

<< Remnants of statues at Sella Hatharagama Kovil

Some historians and archaeologists claim that there were a large number of Buddhist temples in the region which were subsequently destroyed by invading armies from South India, whose leaders built Hindu temples on top of the ruins of the Buddhist places of worship. This claim is in turn disputed by others, who say that Hinduism in the region predates Buddhism by centuries.

According to some, it was the destructive tsunami of 2004 which first ‘revealed’ archaeological evidence on a mass scale that there were many Buddhist ruins in the region. Jayalath Kulasinghe, Exploration Officer at the Department of Archaeology claims the tsunami exposed many Buddhist archaeological ruins in the region. He adds that with the war having concluded, conservation efforts are underway to help preserve these sites. However, he claims efforts are being hindered by certain elements who wish to hide the ‘truth’ about the history of Buddhism in the region.

Venerable Ellawala Medhananda Thera, who has been involved in investigating ancient Buddhist ruins throughout the island for decades, disputed Kulasinghe’s claim that it was the tsunami which revealed clues about Buddhist heritage in the region. “On the contrary, clues regarding the existence of Buddhist places of worship in this region were present long before the tsunami. The Department of Archaeology didn’t explore the region much for decades due to the war. But I have been involved in such investigations for 45 years, and those like me were able to find such places long before the tsunami,” he said.

Medhananda Thera said for example, archaeological sites such as the ‘Muhudhu Maha Viharaya’, ‘Shashthrawela’, ‘Kuchchaweli’, ‘Sangaman Kanda’, were just some locations in the East that bore evidence of Buddhist heritage in the region that stretched back thousands of years. The Thera went so far as to claim that “99.99 percent” of archaeological sites in the region were Buddhist. However, he said many of these sites are currently under threat from different quarters.

“Sections of the Muhudhu Maha Viharaya are being destroyed due to them being exposed to sea water. Meanwhile, treasure hunters have been at work in some other places,” he said. He added some people were also in the habit of destroying ancient ruins located on their land so as to prevent the Department of Archaeology from excavating these sites.

The Thera also claimed certain persons were involved in attempting to destroy Buddhist archaeological sites in the region. “For example, there is a place called Kathiraveli, between Eravur and Seruwila, where you find a Buddhist archaeological site with an ancient stone inscription which we haven’t deciphered yet. When the LTTE was in control of the area, they actually had a camp there. A few weeks ago, we found out that someone had built a structure resembling a church on the site. Yet, the Archaeology Department had no idea about it till we informed them,” he claimed.

Medhananda Thera said he was deeply disturbed by the regularity of such sites being destroyed. “I visited a site called Karangawa in Pothuvil recently and found a 40 foot deep pit right in the middle of it. There was evidence that treasure hunters had spent weeks living at the site while digging for treasure. They were clearly allowed to continue unimpeded,” he lamented.

The Thera went onto add that there were over 10,000 archaeological sites in the Eastern province alone, most of them being Buddhist, and that “less than 1,000” have been clearly identified. “The authorities need to do far more to ensure that such sites are protected for future generations. If you’re an archaeologist, you can’t simply work for your salary. You need to treat it as a responsibility. No one pays me a salary for doing this, yet I’ve been engaged in this duty for 45 years. I wish more people will treat it as a responsibility rather than just a job,” he said.

While efforts are underway to identify and preserve archaeological sites in the East, debate also rages regarding the history of some prominent religious sites in the region. The Koneswaram Hindu Temple in Trincomalee is one such location whose history is under debate.

Jayalath Kulasinghe of the Department of Archaeology claims Sun worship, probably one of the oldest forms of worship in the world, took place at two prominent locations on the island, namely Adam’s Peak (Sripada) and Trincomalee, near the site where the Koneswaram Temple now stands. “Historical records indicate that a Jaina temple had been built at this spot and that in the 5th Century AD, King Mahasen destroyed it and built a Buddhist temple there,” he claimed.

Ven. Ellawala Medhananda Thera said that a Buddhist temple named “Gokanna Viharaya”, built by King Mahasen, was located at the site where the Koneswaram temple now stands. “However, invading armies from South India destroyed this temple, and built a Hindu kovil on top of it,” he claimed. He added a stone inscription found at the site and written in Sanskrit confirmed the existence of a Buddhist temple at Koneswaram site.

However, Ramachandran Gangatharan, Office Manager at the Koneswaram temple in Trincomalee claimed they have no record of the existence of a Buddhist temple at the site. He added there were records indicating the Hindu kovil at the site had been in existence since the 7th Century. “But its existence is even mentioned in the Ramayana, so clearly it had been there for far longer,” he said.

Paranjothypillai Parameshwaram, President of the Temple’s Administrative Board, claimed Koneswaram had been a place of worship for around 28,000 years. “The Koneshwaram Hindu temple was known as the ‘1000 pillar temple’. However, the Portuguese ransacked the temple and razed it to the ground after looting its treasures. It was only rebuilt in the 1950s,” he said. Gangatharan and Parameshwaram said claims of a Buddhist temple being built at the site were recently brought forward by various sections, but that there was no record of such a temple.

Pics courtesy: Archaeology Department Exploration Officer, Jayalath Kulasinghe

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India plans to promote Buddhist sites as new tourist hotspots

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VARANASI, India -- In an effort to attract at least half of the total Buddhist population spread in 35 countries by promoting Buddhist pilgrimage sites, is the new mantra of the ministry of tourism, Government of India and the states enshrining the Buddhist pilgrimage sites.

