Malaysian Buddhists calls for peaceful elections

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Petaling Jaya, Malaysia -- Malaysia is facing a crucial general elections (GE) on May 5, 2013. The 13th GE promises to be the most heated to date, with home made bombs exploding at a few campaign sites. No injuries were reported.

Being a large portion of the electorate, leaders of the sizable Buddhist population of the country (about 19% of total population) have urged the parties involved to campaign "in the spirit of upholding Buddha Sakyamuni's compassion and wisdom".

In a joint statement, members of Malaysian Buddhist Consultative Council, Fo Guang Shan, Malaysia and the Theravada Buddhist Council of Malaysia have called on Malaysian citizens to:

(1) Step forward and fulfill one's duty as a citizen; to vote in earnest and with responsibility to elect a government that will bring advancement, harmony and equity in serving the people of different races and faiths.

(2) Follow Malaysia's founding spirit which emphasise on unity and the mutual prosperity of all ethnic groups. Whichever political party that comes into power, the ruling government must assure that the resources are equally distributed and that racial, religious and educational issues shall not be manipulated by political parties as tools to polarise the people.

(3) Encourage religion which has the effect of purifying the society and our hearts. We seek the ruling government to protect the constitutional rights of freedom of religious beliefs, put to a stop the marginalisation of non-Islamic religious education and accord fair treatment to religious development.

(4) Ensure Malaysia shall maintain its status as a secular country, pursues a policy of separation of religion and state. The ruling government must also ensure that the Federal Court is the highest source of adjudication in all matters.

(5) Ensure that the political parties must be genuine in curbing the malpractices within current electoral system, including money politics, vulgarism and abusive language should not be engaged during campaigns. Politics is everybody's business as political parties and politicians' words and deeds affect the social life of the people. Let's elect an ideal government.

6) Urge the political parties and people throughout the country during the election period to be more action oriented in the decision-making with compassion to curb violence and more wisdom to reduce ignorance.

Meanwhile, in a separate statement, the Malaysian Network of Engaged Buddhists (MNEB) said that they were "deeply saddened over the high reports of political violence", stating that "a total of 1,056 cases of political violence have been recorded since the dissolution of Parliament on April 3.

MNEB also expressed concerns on recent reports of bombing as "worrying" and "that such incidents may mar the election process, leading to more violence which may have the tendency to destroy peace and harmony".

They have called on the Buddhist community to denounce all acts of violence, taken in the form of  body (physical), speech and thought.

They also urged all those participating in the elections to "let peace and compassion be the force of the country’s social and political transformation".

About 13 million of the country's 27 million strong population is expected to go to the polls this Sunday.

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Zen master: Buddhist monk remembered for simple, peaceful life

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VICTOR, MO (USA) -- It’s fitting that the wide open spaces and soaring mountains of Montana would attract someone like Zen Master Genki Takabayashi, whose name means “high pine forest.” Yet there is nothing predictable about the Buddhist monk’s journey here, his final resting place.

<< LINDA THOMPSON - Missoulian
Genki Takabayashi performs a cleansing ceremony and blessing in 2008 of the T-1 Building, where hearings were held for Japanese-Americans brought to the Fort Missoula Alien Detention Center during World War II.

Takabayashi, who died last month at the age of 81, left Japan nearly 35 years ago at the invitation of a University of Washington art history professor, Glen Webb. Webb had opened a small Zen center in Seattle, and needed someone to teach meditation.

After meeting Takabayashi at a temple during a visit to Japan, the professor asked the monk to help. He initially demurred, but agreed to move after Webb purchased him a plane ticket, and became a resident teacher at the Seattle Zen Teacher, which Webb founded.

“I met him at a temple in Japan and I thought he would be a good person to bring to Seattle,” Webb recalls. “Of course this was challenging to me because he spoke no English and I had to do all translating for a long time.”

Takabayashi learned of Zen as a boy in a Japanese mountain village, and as a young man apprenticed as a monk in a monastery in Kyoto called Daitoku-Ji, the head temple of the Rinza school of Japanese Zen, founded in the 14th century. He remained there for 25 years before meeting Webb.

Shortly after arriving in Seattle, Webb invited the Dalai Lama to visit and speak, and Takabayashi had occasion to meet the high lama.

“I was in charge of his talk and Genki was very excited about that,” Webb said.

But Takabayashi subscribed to a specific lineage of the Rinzai denomination, and his views on teaching a singular application of Zen meditation differed from Webb’s ecumenical approach. The two men went their separate ways in 1983, but Webb said Takabayashi’s time at the Zen center was valuable.

“He had a wonderful, positive effect on a number of peoples’ lives,” Webb said. “He taught by example.”

