dhamma musings

The Gift Of Sight

2012-02-26T15:14:00.002-08:00

The headquarters of the Sri Lanka Eye Donation Society is housed in an unpretentious three-story building in the heart of Colombo's residential Cinnamon Gardens district, where the gift of sight is flown to many parts of the world. Today, its International Eye Bank is one of the world's biggest, supplying human eyes to restore vision to people in as many as 57 countries, including Japan. "We have supplied nearly 56,000 donor corneas to 117 cities in 57 countries - over 9,000 to Japan," as of Sept. 9, said Janath Matara Arachchi, manager of the International Eye Bank. "We realized there was a vast potential to collect donor eyes in this country, over 10 times what we could use here. Owing to a worldwide shortage of donor eyes, our founder, the late Dr. Hudson Silva, mobilized that potential," he said. Sitting in his office with Siri Cassim, the doctor who directs the eye bank, Matara Arachchi explained that the Buddhist concept of dana, or giving, was the root of their success. "Buddhists believe that it is an act of great merit to gift their eyes after death to someone living who would have the gift of sight. Dr. Silva was initially inspired by the Sivi Jataka, a story in which the Bodhisattva gives his eyes to a blind man. Over 870,000 people have signed consent forms we hold asking us to take their eyes after they are dead." Both my parents were very keen that their eyes are donated when they died and the first thing I did when my mother and father passed away was to telephone the Eye Donation Society and arrange for their corneas to be taken," the son of two donors said. "A technician from the society came to our home and removed the corneas. There was no disfigurement of the bodies," he said. Cassim, a senior consultant on eye surgery, explained that corneal graft surgery today involves taking the whole eye ball, not just the cornea, as was done in earlier years. "Even if an eye is not suitable, we take it because it satisfies the families of the donors," he said. "It is not wasted. It can always be used for research." Countries that have received corneas from Sri Lanka include Japan, Thailand, Egypt and China. Japan has been very supportive of the society, with much assistance rendered by its Lions Clubs, notably those in Numazu, Shizuoka Prefecture, and Kurashiki, Okayama Prefecture. The society also received support from noted eye surgeon Akira Momosa of Kiryu, Gunma Prefecture. The eyes of prime ministers have been donated, as well as those of the late Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayewardene, who had a special relationship with Japan. His corneas were successfully grafted to two Japanese recipients. The society has 450 branches throughout Sri Lanka, with trained volunteers in each of them ready to remove donor eyes whenever called. "Most of the eyes we receive are taken from hospitals, but we commonly visit homes as well," Cassim said. "We check the body for tattoos as well as injection marks to guard against possible risk of HIV infection." He said that a cell count is first conducted to ensure the cornea is suitable for grafting. A count of 2,000 cells per sq. millimetre is good, but a low cell count can mean the cornea is unsuitable for grafting. "There are six muscles around the eye and the optic nerve and once you cut them the eye can be removed," Cassim explained. "It is sterilized with an antibiotic and iodine solution and examined for suitability for grafting." He said that an eye must be removed from the body within 24 hours of death, packed in ice and received at the laboratory within four hours. There are three types of preservation fluids that allow a cornea to be preserved for five, 14 and 21 days, respectively, at a temperature of 4 degrees. The 21-day fluid is the most expensive one. "We have sent more eyes abroad than have been used locally," Matara Arachchi said. "Nothing is charged for providing corneas for grafting here, but there is a charge, for example, $250 per eye in Pakistan and $450 in Japan, to meet processing charges and other costs." The eye bank operation is slim and tight, with a paid staff of 47, including drivers, clerks and technicians. Expenses run about 1.6 million rupees ($16,000) a month.
By Manik De Sliva from Kyodo News
A painting of the Sivi Jataka from Mukirigala Maha Vihara, Sri Lanka, early 19th century

The Book Of Hungry Ghosts

2012-02-22T16:05:00.005-08:00

The Petavatthu, the seventh book in the Khuddaka Nikaya which is the fifth collection of the Sutta Pitaka, one of the three divisions in the Tipitaka, the Buddhist scriptures. This text and its companion text, the Vimanavatthu, is easily the least interesting book in the whole Tipitaka and one can only wonder how it ever got included in it. The title means ‘Story of Ghosts’; peta = ghost + vatthu = story. It consists of about 814 verses embedded in prose stories. Only the verses are canonical. There are four chapters containing 12, 13, 10 and 16 stories each. The exact number of verses is unclear because it is sometimes hard to tell where the story ends and the verse begins. The stories tell of the mean, nasty or immoral things people did which led them to being reborn as a ghost. Without exception these stories are dull, rather puerile and even without literary merit. Winternitz commented, ‘The truly great and profound doctrine of kamma…which has found expression in…Buddhist texts in so many beautiful sayings and legends, is most clumsily explained by means of examples in little stories, whose metrical form is their only poetical attribute.’And what about ghosts? The Rg Veda, the oldest Hindu scripture, speaks of the ‘realm of the fathers’ (pitarah), a sort of shadowy world where everyone went when they died. In later centuries this term fused with the term preta, ‘departed’ and led to the creation of the word peta and the idea of a ghostly realm or existence (Pali pettivisaya, later petaloka ‘ghost world’). Brahmanism later developed the idea that making offerings to ghosts could raise the quality of their gloomy existence. The Buddha mentioned that one of the reasons people wanted a son was so he could make offerings to them after they had died (A.III,43). A brahmin mentioned to the Buddha that he made saddha offerings to the departed (A.V,269), a practice you can still being done in Gaya to this day.

The Buddha seems to have taken this belief for granted or at least saw that it might grow out of kindly motives and he encouraged some people to make offerings to the departed. Typically, he added an ethical dimension to the belief, saying that not everyone, but people who had been immoral might get reborn in the ghost world. He said, ‘By knowing his mind with mine, I have known a certain man who because of his behavior has taken such a path so that after the breaking up of the body he will be reborn as a ghost and will experience much painful feelings. It is just like a tree growing on rocky ground with sparse foliage and casting an uneven shadow. One man might see another, exhausted by the heat of the day, weary, parched and thirsty, going on a path that leads directly to that tree and later he would actually see him sitting or lying in the shade of that tree experiencing much discomfort’ (M.I,75). It seems that the early Buddhists incorporated the existing Brahminical belief in the ghost realm into their cosmology and then had to distinguish it from purgatory. They did this by saying that the committing of prolonged evil would result in rebirth in purgatory, lesser evil or evil associated with craving, longing and wanting would result in rebirth in the ghost realm.
Interestingly, the Buddha considered ‘talk about ghosts’ (petakatha) to be unedifying and unbecoming for serious Dhamma practitioners (D.I,8). The Petavatthu would by any interpretation qualify as ‘talk about ghosts.’ All scholars who have examined the Petavatthu – Rhys Davids, H. S. Gehman and Prof. Abhayanayaka – ascribe to it a late date. Winternitz wrote that it ‘probably belongs to the latest stratum of literature assembled in the Pali Canon.’

Something Really Worthwhile

2012-02-16T18:05:00.000-08:00

For millennia, Asia has been enriched by the Buddha's teachings, giving rise to great and peaceful civilisations. However, in recent times, Buddhist countries across Asia have been affected by political conflicts, consumerism and hostile ideologies. Buddhists have struggled to deal with these problems but not always in the most carefully thought-out and effective manner. Constructing large Buddha statues, building more stupas and organizing chanting ceremonies do little to counter these very real challenges. As Asian Buddhist communities make the transition to modern societies there is a great need for authentic, easy-to-read and readily available literature on the Dhamma. Dhamma Aid Asia was initiated by a group of young Malaysian Buddhists as an intelligent response to this need. While many Buddhist communities across Asia have difficulty in finding the resources to rebuild their religion, those beyond Buddhism’s traditional homelands often have a surplus. Dhamma Aid Asia seeks to address this disparity by creating the medium for Buddhists who seek a wiser and effective way to support the Buddha Sasana. Dhamma Aid Asia is a non-profit organization with a policy of not accumulating funds. All members are volunteers working from their homes and thus incur minimal operating costs. Personal expenses of volunteers are borne by themselves. Particular attention is given to publishing and distributing Dhamma books in isolated and deprived communities. If you are looking for a worthwhile organization to make a donation to consider Dhamma Aid Asia. Their web site is at http://dhammaaid.org/

Don't Sleep There Are Snakes

2012-02-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

People find their faith or lose it (or lose their reason and then find it, as a friend of mine prefers to say) for a wide variety of reasons. The linguist Daniel Everett spent years in the Amazonian jungles trying to share his faith with the Piraha Indians. But in a strange reversal of expectations the simple, practical and content Indians caused Everett to abandon his faith. In his book Everett tells how this happened and articulately explains how one view of reality can be just as valid and just as satisfying, as another. The Piraha were able to accept Everett despite him having a different faith. But when Everett announced to his family that he had lost his faith, he lost them also. It’s a very interesting story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg84mFeIsLQ&feature=related

Animals In Buddhist Art

2012-02-04T23:26:00.001-08:00

Animals played a role in several events in the life of both the historical and legendry Buddha. Usually their appearance is incidental – the white elephant in Mahamaya’s dream, and the steed Khantaka carrying Prince Siddhattha away into the night, being examples of this. In a few other incidents they play a more important role – Prince Siddhattha rescuing the goose from Devadattha, the Buddha being looked after by an elephant (and a monkey according to the commentary) during his stay in the Parileyya Forest, and his calming of the infuriated elephant Nalagiri.
This last story has long been a favourite with artists and the earliest depiction of it is to be found on a a medallion from the railing of the Amaravati Stupa built in about 200 CE. The sculptor shows the elephant first charging and then bowing before the Buddha, thus giving a sense of movement. The terrified onlookers are realistically depicted highlights the drama of the scene. The next piece is a carved 4th century CE fragment from Gandhara showing the Buddha stroking Nalagiri’s head, a detail mentioned in the Tipitaka account of the story. Likewise the people watching from the balcony above are specifically mentioned in the text. The third picture is an illustration of the same incident from a 19th century Thai manuscript.
According to the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, some of those gathered around the Buddha broke into tears when he died while others remained composed. Such people usually appear in depictions of the Buddha’s passing. In Japan however, artists illustrating this event often included animals amongst the mourners. I’m not sure why this is so but it is probably because the Mahayana Maraparinirvana Sutra says that ‘all beings in the Triple World wept and wailed’ as the Tathagata passed away. This gave artists the opportunity to use their skill and their imagination to paint a wide variety of beautiful and interesting animals. The first picture below is of a 16th century (Monoyama Period) scroll painting. The next picture is an enlarged section of a similar depiction of the Parinibbana from around the same time. It is clear that the artists delighted in the painting creatures as diverse as centipedes, crabs and molluscs as well as several mythological beasts. The third picture, from a Tibetan thangka, shows two snow lions (gang shenge) morning the Buddha’s passing, an element unusual in Tibetan art.
After the biography of the Buddha himself, the Jataka stories have long been most Buddhist’s main knowledge of and contact with the Dhamma. Consequently there are numerous depictions of Jatakas in the art of all Buddhist cultures, and they are depicted in the earliest Buddhist art. The first picture illustrates the Mahakapi Jataka (No.407) in which a monkey king risks his life, and eventually looses it, to save his troop. The piece is a medallion from the Barhut Stupa dating from about 150 BCE. Being one of the earliest examples of Buddhist art the treatment is naive and awkwardly conceived but the story it illustrates would have been immediately identifiable to the viewer. The Alambusa Jataka (No.523) tells of a doe who falls in love with the ascetic who shared her forest. One day he urinated in the river, passing out semen as he did so, the doe later drunk from the river, became pregnant and in time gave birth to a boy. The kindly ascetic accepts the child as his own and helps bring him up. A sexual misadventure in the boy’s subsequent life and his father’s advice concerning it makes up the core of the story. The ascetic, the doe and their child are depicted in a panel from northern India dating from the 4th-5th century CE. Below this is a painting from Dunghuang Cave in western China dated 450 CE depicting the Nigrodhamiga Jataka (No.12). In this story a stag’s willingness to give his life to protect his herd from a king’s frequent hunting expeditions, moves the king to give up hunting and eventually, at the stag’s request, to ban all hunting throughout his realm. The final picture is an illustration from an early 19th century Thai manuscript of the Vessantra Jataka (No.574). It shows Vessantra on his wondrous rain-making white elephant which he is about to give away. The Buddha taught that there are six realms of existence, one of which is the animal world. (tiracchana yoni). All of these realms constitute samsara, the continually process of birth and death. Indian artists illustrated this doctrine diagrammatically as a wheel of six segments, each showing one of the realms. A single very fragmentary painting of the six realms survives from India, but they are common in Tibet and are painted on the walls at the entrance of most temples. Depictions of the animal world usually show a variety of creatures, domestic and wild, actual and mythological. This is a typically illustration of the animal world from a contemporary Tibetan thangka. As in other religions Buddhists saw certain animals as symbolizing particular things; e.g. the lion nobility and courage, the monkey an undisciplined mind, the goose detachment, and the elephant patience and calm deliberation. They also included animals in their folk tales. One example of this is the story of the three animals who teamed up to reach the fruit none of them could reach individually and who as a result became friends. The story is unique to Bhutan although it was probably a local development of the Jataka (No.37). An animal symbol from China and Japan, and probably of Buddhist origin is the three wise monkeys, now familiar the world over. The most famous and charming depiction of these hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil creatures is found under the eaves of the on the Toshogu Temple in Nikko, carved when the temple was built in the early 17th century.
The use of animals as decorative elements in Buddhist art and architecture is as rich as that found anywhere. One of but many examples of this is the procession of animals that the ancient Sri Lankans decorated the semi-circular door-steps (patika) of their temples with. Many different animals are used and in different combinations but perhaps the most common is a continual line made up of elephants, horses, lions and bull. The elephants in these door-steps and elsewhere in Sri Lankan art are depicted most realistically. The example below from Anuradhapura dates from about the 9th century. Under the row of animals is a row of geese (hamsa) with flower buds in their beaks, a motif originating in India.