The call was given during the inauguration of the three-day International Buddhist Conclave (IBC)-2012 at a hotel compound in Nadesar area on Saturday. Due to the last-minute cancellation of chief minister Akhilesh Yadav's visit, Union minister of state for tourism Subodh Kant Sahai, along with the ministers of tourism of UP, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha inaugurated the conclave. Apart from 133 delegates from 30 countries, who are mainly tour operators, opinion leaders and travel writers, delegates from 16 states are also taking part in the conclave.

In his address, UN World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) executive director Marcio Favilla said that "while the number of international tourists last year was one billion, next year this figure can touch the mark of 1.8 billion".

"During the G-20 summit held in June, the tourism sector was approved as an important economic activity. It's for the first time that the tourism has been included in G-20 declaration. Focus should be on sustainable tourism to generate employment. Similarly, religious tourism would play a key role in increasing the number of international tourists."

The Union minister of state for tourism said: "The ministry is aiming at promoting religious tourism on the line of the Muslim religious shrines in Saudi Arabia. Even if half of the Buddhist population (out of a total of 50 lakh) visits the Buddhist pilgrim centres in the country annually, the goal of the ministry would be achieved. This would also help in generating employment for three crore people."

The minister also highlighted the measures initiated by the Central government regarding visa issues.

The tourism ministers of participating states, including Jammu and Kashmir, Odisha and Andhra Pradesh, left no opportunity to promote the Buddhist sites of their states. However, the main competition between UP and Bihar to woo the delegates for attracting more and more tourists was quite evident.

Bihars minister for tourism Sunil Kumar Pintu highlighted how improvement in basic infrastructure, especially roads, had help in attracting a large number of tourists to the Buddhist sites in Bihar. However, UP minister of state for tourism M C Chauhan had no concrete plans to disclose except expecting that the chief minister would do some miracle to change the fate of tourism industry in UP.

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India: Visa on Arrival facility likely for Thailand, Malaysia

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New Delhi, India -- Government is planning to extend Visa-on-Arrival facility to nationals from countries having sizable Buddhist population such as Thailand and Malayasia.

Inaugurating a two-day International Buddhist Conclave in Varanasi on Saturday, Tourism Minister Subodh Kant Sahai said his Ministry had also decided to develop a Ghat in the temple town in the name of Lord Buddha on the bank of river Ganga.
"India, being the land of origin of Buddhism, is the main attraction for Buddhist tourists from across the globe. We are drawing up plans to attract more tourists from Buddhist countries like Thailand and Malayasia by providing them special facilities like Visa-on-Arrival (VoA)," Sahai said.

Currently, India extends VoA facility to 11 countries including Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Philippines and Myanmar.

Sahai said three circuits have been identified to be developed as part of Buddhist Circuits during the 12th Five Year Plan. The three circuits are (1) Dharmayatra or the sacred circuit, (2) retracing Buddha's footsteps and (3) heritage trails covering all Buddhist sites including Gaya, Varanasi, Kushinagar, Bodhagaya, Patna, Piparva, Dharamshala, Ladakh, Spiti and Lumbini.

Referring to Keep India Clean Mission, he said efforts are on to keep clean the cities, particularly tourist places, across the country to attract maximum tourists.

The conclave is being held with a view to showcasing and projecting the Buddhist heritage of India. The delegates at the conclave include the international Buddhist scholars and tour operators.

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BTN and Jogye Order sponsors Thich Nhat Hahn inspired

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Seoul, South Korea -- Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is one of the most respected zen master in the world today and is the founder of Plum Village, a meditation community located in France.

<< Ven Thich Nhat Hahn

Many practitioners, Buddhist and Non-Buddhist alike, come from across the globe to Plum Village to learn the art of mindfulness, a teaching Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh is more famous for.
There are several forms of practice in Plum Village, and the two most impressionable are the Bell of Mindfulness and Walking Meditation. When people hear the sound of bell, they must stop to breathe and stop whatever they are doing.

The two most important concepts during Walking meditation is also mindfulness and breathing.

Through these simple practices practictioners are able to introspect and restore the calm and peace to become free.

These practices and Art of Mindfulness of Plum Village is now available for the Korean Buddhist community.

In October 20th, Brother Phap Kham and Sister Thoai Ngheim, both delegates and dharma teachers of Plum Village will be at the Jogye Order International Seon center to introduce the Art of Mindfulness and Art of Mindful living through a daily temple stay program.

BTN and the Jogye Order International Seon Center will open a Day of Mindfulness and offer 100 participants a chance to practice with the monks of Plum Village.

The Plum Village delegates will arrive in Seoul, Korea on October 16th, and work with BTN to prepare for Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreat session that is scheduled for May 2013.

The BTN sponsored Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh 5 day retreat session will be held at Woljeongsa temple in PyeongChang in May 2013.

In the fast paced city life of Seoul, many people in and out of Korea are eager for a chance to practice with Master Thich Nhat Hanh in May 2013.

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The reluctant lama

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Ibiza, Spain -- A Spanish toddler identified as the reincarnation of a revered Buddhist lama spent his entire childhood in an Indian monastery. But at the age of 18 he returned to his family in Spain. Still hailed as a teacher, he is more comfortable on the beaches of Ibiza.