Takabayashi practiced the spiritual discipline of Zen Buddhism virtually all his life, and was one of only a few native Japanese teachers of the Rinzai school in America. Drawing on that experience, he opened the Dai Bai Zan Cho Bo Zen Ji on Seattle’s Beacon Hill. Another of Webb’s students, Genjo Joe Marinello, apprenticed there with Takabayashi, and succeeded his mentor when he moved to Montana in 1997.

Marinello was studying under Webb when Takabayashi first arrived from Japan, and the two men developed a sort of pidgin English that only they could understand.

“Nobody could understand us, but we knew what we were talking about and that was all that mattered,” Marinello said. “He was very gentle, very down to earth, and he could sit like a rock. He was the shining example of how to enter Zazen meditation, just sitting, just breathing, just listening.”

Marinello said Takabayashi was so dedicated to his practice and his tradition that he remembers being surprised when, after arriving in Seattle, one of the first foods he requested was a hamburger.

“We really didn’t expect that,” he said. “He was very simple, and an absolute pleasure to know. He was a bright, jovial, caring spirit.”

Marinello was ordained in 1980 and trained with Takabayashi in Seattle until his retirement 17 years later. He said there was no conflict between the serenity of their sitting meditation and the clutter of city living.

“It’s pretty simple what we were trying to achieve. The idea is to sit and touch some depth beyond yourself and let that depth express itself or flower in daily life in a creative or compassionate way that helps you in your daily life,” he said. “We had all of the complications of a city life. We were in the midst of a city but we grounded our lives with meditation. I think it made our city life sane, so we could face it with equanimity and peace of mind and a caring spirit.”

Takabayashi eventually fell in love with one of his students, Leslie Gannon, who had come to the temple to live after returning from a retreat in India. The couple moved to Ronan, where they opened a small Zen center, hosting meditation and tea ceremonies, and displaying Takabayashi’s ceramic art and calligraphy.

Gannon recalls driving through a snowstorm to Helena so that Takabayashi could obtain his citizenship, which he’d lived without through the years. When they arrived, the skies cleared and, when asked by the official why he wanted to be a U.S. citizen, Takabayashi waved his arm toward a window.

“He said, ‘There are beautiful skies in Montana,’ ” Gannon recalls. “The man stamped his paper and that was it.”

Ian Marquand, a journalist and one of the founders of the Japan Friendship Club, met Takabayashi and Gannon during a new moon viewing ceremony at the couple’s Ronan home, and remained friends with the couple.

“He was always just so pleasant. There was something restorative about being with him, and it seemed important to be able to share a little bit about who he was with the community,” Marquand said. “I wanted to share what he gave to me with other people.”

Having taken numerous trips to Japan, Marquand shared photos of his trips with the couple, and drank Sake and ceremonial green tea with Takabayashi.

The couple relocated to Victor, and a month before Takabayashi’s death, they were in a car accident. His heart was damaged in the crash, and he never recovered from the complications, which were exacerbated by diabetes.

Gannon said her husband was pleased to have lived as long as he did, and happy to die in Montana.

“He was very comfortable with Montana and with Montanans because they are all down to earth, and he certainly was very down to earth,” she said. “He gardened and made pottery. It was a very humble life, but he loved it.”

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Buddhist temple doesn't always inspire peaceful reactions

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A Buddhist temple in a Westminster neighborhood has some residents grousing about increased traffic and other annoyances.

Los Angeles, CA (USA) -- The sound of chanting echoed through the makeshift temple, to the slow steady pulse of a drum.

<< The congregation of Tinh Xa Giac Ly gathers for worship and other activities in the converted garage of a former single-family home in a residential neighborhood in Westminster. (Anne Cusack, Los Angeles Times / December 2, 2012)

Forty-nine days had passed since Jonathan Van's uncle had died in Vietnam, and he and his family gathered at Tinh Xa Giac Ly in Westminster, chanting so that his spirit might find its path. The puffs of incense dancing in the air would serve as the vehicle to carry his spirit to the next life, according to Buddhist tradition.

The relatives knelt on the floor of the two-car garage, high heels and sandals scattered outside on the driveway, as other loved ones spilled out to the patio, reciting from yellow songbooks.

The sound, for Van, calmed his own spirit.

"For me the chanting is very soothing," Van said. "Relieves stress."

Less so for some of the neighbors, however.

The temple sits among the suburban tract homes at Titus Street and Hazard Avenue, just steps from Little Saigon, converted about 26 years ago from a typical family home to a house of worship.

The sound of the chanting and the unfamiliar smells and rituals are an unwelcome intrusion to some in the neighborhood in the heart of Orange County, the traffic an inconvenience.