One Buddhist monument that depicts numerous animals, actual and mythological, in most of their roles, as participants in the Buddha’s biography, symbols, as decorative elements and in illustrations of Jataka stories – is the great stupa at Sanchi, a huge repository of early Buddhist art. Below is a small selection of these.

Dong Duong

2012-01-31T00:58:00.000-08:00

Dong Duong is a large town in central Vietnam some 53 k from Da Nang. In ancient times it was called Indrapura and was the capital of the Chams. Towards the end of the 9th century the then Cham king Jaya Indraverman built a temple in Dong Duong that was to be one of the most magnificent ever built in S E. Asia. The temple was completed and consecrated in 875. It consisted of three complexes within a large walled compound – a pillared hall, a mandapa, and western-most shrine, the whole being 1,300 long and 155 m wide. The hall contained a superb 1.19 m high bronze standing statue, either made in Sri Lanka or made in the Sri Lankan Anuradhapura style.

At the west end of the hall was a huge stone Buddha image in the so-called European manner, its elaborate pedestal depicting events in the life of the Buddha.

The western-most shrine housed a statue of Avalokitesvara but this has not survived. This shrine had two dine door guardians (dvarapala) it its main entrance.

The great French archaeologist Henri Parmentier excavated Dong Duong in the 1920s and fortunately moved most of its sculpture to the museum. I say fortunately because in the late 60s the Americans bombed the temple leaving only the foundations. In 1978 a farmer discovered a beautiful statue of Tara in a field adjacent the temple site. It and all the other sculptures can be seen today in the museum at Da Nang.

The Sacred Fire

2012-01-26T21:41:00.000-08:00

Most of the rituals of Brahmanism, the main religion at the time of the Buddha, centered on fire (aggi). Agni, the god of fire, also sometimes called Jatadeva (Ja.I,286; IV,51), is invoked in the Rg Veda more than any of the other deity. The Vedic sacrifice consisted of three fires, the ahavaniya, the garhapatya and the daksinagni. There were also the three fires of the household, the primary one being the birth fire (jataggi, Ja.II,43) which was ignited when a person was born and from which their funeral pyre was ignited when they died. It was essential that these fires be kept burning throughout a person’s life. Walking seven times (saptipadi) around the nuptial fire, also lit from the birth fire, sealed the marriage. Apart from these sacred fires, brahmans who renounced the world to become ascetics worshipped Agni by tended a sacred fire in the jungle. This fire was likewise ignited by the birth fire (Ja.I,494).
It seems that the Buddha chose to itemize three main mental defilements (greed, lobha; hatred, dosa; and ignorance, moha) and call them fires, to parallel and contrast with the sacred fires of Brahmanism (Vin.I,35). Brahmanism required that the three fires be tended and kept burning, the Buddha taught that one attained enlightenment by abandoning the three fires and extinguishing them. Of the several names he gave to the state of complete liberation the most common was Nirvana, meaning ‘to blow out’, i.e. to blow out the burning mental defilements. The Buddha commented that a monk will not make offerings to the sacred fire (aggihoma, D.I,9) and in the Dhammapada he said; “If one were to attend the sacred fire for a hundred years in the forest or were to honour even for a moment one who had developed himself, that honour would be better than the hundred years of sacrifice” (Dhp.107).
The early Buddhists considered fire worship to be as foolish and ineffective and several stories in the Jataka pokes fun at it (e.g. Ja.II,43-40; VI,206-7). In one of these, an ascetic decided to offer an ox he had been given to Agni. Not having salt for the meat he went off to get it, tethering the animal near the sacred fire before going. While he was away a band of robbers came to his hermitage, slaughtered the ox, cooked the meat, eat their fill, and left nothing but the hide, tail and bones. When the ascetic returned and saw what had happened he said; “If Jatadeva the cannot protect what is his how can he protect me?” He dumped what was left of the ox into the sacred fire and then threw a bucket of water over it (Ja.I,494).
After the 7th century CE the fire ritual was one of many Brahmanical practices incorporated into Vajrayana Buddhism. In Tibetan Buddhism it is called sbyin-sreg and in Japanese Shingon Buddhism goma.

The Year Of The Dragon

2012-01-22T13:22:00.000-08:00

XIN NIAN JIN BU to all my readers and friends

Snakes And Ladders

2012-01-18T13:44:00.000-08:00

I have always liked the Jains. During my travels throughout India every Jain I have met without exception has been respectful, helpful and generous. When I visited Palitana in Gujarat the only problem was that they wouldn’t let me leave, so intent were they on offering me their hospitality. Now that I have discovered that the Jains invented Snakes and Ladders I like them even more. As a child, my older sister and I and the kids next door used to play this game all the time. I can still remember the snake’s head in the square Pride and its tail in the square Fall. Tradition says that the Jain saint Gaydev invented Snakes and Ladders in the 13th century to teach children the cardinal virtues. This story is perfectly plausible. Anyone who has ever stayed with Jain monks will know how diligently and creatively they minister to the lay community. The great Indiologist A. L. Basham thought that one of the reasons why Buddhism disappeared in India and Jainism didn’t was because of the attentiveness of the Jain monks towards the laity. It’s an interesting theory. The Jains call Snakes and Ladders Moksha Patamu, Liberation and Decline, which would be Mokkha Patana in Pali. I wonder if the Buddhists of ancient Gujarat played Snakes and Ladders too. The most ancient version of the game have 72 squares and the virtues are faith, reliability, generosity knowledge and simplicity. The vices are disobedience, vanity, rudeness, theft, dishonesty, drunkenness, debt, killing, anger, greed, pride and lust. The last square on the top left is Nirvana. What a delightful and fun way to teach children basic goodness! I suspect that young kids today would be bored stiff by Snakes and Ladders. It wouldn’t have a chance against video games. But to me the game brings back fond memories of a more simple and innocent time.

Fighting The AIDS Stigma

2012-01-11T16:13:00.000-08:00

As she sees her daughter return home after school, 31 year-old Nha beams with pride and love for the little girl. Eight year-old Thuy gives a mischievous smile to her mother and swiftly gets on her lap to cuddle. “It is only when Thuy turned four years old that we found out she was also HIV positive. She had always tested negative. The news came as a shock. I love my daughter so much. I felt worried and depressed. I was starting losing hope in the future”, Nha recalls. Thuy is now studying in grade 3. “I like going to school a lot”, she smiles. “I have friends and I am learning many things every day.” At her school, nobody is aware of her HIV status. “Thuy looks very healthy. She is tall and strong. When she was younger, she often got sick”, Nha says. “I have friends who decided to be open about the fact that their child was HIV-positive. When parents of other students came to know it, they refused to let the child come back to school. This is how bad it can get. I do not want my daughter to suffer. So I just keep quiet”. Thuy and Nha undergo regular health check-ups at the nearby hospital. Every month, Thuy, Nha and Nha’s second husband, Anh, receive free anti-retroviral treatment. Nha’s first husband died of AIDS in 2002. “He was working in construction and traveling a lot. He probably contracted the disease through unsafe sex with a sex worker”, Nha says. It is around that time that she found out about her own HIV status. “I cried a lot when the doctor told me I was HIV positive. It’s a long time ago now, but I will remember it forever”, Nha remembers. “I did not know what the disease was about, so the doctor explained what it meant. I felt desperate”. Nha’s current husband is a drug user. He works on and off as a motorbike taxi driver, but their two meager salaries are not enough to make ends meet. He most likely contracted the AIDS virus through injecting with shared needles. “Life is not easy. I am doing domestic chores to earn a living’, adds Nha. A few years ago, friends of Nha introduced her to Phap Van pagoda. There she met Monk Huan and his team of monks and volunteers providing support and care to HIV-affected children and families.

“They not only gave me food, they also gave me tremendous emotional and psychological support. There, I was also able to meet with people who had a similar story. I realized I was not alone. I really helped move forward. I have also learnt how to communicate with my community and protect my family.” At the pagoda, Monk Huan, its chief monk, organizes Buddhist teachings twice a week. “Through these sessions, we aim to reduce stigma around HIV and we share information on HIV: how it is transmitted, how to protect oneself. Over 2,000 children and young people have attended these sessions in the past two years”, he says. In addition to these sessions, a team of volunteers trained by the monks undertakes monthly visits to approximately 40 families in the neighbourhood. Approximately 220,000 adults and children are infected with HIV in Viet Nam. In a country where over 80 per cent of the population is Buddhist, Buddhist monks are extremely respected and highly influential. The Buddhist Leadership Initiative was established by UNICEF Viet Nam in 2003. Through the initiative, UNICEF works closely with the government and international partners to train monks to support the special needs of people affected by HIV and to raise awareness of HIV and AIDS in communities. “Buddhist monks are a key elements in our strategy to decrease stigma and discrimination against families living with HIV/AIDS,” says UNICEF Viet Nam’s HIV and AIDS specialist, Yasuda Tadashi. “I receive great spiritual support from the pagoda”, says Nha. “They are an inspiration for me. I have also made many friends at the pagoda. This makes me hope for a bright future, especially for my daughter. I want her dream to come true: she wants to become a teacher.” UNICEF is currently providing support for implementation of the Buddhist Leadership Initiative model in seven pagodas in its two main urban centres (three in Ha Noi and four in HCMC).
By Sandra Bisin from UNICEF wed site

What Do Prof. Hawking And Zulus Have In Common?

2012-01-08T01:25:00.000-08:00

On his 70^th birthday Prof. Stephen Hawking has announced that the universe can be explained by science and that there is no room in this explanation for a supreme being. On course you wouldn’t have to be one of the most brilliant minds of the 20^th century to have come to this conclusion. Some far less well-educated people worked this out for themselves long ago and were highly sceptical of the claims of those who do believe in a god. Take the Zulus who the Reverend Francis Owen tried to evangelize in the 1830s. I quote the good reverend’s own words as reproduced in Eric Newby’s delightful A Book of Travellers’ Tales.

“At length I told him (the king) it was Sunday, whereupon he bid me to address his people and teach them the word of God. At the same time he sent Masipulu, his head servant to tell the Indoonas that they were all to be quiet and listen attentively to me. A dead pause immediately ensued…I commenced by telling them that they all knew that there was a great chief above the sky…I proceeded to say that this king was greater than all kings, greater than my king, greater than their king: that they aught to fear their parents, they aught to fear their king, but much more that they aught to fear the great God; they aught to do what their parents bid them, what their king bid them, and also what God bid them! We have none of us, however, done what God has told us to do. We are all sinners before him. He is displeased at us: each of us has a soul that must live forever when the body is dead, but that our Souls, by reason of sin, are filthy and that they must be washed.

Until this moment the greatest stillness and attention prevailed but now the contradiction began, and such a caviling and stormy audience never did I before address. It is impossible to give an adequate idea of the despite which lasted for nearly 2 hours. When I began to speak of the need of spiritual washing in order to introduce the Gospel the subject was treated with scorn. One asked if it were to be washed in the river. I said not with water, but with blood! Whose blood was the natural reply. The blood, I answered, of the Son of God, who was Jesus Christ. Where is he? They asked. In heaven, I said, but once he came down to earth, and…whom did he leave behind to wash us. He washes us himself with his own blood. It is not our bodies that he washes but our Souls. – He washes all who come to him by faith. Away, it’s all a lie. I persisted in crying that Jesus Christ shed his blood and that if they believed in him, that he came down from heaven that he died for them their souls would be saved. They asked me how this person was killed and who killed him. I said, wicked men nailed him to a tree. Dingarn then asked if it was God that died. I said the Son of God. Did not God die?, he asked. I said God cannot die. If God does not die, he replied, why has he said that people must die? I told him it was because all people were sinners, and death was the punishment for sin, but he would raise us all again from the grave. This gave rise to innumerable cavils.