<< Osel finally decided to leave the monastery when he was 18

When he was two, Osel Hita Torres was enthroned as a reincarnated Tibetan Buddhist lama.

He was dressed in robes and a yellow hat. Grown men prostrated themselves in front of him and asked for his blessing.

No-one was allowed to show him affection unless he initiated it. He had his own special cutlery.

“It must have been tempting to take advantage of that sometimes and act badly,” I say to him now.

“Yes,” he replies. “I was a tyrant and an obnoxious spoiled brat. I was pretty bossy, let’s say.”

Even by Tibetan Buddhist standards, two was a young age for enthronement, and Osel was not even Tibetan - he is Spanish.

We are speaking in Ibiza, in the courtyard to his mother’s villa. Osel is 27 and no longer a lama.

He has swapped the rigours of monastic life for playing the drums on the beach, and chilling to trance music. He is not sure he is still a Buddhist.

He was born in Granada, the fifth child of Maria Torres.

Maria had converted to Buddhism and was a follower of Thubten Yeshe, a charismatic and extrovert Tibetan lama who was travelling the West in the 1970s.

<< Lama Osel when he was enthroned at 2 years old

But Lama Yeshe had heart problems, and he died in 1984 in a Los Angeles hospital, aged 49.

His followers were distraught. A few months later, Maria became pregnant with Osel.

In Tibetan Buddhism, lamas who achieved a high level of enlightenment are able to choose what happens after their death - whether to be reincarnated and, if so, where.

The conviction grew among Lama Yeshe’s followers and former colleagues that Yeshe had chosen to be reincarnated in Spain, in little Osel.

They detected in Osel a certain meditative self-containment. The way he acted reminded them of Yeshe. A baby like Osel appeared in another lama’s dreams.

Osel was taken to India for testing, where he picked out Lama Yeshe’s former possessions, including his sunglasses. The Dalai Lama confirmed that Osel was Lama Yeshe’s reincarnation.

Osel went to live in a monastery in southern India and had little contact with his parents.

“For them it wasn’t something negative, it was a huge opportunity they were giving the kid, like he’s going to Yale or Oxford.”

I met Maria at a Buddhist temple on Ibiza. I put it to her that her name is appropriate for the mother of a God. She does not reject the idea. “At the beginning, yes, it was something like this.”

The fact that Lama Yeshe had come back in her son was good news.

“It made me feel very special, the fact that he had chosen me as his mother. I wanted to share my son with the rest of the world, because it’s not my son.”

But did she not miss him? She says she was not clingy.

But having a lama in the family was disruptive for her other five children as they all travelled the world, trying to stay reasonably close to Osel when he was very small.

“When you were treated in this very deferential way, how much did you think to yourself secretly ‘This is crazy’?” I ask him.

“For me it was completely normal,” he says.

<< Lama Osel with the Dalai Lama

“But at a certain point in my life, around 15-16, I didn’t feel comfortable with it...

When he was nine, he sent a cassette tape to his mother where he pleaded to be allowed to come back to Spain.

Instead his father, Paco, went to live in the monastery with him, and his younger brother, Kunkyen, went to join him as a monk.

“When I turned 16-17, I was dying to get out.”

The turning point came when he read Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha, and he started to wonder whether he was a true Buddhist.

On his 18th birthday, he had a momentous conversation with his mother, which she described to me. “He said to me, ‘If I decide not to go back to the monastery, can someone force me to go back?’”

“No”, she told him. “Well, I’m not going back,” he said.

But the monastery wanted him to return.

“I got a huge amount of letters and phone calls, and people coming to visit me, just telling me that I made a big mistake, that I lost a huge opportunity, that was my destiny, my purpose, blah-blah-blah, whatever.”

Maria was also put under pressure but she supported his decision, and still does.

Life outside the monastery was difficult for him to start with - discos and girls were baffling and scary. One of his Buddhist sponsors living in Canada arranged for him to go to school there. He then went to Madrid where he did a degree in film studies. He would like to become a documentary maker.

Sometimes Osel seems like a living disproof of the old Jesuit saying, “Give me a child until he is seven and I will give you the man.” The Tibetans had him from two till 18, but the pull of the West was stronger.

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Bhutan aims to be first 100% organic nation

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Timphu, Bhutan -- The Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan, famed for seeking "happiness" for its citizens, is aiming to become the first nation in the world to turn its home-grown food and farmers 100-percent organic.

The tiny Buddhist-majority nation wedged between China and India has an unusual and some say enviable approach to economic development, centred on protecting the environment and focusing on mental well-being.

Its development model measuring "Gross National Happiness" instead of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been discussed at the United Nations and has been publicly backed by leaders from Britain and France, among others.

It banned television until 1999, keeps out mass tourism to shield its culture from foreign influence, and most recently set up a weekly "pedestrians' day" on Tuesdays that sees cars banned from town centres.

Its determination to chart a different path can be seen in its new policy to phase out artificial chemicals in farming in the next 10 years, making its staple foods of wheat and potatoes, as well as its fruits, 100 percent organic.

"Bhutan has decided to go for a green economy in light of the tremendous pressure we are exerting on the planet," Agriculture Minister Pema Gyamtsho told AFP in an interview by telephone from the capital Thimphu.

