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Religious disharmony in India, in spite of what you may have heard
It must have been music to Indian ears to hear the Dalai Lama suggest earlier this month that China learn nonviolence and religious harmony from India. But it was just so much noise to others. India, after all, has been witness to some of the most extreme religious and inter-caste violence in the post-war period. We read this from Andrew Suttaford over at the Secular Right: Is he talking about the Gujarat riots of 2002, where Hindus enraged over what turned out to be an accidental train fire killed an estimated 2,000 Muslims and drove another 100,000+ from their homes, with the connivance of the local government? More » -
Buddhist temple an undesirable neighbor in Melbourne suburb
There was some controversy over a Kwan Yin statue at a Buddhist temple in Utica, New York, but apparently Buddhist temples aren't the most desirable neighbors all over the globe. More » -
Buddhism and Capital Punishment
"Prisoners are not given a date for execution and their relatives are only told after the hanging." More » -
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Anti-Muslim sentiment: We've been here before
In a recent interview, University of Michigan professor Scott Kurashige, author of The Shifting Ground of Race, notes a parallel between the hostility toward Japanese-Americans during WWII and hostility toward Muslims in America today. Kurashige notes that in both cases, the United States was attacked on its own soil by a foreign enemy, leaving Americans sharing either the religious beliefs or ethnicity of the attackers the targets of their fellow citizens. In the case of Japanese-Americans, organizations like the Anti-Asiatic Association and the Asian Exclusion Association attempted to designate certain areas off limits to non-whites and protested the building of Buddhist temples and even Japanese Christian churches. More » -
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The Monk's Tale: A Paris Review interview
Earlier this year, William Dalrymple of the The Paris Review interviewed Tibetan monk Tashi Passang: INTERVIEWER Can one be both a monk and a resistance fighter? TASHI PASSANG Once you have been a monk, it is very difficult to kill a man. But sometimes it can be your duty to do so. I knew that if I stayed in a monastery under the Chinese there was no point in being a monk. They wouldn’t let me practice my religion. So, to protect the ways of the Lord Buddha, the Buddhist dharma, I decided to fight. INTERVIEWER Isn’t nonviolence an essential aspect of being a monk? PASSANG Yes, nonviolence is the essence of the dharma. This is especially true for a monk. The most important thing is to love each and every sentient being. More » -
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Chinese Communist Party seeks to intensify reforms in Tibetan monasteries
VIA Phayul.com, Dharamsala, August 17: In what appeared to be a fresh effort to further tighten government’s control on Tibet's influential religious institutions, a top leader of the Communist Party of China has called for reforms in Buddhist monasteries by appointing monks and nuns who are "politically reliable". In a move that could be seen as part of Chinese Communist regime’s larger campaign to weed out pro-Dalai Lama elements in the Buddhist clergy, Du Qinglin, head of the United Front Work Department of the Party's Central Committee - the body tasked specifically to handle the Tibet talks - said greater efforts must be made to implement “democratic management in Tibetan Buddhist monasteries.” Du also called for “thorough” consultation in selecting “politically reliable” monks and nuns to monastery management comm More »