They wanted me to tell them the day and the hour when we should rise again, who would be witnesses of the resurrection, who would be alive at that day. They said if any generation had been seen to raise from the grave they would believe. I told them that Jesus Christ rose again on the third day, and that he was seen by his 12 servants, and afterwards by 500 persons at once, and that his servants raised a great many other people. Dingarn asked how many days Jesus Christ had been dead. If only 3 days, he said, it is very likely that he was not dead in reality but only supposed to be so! I said, that when he was on the tree a soldier pierced his side from which came forth blood, and that blood, I said, if believed in washes away sin. After a great deal more combat they told me I need not speak anything more about the resurrection, for they would not believe it. They had no objection to God’s word, but they would not believe in the resurrection. I many times broke away from their caviling and exhorted them to believe instead of objecting. The king once asked if all men would go to heaven? I told him plainly, if you believe the words which I now speak you will go to heaven, but if you believe them not you will go to hell. They wanted me to give them proof that Christ was not in heaven; as who had seen him there. What the persons who took him up into heaven said when they came back again.” Condensed.

Wolves In Sheep's Clothing

2012-01-04T16:25:00.000-08:00

The cautionary advice “Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing” is a colourful and well-known one but where does it come from? It is usually thought of as having its origin in the Bible and the English phrase certainly does. Matthew 7:15 in the King James Version reads; “Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.” But if we go back further, at least five hundred years before the New Testament, we have a story about a wolf disguising itself in a fleece in the fables of the Greek storyteller Aesop. The best-known version of Aesop’s Fables is George Townsend’s translation published in 1867. Townsend gives the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing fable like this. “Once upon a time a wolf resolved to disguise his appearance in order to secure food more easily. Encased in the skin of a sheep, he pastured with the flock deceiving the shepherd by his costume. In the evening he was shut up by the shepherd in the fold; the gate was closed, and the entrance made thoroughly secure. But the shepherd, returning to the fold during the night to obtain meat for the next day, mistakenly caught up the wolf instead of a sheep, and killed him instantly.” However, at about the same time as Aesop but far away from both Greece and Palestine there is another mention of a wicked wolf disguising itself as a sheep. In the Mahabodhi Jataka (No. 528) we find these two verses;

Once a wolf in the form of a ram
Went confidently amongst a flock of goats
Killing rams and goats,
And having terrified them he went on his way.
Similarly, some monks and brahmins disguise themselves
And deceive people by fasting, lying on the ground,
Covered with dirt, squatting, begging and holding their breaths.
They claim to be enlightened while actually doing evil.

In this version of the idea the wolf is described as being ‘in the form of a ram’ (urabbharupena) and his victims are a flock of goats and sheep. That he has covered himself with a skin to fool the flock is suggested by the word ‘disguise’ (chadana). Unlike Aesop’s story but similar to the Bible simile, these Jataka verses equate the wolf with religious frauds. In the Bible they are ‘false prophets’ while in the Jataka they are ascetics who use austerities to give the impression of holiness.

Interestingly, both Aesop and the Jataka share another story about one animal disguised in the skin of another. In Aesop an ass puts on a lion skin and amuses itself by frightening other animals who think it is a lion. Eventually it encounters a fox who fails to be deceived because he recognizes the ass’s voice. In the Sihacamma Jataka (No. 189) a peddler is in the habit of throwing a lion skin over his donkey and letting it graze in the rice or barley fields while he is doing business in the village, the field-watchers being too frightened to scare the ‘lion’ away. One day the donkey brays, the field-watchers realize the deception, and club the donkey to death. Both stories are similar in that their key character is an ass in Aesop and a donkey (gadrabha) in the Jataka, that it wears a lion skin, and that it is its voice that gives the game away. Aesop’s ass takes the initiative to disguise itself while the Jataka’s donkey is an innocent victim of its owner’s craftiness.

My 2011

2012-01-02T15:44:00.001-08:00

I had a busy but fruitful 2011 and would like to share some images of it with you. I visited and was visited by many old friends and made the acquaintance with many new ones. Ven. Dhammajiva, former abbot of the Meetrigala Medatation Hermitage came and stayed with me as did Ven Sanghasena from Ladakh and Ven. Mahinda, former lecturer in archaeology at Peradeniya, Sri Lanka. I met Ven. Tashi Phuntsok abbot of Dilyak Monastery in Nepal and the two lovely, smiling Burmese nuns Sayalay Karuna and Yasanandi. The Sri Lankan nun Sister Bodhicitta dropped in for a visit and while in Kuala Lumpur lecturing at the Annual Noviciate Program I renewed my acquaintance with Ven. Piyananda of LA and Ven. Dr. Punnaji. Thubten Chodron and I did a large seminar together and I visited Indonesia twice giving talks to large groups in several cities in the country. Ven. Dhammaratana and Ven. Sudhamma joined the members and friends of the BDMS in helping me celebrate my 60th birthday. I am now officially ‘old’. In November I received news that my mum was critically ill and likely to die so I rushed back to Australia to be with her. As it is she recovered but she remains frail and ailing. I spent the first five months of 2011 in Paris, London and Oxford doing research for my Dictionary of Flora and Fauna in the Pali Tipitaka, a project which seems to be endless. While there I stayed at and gave talks at the Sri Saddhatissa International Buddhist Centre in London and the Oxford Buddhist Vihara, guest of the ever-generous and kindly Bhante Piyadassi and Ven. Dhammasami. In December I was a guest at the exhibition by a well-known Mainland Chinese painter who very kindly painted a picture for me.
I wish all my readers a Happy, Peaceful and Dhamma-inspired New Year.

Buddhist Hospitality

2011-12-29T03:30:00.000-08:00

Hospitality (sakkara) is the act of being welcoming and helpful to guests (atithi or pahunaka), strangers (agantuka) and travellers (addhika). Throughout the ancient world hospitality, at least towards members of one’s own tribe or religion, was held in high esteem. In India it was restricted to some degree by the demands of the caste system. For example, the Manusmrti, the most important Hindu law book, says that a brahman should only offer hospitality to other brahmans and that he should neither greet nor return the greeting of monks or ascetics of unorthodox sects, although the more open-minded brahmans did not always agree with this(D.I,117). It was probably because of such ideas that, when the Buddha went on alms gathering in the brahman village of Pancasala, the inhabitants refused to give him anything, and he ‘left with his bowl as clean as when he had come.’ (S.I,114). For the Buddha, hospitality should be shown to all, whatever their caste, religious affiliation or status. When Siha, a leading citizen of Vesali and a generous supporter of Jainism, became a Buddhist, the Buddha asked him to continue offering his hospitality to Jain monks who might come to his door (A.IV,185).

The Tipitaka often says that the Buddha was ‘welcoming, friendly, polite and genial’ towards everyone who came to see him (D.I,116). One of the traditional duties of a lay person was to make the fivefold offering, one of which was providing food, accommodation and help to guests (atithibali), a practice the Buddha approved of and encouraged (A.II,68). When a monk turned up at a monastery, he asked the resident monks to go out and meet him, prepare a seat for him, bring him water to wash his feet, prepare accommodation for him and do other things to make him feel welcome (Vin.II,207-11). The Milindapanha said that, if a guest turned up at a person’s house after all the food had been eaten, more rice should be cooked in order to feed him and allay his hunger (Mil.107). The Buddha considered failure to reciprocate hospitality to be very bad form. He said: ‘Whoever goes to another’s house and is fed but does not feed them when they come to his house, consider him an outcaste.’ (Sn.128). The Jataka says: ‘If for even one night one stops in another’s house and receives food and drink, have no evil thought, for to do so would be to burn an extended hand and betray a good friend.’ (Ja.VI,310).

Today, with hotels and rapid transportation, hospitality to travellers as practised in the past is less relevant and less necessary. However, there are still many opportunities to be hospitable. Being newcomers to a Buddhist group, to the workplace or to the neighbourhood can be a time of awkwardness and uncertainty. Welcoming such people, making them feel at home and introducing them to others is an expression of kindness.

A type of indirect hospitality common in the Buddhist world until recently was making provisions for travellers and pilgrims. People would build rest houses (avasatha) on the edge of villages or towns or along roads where there was a long distance between villages. Other devout folk would undertake to supply these rest houses with firewood for cooking and water for drinking and to keep them clean. The Buddha said that planting trees (probably along roads), building bridges, digging wells, building rest houses and providing water for wayfarers, were all meritorious deeds (S.I,33).

In his Suhrllekha Nagarjuna urged his royal correspondent to ‘establish rest houses in temples, towns and cities and set up water pots along lonely roads.’ This last practice remains very popular in Burma. Groups of friends form what are called water-donating societies (wainay ya thukha) and undertake to place water pots along roads for the convenience of passersby.

The pictures show a typical wayside free water booth in Burma and two ambalama, resthouses from Sri Lanka, built as an act of generosity. The first dates from the early 19^th century and the second from the early 20^th century.

Sripura In The Headlines

2011-12-26T16:04:00.001-08:00

Even though I take a deep interest in India’s Buddhist past and have travelled widely through the country I had never heard of Sripura until 18 months ago. The place was first brought to attention in 1872, when Dr. Beglar did some preliminary excavations there. In 1953-5 Dr. M. G. Dixit of the University of Sagar did more excivations. He discovered the Anand Prabhu Kuti Buddha Vihar, Swastik Buddha Vihar and several Sivite and Jaina temples. Despite its great interest Sripura remained little-known and rarely visited, mainly because it was in a backward and roadless district.
After the new state of Chhattisgarh was formed in 2000 it sponsored large-scale excivations at Sripur throughout 2004-5 in the hope of attracting tourism to the state. These digs have uncovered three Shiva temples, numerous residential areas, a palace complex, a huge Buddha Vihara, the Torana Dwar of Surang Teela and a unique pyramidical temple. Money has been spent on building good roads to the site, and prompting the place and visitors have began coming. Sirpur is in Mahasamund district of Chhattisgarh State is on the right bank of the rather lovely Mahanadi River, some 84 km from Raipur, the state capital. From the 5th to the 9th cent. CE it was the capital of the somewhat obscure Dakshinkosala kingdom. Archaeological evidences and inscription show it was also a religious and cultural capital centre of considerable importance and that it had a large Buddhist population. I haven’t visited Sripura yet it is defiantly on the top of my list of where to go during my next trip to India.

Peace On Earth, Good Will To Men

2011-12-23T14:42:00.000-08:00

And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; because he was of the house and lineage of David.To be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child. And so it was, that, while they were there, the days were accomplished that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was no room for them in the inn. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord. And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger. And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

The Lord's Compassion

2011-12-22T00:14:00.000-08:00

Putting aside the bonds offspring have for their parents, and giving up the love he felt for his wife and child, the Lord renounced the world and dedicated himself to the quest of truth. He did this for the good of the many for the welfare of the many, for the good, the welfare and the happiness of gods and humans, out of compassion of the world.
Turning his back on great wealth and royal glory, and all the security they provide, the Lord renounced his palace to live in the lonely forest. He exchanged a golden palace for the roots of the trees. He did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion

Assailed by Mara and his army, attacked by fearful shapes and sounds, enduring menace and doubt, the Lord remained calm and resolute, never being diverted from his noble quest. He overcame Mara for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

When the Lord attained enlightenment and achieved his high purpose, he decided to teach what he had realized to others, rather than enjoy the happiness of liberation alone. The Lord did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.
When he heard that Angulimala was waylaying travelers and murdering them, the Lord disregarded the dangers of the lonely roads and went to teach him the Dhamma of peace. He did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.
When the Lord could have partaken in royal banquets, he was content to eat scraps and simple fare. He could have worn cloth of gold gowns but he was satisfied with a robe of rags. The Lord did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.
Disregarding the heat and dust of Summer and the icy winds of the Winter, the Lord traversed long roads and paths, byways and jungle tracks, to teach the Dhamma to one and all. He undertook such journeys for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.
Although abused by Asurinda, denied alms by the people of Pancasala, and mocked by the ascetic Nigrodha, the Lord never turned his back on the hostile, but remained open and friendly. He acted thus for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

Indonesian Extras I

2011-12-17T22:27:00.000-08:00

The year is coming to an end so I am clearing some of the photos I have taken in the last 12 months. In October I was in Indonesia to give some talks but mainly for last minute checking for my new book, a guide book to the great Buddhist temple of Borobudur. During my previous trip there I was astonished to discover that although there are a dozen or so guide books to the temple as a whole, there is none explaining the 120 panels depicting the life of the Buddha. So I have written one. Arriving in Yogyakarta for final checking I went to meet Ven. Pannavaro, former Sangha Nayaka of Indonesia, only to discover he had just assisted a Dutch scholar in writing a guide book similar to mine. He showed me the book then we went to Mendut to see some sculptures there and then we caught up on all the news. While in Yogyakarta I gave some talks as well as later in Jakarta.