"If you go for very intensive agriculture it would imply the use of so many chemicals, which is not in keeping with our belief in Buddhism, which calls for us to live in harmony with nature."

Bhutan has a population of just over 700,000, two-thirds of whom depend on farming in villages dotted around fertile southern plains and the soaring Himalayan peaks and deep valleys to the north.

Overwhelmingly forested, no more than three percent of the country's land area is used for growing crops, says Gyamtsho, with the majority of farmers already organic and reliant on rotting leaves or compost as natural fertilisers.

"Only farmers in areas that are accessible by roads or have easy transport have access to chemicals," he explained, saying chemical use was already "very low" by international standards.

In the large valleys, such as the one cradling the sleepy capital, chemicals are used to kill a local weed that is difficult to take out by hand -- a challenge compounded by a lack of farm labour.

Elsewhere, the fertiliser urea is sometimes added to soil, while a fungicide to control leaf rust on wheat is also available.

"We have developed a strategy that is step-by-step. We cannot go organic overnight," Gyamtsho said, describing a policy and roadmap which were formally adopted by the government last year.

"We have identified crops for which we can go organic immediately and certain crops for which we will have to phase out the use of chemicals, for rice in certain valleys for example."

Bhutan's only competitor for the first "100-percent organic" title is the tiny self-governing island of Niue in the South Pacific, which has a population of only 1,300. It aims to reach its objective by 2015-2020.

Nadia Scialabba, a global specialist on organic farming at the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation, says the organic food market and its premium prices are attractive for small countries and territories.

"This is happening in very small countries who are not competitive on quantity, but they would like to be competitive in quality," she told AFP.

The global organics market was estimated to be worth 44.5 billion euros ($57 billion) in 2010, according to figures from the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements.

Bhutan sends rare mushrooms to Japan, vegetables to upmarket hotels in Thailand, its highly prized apples to India and elsewhere, as well as red rice to the United States.

By shunning fertilisers and other chemicals, the country also stands to gain by reducing its import bill -- a particular concern for a country short on foreign currency.

Peter Melchett, policy director at Britain's organic Soil Association, says the main benefit of becoming 100-percent organic is an assurance of quality to consumers.

"Because there won't be pesticides or other chemicals on sale in the kingdom, they would be able to offer a high level of guarantees that products are organic," Melchett explained.

In countries like Spain, for example, there is a problem of contamination when organic farms are next to highly industrialised producers using large quantities of artificial chemicals, Melchett said.

"It's difficult for organic farmers in those circumstances to keep their crops and supply-chain free of contamination."

Bhutan's organic policy would "start to give the country a reputation of high-quality organic food, which in the long-run would give them a market advantage and the possibility of price premiums," he added.

Jurmi Dorji, a member of the 103-strong Daga Shingdrey Pshogpa farmers' association in southern Bhutan, says his fellow members are in favour of the policy.

"More than a decade ago, people realised that the chemicals were not good for farming," he told AFP. "I cannot say everyone has stopped using chemicals but almost 90 percent have."

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Turmoil over Salt Lake Buddhist temple prompts protest

Last October, members of the Vietnamese-American Unified Buddhist Association of Utah were displaced from the temple located at 1185 W. 1000 North. A legal battle has ensued over who owns the property and members of the congregation of more than 100 fear it could take the beloved temple away them.

Chanting, "Give back our temple. Give back our temple," protesters on Saturday went to another Buddhist temple in West Valley City, where a group of monks had gathered for a national conference.

The monks are members of the Vietnamese-American Unified Buddhist Congress in the United States of America. For the past year, the two groups have been embroiled in a legal battle over property rights to the temple in Rose Park.

The Utah group agreed to donate the property to the congress, but that deed was given to a monk without the local group's knowledge.

"So they are very frustrated and they want the congress to return back to them the title," said congress spokesman Thuan Tran.

Litigation is ongoing, but the dispute has divided the Salt Lake Buddhist community. Local temple leaders even suspected the dispute had something to do with a break-in at their business office two weeks ago, although police have made no arrests in the case.

Utah Sen. Luz Robles, D-Salt Lake, is not involved in the lawsuit but both temples are in her district. She showed up to offer her support to both sides.

"It's a big deal, especially for the Vietnamese Buddhist community,? Robles said. ?It's becoming more of a pertinent issue. ? There's some frustration going on."

The frustration has been mounting among the local congregation that has worshiped at the Rose Park temple for 19 years. It's also a sacred burial ground for their loved ones who have passed on.

"Suddenly, they've been deprived of their religious freedom and deprived of their rights to worship, the rights to worship their ancestors and that is very much hard for them to swallow," Tran said.

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A Monk Sentenced in Eastern Tibet, Another Presumed Dead

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Dharamshala, India -- Shonu, a monk as well as a staff member of Drakgo Monastery, Drakgo county, eastern Tibet whose whereabouts remained unknown since his arrest in February 2012, is in Mianyang Prison (Sichuan Province), according to Dharamshala based Tibetan Human Rights group.

<< Tibetan monk Shonu, 42, was sentenced in June 2012 to 18 months in prison for unknown charges

According to Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (TCRD), Shonu, 42, was sentenced in June 2012 to 18 months in prison for charges unknown at the moment.

