Buddhist monks clash during protest.

scojones

Taken from http://www.breakingnews.ie/world/?jp=MHAUQLKFCWCW

breakingnews.ie wrote:

Buddhist monks clash during protest

20/04/2007 - 08:13:25

Two opposing groups of Cambodian Buddhist monks engaged in a street fist fight today during a protest to demand religious freedom for their fellow monks living in southern Vietnam.

Lim Yuth, a 23-year-old Buddhist monk, suffered a cut on his left eyebrow during the brawl, but it was not immediately clear what caused the injury.

Lim Yuth was among some 50 monks who marched through Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, to voice their grievances over alleged mistreatment by Hanoi authorities against Cambodian Buddhist monks in southern Vietnam.

A large part of southern Vietnam, known in Cambodia as Kampuchea Krom, used to be part of Cambodia's mighty Khmer empire centuries ago and is still populated by many ethnic Cambodians.

Hanoi permits only a handful of state-sponsored religious organisations to operate in Vietnam, which has led to clashes with some religious groups, including Buddhists.

A bit out of character, no?

PDN

Out of character? It appears not.

Sri Lanka Christians Persecuted for Doing Good
By Charlene Israel
For CWNews

CWNews.com –When Buddhists in Sri Lanka began accusing Christians of using relief aid to force people to convert, it gave Christians a taste of what it means to be persecuted for doing good.

Some in this region lost everything they loved and owned when the tsunami waves came ashore last year.

Since that tragic time, Christian organizations like Open Doors have been ministering to the devastated people south Asia and in Sri Lanka.

Working through local churches, they distribute medical supplies and food -- and are dedicated to rebuilding houses and Christian churches, a welcome comfort to those who lost everything in the flood waters -- including their Bibles.

Most of all these ministries offer hope and healing -- often praying for and encouraging believers.

But some Buddhist groups are opposing these good works done by Christians.

They say the ministries force tsunami victims to convert to Christianity -- a charge most Christian groups deny.

One evangelical leaders said, “A lot of Buddhist extremist groups are whipping up emotions because they are scared of what's going on -- because they see the Christian people -- they are on the streets getting their hands dirty helping the people and they feel they are losing ground and so they are saying tsunami relief is going to be used to convert people."

The anger is turning to violence. In the last few weeks, churches have been burned, and Christians have been beaten by Buddhist mobs.

Persecution of Christians in Sri Lanka is not new; and they've suffered these kinds of attacks before.

In the past two years more than 140 churches have been forced to close down because of attacks, intimidation and harassment by Buddhist extremists.

Some say the Sri Lankan government isn't doing enough to help protect Christians against these attacks.

Indeed, some members of parliament have even introduced an anti-evangelism bill, which would prohibit conversion from one religion to another by use of force or allurement.

But Christians fear the bill will have the effect of outlawing all evangelistic activities.

Despite the persecution, Christians continue to serve -- even fulfilling Jesus' command to love those who persecute them.

Such as was when a Christian church offered aid and support to a Buddhist monk who had persecuted them.

The Christian leader says that act of love moved the monk to have a change of heart.

"The monk came over and he went in and said, please forgive me, I have done evil and you have repaid good for whatever. From now on I’m going to work along side you, to rebuild this town."

That's why open doors and ministries like them continue to serve -- because they say, helping people, both small and old is worth it

Goodshape

PDN wrote:

Out of character? It appears not.

While there may be some truth in it (I haven't read up on any of the events it mentions), that article sounds more than a bit like a propaganda piece to me.

scojones

Goodshape wrote:

While there may be some truth in it (I haven't read up on any of the events it mentions), that article sounds more than a bit like a propaganda piece to me.

That's exactly what I was wondering.

Asiaprod

I live here, the article is 10% truth and 90% fabricated. There are many Christian groups working hard, there are others that are using aid to convert.

MeditationMom

Interesting, though. Christian compassion in action could certainly make Buddhists look bad. It's not an either or thing, though.

Non-violence in the face of mistreatment, the whole "other cheek" thing, is very hard. Is not a natural response, it is a wise response.

Doing good and getting punished for it? That's pretty universal.

In India and in Thailand I came across several local people - poor people - who spoke with great disdain of their Buddhists monks. "All they do is beg from us." That blew my bubble a little bit.

Asiaprod

MeditationMom wrote:

In India and in Thailand I came across several local people - poor people - who spoke with great disdain of their Buddhists monks. "All they do is beg from us." That blew my bubble a little bit.

This is true. One really has to understand the culture in these places. It is very much like the old ways in Ireland where the first son joined the church, or in older Europe where it was very common for the sons of nobility to accept high-ranking church positions, even to pope-hood. I guess what I am trying to say is that there are many who claim to be one thing, but in reality are something else. This applies to ALL paths. For that reason I did not comment on the original OP. It is a localized issue. In the west, we have our own concept of what Buddhism should be, but we must accept the fact that these places may not share the same vision.

A good example of this in action would be the Dali Lama's speech in New York about 4 years ago where he told of his amazement at Americans being interested in Buddhism. He found this hard to understand since Buddhism was not a part of their culture. This could sound very strange, selective Buddhism, until that is we recall that in its original format, only priests could attain enlightenment and the common public reincarnated back to a more prosperous life as a result of serving the priesthood. This was also a voluntary thing. Buddhist temples do not actively seek converts, and are supported by the people as part of their culture. And temples are continually sparing with each other in their drive to acquire resources (people to support them)

Lim Yuth, a 23-year-old Buddhist monk, suffered a cut on his left eyebrow during the brawl, but it was not immediately clear what caused the injury.

One cut! Go to any Major football match or Hockey game to see a real brawl. Media drivel.