Indonesian Extras II

2011-12-15T15:31:00.000-08:00

Here are pictures of two panels from Borobudur illustrating the famous Sasa Jataka (No.316). Four friends, a monkey, a jackal, an otter and rabbit (for reasons I cannot understand sasa is always translated as hare) vow that during the coming Uposatha they will be especially generous. Sakra, king of the gods, hears their resolution and to test them transforms himself into a wandering brahmin begging for alms. Each of the first three animals give him food but as the rabbit has nothing to offer other than grass, inedible to humans, he asks the Brahman to kindle a fire, then jumps into it, intending to provide the brahman with a roast dinner (note the fire in the second panel). Having passed the test Sakra makes the flames burn cool and the rabbit is saved. It’s a charming story but with slightly troubling implications. It is the only story in the Pali tradition of someone voluntary giving his life as an offering, as opposed to giving it to actually save the life or lives of others. Mahayana took this idea to its most illogical, not to say grotesque extreme, with stories of bodhisattvas giving their skin, limbs, blood and lives at the drop of a hat (or perhaps better, a turban), sometimes for the most trivial reasons and where some less dramatic alternative could easily have been thought of.

Here are a few more photos of Borobudur panels and of less commonly visited temples around Yogjakarta.

Indonesian Extras III

2011-12-14T22:55:00.000-08:00

Here are a few photos taken at the wonderful botanical gardens at Bogor, Indonesia. I always wondered where they get sausages from. Now I know!

A Very Remarkable Singaporean

2011-12-13T16:16:00.000-08:00

Today a very special and unusual Singaporean died, Teresa Hsu Chih. Apart from her major contributions to helping the poor and aged she was an inspiring example of kindness and compassion. At nearly every funeral nowadays the deceased is described as having “lived life to the full” but Teresa Hsu really did. The retired nurse was the founder of the non-profit charities—Heart to Heart Service and the Home for the Aged Sick, one of the first homes for the aged sick in Singapore. She had been a social worker in China and South America and a nurse in England, before coming to Singapore to start non-profit charities in 1961. She spent almost all her savings on feeding and housing the poor and the elderly, most of whom were younger than she was. In 2005, she received the Special Recognition Award from the Singaporean government in recognition of her contribution to the country.

Like many Singaporeans of the previous generations Hsu came from a very depressed background. She was born in China in 1898. After the disappearance of her father her mother, who was illiterate, had to fend for her three girls and one son singlehandedly. At 16, the family moved to Penang. Malaya, where they worked as cleaners in a convent. The nuns allowed her to join the children in the classes and thus she managed to get an education. In time she moved back to China becoming a secretary and bookkeeper but then leaving her job to become a volunteer helping the injured during the Sino-Japanese War. Her experience during the war led her to London to train as a nurse. In her mid-50s, she returned to Penang to be with her mother where she assisted her brother in starting the Assunta Foundation for the Poor. She also played a key role in founding three homes for the elderly and two for young girls and neglected children in Ipoh
In 1961, she came to Singapore and opened the first home for the aged sick in Singapore in 1965. The society gradually built three blocks to house the increasing number of residents and Hsu remained the home’s matron until 1980, when she retires at 83. When asked where all her dedication and caring came from, Hsu replied: “I must have got it from my mother because she was totally dedicated to the job she chose to do and that was looking after the family. I think that trait was passed down to us. I’ve no family, so I look after everybody else. I choose to serve everybody else who comes to me—that is my job... The world is my home, all living beings are my family, selfless service is my religion”.
At a time when most people are winding down Hsu still had the energy and enthusiasm to continue. She set up the Heart to Heart Service with Sharana Yao, her co-social worker, a non-profit, non-government aided welfare service which provides food, clothes and monthly cash contributions to those in need. With the help of volunteers who drove her around, she brought necessities and cash to the homes of elderly women and destitute in their 80s and 90s on public assistance. The needy get on Heart-to-Heart’s list based on good faith by word of mouth
Remarkably Hsu was still active at 100. An advocate of healthy living, she often gave talks at schools, welfare homes, and hospitals in Singapore and overseas about health and service to the needy. When asked about the secret of her good health and longevity, she attributed it to a spartan lifestyle, vegetarianism and to her positive attitude towards life: “I prefer to laugh than to weep. Those people who cry to me, I always tell them it is better to laugh than to use tissue paper, as laughing is free but tissue paper still cost five cent. ‘Ha ha ha’ cost no cents.”
She would start her day at 4 am with calisthenics and an hour of yoga. She was also a regular meditator. At night, she would do yoga again, then read until midnight. She also taught yoga to the young and old at temples, associations, hospitals and schools. She ate sparely; her breakfast is a glass of water or milk. Lunch was often milk and salad, unless “people bring me food,” and it was milk or yogurt for dinner. She had a 2,000-volume private library which she called Prema. Teresa Hsu was Singapore’s oldest person at age 113 until she died on the 7th December. She asked that her cremation take place soon after her death and without ceremony and so her passing was only announced today. May she attain the peace and freedom of Nirvana.

Ticket To Nirvana

2011-12-11T15:31:00.001-08:00

Indian railway representatives introduced the country's railway tourism to the Indonesian market on Thursday, promoting in particular its spiritual Buddhist tour on the Mahaparinirvan Express."The Mahaparinirvan Express train goes on a seven-night-and-eight-day package tour, which covers traditional Buddhist places. It provides an exclusive, safe and comfortable tourism service," Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTR) joint general manager for tourism Arun Srivastava said on Thursday. Speaking at a presentation of the tourism service at the Indian Embassy, Srivastava explained that the Mahaparinirvan Express was a fully air-conditioned train tour. The tour covers many important places of Buddhist interest such as Lumbini where Buddhism founder Siddhartha Gautama was born; Bodhgaya, the place Buddha attained enlightenment; Sravasti, the city that sheltered Buddha for 24 rainy seasons in the Jetyana Gardens; and Kushinagar where Buddha died and attained Parinirvana (Final Nirvana). The train also made stops at other Indian tourism destinations such as Agra, where the famous Taj Mahal is located. The tour package, he said, included all train journeys, hotel accommodations, road transports, tour guide services, meals, travel insurance, security and monument admission fees. The train's cabins are divided into three air-conditioned classes: first class, second tier and third tier. The first class cabins, boasting two berths and a sliding door, cost US$160 per person per night. Tier two and three, which have more berths and a curtain in place of a door cost $130 and $105, respectively. Srivastava said that the facilities and services would be worth the price, as the trip would be a unique, exclusive and comfortable train experience. "This is not a public train where people at stations can just jump on board. Only passengers who have bought the package are allowed to board the train. This is an exclusive train," he said. The tour period, which starts in October, provides 14 trips in a year. Last year, the tour attracted around a total of 2,000 tourists, from 35 countries all over the world including the US, Canada, China and Singapore, he said. Manadimetta Michael, an Indonesian who has taken the tour, said that the Mahaparinirvan Express did have its drawbacks, such as lack of privacy in the small cabins, as well as limited meal choices. However, he hailed the trip as the best he had ever been on. "Whether you find it pleasant or unpleasant,

India

is definitely the most enjoyable place to visit," he said.

From The Jakarta Post, December 10, 2011

Then And Now

2011-12-09T18:15:00.000-08:00

When I first went to India in the early 70s and saw, as I occasionally did, dead bodies in the street or in rivers, I told myself that Indian culture does not departmentalize the various realities of existence, that it has transcended the dualism of life and death, pure and impure, beauty and ugliness. During my last visit to Varanasi a few years ago I saw a bloated cadaver silently drifting down the river with a few crows picking at it and my reaction was different, far less accepting and ‘philosophical’. It struck me as callous indifference, municipal incompetence and as an appalling public health problem. Have I matured and ‘got real’ or have I lost my spiritual sensitivity? Was I right then or am I right now? All these photos are from the internet and were taken in Varanasi.

A Buddhist Heroine

2011-12-07T00:22:00.000-08:00

Suzanne Karpeles (1890-1969) was a gifted French scholar who played an important role in the revitalization of Buddhism in Cambodia. After graduating in oriental studies from the University of Paris she was posted to the Ecole Francaise d’Extreme-Orient in Hanoi in 1923 where she collated Sri Lankan Pali manuscripts with Khmer ones. Two years later she moved to

Cambodia

, soon befriended many monks, scholars and intellectuals and went on to develop a deep love of Cambodian religion and culture. Her main interest was in trying to raise the level of Buddhist scholarship. With the help of King Sisowath Karpeles she established the Royal Library in Phnom Penh, now the National Library, and supervised the collecting, cataloguing, preserving and later the disseminating of

Cambodia

’s ancient literature. She published the country’s first Buddhist periodical, started a mobile library project and arranged for the distribution of the Tipitaka in Khmer script in all the country’s monasteries. She also arranged for regular programs on Buddhism to be broadcast on state radio. With her urging and encouragement the Cambodian Buddhist Institute was founded in 1930 which was to publish and distribute dozens of works on Pāli Buddhist philosophy and traditional Cambodian culture. This helped the educated class to distinguish the Dhamma from Cambodian animistic and folk beliefs and to diminish Thai influence, allowing the Cambodian Sangha to emerge as a distinct and independent body. The Institute also became a meeting place for Cambodian writers, poets and intellectuals, several of who became leaders of the independence movement.
In 1940 Suzanne Karpeles was one of 15 Jews living in

Cambodia

dismissed from their posts by the pro-Nazi Vichy-French government. After the war she divided her time between her homeland and

Cambodia

and continued to make important contributions to Buddhism. Amongst her later works were French translations of the Dhammapada published in 1960 and Nyanatiloka’s Buddhist Dictionary, published in 1961.

The Buddha's Begging Bowl

2011-11-24T21:45:00.000-08:00

One of the most revered relics in the ancient Buddhist world was the Buddha’s begging bowl. A rough outline of its long convoluted history is this – it was supposedly given to the people of Vesali when the Buddha passed through the city on his way to Kusinara. In the 1^st/2ⁿ^d century King Kanishka took it to Pushapura, now Peshawar, where a string of Chinese pilgrims reported seeing it between the 3^rd and the 9^th centuries. The importance of the bowl is attested by numerous depictions of it in Ghandara art, usually shown on the pedestal of Buddha statues. During the Islamic period it was taken from one palace or mosque to another until at a date unknown it ended up in Sultan Ways Bābā’s shrine on the outskirts of Kandahar. Several British officers report seeing in there in the 19^th century, one attempting to translate the inscription on it, and another, Alexander Cunningham, trying to trace its history, a fact I mention in my Middle Land Middle Way (1992, p.136). In the late 1980s during Afghanistan’s civil war President Najibullah had the bowl taken to Kabul’s National Museum. When the Taliban came to power their Minister of Culture ordered all Buddhist artifacts in the museum smashed although the bowl remained undamaged, no doubt because of the Quranic verses inscribed on its outer surface. Today the bowl is displayed at the entrance of the Museum.

The bowl is not small. It is a stone hemispherical vessel of greenish-grey granite with a diameter of about 1.75 meters, a height of about three ¾ of a meter, and a thickness of about 18 cm at its rim, rather thicker elsewhere particularly at its middle and the base. It has no cracks or abrasions, except for a portion about the size of the palm of one’s hand that has flaked away from near the rim. There is a delicate lotus petal design chiseled around its base, attesting to its Buddhist past, and, inscribed in beautiful large calligraphic script horizontally along the rim of the bowl, are six rows of verses from the Quran, reflecting its Islamic continuum and its status through the ages as an object of special religious interest. Traces of similar calligraphic script are visible on the surface on the inner side of the bowl. The bowl is about 350 to 400 kg in weigh, far too heavy to lift.