In February 2012, security officers detained Shonu and four other staff members of Drakgo Monastery at an Internet café in Tridu (Chinese: Chengdu) city, capital of Sichuan Province. The whereabouts of the four monk officials: Tulku Lobsang Tenzin, a reincarnated lama; Geshe Tsewang Namgyal , a teacher and a staff; Thinlay, manager; and Tashi Topgyal aka Dralha, accountant, remain unknown to this day.

Shonu was born in 1969 in Garwa village in Drakgo County. In 1987, he joined Drepung Loseling Monastery in south India to study Buddhism. He returned and began working at Drakgo Monastery. He was arrested soon after the 23 January 2012 protests in Drango (Chinese: Luhuo/Chaggo).

The case of another ‘missing' monk, Tsering Gyaltsen of Drakgo Monastery, has taken a curious turn. In May 2012, less than four months after his arrest and subsequent ‘disappearance', Tsering Gyatsen's family and relatives held necessary rites and rituals to observe his ‘death' after sustained efforts to know about his whereabouts failed, the same source told TCHRD. Although he is presumed dead by his family members, they have yet to receive his 'body'.

On 9 February 2012, Tsering Gyaltsen, 40, was severely beaten and detained by Public Security Bureau personnel. He was born in Norpa village in Drakgo County. At a young age, he became a monk at Drakgo Monastery.

An unspecified number of Tibetans had been detained or ‘disappeared' soon after the 23 and 24 January 2012 protests in Drakgo, Sertha (Chinese: Seda) and Ngaba County. The protests themselves were violently suppressed by security forces who fired upon unarmed Tibetan protesters in Drakgo, injuring over 36 and killing six known Tibetans.

On 22 March 2012, Xinhua, the Chinese government-owned news agency reported the sentencing of seven Tibetans to 10 to 13 years imprisonment for their participation in the protest in Drakgo. On 26 April 2012, the Intermediate People's Court in Kardze (Chinese:Ganzi) Prefecture sentenced 16 Tibetans, including both monks and laymen, for their alleged involvement in the 23 January 2012 protest in Drakgo.

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Mes Aynak: Recent excavations along the Silk Road

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Joanie Meharry interviews the Director of the National Museum of Afghanistan about the news-making significance of the spectacular finds at Mes Aynak and the new exhibit that showcases some of its most astounding artifacts.

Kabul, Afghanistan -- Nearly ten years to the day since the Taliban destroyed the National Museum of Afghanistan’s pre-Islamic statues, the exhibition, Mes Aynak: Recent excavations along the Silk Road, opened at the museum. The event held on March 15, 2011 in Kabul was jointly commemorated by the Afghan Minister of Information and Culture, Makhdoom Raheen, the Minister of Mines, Waheedullah Shahrani, and the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl W. Eikenberry, demonstrating the elaborate effort that made the exhibition possible.

<< Seated Buddha. Wood. The figure is seated in meditation on a lotus and is the only complete example known to have survived. Dates to the 5th-7th Century. Photo by Jake Simkin.

The collection showcases the latest finds from the ancient Buddhist monastery of Mes Aynak (“little copper well”), located in Logar province’s rugged terrain, 25 miles southeast of Kabul. Since 2009, archaeologists from the National Institute of Archaeology and the Délégation Archéologique Française en Afghanistan (DAFA) have been rapidly excavating the site. The efforts are urgent because, in less than three years, China Metallurgical Group Corp, a Chinese mining company, is scheduled to develop the overlapping copper mine – the second largest unexploited copper mine in the world. The deal will secure more than $3 billion for Afghanistan’s struggling economy. Thus, the Ministry of Information and Culture, the Ministry of Mines, and international delegations are making a concerted effort to promote both the country’s rich natural resources and cultural heritage.

The exhibition, Mes Aynak: Recent excavations along the Silk Road, is one such initiative and is noteworthy for the speed at which it was curated by the museum staff. Housed in two rooms on the second floor of the museum, the brightly-lit displays are accentuated by the space’s dim lighting and deep red walls. The collection contains some 70 pieces of ancient ceramics, coins, and sculptures. Among these include the Dipankara Jakata statue, which on the back features a unique painting depicting a previous life of the Buddha, dating to the 3rd-5th Century, and a wooden seated Buddha statue, dating to the 5th Century. Indeed, archaeologists are already hailing the discoveries from Mes Aynak as some of the most significant to be unearthed in Afghanistan. The exhibition is also complemented by a well-illustrated booklet, published in English, Dari, and Pashtu.

Several months after the exhibition opened, I spoke with Omara Khan Massoudi (pictured below right), the Director of the National Museum, about his thoughts on the Mes Aynak exhibition and archaeological site and their significance for Afghanistan. What follows is the narrative of that interview:

JM: Tell me about when and why you first planned this exhibition.

OKM: It was from 2009 that the Institute of Archaeology of Afghanistan started the excavation at the Mes Aynak site. Some artifacts, when they got them, they sent them to us. In 2010, they also excavated some artifacts which were possible to transfer to the National Museum of Afghanistan. For this purpose, we organized the Mes Aynak exhibition at the museum.

Mes Aynak is a huge Buddhist site in Logar province. The archaeologists are working very hard. They try their best to finish, as soon as possible, this excavation. I think this site is really important for me, for our museum staff also.

JM: Why is the Mes Aynak exhibition also important?

