Genocide of Burma’s Muslim minority?

Hat tip to my expatriate friend Jack.

The excellent investigative documentary shows what happens when political leaders use religion to solidify their power by promoting nationalism and ethnic hatred.

Glimpses of Asia – October 15, 2015

Hat tip for these links to my expatriate e-mail pen pal Jack.

25 images of Thailand’s most beautiful temples by Daniel Nahabedian for the Matador network.

How Japan Has Perfected Hospitality Culture by Oliver Strand for the Wall Street Journal.   The Japanese are known for extreme hospitality.

‘Omotenashi’ comes up short on humility by Philip Brasor for Japan Times.   But is the hospitality’s purpose to make guests feel welcome or to manifest Japanese superiority?

Movie ‘Abat’ banned by Thai Culture Ministry by Terry Frederickson for the Bangkok Post.

Producer, monk question ban on Arbat by the Bangkok Post.  A controversial Thai movie, whose title is spelled two different ways in English, depicts a Buddhist monk who betrays his vows.

Shunga exhibition defies ‘pornography’ taboos to expose Japan to its erotic past by David Mcneil for The Independent.

Sisters separated 40 years ago in Korea reunited working in same US hospital from The Guardian.

Outrage in Vietnam over curtailing abortions by DPA for the Bangkok Post.

Thai bird singing contest draws thousands by World Bulletin News Desk.

Thailand voices disappointment over EU’s human rights criticism by AsiaOne in Singapore.

The biggest book in the world

Source: Kuriositas.

The biggest book in the world is an edition of the Pali Canon, a scripture of Theravada Buddhism, inscribed on marble by order of King Mindon of Burma in 1860.

Located in Mandalay, it consists of 1,640 marble pages, each 3.5 feet wide, 5 feet tall and 5 inches thick, sheltered by its own pagoda, and arranged around the central golden Kuthodaw Pagoda.  Only one page is devoted to King Mindon’s own deeds.

The project was completed and opened to the public in 1868.   Tended by Buddhist monks, it is still visited by pilgrims and tourists.

King Mindon believed that books were the most valuable creation of civilization, and he hoped his edition of the Pali Canon would last 5,000 years.

The amazing colors of China’s Buddhist temples

Monks in Kandze monastery in Ganzi, China

When a photographer named Colin Miller visited Chengdu, China, he was struck by the colorful beauty of the nearby Buddhist temples and monasteries.  He spent two and a half weeks traveling through small towns in Sichuan province, taking pictures.

My expatriate e-mail pen pal Jack, who called my attention to these photographs, said many of these temples are Tibetan, or at least are dedicated to the school of Buddhism found in Tibet.

The lavish beauty shown in these photos is a contrast to the austere beauty of Zen temples and gardens in Japan.   Any religion that can inspire such beauty must have something good about it.

Monasteries of Ladakh

I like time-lapse videos.  They show me the world in a unique way.

I got a link to this one from my expatriate e-mail pen pal Jack C.

Ladakh is the northernmost region of India.  It is part of Kashmir, high in the Himalayas and close to the Chinese border.  According to Wikipedia, it is inhabited mainly by Shia Muslims and Tibetan Buddhists, who live in peace—most of the time.

Cultivating a gratitude practice

This is from A Way in the Woods: awakening and mindfulness

In all my years of following the Buddhist path, there has been only one teaching that made me cringe.  Whenever I heard it, my reaction was, “Are you kidding me?!”  Here’s the story:

Buddha is approached by a monk, who asks for advice regarding desire.  It is distracting him from his spiritual practice, not to mention his life.  What should he do? 

Buddha’s response is to tell him that it is important to remember that seeing our desires fulfilled always leads to suffering.  Once we get what we want, we’re afraid we’ll lose it—which, when you think about it, we always will in the end.  Better to know that the less we pursue our desires, the less we’ll suffer.  So far, so good.

The monk thanks him for his advice, then mentions that he will be heading out for the village of Sunaparanta. 

Buddha is taken aback.  He asks the monk if he knows that the place is known for its “fierce roughness”—what will he do if they abuse and threaten him?

The monk responds, “Then I shall think these people are truly kind in that they did not give me a blow with a fist.”

But Buddha can’t leave this alone. What if they do punch you?

The monk says, then he will think that they are truly kind because they didn’t hit him with a clod.

Well, what if they hit him with a clod?

He’ll be grateful that it wasn’t a stick.

What if it was a stick?

They were truly kind to not stab him.

And if they did stab him?

Well, at least they didn’t kill him.

What if they did kill him?

The monk’s response is to tell Buddha that he knows that there are some monks who, “being humiliated by the body and by life, sought death.”  He would consider himself lucky to find death without seeking it.

Are you kidding me?!

The passing scene: Links & comments 7/14/14

Economix Explains Social Security

Economix Explains the Transpacific Partnership

Economix Explains Net Neutrality

Cartoonist Michael Goodwin uses words and pictures to give clear explanations of three important, and often misunderstood, issue.

Crimea Annexation Spurs Some Russians to Emigrate by Yekaterina Kravtsova for the Moscow Times.