The bowl was probably an early larger copy of the Buddha’s actual bowl placed in a monastery in Vesali for people to offer their first fruits in, a custom common in ancient India and which survived even in Sri Lanka and elsewhere up to the 19th century. The bowl’s great size may well have encouraged the acceptance of the widespread belief amongst ancient Buddhists that the Buddha was 18 feet tall. Only someone that big could have used or even lifted a bowl this size.
I am writing about the Buddha’s begging bowl because after being in obscurity for so long it recently hit the headlines in India when it was mentioned in the Lok Sabha, India’s parliament. I reproduce the below from the Ministry of External Affairs website.
MP Dr. Raghuvansh Prasad Singh asked; “Will the Minister of External Affairs be pleased to state: (a) whether the Government has recently got the information that the begging bowl of Buddha, given to the people of Vaishali by him, has been found in the Kabul museum; (b) if so, the details thereof; (c) whether the Indian Embassy in Afghanistan has sent a photo of the said bowl to the Government; (d) if so, the details thereof; (e) whether the Government has initiated the process to recover the said bowl; (f) if so, the details thereof; (g) whether the travelogues of the Chinese pilgrim Fa-hein and the writings of Dr. Cunningham and Shri S.V. Sahni mention the said bowl; and (h) if so, the details thereof?”
The Minister Prenteet Kaur in reply answered; “The Embassy of India, Kabul has made enquiries in the matter. It is learnt that the item purported to be Lord Buddha’s begging bowl was apparently in Kandahar until the regime of former President Najibullah. It was later brought to Kabul and is currently in the Kabul Museum. It has been pointed out that the begging bowl, a photo of which our Embassy has obtained, is rather large, besides having inscription in Arabic and Persian, thus calling into question its provenance. The Archaeological Survey of India has been requested to convey any information or advice it may have regarding the provenance of the bowl currently in Kabul Museum”.
The picture of the bowl as it appears today is reproduced with permission of
www.pilgriminkabul.wordpress.com

Jesus, Joy Of Man's Desiring

2011-11-19T03:35:00.000-08:00

This you must see; ingenious, surprising, absorbing, beautiful and uplifting.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/C_CDLBTJD4M

Religion In Mongolia

2011-11-16T22:26:00.000-08:00

Through contacts with neighbouring nomadic and sedentary populations, the Shamanist Mongols were exposed early to various religions such as Buddhism, Nestorian Christianity, Islam or Taoism, not to mention influences of Zoroastrism and Manicheism in former steppe kingdoms. Chingis Khan and his successors were interested in the spiritual and political benefits which could be gained from supportive mainstream religions in their dominions and consequently exempted religious institutions from taxes and military conscription. Although Nestorianism was initially favoured at the imperial court thanks to influent Christian wives of several Chingisids, Mongol rulers eventually converted either to Islam or, for those ruling in China, to Tibetan Buddhism.
A second conversion took place at the end of the 16th century, begining of the 17th century when the expanding power of some Eastern and Western Mongol rulers allowed them to interfere again in Tibetan affairs and patronize some of its Buddhist schools. The Gelupas, whose political supremacy in Tibet will eventually be achieved through Mongol support, built a religious monopoly in Mongolian lands, discouraging all rival schools. Through active missionary work, indigenous shamanism was suppressed, good use being made in the process of magical aspects of tantric Buddhism, mantras and fierce deities in addition to creating a new repertory of rites and prayers to satisfy the religious beliefs and needs of the Mongols. The adoption of Buddhism involved this time all the Mongol subjects and constituted a nation-wide cultural shift. Shamanism survived in a few groups, not so much because of their remoteness from Buddhist centers but because of their specific ethnic features and social organisation. The Darkhads, for example, had not only an important monastery on their territory, but were themselves direct subjects or shabi of the Jebtsündamba Khutughtu, the more venerated Buddhist incarnation and main religious figure in Mongolia. It is the presence of shamanist elements from Tuva and of a clan organisation which best explains their strong shamanist traditions.
In the course of the 17th century most leaders in Southern and Northern Mongolia as well as the Chinggisid-born Buddhist hierarch chose to submit to the Manchu emperors rather than to fellow Mongols. The Qing dynasty was then able to fragment the power of the main Mongol princes between several dozen petty banner-rulers and to prevent further appropriation by Chinggisids of the prestige associated with Buddhism, while patronizing local Buddhism and keeping it under control. With the fall of the Manchus in 1911 there was no member of the Chinggisid lineage influent enough to rule the new independent Mongolia : so without much questionning, the Tibetan-born VIIIth incarnation the Jebtsündamba Khutughtu was put on the throne as Bogd Khan or ‘Holy king’.
The long-lasting relation between secular authorities and the Buddhist Church in Mongolia ended under the communist regime established in Northern (ex-Outer) Mongolia in 1921 with the help of Soviet Russia, thus preventing a Chinese occupation. During the following years some intellectuals attempted to reconcile a reformed, modern Buddhism with communist principles, but to no avail. The Comintern advisers compelled the Mongolian government to first abolish the privileges of the Buddhist Church and the monastery estate system, then to weaken by all available means the economic foundations of the Buddhist Church. Nevertheless the influence of the lamas remained strong, and as late as 1934 one Mongolian Prime Minister, Ghenden, a dedicated communist who praised the Buddha as much as Lenin, would not bow to Stalin’s pressure for eradicating Buddhism.
The gruesome work was finally imposed and closely guided by the Soviets in 1937-38, at the time of the Great Terror in Russia. Kh. Choibalsan, their Mongolian executor, dutifully wrote down in his notebook that 797 temples and monasteries had been destroyed and 20,396 persons (probably more) executed over an 18 month period; high lamas and educated monks but also many simple monks and lay people. Some religious practice went on secretly as people kept on asking defrocked lamas to perform rites behind closed doors. After the war, a handful of monks were allowed to resume some Buddhist activity in what was left of the Gandan monastery in Ulan-Bator. This activity insured nevertheless a partial transmission of Buddhism liturgy in Mongolia.
Such was the situation in 1990 when, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Political pluralism was introduced and Mongolia opened to the Western world. The religious revival was rapid. The same year an Association of Buddhist Believers was founded and by 1992 a hundred temples had opened, many being often just a simple yurt with one or two old lamas, testifying to the strong religiosity among the Mongols. Today one can see worshippers queuing in one of the many new monasteries for private sutra-readings and other ceremonies, the names and fees of which are generally indicated on a board, or busy monks living in town among lay people, armed with cell-phones and 4-wheel cars who hold rituals in private homes. Many Mongols have a family lama they consult on various matters such as health, work, travel, family disputes, death and funerals, and of course astrological matters.
Shamans and other specialist were also fast in adapting to the modern environment with their specific answers to the requests made to them; curing illnesses, dispelling bad luck, securing success in commercial matters. Novative organisation and rituals appeared, for example the sharing by several shamans of the same facilities, the setting up of associations providing recognition (diplomas) to their members and aiming to present a modern, rational image of shamanism for the public, or the annual collective good-luck ritual organised in a wood near the capital-city for his clients by a successful “master” borrowing from both Buddhist and shamanistic traditions. And whereas some nationalists still view Buddhism very negatively through the eyes of communist historiography, they have a favourable perception of Shamanism, seeing in it the authentic Mongol religion followed by Chingis Khan himself, and in the shaman a priest able to address Heaven. This explains why shamans take part in state cultural ceremonies dedicated to sacred mountains (re-instaured by presidential decree in 1985), state banners or the emblematic figure of Chingis Khan.
Alongside the revival of Mongolia’s native religions came an unexpected phenomena – at least from a Mongolian point of view; the arrival of many foreign religions, denominations or cults of which the most numerous and zealous are the Christian protestant organisations. Their missionaries were already present in far away corners of the country as early as 1990, October 1990 for the Assembly of God and December the same year for the Bible Society. In 1998, the latter could boast 30 churches, representing some 5,000 members. Such Christian groups were completely new to Mongolia, as previous attempts had been limited to a small Catholic mission in Inner Mongolia (Ordos) and an even smaller and very short-lived community of English Evangelicals among the Buriats that had little local influence. Apart from Christianity, other religious movements started activities in Mongolia: the Baha’i, Moonies, Ananda Marga, etc. Some like the Jehovah’s Witness and the Church of Scientology did not get an authorisation for running centers. Mongols generally disapprove of “non-traditional” and “foreign” religions.
Christianity benefits from its association with the rich and trendy Western world. Missionaries use efficient recruiting methods, targeting poor or isolated individuals, of which there are plenty in post-communist Mongolia, and young people. Their religious teaching is done by trained people (a Bible Study Center was established in 1995 in which local missionaries are trained). Christian propaganda uses other less obvious channels, mainly through relief and humanitarian work carried out by NGOs. As in other places (Africa, South America, etc), the newcomers are more efficient and helpful that the local clergy in dealing with the disastrous economic effects of the transition process, although this does not always win them support. Another effective way of reaching the Mongolian population is the private TV channel Eagle TV, run by a Christian organisation. Efficient, professional and novel, it has become one of the main news channel of the country. A Christian slant influences the programs : Christian topics, criticism of the teaching of Darwinism and the theory of evolution in school, etc.
In the Mongolian newspapers one can read articles mentioning Christian who visit their neighbours and destroy their burxan “in order to prevent them from falling into hell”. In the countryside, missionaries (or Christian “masters” as people call them) buy the family sutras, either in Tibetan or in Mongol, and then burn them. Such things are said to happen regularly. Youngsters who became Christian force their parents to get rid of the Buddhist icons at home, often provoking quarrels in the family. Some elders prefer to try and sell their old books to universities or libraries. Islam is better able to resist. Christian missionaries arrived in 1993 among Muslim Kazakhs of Western Mongolia, at a time of deep economic recession, providing much needed help and medical care to the local population, and at the same time distributing Bibles in the Khazak language, and taking away from the people religious objects. This produced a rapid reaction from the mosques and from the Mongolian Muslim Association who eventually chased them away. They came back in 1998 but were no more successful. In the Khazak case, the Islamic attitude to apostasy is difficult to overcome. Families and neighbours unite against the missionaries although their relations with shamanist and Buddhist Mongol is harmonious. Buddhism on the other hand does not teach strongly against apostasy which makes conversion easier. After 60 years of anti-clerical and atheist policies, religion is not as strong among Mongols as among the isolated Kazakhs (over 83% declare themselves Muslim in 1994, against less than 70% declared Buddhists among the Khalkhas).
In 1990, the transition to democracy and the widening of its external relations has thus induced religious as well as political pluralism. Although this can be a cause of worry for the Mongolian authorities who fear for the future of their national culture, Mongols are presented with a choice of religions from which to choose as individuals rather than collectively as a nation or an ethnic group. Privatisation and individualisation of religion are becoming new features in modern Mongolia, as they have become - but over a much longer span of time - in the Western world.

Drawing illustrating an article by Tsognemekh called ‘Religious fogginess won't save Mongolia’ in which self-interested Buddhist monks and intolerant Christian missionaries were criticized as causing dissension within Mongol families (Zuunii Medee, 24.06.2006)
From ‘On Mongolia’s Moving Religious Landscape’, Marie-Dominique Even, Le reseau Asia 2011.

Books For Buddhist Kids

2011-11-10T18:36:00.000-08:00

A Mother's Love

2011-11-08T18:41:00.000-08:00

As a mother would protect with her life her own and only child, like this develop a mind of love to all beings.

The Buddha, Sutta Nipata 149

That Time Of The Month

2011-11-04T15:43:00.000-07:00

Menstruation (utusamaya) is a woman’s monthly cycle of fertility and infertility. It is a natural process essential for reproduction. Many religions and cultures associate menstruation with impurity, bad luck or inauspiciousness. According to the Bible a woman is ritually impure during her menstruation and anyone or anything that touches her during that time likewise becomes unclean (Leviticus 15,19-23). Most Christians ignore these teachings nowadays although devote Jews still adhere to them. In Islam a menstruating woman is forbidden to do certain otherwise obligatory religious practices and sexual intercourse is strictly forbidden. The Manusmrti, Hinduisms most authoritative law book, says that a man must not have sex with his wife if she is menstruating, accept food from her or even talk to her.
The Buddha rejected the idea of ritual purity and impurity and placed no restrictions on menstruating women. He was only concerned with what he called the ‘inner washing’ (M.I,39), i.e. developing a mind full of love, kindness and honesty, and free from greed, hatred and delusion. Some Buddhist cultures have forgotten the Buddha’s teaching on inner purity as opposed to ritual purity and continue to adhere to various menstruation superstitions. In some parts of

Thailand

women in this condition are not allowed to enter temples orcircumambulate stupas. In Burma they are not allowed to approach certain holy Buddha images or enter simas.

Getting It All Wrong

2011-10-15T00:48:00.000-07:00

NFL legend Mike Ditka was giving a news conference one day after being fired as the coach of the Chicago Bears when he decided to quote the Bible.“Scripture tells you that all things shall pass,” a choked-up Ditka said after leading his team to only five wins during the previous season. “This, too, shall pass.” Ditka fumbled his biblical citation, though. The phrase “This, too, shall pass” doesn’t appear in the Bible. Ditka was quoting a phantom scripture that sounds like it belongs in the Bible, but look closer and it’s not there. Ditka’s biblical blunder is as common as preachers delivering long-winded public prayers. The Bible may be the most revered book in America, but it’s also one of the most misquoted. Politicians, motivational speakers, coaches - all types of people - quote passages that actually have no place in the Bible, religious scholars say. These phantom passages include:“God helps those who help themselves.” “Spare the rod, spoil the child.” And there is this often-cited paraphrase: Satan tempted Eve to eat the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden. None of those passages appear in the Bible, and one is actually anti-biblical, scholars say. But people rarely challenge them because biblical ignorance is so pervasive that it even reaches groups of people who should know better, says Steve Bouma-Prediger, a religion professor at Hope College in Michigan. “In my college religion classes, I sometimes quote 2 Hesitations 4:3 (‘There are no internal combustion engines in heaven’),” Bouma-Prediger says. “I wait to see if anyone realizes that there is no such book in the Bible and therefore no such verse. “Only a few catch on.” Few catch on because they don’t want to - people prefer knowing biblical passages that reinforce their pre-existing beliefs, a Bible professor says. “Most people who profess a deep love of the Bible have never actually read the book,” says Rabbi Rami Shapiro.