OKM: They found many different kinds of artifacts. For example, this is the first time they excavated a wooden seated statue of Buddha (see cover photo above, left). And, also, they got one artifact, the Dipankara Buddha, where in the back there is a painting. This is very important. We don’t have these kinds of artifacts at the National Museum from different ancient sites.

For this purpose, we organized the exhibition with the support of the US Embassy. We had the opening ceremony on the 15th March, 2011. That time was a special time. We invited many people specially: the cultural attaché and also the ambassador of different embassies in Afghanistan.

At the same time, it was very important for us. The Minister of Information and Culture announced during that gathering that the ministry wants to have a new building for the museum, that we got the land from the Defense Ministry by the order of His Excellency, our president. It was a suitable moment that he announced this.

Also, after this gathering, when the speech was over, we had the opening ceremony of the Mes Aynak exhibition. I think it was very interesting for all of these people they invited.  I think when everyone visits the exhibition they appreciate it and also they enjoy the visit.

<< Front of Dipankara Buddha. Schist stone painted and gilded. On the back is a unique painting representing part of the story of the previous life of Buddha. Dates to the 3rd-5th Century. Photo by Jake Simkin.

JM: So, thus far it seems the exhibition has been well received by the public?

OKM: Yes! There was many media we invited on that day for the ceremony. Also, after that, now the school children and also students of different universities they are coming. They enjoy the visit of this exhibition.

JM: There have been a lot of important finds coming out of Aynak, like you mentioned. How did you select which artifacts would go on display?

OKM: Actually, this is a very huge site. We cannot accept all the artifacts from the site to the National Museum. We don’t have enough space. If you see the site, there are many stuppas they excavated. We don’t have enough space at the National Museum.

The Ministry of Information and Culture has this plan to have a site museum, which is very close to the Mes Aynak area. In this case, the government of Logar province mentioned land around 60,000 square meters. In future, our ministry has plans to transfer all of these big artifacts, including small and big stuppas, to the site museum. This is because bringing all of these artifacts to the National Museum of Afghanistan, which is around 30km away, is too difficult. Our ministry prefers to have a site museum in the Logar district. It is possible to transfer these in a safe way to the site museum.

JM: The US Embassy also announced it is planning to do a conservation and storage facility. Is this where the remaining artifacts will go next?

OKM: Yes! The US Embassy’s ambassador has announced $5 million for building a new National Museum. At the same time they had a trip to the Mes Aynak site. They promised to the Ministry of Information and Culture to bring some facilities for cleaning and conservation of the artifacts. They promised they will support this project for the site museum to make a lab over there and also storage.

JM: Given the uncertain security situation, do you think now is a good time to carry out excavations, like at Mes Aynak?

OKM: I think security on the site – nothing has happened these two or three years back. The Ministry of Interior checked the security of the site. I think there are more than 1,500 police involved for the security of the site. Nothing has happened up to yet. I hope that the people help for security, because this is to the benefit of the people of Logar province. This is also good for our people in Afghanistan. I think the security is better now.

They have to continue this excavation at the Mes Aynak site. The ministry is trying their best as soon as possible to finish this excavation over there because the Chinese company (China Metallurgical Group Corp) wants to finish this archaeological excavation. Then they will start to get the copper from the site.  We have to finish the excavation over there.

JM: Mining is a very big topic in Afghanistan right now…

OKM: This is very important for our people. We appreciate these projects in our country, but we have to protect our cultural heritage. We have to, as soon as possible, finish this excavation.

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Editor's Note: In its most recent release of the Heritage at Risk report, the International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) has listed Mes Aynak among the most endangered monuments and sites around the world.

Joanie Meharry is currently completing an MA in International and Comparative Legal Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. This summer she lived in Kabul while researching the archaeological site of Mes Aynak with a Global Heritage Fund Fellowship and a Connecticut Ceramics Study Circle Grant, as well as directing the project, Untold Stories: the Oral History of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage, with a Hollings Center for International Dialogue Grant. She writes often on Afghanistan’s culture and politics. Joanie also holds an MSc in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies from the University of Edinburgh.

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Buddhist monks’ art project spreads message of peace

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Seven Buddhist monks was at the Spencer Museum of Art this week painstakingly constructing a sand painting called dul-tson-kyil-khor, meaning "mandala of colored powder." On Friday, the monks will tossed the sand painting into Potter's Lake in a symbolic gesture.

Lawrence, KS (USA) -- Yes, Tenzin Dekyong confirms, creating sand paintings is as difficult as it looks.

Photo by Richard Gwin

Monks’ necks and backs hurt from hunching over their work, faces just inches from the sand. And, yes, sometimes they make mistakes, which must be mended just as carefully - if not more so - as the purposeful details are created.

On Tuesday, Dekyong and six other Buddhist monks from the Drepung Gomang Monastery in India took a four-day process of creating a 5-by-5-foot mandala out of millions of grains of colored sand, painstakingly funneled into intricate designs on a platform in the Spencer Museum of Art Central Court, 1301 Miss.

On Friday, they swept up their entire project and poured the sand into Potter Lake.

The temporary display, Dekyong said, is a reminder that all we have — no matter how beautiful or carefully created — is impermanent.

Friday’s events included chanting and prayers and a procession from the museum to the lake. The monks believe placing the sand in a nearby body of water enables the water to carry the mandala’s healing energies throughout the world, according to an announcement from Kansas University.

