Vietnam’s Buddhist response to disaster

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HANOI/HUE, Vietnam -- Buddhist monks, nuns and their followers have long contributed to Vietnam’s disaster relief efforts. Sometimes equipped with canoes filled with instant noodles, woollen hats and psychosocial counsellors, this local cadre may lack standard operating procedures, but it constitutes a largely undocumented and significant disaster relief system running parallel to governmental efforts.

<< Photo: Phuong Tran/IRIN
Not your typical disaster worker, but one nevertheless

Buddhist temples’ (or any religious organization’s) contribution to disaster relief is still under-studied by international donors and NGOs working on disaster response, despite their growing role in a number of places, says Ian Wilderspin, a technical specialist on disaster risk management for the UN Development Programme (UNDP) in Hanoi.

However, Bui Viet Hien, a UNDP programme analyst, co-authored a 2011 study in collaboration with the Ministry of Sciences and Technology on the role of informal organizations in boosting community resilience to flooding in a district of the coastal Binh Dinh Province in south-central Vietnam.

Groups identified in the study included, among others, business leaders in the rice industry; boat owners who lived closest to the pier and provided emergency transportation during flood seasons; and dyke protection brigades nominated by village elders to supervise dykes during rainy seasons. The study broke down each group’s contribution to boosting resilience, concluding that people in the above three groups had the most impact on their villages’ ability to get through disasters.

There has not been a similar effort to assess informal organizations’ contribution to disaster response, she told IRIN last September. “It is an important question to ask [religious organizations’ contribution to disaster relief and prevention], but we simply do not know.”

Eric Debert, a programme manager with international NGO CARE in Vietnam, said though religious groups are not targeted directly in CARE’s work with communities on disaster risk reduction, they may be represented in other community associations and groups CARE consults.

Nevertheless, it could be a “gap”, he noted. Since 2006 CARE has coordinated the Joint Advocacy Network Initiative (JANI) funded by European Union aid body ECHO.

JANI includes 18 international and local NGOs as well as mass organizations (like Vietnam’s Women’s Union, whose stated membership is 13 million) which promote a community-based approach to help residents in disaster-prone areas face increasingly frequent and more intense natural hazards.

Buddhist operating procedures?

“They [Buddhist temples] have good intentions, but little strategy,” said Nguyen Huu Thang, the vice-director of social welfare and disaster for the Vietnam Red Cross (one of two groups nationwide authorized to receive disaster relief donations) which has collaborated with Buddhist temples organizing relief trips. Temples’ lack of formal training in humanitarian response can lead to “confusion or chaos” if relief groups deliver goods haphazardly without coordinating with local officials, said Thang.

But the leader of Quan Dinh temple on the outskirts of Hanoi, who goes by her Buddhist `dharma’ name (given during an initiation ceremony), Sister Peaceful Light, told IRIN the temple always goes through an official structure, whether it is Vietnam Red Cross or provincial authorities.

Pagoda leaders in or close to disaster-stricken areas often meet and guide arriving groups on hikes or by canoe to provincial authorities, who then direct them to villages most in need.

Thang said Buddhist temples were more active in organizing disaster responses than other religious groups.

In a country where more than half the population declares itself Buddhist, the network is wide - some 25,000 temples staffed with monks or nuns nationwide as of five years ago - Vietnam’s Buddhist Association reported to international media.

But the count then, and now, is only approximate. “Not all temples are registered with us. Some villages put joss sticks in an urn with rice and have a nun that visits occasionally. Is that a temple? Perhaps, but not known to us,” said an association staff member.

Tracking informal giving

“Why do you need to know how much we gave? Is it not enough that we did?” asked the nun overseeing one of the most well-known Buddhist pagodas in the central city of Hue, Tay Linh temple, who goes by the name of Sister True Compassion.

Buddhist temples file annual reports with the national Vietnamese Buddhist Association which lists donation amounts and how the money was spent: Surviving families of canoes which sank; children in a leper colony; cancer patient’s home visit. And in late 2011 when storms battered the southern tip of Vietnam, killing an estimated 85 and forcing another 13,000 families from their homes, Tay Linh temple’s disaster relief activities filled almost an entire page.

In 2011, the temple’s charity board, which Sister True Compassion heads alongside her position as vice-director of the regional charity board representing all Buddhist temples in Hue, calculated it gave some US$24,000 to communities hit by disaster.

When IRIN asked the national Buddhist association for a breakdown of how much money from overseas was sent to Buddhist temples in Vietnam, and how much money was donated to disaster relief efforts, officials said they had not formally analysed giving or disaster relief activities.

Not an uncommon response, noted local NGO Vietnam Asia Pacific Economic Centre, which published a study in 2011, with support from Asia Foundation, on philanthropic giving in Vietnam. The study noted that while in recent decades there has been “substantial individual giving... to alleviate the suffering of others particularly in times of disaster,” there has not been “systematic research or reports on giving patterns”.