Phantom biblical passages work in mysterious ways
Ignorance isn’t the only cause for phantom Bible verses. Confusion is another. Some of the most popular faux verses are pithy paraphrases of biblical concepts or bits of folk wisdom. Consider these two: “God works in mysterious ways.” “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” Both sound as if they are taken from the Bible, but they’re not. The first is a paraphrase of a 19th century hymn by the English poet William Cowper (“God moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform). The “cleanliness” passage was coined by John Wesley, the 18th century evangelist who founded Methodism, says Thomas Kidd, a history professor at Baylor University in Texas. “No matter if John Wesley or someone else came up with a wise saying - if it sounds proverbish, people figure it must come from the Bible,” Kidd says. Our fondness for the short and tweet-worthy may also explain our fondness for phantom biblical phrases. The pseudo-verses function like theological tweets: They’re pithy summarizations of biblical concepts. “Spare the rod, spoil the child” falls into that category. It’s a popular verse - and painful for many kids. Could some enterprising kid avoid the rod by pointing out to his mother that it's not in the Bible? It’s doubtful. Her possible retort: The popular saying is a distillation of Proverbs 13:24: “The one who withholds [or spares] the rod is one who hates his son.” There are some phantom biblical verses for which no excuse can be offered. The speaker goofed. That’s what Bruce Wells, a theology professor, thinks happened to Ditka, the former NFL coach, when he strayed from the gridiron to biblical commentary during his 1993 press conference in Chicago. Wells watched Ditka’s biblical blunder on local television when he lived in Chicago. After Ditka cited the mysterious passage, reporters scrambled unsuccessfully the next day to find the biblical source. They should have consulted Wells, who is now director of the ancient studies program at Saint Joseph’s University. Wells says Ditka’s error probably came from a peculiar feature of the King James Bible. “My hunch on the Ditka quote is that it comes from a quirk of the King James translation,” Wells says. “Ancient Hebrew had a particular way of saying things like, ‘and the next thing that happened was…’ The King James translators of the Old Testament consistently rendered this as ‘and it came to pass.’ ’’

When phantom Bible passages turn dangerous
People may get verses wrong, but they also mangle plenty of well-known biblical stories as well. Two examples: The scripture never says a whale swallowed Jonah, the Old Testament prophet, nor did any New Testament passages say that three wise men visited baby Jesus. Those details may seem minor, but scholars say one popular phantom Bible story stands above the rest: The Genesis story about the fall of humanity. Most people know the popular version - Satan in the guise of a serpent tempts Eve to pick the forbidden apple from the Tree of Life. It’s been downhill ever since. But the story in Genesis never places Satan in the Garden of Eden. “Genesis mentions nothing but a serpent,” says Kevin Dunn, of Tufts University. “Not only does the text not mention Satan, the very idea of Satan as a devilish tempter postdates the composition of the Garden of Eden story by at least 500 years,” Dunn says. Getting biblical scriptures and stories wrong may not seem significant, but it can become dangerous, one scholar says. Most people have heard this one: “God helps those that help themselves.” It’s another phantom scripture that appears nowhere in the Bible, but many people think it does. It's actually attributed to Benjamin Franklin, one of the nation's founding fathers. The passage is popular in part because it is a reflection of cherished American values: individual liberty and self-reliance, says Sidnie White Crawford, a religious studies scholar at the University of Nebraska. Yet that passage contradicts the biblical definition of goodness: defining one’s worth by what one does for others, like the poor and the outcast, Crawford says. She cites a scripture from Leviticus that tells people that when they harvest the land, they should leave some “for the poor and the alien” (Leviticus 19:9-10), and another passage from Deuteronomy that declares that people should not be “tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor.” “We often infect the Bible with our own values and morals, not asking what the Bible’s values and morals really are,” Crawford says.

Where do these phantom passages come from?
It’s easy to blame the spread of phantom biblical passages on pervasive biblical illiteracy. But the causes are varied and go back centuries. Some of the guilty parties are anonymous, lost to history. They are artists and storytellers who over the years embellished biblical stories and passages with their own twists. If, say, you were an anonymous artist painting the Garden of Eden during the Renaissance, why not portray the serpent as the devil to give some punch to your creation? And if you’re a preacher telling a story about Jonah, doesn’t it just sound better to say that Jonah was swallowed by a whale, not a “great fish”? Others blame the spread of phantom Bible passages on King James, or more specifically the declining popularity of the King James translation of the Bible. That translation, which marks 400 years of existence this year, had a near monopoly on the Bible market as recently as 50 years ago, says Douglas Jacobsen, a professor of church history and theology at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. “If you quoted the Bible and got it wrong then, people were more likely to notice because there was only one text,” he says. “Today, so many different translations are used that almost no one can tell for sure if something supposedly from the Bible is being quoted accurately or not.” Others blame the spread of phantom biblical verses on Martin Luther, the German monk who ignited the Protestant Reformation, the massive “protest” against the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church that led to the formation of Protestant church denominations. “It is a great Protestant tradition for anyone - milkmaid, cobbler, or innkeeper - to be able to pick up the Bible and read for herself. No need for a highly trained scholar or cleric to walk a lay person through the text,” says Craig Hazen, director of the Christian Apologetics program at Biola University in Southern California. But often the milkmaid, the cobbler - and the NFL coach - start creating biblical passages without the guidance of biblical experts, he says. “You can see this manifest today in living room Bible studies across North America where lovely Christian people, with no training whatsoever, drink decaf, eat brownies and ask each other, ‘What does this text mean to you?’’’ Hazen says. “Not only do they get the interpretation wrong, but very often end up quoting verses that really aren’t there.”
From CNN, by John Blake

Sadhu! Sadhu! Sadhu!

2011-10-09T19:06:00.000-07:00

Sadhu is a Pali word which means good, excellent or auspicious. Examples of the word’s use are: ‘It is sadhu to see noble ones’ (D.I,88), ‘It is sadhu to control the mind’ (Dhp.35), and ‘Even one who leads a sadhu life will decline by consorting with a lazy person’ (It.71). Sadhu is also occasionally used in the Tipitaka as an exclamation. To show his appreciation of something Sariputta had said the Buddha responded: ‘Sadhu, sadhu Sariputta!’ (Vin.I,56). Today it is common for people in Buddhist countries to say sadhu three times to express their happiness or approval of something related to the Dhamma.

Rama Meets The Bodhisattva

2011-09-28T19:18:00.000-07:00

Although they are unlikely to have ever read it, most people probably know that the Ramayana is one of the two great Indian epics and is considered a sacred texts by Hindus. It tells the story of Rama and Sita, their exile and their triumphant return. What most people do not know is that there is no single texts called the Ramayana but many of them. The most well-known is the one composed by Valmiki in 24,000 verses. This is considered the Ramayana, the standard one, the one by which all the others are judged. But there is no good reason for doing this other than that Valmiki’s Ramayana is the most widely known version in northern India, that its contents are the most detailed and interesting and that its language is exceptional. Valmiki used an earlier Ramayana, perhaps several of them, as the basis of his own great work. Some of the other versions of the Ramayana are the so-called Southern, the Western and the North-Western Recensions. Then of course there is the Jain Ramayana, which other than following the rough outline of Valmiki’s is an entirely independent work. The Thai Ramayana differs greatly from the Indonesian one, not just in what it says but in its story line, and both are very different from Valmiki’s. And when I say different, I mean really different. In one version Ravana not Rama is the hero. In some versions Sita is Rama’s sister, not his wife. The Malay Ramayana, Hikayat Seri Rama, and the Lao version, Phra Lak Phra Lam, make Lakshmana the hero and Rama his sidekick.
None of this detracts from the Ramayana’s, or more correctly, the Ramayanas, importance, their influence has been enormous. They have left their mark on nearly every aspect of Indian life. Tulsi Das’ rendering would easily be the most widely read book ever written in Hindi. It could be plausibly argued that the Indonesian Ramayana has had more influence on that country’s art, sculpture, architecture and literature than Islam has had. And Thailand? Go to Wat Phra Keo, the most important Buddhist temple in the country, and it is not the life of the Buddha that is depicted on the walls of the passageway around the main shrine but scenes from the Thai Ramayana, the Ramakien. The former capital of Thailand was named Ayodhya, after Rama’s home town, not Kapilavatthu. All kings of the present ruling dynasty of Thailand take the throne name Rama, not Siddhattha, Suddhodana or even Buddhadasa. What the Bible is to Europe, the Ramayanas have been to India and wide areas of South-east Asia.
Now this is a Buddhist blog so what am I doing going on about the Ramayana? Well, here is another fact that I suspect you didn’t know. The earliest version of the great epic is the Buddhist one, the one found in the Jatakas (No 461). It’s called the Dasaratha Jataka, Dasaratha being of course the name of Rama’s father. Now although the Dasaratha Jataka is immediately identifiable as a version of the Ramayana it differs greatly from most other versions. For example, Rama and Sita are siblings, not husband and wife; Dasaratha does not banish them but sends them away to protect them from their jealous step-mother; they are exiled to the Himalayas, not to Dandaka in the Deccan; there is no reference to Lanka or Ravana; Rama and Sita return to Benares not to Ayodhya after their exile, and somewhat uncomfortably, they then marry.
Now reading Valmiki’s Ramayana, and I confess to not having read it all, one discovers little bits of Buddhism popping up here and there throughout it. For example, the story of King Sibi giving his eyes to the blind man (Jataka No 499) is there. I strongly suspect that the exile of Vessantra as told in the Vessantra Jataka (No 549) was the inspiration for Rama and Sita’s exile in Valmiki’s Ramayana, although I don’t know what scholars say about this. Having said all this, it is also true to say that the Dasaratha Jataka is not a literary masterpiece and Valmiki’s Ramayana definitely is. It is nowhere near as long (is any poem?), it lacks its narrative charm and excitement, and its didactic elements are much more limited. If you are interested in reading the Ramayana (and you have 6 month to spare) have a look at http://www.valmikiramayan.net/ where you will find the Sanskrit text and a word by word translation of it with notes.

Dialogue With The Devil

2011-09-07T17:41:00.000-07:00

Walter Kaufmann was one of America's most famous philosophers and I became a fan of his years ago. I was first introduced to his writings by Venerable Nyanaponika who had a great appreciation for him also. He had all Kaufmann's books and with his characteristic generosity lent them to me. Kaufmann was the one of the very few academics at that time who actually read the Tipitaka instead of the then often unreliable secondary literature. He knew the Tipitaka through Neumann's lyrical German translations. As a result, Kaufmann was able to write authoritatively about the Dhamma and he often did. In his brilliant Critique of Religion and Philosophy (1958) Kaufmann has an amusing and insightful fictitious dialogue between Satan and an atheist. I reproduce a small part of it here.

Atheist: You look so content. Have you grilled another theologian for breakfast? Or did you heat up a Christian for your lunch?

Satan: Both, my friend.

Atheist: I have often wondered how you catch Buddhists. After all, they do not believe the sort of thing Christians believe, so you can't undermine their faith.

Satan: I get them to fall out of love with the world.

Atheist: By dangling beautiful women in front of ascetics?

Satan: Not necessarily. Their aim is to fall out of love with the world. I try to show them that suffering is worthwhile.

Atheist: That’s what I said; women.

Satan: That works only with the least interesting cases. The others I try to interest in some cause, some task, some mission. I may even persuade them to spread their knowledge to as many men as possible. As soon as I have kindled some ambition I generally do not find it too hard to involve men in all sorts of compromises. But there are other ways.

Atheist: Just name one more.

Satan: Sometimes I try to lead then from detachment into callousness and indifference to the suffering of others. But that only works in the early stages. Once a Buddhist has developed his particular detached compassion he represents one of the hardest cases I know.

Going To Mt. Kailash

2011-08-28T20:15:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year I wrote a small book called Mount Kailash, A Pilgrim’s Companion. Now Ven. Anandajoti has with my encouragement put this book on his web site. You can read it at http://www.photodharma.net/Guests/Dhammika-Kailash/Dhammika-Kailash.htm

Drowned Temple

2011-08-08T15:40:00.000-07:00

When Sri Lanka’s great Kotmale Dam was completed and started to fill some decades ago it drowned several villages together with their temples. Recently, unprecedented dryness has left the dam water level lower than it has ever been, exposing some of the long-inundated buildings. This is what one of the temples looks like.