Mark King and Rhonda Houser of Lawrence brought their 7-year-old son, Liam Kinghouser, to see the mandala in progress.

“We thought he might enjoy seeing them concentrating and creating something beautiful,” Houser said.

King said he’d watched monks creating a sand mandala once before, in Virginia, and that he’d wanted to visit since he heard the Spencer would be playing host to a similar event.

“It was such a good experience,” King said. “It’s just amazing — so peaceful.”

Through the course of building the mandala, a Sanskrit word for circle, the monks hope to spread their message of peace, love, compassion, unity and healing, Dekyong said. He said that specifically includes their hope for peace in Tibet, where Communist Chinese rulers do not allow Buddhists such as the monks to freely practice their religion.

The Drepung Gomang Monastery is in southern India, but most of its 2,000 monks are Tibetan. Their monastery originally was in Tibet, but the Dalai Lama and followers fled when the Chinese invaded and later rebuilt in India.

The design under way at the Spencer is called the Interfaith World Peace mandala. It has symbols signifying the world’s 12 major religions, the four elements and the four seasons.

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Recovering Tibetan Buddhist Monk Faces Uncertain future

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Dharamshala, India -- Less than a year after his self-immolation protest, Tibetan monk Dawa Tsering is now making good recovery from his burn injuries, but his future remains uncertain, a source with contacts in Tibet told TCHRD Monday, September 17, 2012.

"Dawa Tsering has got his life back and his health condition is quite well," the source says. "And he longs to return back to his monastery."

"But his future remains unknown and uncertain because he might not be allowed to return back to his monastery. Instead, he could be jailed at any time," the source adds.

Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy (CHRD) has received two recent pictures of Dawa Tsering and his father at their home as he recovers from injuries he sustained during his self-immolation protest. The pictures show a gaunt Dawa Tsering with his chin and throat shriveled up and the area around his throat showing dark patches.

Dawa Tsering, aged 38 at the time, set himself ablaze on 25 October 2011 shouting slogans calling for the return of the Dalai Lama to Tibet, during a religious ceremony at Kardze Monastery in Kardze (Chinese: Ganzi) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province.

Dawa Tsering was a monk at Kardze Monastery for seven years before his self-immolation protest. He now wants to return to the same monastery to continue his studies. His family, including his father, is taking care of him at their home in Kardze.

But the family is facing financial problems as they struggle to meet Dawa's medical expenses. There is no information as to whether the Chinese authorities have offered any help in terms of free subsidized medical treatment.

"I heard that his Dawa's family is having financial problems, as they have to bear the medical expenses for Dawa at home," the same source said.

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This is racism, not Buddhism

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Bangkok, Thailand -- How do you feel when you see rows of stern-looking Buddhist monks marching through the streets in full force to call for violent treatment of the downtrodden?

<< Myanmar Buddhist monks rally on the streets of Mandalay (AFP)

That was what thousands of Myanmar monks did when they took to the streets in temple-studded Mandalay on Sunday to support the government's brutal persecution of stateless Muslim Rohingya.

What were they thinking?

The world is full of injustice. But isn't it the business of monks to advise against it, and not to be supportive of any form of prejudice and human cruelty?

Aren't empathy and non-exploitation the key words in Buddhism? Aren't monks supposed to devote their lives to deepening spiritual practice in order to see through the different layers of we-they prejudice so that compassion prevails in their hearts, words, and actions?

Many people outside Myanmar were asking these questions because the anti-Rohingya monks were the same ones who dared challenge the government in 2007 to champion the people's cause, and who themselves faced a violent crackdown by the military junta.

If the Buddha's words were not important to them when they took to the streets, then what was?

The answer is quite simple - racist nationalism. The monks do want justice for people, but just for their own kind.

As part of the dominant ethnic Bama Buddhists, they believe deeply the dark-skinned Rohingya are illegal immigrants from Bangladesh, aggressive outsiders who will steal land from the Buddhist folk. The monks therefore feel that it is just to support the government to eliminate the perceived threats to their motherland, their ethnicity, and their religion.

Call it patriotism, ultra-nationalism, ethnic prejudice, or racism. Whichever the label, it is mired in the we-they prejudice that divides people, fosters hatred, and triggers violence - everything Buddhism cautions against.

But should people who live in glass houses throw stones?

Our monks may still stop short of marching in the streets to call for the elimination of Malay Muslim separatists, but they have done so several times to call for a law which will help them retain supremacy over other religions.

Every time I cover their Buddhism-for-national-religion campaigns, I never fail to hear their deep suspicions of Islam. Meanwhile, bombs have blasted and killed people for eight years running in the restive South, yet we never hear our monks mentioning any concern about justice for the locals, nor for the need to open political space for Malay Muslims to voice their needs, address inequalities, and to extinguish the root causes of ethnic frustration and violence.

Instead, we see monks taking the defensive and dangerous route of ordaining soldiers to increase their number while allowing temples to be used as barracks.

Like their peers in Myanmar, our monks are in full support of the military to maintain the supremacy of the Buddhist majority. If violence must be used in this suppression, so be it.

But Thailand is also witnessing a rapid growth of lay Buddhism which focuses on meditation retreats and core Buddhist teachings. Can this movement act as a voice of sensibility when the country is mired in political divisiveness? If that's your expectation, be prepared to be disappointed.