IMO, the reason why there is the friction we see documented in the link. is that their livelihood and support, the people, are being actively, in their eyes, poached away with offers of aid (money, food, clothing) which the Buddhist priest cannot give since they are non materialistic and can only offered spiritual aid. They cannot compete, its no longer a level playing field.
In short, we see a cultural clash that is escalating into violence. They are fighting to survive what they perceive as a Christian threat to their centuries old way of life. We have seen this before

scojones

Asiaprod wrote:

T

One cut! Go to any Major football match or Hockey game to see a real brawl. Media drivel.

I have to admit I did laugh when I read that part of the article. It was obvious what the media were trying to do.

I hope I haven't annoyed anyone by posting the article. I thought it would be worth bringing to people's attention.

Asiaprod

scojones wrote:

I hope I haven't annoyed anyone by posting the article. I thought it would be worth bringing to people's attention.

Not at all, its good to know what is going on.:)

Schuhart

Asiaprod wrote:

In the west, we have our own concept of what Buddhism should be, but we must accept the fact that these places may not share the same vision.

Is it fair to say that if you take any block of texts out of its cultural context, something changes. Its not necessarily a bad thing. I'd say in my own mind that in reading what little I have about Buddhism there is wisdom there. But I suppose the wisdom that particularly strikes me from that small piece of knowledge is that idea that if all those inherited texts were lost, it would probably still be possible (eventually) to reconstruct them from simple human reason and reflection. On the other hand, I'd question more the idea of reincarnation which (apologies if stepping on anyone's toes) strikes me as meaningless.

All of which is a long way round to say that any faith probably has within it the capability to achieve some kind of enlightenment if it is approached with a critical mind. I've read stuff by Muslims and Christians that had thoughts which were valid no matter what you believed. Equally, as we know, any faith can provide a basis for hatred. I suppose these stories just illustrate the same is true for Buddhism. Its not the label 'Buddhist' that has value, but that collection of Buddhist thoughts and ideas.

Schuhart

Schuhart wrote:

Its not the label 'Buddhist' that has value, but that collection of Buddhist thoughts and ideas.

Precisely!
We buddhists acknowledge that too. And that there are other valid paths since buddhism is not for everyone.
In any case, attachment to the label of buddhist is as bad as any other

PDN

Asiaprod wrote:

This is true. One really has to understand the culture in these places. It is very much like the old ways in Ireland where the first son joined the church, or in older Europe where it was very common for the sons of nobility to accept high-ranking church positions, even to pope-hood. I guess what I am trying to say is that there are many who claim to be one thing, but in reality are something else. This applies to ALL paths. For that reason I did not comment on the original OP. It is a localized issue. In the west, we have our own concept of what Buddhism should be, but we must accept the fact that these places may not share the same vision.

A good example of this in action would be the Dali Lama's speech in New York about 4 years ago where he told of his amazement at Americans being interested in Buddhism. He found this hard to understand since Buddhism was not a part of their culture. This could sound very strange, selective Buddhism, until that is we recall that in its original format, only priests could attain enlightenment and the common public reincarnated back to a more prosperous life as a result of serving the priesthood. This was also a voluntary thing. Buddhist temples do not actively seek converts, and are supported by the people as part of their culture. And temples are continually sparing with each other in their drive to acquire resources (people to support them)

One cut! Go to any Major football match or Hockey game to see a real brawl. Media drivel.

IMO, the reason why there is the friction we see documented in the link. is that their livelihood and support, the people, are being actively, in their eyes, poached away with offers of aid (money, food, clothing) which the Buddhist priest cannot give since they are non materialistic and can only offered spiritual aid. They cannot compete, its no longer a level playing field.
In short, we see a cultural clash that is escalating into violence. They are fighting to survive what they perceive as a Christian threat to their centuries old way of life. We have seen this before

Asiaprod, thanks for giving a reasoned response. Most Buddhists I have met (all Western converts) have seemed reasonable fair-minded people, so I was quite surprised at the responses about propaganda. Seemed like the typical denialist response. Turks say the records of the Armenian genocide are propaganda, Chinese government says accounts of persecution in Tibet are propaganda etc. Thanks for restoring my faith in (Buddhist) human nature.

Goodshape

PDN wrote:

Asiaprod, thanks for giving a reasoned response. Most Buddhists I have met (all Western converts) have seemed reasonable fair-minded people, so I was quite surprised at the responses about propaganda. Seemed like the typical denialist response. Turks say the records of the Armenian genocide are propaganda, Chinese government says accounts of persecution in Tibet are propaganda etc. Thanks for restoring my faith in (Buddhist) human nature.

Sorry if I offended; I didn't mean to deny anything - as I said, I haven't read anything else about the events mentioned in the article.

I just felt the language used (in the article you quoted) seemed to move beyond the events and into something which sounded more like a Christian promotional piece than an unbiased news report.

Again, I'm not denying or excusing anything. And if it's any consolation, I've now started to read more on what's happening.

Asiaprod

PDN wrote:

Thanks for restoring my faith in (Buddhist) human nature.

The pleasure is all mine:), always happy to see non Bhuddists posting, makes us have to think.

MeditationMom

Religions seem to get new life and new incarnations whenever they appear in different countries and cultures. The things we hear from birth on become stale and meaningless, while the same message in another form, from a different tradition, sounds fresh, true, and genuine. Often we understand it for the first time when we hear it put into "new" words. Also we have usually chosen our teachers later in life, unlike in childhood when we are often victims of "false prophets".

The media is on its own mission of keeping us all riled up - any story and any religion will do. But, they do a good job bombarding us with so many contradicting "facts", it becomes clear that it is up to us to use our own observations, judgement and intelligence.