'Alternative' Precepts and Commandments

2011-08-03T02:20:00.000-07:00

There are several ‘alternative’ Ten Precepts and quite a lot of ‘updated’ Ten Commandments going around today. About the best I have come across is from Hal Urban’s book The 10 Commandments of Common Sense - Wisdom from the Scriptures for People of all Beliefs. Hal Urban’s Ten Commandments are informed by a tolerant, open-minded Christian faith and I would recommend his book to anyone. I’m trying to get his earlier book Life's Greatest Lessons but have been unable to find it yet.
1. Don’t be seduced by popular culture. It prevents you from thinking for yourself.
2. Don’t fall in love with money. It will make you greedy and shallow.
3. Don’t use destructive language. It hurts others as well as yourself.
4. Don’t judge other people. Its better to work on your own faults.
5. Don’t let anger get out of control. It can wreak relationships and ruin lives.
6. Keep a positive outlook on life. It's the first step to joy.
7. Bring out the best in other people. It's better to build up than to tear down.
8. Have impeccable integrity. It brings peace of mind and a reputation of honor.
9. Help those in need. It really is better to give than to receive.
10. Do everything in love. It is the only way to find true peace and fulfillment.

The Buddhist Precepts IV

2011-08-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

The last of the eight Precepts and the ninth of the ten Precepts say that one should abstain from using high (ucca) or large (maha) seats and couches. Some people are perplexed by this rule and wonder what it has to do with morality or the training of the mind. Of course it has nothing to do with morality. Only the first five Precepts pertain to moral behaviour and are kammically significant. The other Precepts, including the one about seats and couches, are ways of behaving that can assist in calming the mind and shaping character. In ancient India, and even in the modern world, sitting on an elevated or grand chair was a sign of power and status. Monarchs, judges, lecturers, managing directors, the speaker of parliament, etc, all have special high seats. To practice the eighth Precept is to relinquish, not display or take advantage of one's social status, at least for a day. Practising the eighth Precept is about modesty, diminishing the ego and refraining from `putting oneself on a pedestal.'
The picture shows a baby breaking the eighth Precept

The Buddhist Precepts III

2011-07-29T14:23:00.000-07:00

The sixth of the eight Precepts and ten Precepts is Vikala bhojana vermani sikkhapadam samadhiami, I take the precept not to eat at the wrong time. 'Wrong time' (vikala) has long been interpreted to mean after noon or midday, although I know of no place in the suttas where this is specifically stated. The overall purpose of this rule is clear enough – to encourage moderation in eating (Sn.707) and to keep drowsiness due to a full stomach at bay. But the part about not eating after midday is less clear. The origin story in the Vinaya explaining this rule is unconvincing and obviously a later invention. According to this story, a monk was standing at someone's door late at night. As the woman of the house approached the door a sudden flash of lightening illuminated him, frightening the woman half to death, and to prevent this from happening again the Buddha instituted the rule. The only justification the Buddha gives for this rule is that it is good for the health and he does not mention what the 'wrong time' is other than to say the 'evening' or 'night' (ratti). He said, 'I do not eat in the evening and thus I am free from illness and affliction and enjoy health, strength and ease' (M.I,473). But I can see no reason why eating only in the morning should be any more or less healthy than eating only in the afternoon.
I suspect that the rule has its origins in two things. That eating before noon was already a well-established convention amongst wandering ascetics and the Buddha simply asked his monks and nuns to follow this convention. And the reason why this convention evolved in the first place was probably because, then as now, Indian peasant women cooked all the day's food early in the morning and the main meal of the day was in the morning. In other words, the most convenient time to go for alms gathering (pindapata) was in the morning. Noon was probably used as the cut-off point for eating because it could be known exactly. It's also pretty certain that monks and nuns only eat one meal a day because, not doing hard physical labour, they did not need that much food. So it is important to understand that noon is not some magical time, after which consuming food becomes a serious moral failing. It is just a convenient, and at that time a practical, way of dividing the day.

The Buddhist Precepts II

2011-07-24T23:43:00.000-07:00

In addition to the five Precepts, serious Buddhists will try to practise the eight Precepts (attha sila), at least on the half and full moon days of every month. The eight Precepts are the same as the five except that the third is replaced by abstinence from all sexual behavior, and the additional three Precepts are: (6) not to eat after midday (7), to abstain from dancing, singing, playing or listening to music, personal adornment and makeup, and (8) not to use high seats and couches. Novice monks and nuns are expected to practise the ten Precepts (dasa sila) in preparation for their monastic life. These ten are: (1) not to harm living beings, (2) not to steal, (3) to abstain from sexual behaviour, (4) not to lie, (5) not to take alcohol or intoxicating drugs, (6) not to eat after midday, (7) to abstain from dancing, singing and musical entertainment, (8) to abstain from adornment and makeup, (9) not to use high seats and couches, and (10) not to use gold and silver, i.e. money.
It will be noticed that while the five Precepts pertain to moral behaviour, the last three of the eight Precepts and the last five of the ten Precepts, are not about morality, but about behaviour that simplifies and uncomplicated one's life so one can focus fully on the spiritual. The failure to understand this (somewhat common in traditional Buddhist countries) can cause all sorts of confusion. Over the next few days I will have a look at these 'lifestyle simplification' Precepts.

The Buddhist Precepts I

2011-07-23T00:16:00.000-07:00

A precept (sikkhapada) is a self-imposed rule or discipline. The moral rules that all Buddhists commit themselves to and try to live by are called the five Precepts (panca sila). They are (1)
not to harm living beings, (2) not to steal, (3) not to engage in wrong sexual behaviour, (4) not to lie and (5) not to take alcohol or other intoxicating drugs. In following these Precepts one gradually develops a respect for the life of others, for their property, their dignity, their right to know the truth and a respect for the clarity of one's own mind. The Buddha called adhering to these Precepts a consideration to others which ‘creates love and respect and which is conducive to helpfulness, non-dispute, harmony and unity’ (A.III,287; M.I.322). I think this passage needs to be more well-known so I give it in Pali as well… ‘piyakarana, garukarana, sangahaya, avivadaya, samaggiya, ekibhavaya, samvattanti’. The Buddha saw adherence to the Precepts as a gift (danani) which would benefit both the giver and the receiver. 'When a noble disciple practices the five Precepts he gives the gift of freedom from fear, from hatred and from ill-will to limitless beings. And in giving this gift he thereby partakes in a freedom from fear, from hatred and from ill-will which is limitless' (condensed, A.IV,246). On another occasion, the Buddha called virtue 'freedom-giving' and 'conducive to concentration' (A.III,132) and he mentioned that one of the most important benefits of practicing the Precepts is that one experiences ‘the happiness of being blameless’ (anavajja sukha, D.I,70). In other words, Buddhists practices the five Precepts because they care about their own welfare and the welfare and happiness of others too.
Over the next week I am going to have comment on all the Five, Eight and Ten Precepts.

A Quick Trip To Nirvana

2011-07-16T14:46:00.000-07:00

The other day I went to Nirvana. Not that one! The other one, the one out on Old Chao Chu Kang Road on the far side of Singapore. Nirvana Pte. Ltd. is, according to the glossy, colorful brochure we were given on our arrival, ‘Singapore’s most luxurious 6-star grade modern columbarium with full air-conditioning’. The company that runs Nirvana is ‘the pioneer and market leader in bereavement care industry in South East Asia’. And I can believe it. The place is amazing, if that’s the right word - ultra-modern buildings, manicured grounds, lavish interiors, and everything in plastic and chrome, mirrors, gaudy colors and kitsch lighting with muzak in the background. We were given a complete tour by a solicitous saleswoman who met us on our arrival. The Central Hall has a huge Buddha overlooking it and numerous comfy lounge suites positioned around it so that costumers can sit and ‘abandon their fear and sadness but instead cherish the memories and remembrance (sic).’ We checked out the huge rooms with niches where you can deposit your loved one’s ashes. And the prices are very reasonable. Approaching $100,000 for a top-end niche. The brochure informed us that buying now can be a ‘not-to-be-missed investment opportunity’ as prices are bound to go up, and that if you purchase a niche now they’ll throw in a free imported urn. Very thoughtfully, they even have a room for the ashes of non-believers. To reserve a niche in this room for a loved one or for yourself only costs $ 25,000. I was very tempted I can tell you. Another huge room has dozens of golden stupas in it for customers to worship. Our guide informed us that none of the stupas have relics in them yet but that they’ll be getting some soon. I didn’t ask where from but I have heard on the monk’s grapevine that there’s a factory in Bangkok now that mass-produces them to meet the demand. The highlight and finale of the tour was the sound-and-light show in the Great Buddha Praying Hall. The computerized color laser system and the high-tech sound coordination creates an atmosphere of, well I’m not sure. I think it’s supposed to be of heaven or Nirvana as conceived in popular Chinese Buddhism; the brochure says ‘an air of refinement and serene ambience’. Monks are on hand to do any praying costumers might need.
Something that attracted my attention on the way out was the pictorial display on the life of the Buddha. We see Maha Maya dreaming of an elephant, only in this depiction of the legend it’s an African elephant she’s dreaming of. Another interesting picture shows the Buddha walking past a mosque, in fact it looks like the entrance of grand mosque at Fatehpur Sikri. Now exactly how an African elephant could have ambled into an ancient Indian dream, or how there could have been mosques in India a thousand years before the advent of Islam, I’ll leave for my readers to figure out.
But it doesn’t really matter, does it? It’s all the same! Fact and fiction, clarity and confusion, sympathy and platitudes, Dhamma and commercialism.

Buddha Jayanthi 1956

2011-07-14T14:40:00.001-07:00

This is more than just one of those ‘Ah! The good old days’ videos. It is also of considerable historical interest. It is a compilation in three parts, of footage taken during the Dalai Lama’s visit to India in 1956. Not many people know it but India, an avowedly secular state, celebrated the Buddha Jayanthi with more fervor than did most Buddhist countries. A few in the opposition grumbled at the vast amount of money allotted for the celebrations but Nehru was for it, indeed it was mainly due to his personal interest that it happened, and so the naysayers were silenced. The highlight of the year-long celebrations was the arrival of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, at Nehru’s personal invitation. Beijing was none too pleased to let the Dalai Lama go but they were still keeping up the pretence of friendliness to India so they reluctantly agreed. When they saw the Dalai Lama being treated like a head of state and the huge, enthusiastic crowds that assembled to see him everywhere he went, they really began to get nervous. Finally Chao En Lai flew to India to make it clear to Nehru personally that whatever the circumstances, the Dalai Lama must return to Tibet after the celebrations. In the film we see him arriving. One clip shows the DL, Nehru and Chao watching Indian children marching and doing calisthenics, out of step, badly co-coordinated and all over the place. I suspect that when Chao saw them and compared them with the perfectly drilled and disciplined Chinese kids he got the idea that it would be worthwhile to invade India, which of course happened seven years later. In other clips we see the DL together with Rajendra Prasad, Dr, S. Radhakrishna, Indraji, the Chogyal of Sikkim, Devapiya Valisinghe and even of my own teacher Ven. Matiwella Sangharatana. We see the DL planting the Bodhi Tree in what was to become Delhi’s Buddha Jayanthi Park, touring the still-to-be-completed Nagarjuna Sagara, Sanchi, Ajanta and many other places. The DL and the Panchen Lama were even taken to the Calcutta races!! Two things in particular attracted my attention while watching this video. One is the absence of bodyguards and security. We see Nehru, Prasad, etc., walking through crowds of ordinary people and the usual stray Indians gorking at the dignitaries and wandering here and there. They were the days! And the other thing, at the very beginning of the video, the DL and his party going to India, not by plane or even jeep, but by horse, only switching to vehicles at Gantok. You can see it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciIlDUb_7qU

The Battle For The Buddhas

2011-07-13T13:38:00.000-07:00

It might be called the battle of the Buddha’s feet, a struggle to rescue one of the great Buddhist sites in Afghanistan. The deadline has just been cut to a year for a team of Afghan and foreign archaeologists to rescue what they can from the sites of four shrines and temples round Mes Aynak - the Copper Mountain - in the plains of Logar, 25 miles south of Kabul. The Chinese have signed a 20-year lease to make this the biggest open-cast copper mine in the world outside Africa. They plan to blow up the mountain and what is left of the Buddhist temples, hoping to dig as much as they can of the copper estimated to be worth £45 billion. Initially, they’re offering £800 million a year for the concession. It is a race between Afghanistan’s cultural past and commercial future. A team of 32 archaeologists is moving everything it can from the site, rediscovered in the Sixties, rebuilding one of the temples and putting the treasures in a custom-built museum. They are helped by 900 local Afghan workers. Initially they were given three years, but under pressure from the Chinese, President Karzai has said the conservation must end for the blasting and mining to begin late next year.
“The site is very important because this was a main junction on the Silk Road. The monks came here and settled between the 5th century and the 8th century, lured by the copper,” said Philippe Maquis, the leading French archaeologist at the site. He points to large pieces of handsome Buddhas, complete with swirling drapery - said to be inherited from the Greeks who came here with Alexander the Great. A battered statue three times life-size shows the Buddha attaining pari-Nirvana. Next to the figure are two huge stone feet, more than four times life size. “These pieces are the same style and from the same time as the great Buddha statues of Bamiyan,” said Mr Maquis. The Buddhas of Bamiyan were blown up by the Taliban in March 2001. Mes Aynak has not suffered such outright vandalism, although Osama bin Laden moved his main training camp here in 1999. “I think we can really do it,” said Dr Omar Sultan, 61, deputy culture minister, a renowned archaeologist. “If we get the funds and the team of 40 archaeologists, I get the job of essential conservation done by the deadline.”
Looking across the monastery and the camp for Chinese workers, it is a scene of utter tranquility. But in two years the mountain which has lured mystics, pilgrims, and entrepreneurs - often all three in one - for more than 5,000 years will be blasted to oblivion. It is the starting point of yet another invasion of Afghanistan, this time by the Chinese in their relentless charge for the world's mineral riches.
Source: London Evening Standard by Richard Fox.