For its members, too, generally share the belief that the elimination of perceived threats is necessary, like the need to eliminate germs and diseases to restore one's health. When this is your mindset - left or right, red or yellow, pro-or anti-establishment - you'll believe the use of hate speech, half truths, and violence by your camp is perfectly all right.

No, we are not Buddhists. We may pray to the Buddha and close our eyes to meditate, but what shapes our thoughts, words, and actions is ideological extremism of all different shades.

The Buddha's path leads to peaceful co-existence and sharing. Ideological extremism leads to control, suppression, and winner-takes-all.

If left to fester, ideological extremism and race-based nationalism will breed more violence. The country's goal of regional integration will be sheer nonsense. And for both monks and lay Buddhists, all those longs hours of meditation will be simply wasted.

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Authorities Nurture Burma’s Buddhist Chauvinism, Analysts Say

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BANGKOK, THAILAND -- Burma’s Buddhist monk-led demonstrations this week against the Muslim minority Rohingya surprised many observers.  Analysts say the country’s Buddhist chauvinism was shaped by authorities’ attempts to form a national identity.  But there are worries it could get out of control.

<< Burma's Buddhist monks stage a rally to protest against minority Rohingya Muslims in Mandalay, central Burma, September 2, 2012.
 
This week’s protests were the first large monk-led demonstrations in Burma since the 2007 uprising against military rule. But they were a stark contrast to that earlier movement.
While the 2007 Saffron Revolution called for love and democracy, hundreds of monks marching this week in Mandalay called for the expulsion of one of the world’s most oppressed minorities, the Rohingya.
The monks were supporting a suggestion by President Thein Sein that the Muslim minority, numbering close to a million, should be segregated and deported.

The extremist calls follow violent summer clashes between Buddhists and Rohingya in western Rakhine state that left 90 people dead.

Sectarian tensions are so high they overshadowed the fact that President Thein Sein was Prime Minister in 2007 when the military government violently cracked down on Buddhist monks.
Maung Zarni, a visiting researcher at the London School of Economics, says authorities are harnessing Buddhist nationalism.
“These generals are considered monk killers," he said. "And, you know, the world [has] seen images of like troops shooting Buddhist monks in the Saffron Revolution.  Now, they have successfully refashioned themselves as defenders of Buddhist faith, protectors of Buddhist communities in western Burma.  And, it’s actually extremely brilliant, if dangerous, you know, political calculation.” 
Burma’s monks have taken lead roles in times of popular unrest, earning them the reputation of being champions of democracy and freedom. 
The 2007 Saffron Revolution takes its name from the color of monks’ robes.
Buddhist monks were also key supporters of a 1988 student democracy uprising that the military similarly put down by force.
But while those struggles were noble, analysts say historically Burma’s Buddhism has been influenced by a racist nationalism that occasionally re-surfaces. 
Juliane Schober is a scholar studying Burma’s Buddhist traditions at Arizona State University. 
“In this particular instance it seems to be a case where there is a lot of debate about what constitutes Burmese identity.  And, the saying, you know, ‘to be Burmese is to be Buddhist’ is one that was first articulated in the early 1910s when the initial struggles for independence became and it was a way of asserting Burmese identity vis-à-vis British colonial rule,” said Schober.

Burma’s first prime minister after independence, U Nu was a devout Buddhist. He eventually steered a bill through parliament that made Buddhism Burma’s state religion in 1961.

Burma is about 90 percent Buddhist and majority ethnically Burman, but the remaining people are a diverse group of over 100 ethnic and religious minorities.
Ethnic groups along the border make up most of the armed rebels that have been seeking some form of autonomy, leading some to question the loyalty of minorities.
Rachel Fleming is Advocacy Director for the Chin Human Rights Organization.  She says the Christian Chin in western Chin state were viewed as such a threat to national identity that monks were dispatched to try to convert them to Buddhism.
“The significance of that is those monks were primarily loyal to military rule and Burma army soldiers exacted forced labor from Chin Christians to build Pagodas and monasteries for those monks,” she said.
Fleming says while Buddhism is treated as the defacto state religion, with a special recognition in the constitution, authorities tear down unauthorized Christian churches and crosses.
While authorities have at times emphasized the country’s diversity, the Buddhist Burman majority was singled out as the trustworthy pillar of national identity.
Aung Thu Nyein with the Vahu Development Institute says authorities have long sought to impose the Burman majority views on the population by keeping minorities out of power.
“They don’t have any written laws and regulations, but practically, in the military if you are a Christian or if you are a Muslim you won’t be promoted up to major ranks.  You won’t be a senior leader in the military,” he said.
Analysts and rights activists worry Burma is fostering a xenophobia that, if left unchecked, could get out of control.
Phil Robertson is Deputy Director for Asia with Human Rights Watch.  He says if more people fail to speak up, Burma could be headed towards a Buddhist xenophobia similar to the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka.
“And that’s the concern that we see today in Burma that if this continues, if the Burmese monkhood continues to come out and press against the Rohingya in this way, will we be on the road to a kind of Sri Lanka situation with the Rohingya where you have Buddhists across Burma raising their hands against Rohingya,” he said.
Burma media reports say while authorities allowed the monks’ three-day demonstration to take place, as it got bigger, they tried to discourage it.

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