Amid heightened nationalist passions over the Ukraine crisis,  President Vladimir Putin is cracking down on independent journalists and opposition politicians.

The United Nations estimates that 40,000 Russians asked for political asylum in other countries last year, the highest number from any country except Syria.  This year Russian requests for asylum are running ahead of last year’s.

Putin’s Russia is not a free country.

Russia wipes out Cuban debt by Aljazeera America.

President Putin agreed to cancel Cuba’s debt to the old Soviet Union, while Cuba plans more offshore oil concessions for Russian companies.  The USA could have had equivalent deals any time during the past 50 years if not for the ongoing U.S. embargo against Cuba.

The Real Reason Pot Is Still Illegal by Lee Fang for The Nation.

Marijuana is a cheap substitute for prescription painkillers, and may be less addictive.   The big pharmaceutical companies would lose a lot of sales if marijuana were legalized.

The Fire This Time:  A look at the religious violence in Burma by Hozan Alan Senauke for Buddhadharma.

The vice-abbot of the Berkeley Zen Center says that violence against Burma’s Muslim minority is contrary to the teachings of Buddha.

 

The passing scene: Links & comment 8/14/13

How Laura Poitras Helped Snowden Spill His Secrets by Peter Maass of the New York Times.  Hat tip to Daniel Brandt.

The documentary filmmaker Laura Poitras was the key figure in bringing Edward Snowden’s information before the public.  Glenn Greenwald is brave enough, but she was the one with the skills to evade the surveillance state.  She is like the heroine of some dystopian science fiction novel about a totalitarian state of the future.  This well-written, informative article is worth reading in its entirety.

Bandar Bush, ‘liberator of Syria’ by Pepe Escobar of Asia Times.

Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, who at one time was so close to the Bush family that George W. Bush nicknamed him “Bandar Bush,” flew to Moscow to offer to buy huge amounts of Russian weapons if the Russian government would withdraw its support for the Assad regime in Syria.  As Pepe Escobar noted, this will never happen.  Vladimir Putin would never tolerate Syria being taken over by radical jihadists, whose next target undoubtedly would be Chechnia, less than 600 miles away.

Hague war crimes ruling threatens to undermine future prosecutions by Owen Bowcott of The Guardian.  Hat tip to Jack C.

Three Serbian generals were acquitted of war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia because they did not give orders for the atrocities committed by troops under their command.

Buddhism’s ‘lords’ must be challenged by Sanitsuda Ekachai of the Bangkok Post.

An editorial writer said that the Theravada Buddhist clergy are governed by an autocratic system that tolerates corruption and misconduct but not dissent and reform.  Accountability is needed, she wrote; one starting point would be for Thais to only contribute to temples with transparent accounting systems.

Judge Says That Baby ‘Messiah’ Will Have to Change His Name Because He’s Not Jesus Christ by Hemant Mehta on Patheos.

I was surprised to learn that “Messiah” is one of the 1.000 most common first names for newborn male babies in the United States.  The Tennessee judge is out of line, but perhaps the parents could settle for naming their baby “Senator,” “Colonel,” “Professor” or “Doctor”.

Instructions for Life by the Dalai Lama

1.  Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.

2.  When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.

3.  Follow the three R’s: – Respect for self, – Respect for others and – Responsibility for all your actions.

4.  Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.

5.  Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.

6.  Don’t let a little dispute injure a great relationship.

7.  When you realize you’ve made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.

8.  Spend some time alone every day.

9.  Open your arms to change, but don’t let go of your values.

10.  Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.

11.  Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you’ll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12.  A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.

13.  In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don’t bring up the past.

14.  Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.

15.  Be gentle with the earth.

16.  Once a year, go someplace you’ve never been before.

17.  Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18.  Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

19.  If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.

20.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Hat tip to Watering Good Seeds

Steve Jobs in the afterlife

Click on Bors Blog | comics, politics and ridicule for more from cartoonist Matt Bors.

Hat tip to Jack Clontz.

Freeing yourself from illusion

A friend of mine who practices Zen Buddhist meditation spent Saturday at a workshop studying a Buddhist sutra (teaching) that all is illusion.   On a superficial level, I don’t take this seriously.  I don’t believe I am living in the world of The Matrix, and quantum theory doesn’t have anything to do with my life.

But on a practical level, this teaching is profoundly wise.   People make themselves unhappy for all sorts of reasons that wouldn’t matter unless they thought they mattered.  I’m speaking now of healthy, well-fed people whose loved ones are healthy and well-fed, and not about Buddhist teaching about accepting pain and loss.  I know in my own case that I feel frustrated, insulted, disappointed, resentful, envious and angry about things that, in the cosmic scheme of things, do not matter in the least.

I can’t help these feelings.  But I can refrain from dwelling on them.  I can refrain from thinking up rationalizations as to why my disappointment or resentment is justified.  I can disconnect my ego from my negative feelings.  If they come into my mind unbidden, they aren’t what I think of as me.  If I didn’t do this, I can easily imagine myself dwelling on petty insults and jealousies to the point where they poisoned my whole existence.

Christians teach this too.  Martin Luther once said (if I recall something I once read correctly) that you can’t stop the birds of anger from flying overhead, but you can stop them from building nests in your hair.