Based on interviews with 200 households and 100 businesses nationwide, the NGO learned that “informal channels” - including pagodas, churches and community groups - received most charitable giving, while “official channels”- corporate organizations and funds for the poor - received but a fraction (27 percent in urban areas, 9.4 percent in rural ones).

“We do not work like formal organizations. Please do not call me a leader of anything,” said Sister True Compassion. “We are only trying to alleviate suffering and build compassion. That is all.”

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Newtown shooting and gun violence: A Buddhist response

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Losang Tendrol is a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She teaches meditation at the Guhyasamaja Buddhist Center in Fairfax, Va.

Fairfax, Va. (US'A) -- In a press release issued on Dec 19 after the shooting in Newton, Conn., New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg stated that 34 Americans fall victim to gun violence every day. They are our parents, children, friends, neighbors, and our police officers, managers, teachers –  perhaps indirectly we all know someone who has met a violent end. Every death tears a hole in the intricate network of relationships that unites us.

The Buddha taught that from birth, each of us has an instinctive gentleness towards others – a desire to protect those around us from harm and a willingness to make sacrifices to help even strangers. Cultivating and nurturing this love gives meaning to our short lives. Yet looking within ourselves we also find our innate self-focus.

This self-awareness is a sense that we exist apart from others. Rather than being a negative factor, it is this very self-focus that enables us to feel empathy because it is the basis for our common humanity. It is only because we experience suffering first hand that we generate the motivation to eliminate the suffering of others. As a nation, we deeply mourn the loss of the 20 school children and their teachers at Sandy Hook because of this deep seated connection.

In contrast, many believe that human nature is malevolent, so we need to guard ourselves from others.  We invest in many defense systems ranging from security systems, door locks, firewalls, antivirus software, passwords, all the way to what some consider the ultimate protection – possessing guns.

Some own guns based on the conviction that the world will end and we need guns in order to survive. Others feel that guns are necessary to stand up against a tyrannical government, or to rid society of undesirable people. The underlying rationale is the need for protection against an external threat, an outside enemy who intends to injure us.

In response the to the Sandy Hook shooting, Wayne LaPierre, head of the National Rifle Association advocated for putting armed police officers in every school in America. More guns, however, is not the solution. Instead as a society we need to address the underlying causes of violence in our nation. As many have proposed, we need to increase expenditures for public mental health care so that the mentally ill receive appropriate treatment, supervision and care. It must be terrifying for someone who is delusional to be left to survive on the streets all alone.  Strict measures should be taken to ensure the mentally ill are unable to obtain guns.

Likewise, we need to tone down the violence in the entertainment industry so that our children do not grow up thinking that aggression is an acceptable means of resolving problem.  Violence breeds more violence, today's killers may be tomorrow's victims. According to the Buddha's teaching about karma, actions always have related consequences. Murder is a misdeed because it harms others and the result is that the killer will experience tremendous suffering in the future and may even die in a similar manner. As such, all guns should be illegal as they only serve one purpose – to end lives.

Still, many shootings in America are not committed by people who are mentally ill, but instead by people who are angry and restless, and who lack the ability to regulate their emotions. So what is the long-term solution? The Buddha taught that the only real medicine to cure the disease of harming others is by transforming our own minds. Through meditation, we discover that the true source of our problems is not external enemies; instead, it is our own negative emotions and ignorance. Each of us needs to address the underlying malaise and discontent that give rise to our hatred, attachment, fear, and self-centeredness.

By cultivating bodhicitta, the mind that seeks to benefit others, we find meaning and joy in life.  Lama Zopa Rinpoche, a Tibetan Buddhist teacher, explains how to we should set our motivation: “In the West, millions of people suffer from depression, but if you dedicate your life in the morning to numberless sentient beings, you will have unbelievable joy and happiness the whole day. Cherishing the I opens the door to all suffering, while cherishing others opens the door to all happiness. When you live your life every day for others, the door to depression, relationship problems and all such things is closed and instead there is incredible joy and excitement.”

The benefits of the mind of compassion, bodhicitta, are described in this verse:

Bodhicitta makes you abandon all harms,
Bodhicitta rids you of all sufferings,
Bodhicitta frees you from all fears,
Bodhicitta stops all negative conduct,
~ Khunu Lama Rinpoche

In his book “Beyond Religion: Ethics for a whole world,” the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet, Tenzin Gyatso, stresses the need for secular ethics grounded in compassion that transcend the confines of religious traditions. Such ethical principles celebrate our shared humanity and interdependence.

It is up to each of us as individuals to make these principles the rules we live by and thereby to fulfill our full potential as human beings. While this may seem impossible,  it is in fact realistic because the inner peace that arises from such ethics lies hidden in our minds waiting for us to reveal it through study and contemplation.

By caring for others with compassion, we create vast amounts of positive karma and this gives rise to a feeling of safety and ease. We don't need guns because we understand how a strong community is a reflection of close ties with our neighbors forged through mutual respect and kindness. We are no longer paranoid that everyone is out to get us because we have looked deep within ourselves and expelled our inner enemy - self-cherishing.

Gradually, as more people choose to practice the path of peace, killings such as the incident in Newton, Conn. will no longer occur.

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