Buddhists – Where Now?

An article entitled: “Sri Lanka is a Buddhist Country Controlled by the Christian Catholic Church” was circulated by E-Mail at the end of November, 2010 - written by Upali Thantirige.  He gives instances and details occurrences. Is Upali Thantirige correct? Sadly his writing is supported by the news and events occurring daily in the media. He has given us an inescapable truth.

This is a dismal reversal of the optimism we all felt at the turn of the new millennium. Now you can see newspapers promoting Christian news as if it is the only belief religion on the planet. And where is Buddhist news? (E.g., The slow erosion of Buddhism in Sikkhim, the plight of the Chittagong Hill Tracts Buddhists, the opening of new temples in the west, the throttling of Buddhism in Thailand, Cambodia, the missionizing of South Korea and China and so on??  - mostly dismal news all at the hands of the religionists.)

Also, Buddhist news is made unattractive to editors of commercial newspapers. It is suppressed (after warnings) by editors fearful of losing their advertizing revenues paid by the big, rich, Christian owned businesses. On the contrary to Buddhism, Christianity is exciting – if unbelievable, viz: a dead man awoke, walked around a bit to say goodbye to one or two close friends and then went to heaven on a rocket around 0033CE. That is 1977 years ago, but the religionists are only very vague about the exact date as it was of no interest at the time.

Buddhism cannot compete with that sort of story in the minds of the poor and gullible, un-Dhamma-schooled masses.. Continuing on a little more: a virgin giving birth? – it sounds like monkey business! That is certainly why Christianity is dead set against fornication – they invented that lovely word for the event of sex outside marriage. And ‘prostitution’ was coined – that dirty word sealed the fate of all lusty men since the advent of Christianity. Here are two examples of the Christian Western Chinthanaya at work.

Upuli Thantirige’s article points out Dr. Nalin De Silva’s writings of how Buddhists in Sri Lanka are Christian by culture (and attitudes) but Buddhist by religion. Irrefutable! E.g., a young couple in Ja-Ela wanted to have their marriage ceremony carried out by the monk in a nearby temple and being blessed for everlasting happiness. To his credit, the monk refused.                                                                                                    

After 500 years of Christian occupation of Sinhale (Sri Lankan) territory the Buddhists have lost their direction, they have lost “Due North”. We have lost our way (and our wealth) and where are the Monks to guide us?.

So, this writing is just another wakeup call before it is too late. But it is all getting ominous to those who can see.

Firstly, we need to identify where we have gone wrong and what is our  true Buddhist culture and way of thinking; what has been lost and what steps are to be taken to reach there again? Some penetrating thinking is needed.

Secondly, we need to strengthen other aspects of Buddhism, too, in the face of so many external pressures – from the west and from within. We need to strengthen the hull of our ship! Dr. Nalin makes two interesting points in the Island Midweek Review of 7^th. December 2010. He talks about different systems of knowledge based on different Chinthanayas and that the west is dominating us through their systems of knowledge and that words such as “transparency”, “democracy” used in their system, are only hypocritical terms to deceive the (western Chinthanaya) educated.

He says it is finally the western media (with an anti-Sinhala Buddhist stance that makes use of the Tamil racism of the elite to demean the Sinhala Buddhists) – the western media who will give publicity to the Tamil diasporas views he previously stated.

Therefore, we need to build up our base -  the foundation of Buddhist influence and project our intellectual power.

But getting this power and voice is difficult. Dr. Nalin quotes Professor Noam Chomsky (the great critic of US. Policy) who is made ineffective in trying to propagate his views as the government, the media and of course, the universities act in unison to make him ineffective – reminiscent of the difficulties now experienced by the Buddhists in Sri Lanka concerning the news and current affairs of Buddhism.

Thirdly, Muslim Malaysia developed rapidly thanks to the exploitation of their oil reserves.. The authorities launched many Government sponsored companies and staffed them – you’ve guessed it - by only Muslims managers and Muslim workers. (Chinese – well qualified – must convert to get a job!) In Sri Lanka, it is a ‘free for all’ and ‘winner takes all’ as the Christians and Muslims are exactly doing!

Wake up the Buddhists; we are losing it to the occupation!

Motto:

All It Takes For Buddhism To Disappear

Is For Good Buddhists To Do Nothing To Help

 

 Motto:

May you have the Buddha in your heart and

the Buddha - Dhamma in your head!

by Brian Pedley