Officials said misunderstandings between the start-up temples and residents who find their neighborhoods transformed are an ongoing issue in the Asian communities that sprawl across Westminster, Garden Grove and Santa Ana.

Rita Leon and her brother Rudy Lastra live across the street from Tinh Xa Giac Ly and say their conflicts with the temple's worshipers have almost turned physical.

And traffic generated by visitors, they said, has turned their residential street into a bustling thoroughfare.

"It's like the 405 Freeway on a Monday at rush hour," Lastra said.

Temple organizers also clashed with the city, which after receiving numerous complaints from residents cited them for code violations involving outdoor cooking equipment as well as gas, electrical and plumbing lines, said Art Bashmakian, Westminster's planning manager.

The temple's leader, the Most Venerable Thich Giác Si, said he is mindful of his neighbors' concerns and reminds visitors to park outside the neighborhood to reduce the number of cars streaming along the residential streets.

"Whatever they like to say or express to us, we like to listen," he said.

Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, said budding religious groups often set up shop in suburban areas, and such clashes can be expected.

"In many religious communities you will see this tradition of starting a congregation in your home before you're able to buy or build," Kennedy said.

Even though the face of central Orange County began changing decades ago with the arrival of Vietnamese immigrants, the tiny neighborhood temples sometimes seem foreign to residents when they spring up.

"There's no question where you're confronted with something you don't understand or are unfamiliar with, you're uncomfortable," Kennedy said.

Often stereotypes about a culture or its images — such as the Buddhist swastika or Sikh turbans — can "color our thinking" about a neighbor, Kennedy said. But the conflicts, he said, sometimes sort themselves out.

Van agreed, saying some may feel uncomfortable with the chanting because of a language barrier, but the sound can comfort even those unfamiliar with it.

"You don't have to understand it for it to be soothing to your ears," he said.

For the recent gathering, Van's relatives came from as far as North Hollywood and West Covina to visit the temple to participate in the final day of prayer for his uncle's spirit, 49 days being the period a spirit needs to find its new life, according to Buddhist tradition.

The next time the family will pray for their uncle will be at the one-year anniversary of his death.

In addition to hosting ceremonies for the dead, Van said the temple gives back too — donating clothes and vegetarian food to the homeless and helping with construction of water wells in Vietnam. The temple also sends money to 120 handicapped people in Vietnam, Thich Giác Si said.

Thich Giác Si, who said he made his way through temples across the state before arriving in Westminster, said visitors may be drawn to his temple more than to others because its focus is on service and religious growth rather than a pressurized environment where fundraising is a priority.

Dressed in saffron yellow and orange robes, he said he came here with the idea of working to create a sense of community.

The temple has flourished over time, providing a haven for as many as 160 youth members and 1,000 families, he said.

"We offer support and peace."

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Peaceful Protest Marks Saffron Revolution Anniversary

Home Asia Pacific South East Asia Myanmar Myanmar Protest News

Rangoon, Burma -- Dozens of Rangoon residents marched peacefully through the city on Monday to mark the fourth anniversary of the Saffron Revolution only to be stopped by security forces, according to local sources.

<< The September 26, 2007 "Saffron Revolution", saw thousands of monks protest against the Burmese military regime, which ended in a brutal crackdown

Onlookers watched around 200 marchers, some of them were wearing yellow shirts, set off peacefully from Sule Pagoda in downtown Rangoon at around 1 pm local time towards Kabar Aye Pagoda in North Okkalapa Township.

The Saffron Revolution was led by Buddhist monks across Burma in September 2007. The peaceful protests were brutally quashed by government troops in a crackdown which claimed 31 lives including many monks, according to government figures.

Security guards closely followed and monitored Monday's protest with many officers also deployed near Sule Pagoda. But there is no violent crackdown against the protesters and the event took place peacefully.

“They didn’t shout and hold placards. They just marched peacefully but some wore yellow shirts,” said a witness.
Dozens of people also launched a separate demonstration in North Okkalapa on Monday. They were blocked by Burmese authorities before ending the march peacefully. They repeated the “Metta Sutta” (Buddhist chant for compassion) after being blocked by security forces but then decided to end the march, said a protester.

Meanwhile, separate ceremonies to mark the fourth anniversary of the Saffron Revolution were also held in Rangoon today. Burma opposition party the National League for Democracy held a ceremony at a monastery in southern Okkalapa Township with around 1,000 attendees including monks, party members, representatives of the 88 Generation Student Group, individual MPs and other politicians.

They also called for the immediate release of all political prisoners without condition. An estimated 1,998 political prisoners are currently detained across Burma, according to Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.

While some of the protesters present on Monday were activists who demand the release of political prisoners, others were campaigning against the Myitsone Hydropower Dam in Kachin State on the Irrawaddy River.

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