Happy Birthday Dear Dalai Lama

2011-07-06T01:06:00.001-07:00

Today the Dalai Lama is celebrating the 76th birthday. May he and you all have a peaceful and inspirational day in the Dhamma.
I'd like to share with you a project in the hope that some of you may find this worthy of support. This is the 84000 Project, which is a global non-profit initiative to translate the words of the Buddha and make them available to everyone. See this website http://84000.co/.
Historically, translation has played a crucial role in ensuring the survival and revival of Buddhism. The living traditions of Buddhism that still exist in some parts of the world, such as Japan, China, Korea, Tibet, Bhutan, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Burma, have survived in large part because of the foresight of our ancestors who compiled and translated many of the original texts into their own languages. Pali and Sanskrit were the first languages in which collections of the Buddhist texts were compiled. The Pali texts had been taken to Sri Lanka and survived, but most of the Sanskrit texts were lost when the great Buddhist culture of northern India was destroyed by Muslim invaders between the 11th and 13th centuries. Fortunately, by then most of the texts had already been translated into classical Chinese and Tibetan. The three major collections of sacred Buddhist texts that have survived till now are: (1) The Pali Canon or Tipitaka, (2) the Chinese Buddhist Canon or Chinese Tripitaka, and (3) the Tibetan Kangyur and Tengyur. The classical Chinese translations started in the 1st century as Chinese pioneers and Indian scholars began gradually to introduce Buddhism to China. The classical Tibetan translations followed later during the unparalleled state-sponsored cultural transfer of the Buddhist teachings into Tibet from the 8th century onwards. The Tibetan collection contains a large number of texts not found in the Chinese canon, particularly tantras, and there are a smaller number of texts in Chinese that do not exist in Tibetan. To ensure the continued survival of these timeless texts, and to make the profound meanings they contain accessible to all, they now need to be translated into the languages used in the world today. Check out the 84000 web site and see what you can do to help.

Complements of K Chris Kang at http://accessingbuddhism.blogspot.com

Buying The Buddha Back

2011-07-04T18:40:00.000-07:00

An anonymous art dealer passionate about Afghan heritage has teamed up with the British Museum in an effort to buy and repatriate a spectacular antiquity believed to have been looted from the Afghan national museum in Kabul during the 1990s.
The British dealer, who said he had a “very strong emotional attachment” to Afghanistan, resolved to buy the 2nd-century Gandharan Buddha after he recognised it in a photograph sent by a colleague in Japan. The sculpture, which had disappeared in the bloody civil war, had been bought by a Japanese collector. The British dealer, who is insisting on anonymity but spoke to the Observer about his determination to save the Buddha, said: “I begged him to give it back. He didn’t ' care. In Japan, even if the object is stolen, you can’t prosecute. So I decided to buy it.”
The problem was that in Britain, purchasing stolen goods is a criminal offence, but the dealer was undeterred. He informed only the director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, and a curator, St John Simpson, of his plan. “It was a big risk, but I had the (museum’s) blessing,” he said. "I thought that could have helped, although Customs officers don't believe in ‘good faith’ and there could have been serious trouble. I was doing something very moral, but illegal.” He has an enduring passion for Afghanistan, having travelled extensively there in the 1970s: “I saw the piece in Kabul then. I remember perfectly where it stood. This was my homage to their civilisation and their suffering.” Simpson, curator for ancient Iran and Arabia, said: “We had to seek legal advice. But the consensus was that, if this was the only way in which this piece could be returned, that's what we had to do. The clear public benefit outweighed the grey area.”
With the museum's blessing, the dealer used his own money to persuade the Japanese collector to sell the 1.2 meter-high Buddha. Negotiations lasted a year.
Simpson described the rescue as “terribly appropriate”, coming as it did on the 10th anniversary of the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan: “They’re gone forever. But one very important piece can be returned. This is a very important and stunningly beautiful piece.” Omara Khan Massoudi, director of the National Museum of Afghanistan, described it as “one of our most treasured objects”. One source put the sculpture's value at £600,000, but the British Museum said it is “without value, given its provenance”. The Buddha, which is shown performing a miracle with flames rising from his shoulders and water pouring from his feet, will be displayed in the British Museum's Enlightenment Gallery from Wednesday, before it is returned to Kabul after the close of ‘Afghanistan: Crossroads of the Ancient World’. About 75% of the Kabul museum’s antiquities have been destroyed or looted. They reflected the rich heritage of a land that was once a crossroads of eastern and western ancient civilizations.
Source: The Guardian

Footprints In The Dust II

2011-07-03T00:27:00.000-07:00

The Buddha was not, as is commonly supposed, primarily a forest dweller. Of the four monasteries he founded and now identified by archaeologists - Ghositarama, Jivakarama, Jetavana and Veluvana - the first is actually inside the walls of the city while the other three are within easy waking distance of their respective cities. When staying in these places the Buddha’s accommodation would have been reasonably comfortable but when he was on the road the situation was very different and he would have to sleep in or take shelter in whatever was available. We read of him sleeping in a potter’s shed on grass spread on the floor (M.I:502). On another occasion, he arrived in Kapilavatthu and finding no proper lodgings, spent the night in Bharandu’s hermitage sleeping on a mat on the ground (A.I:277). Often he must have simply slept in one of the many mango groves that to this day are still to be seen near most north Indian villages. Finding him out in the open one winter’s night Hattaka asked the Buddha if he was happy. He replied; ‘Yes my lad, I live happily. Of those who live happily in the world I am one’. Hattaka expressed surprise at this, pointing out that it was the dark half of the month, the time of frost, that the ground was trampled hard by the hoofs of the cattle, the carpet of leaves thin, the wind cold and that the Buddha’s robe appeared to be thin. The Buddha reaffirmed that he was nonetheless happy (A.I:136).
The Buddha must have also enjoyed the freedom his life of wandering gave him. For him ‘the household life is full of hindrances, a path of dust. Free as the wind is the life of one who renounces all worldly things’ (D,I:62). However, moving from place to place had very important practical reasons behind it too, in a world without the communications that we take for granted it allowed him to spread his teachings far and wide. He was also aware that some personal contact with him was important, especially for newly ordained monks and nuns, and that this may have been a factor in determining in which districts he visited and how often (S,III:90). During his wanderings he might visit a district, teach, make some disciples, even ordain a few monks or nuns and then perhaps not come again for many years. If a monk from such a district wished to see him again he could simply set off to wherever the Buddha was staying at the time.

Sona Kutikanna was ordained by Mahakaccana and about a year later developed the desire to meet the man whose teachings he had committed himself to. He said to his preceptor; ‘I have not yet met the Lord face to face, I have only heard about what he is like. If you give me permission I will travel to see the Lord, the Noble One, the Enlightened Buddha’(Ud,58). For lay disciples with domestic obligations undertaking a long journey to see the Buddha would have been more difficult and so they may have had to wait, perhaps many years, before they got to see him again. The Thapataya Sutta gives us some idea of the excitement caused in an outlying district when its inhabitants heard that the Buddha might be on his way to see him and how the excitement increased as word of his gradual approach reached them (S,V:348-349). Elsewhere we read of people’s anxiousness for news about the Buddha and of what he had been teaching.
Once a monk who had spent the rainy season with the Buddha in Savatthi arrived in Kapilavatthu. When people heard where the monk had come from he found himself deluged with questions about the Buddha (S,V:450). On another occasion a group of brahmins from Kosala and Magadha who had arrived in Vesali, heard that the Buddha just happened to be in town and decided that the opportunity to meet him was one that was too good to miss. The Buddha had apparently given his attendant instructions that he was not to be disturbed while the brahmins were adamant that they would not leave until they got to see the famous teacher.
Seeing this impasse, the novice Siha asked the attendant to tell the Buddha that there were three people waiting to see him. The attendant said he would not do this but he wouldn’t object if Siha did. This was done, the Buddha asked Siha to put a mat outside his residence in the shade for him to sit on while he talked to the brahmins (D,I:151). But the Buddha couldn’t be everywhere at once and so monks and nuns would often take long journeys for the privilege of spending some time in his presence. For example once while he was residing in Catuma at least five hundred monks arrived to see him (M,I: 456).
However, with him moving around a lot, it was not always possible to know where he was at any one time. In the beautiful Parayana Vagga of the Sutta Nipata we read of the sixteen disciples of the ascetic Bavari setting out for northern India in the hope of meeting the Buddha. First they heard that he was at Savatthi and ‘wearing matted hair and dressed in deer skin’ they headed there. They went through Kosambi and Saketa and arrived in Savatthi only to find that he had left some time previously. They followed his route through Setavya, Kapilavatthu, Kusinara, Pava and Vesali finally catching up with him at the Pasanaka Shrine, (Barabar Hills north of Gaya) ‘and like a thirsty man going for cool water, like merchants going for profit, like a heat exhausted man going for shade, they quickly ascended the mountain’ (Sn.1014).
There were undoubtedly as many languages and dialects spoken in the Buddha’s India as there are today and this would have created special problems for him. Theravada tradition asserts that the Buddha spoke Pali although there is no mention in the Tripitaka of what language he spoke. Like merchants, diplomats and others whose professions meant frequent travel in different regions it is very likely that apart from his mother tongue, which would have been a dialect of Kosala, he was probably fluent in several other languages as well.
In the Aranavibhanga Sutta he says that insisting on using one’s own dialect in an area where another is spoken can only cause confusion and conflict. ‘It has been said, “One should not stake too much on the local language...” How does one do this? In different regions they might call the same thing a pati, a patta, a vittha, a serava, a dharopa, a pona, a hana or a pisila (these are all different words for a bowl or dish). So whatever they call it in one region, one uses that word thinking ,“It seems this person is referring to that object”, and one uses that word accordingly’ These are the words of someone familiar with a range of languages and dialects and who was very open and practical about language.
The Buddha was equally open about regional customs as well. Once when he found some monks spending too much time bathing and playing in the water he made a rule that they should only bathe once a month. Later some monks who had been staying in an outlying region where people found their infrequent bathing revolting (not surprisingly) reported this to the Buddha and he allowed them to bathe more often to accord with the customs of that region. Once again this is the kind of thing one would expect of the urbane well-travelled individual. Whatever the Buddha was he was not parochial and no doubt his travels made him even more urbane and open-minded.
For a map showing the Buddha’s last journey see http://www.ancient-buddhist-texts.net/Maps/MP-index.htm

Footprints In The Dust I

2011-06-29T17:10:00.001-07:00

The only two of the great religious teachers who were successful during their own lifetimes were the Mohammed and Siddhatta Gotama, the Buddha. Both had long teaching careers and both lived to see their respective religions firmly established. Prof. Basham has written that Buddhism was a minor religion until its adoption and promotion by King Asoka. Basham bases his assumption on the fact that there is no archaeological evidence of Buddhism before Asoka’s time but this seems to me to be a rather weak argument. What physical evidence are wandering ascetics, which are what the Buddha’s disciples were, likely to leave? They established few permanent monasteries and those they did build were made of mud, bamboo and thatch. As for stupas, these did not become an important feature of Buddhist worship until about the 2nd century BCE. The Pali Tipitaka offers ample and convincing evidence that the Buddha was well known throughout wide tracts of northern India and that his Dhamma attracted large numbers of converts from all classes, especially the elite.
The highly critical attitude of Jains and brahmins towards the new teaching as recorded in the Tipitaka suggests that they saw it as a real threat. An important cause of the Buddha’s success was no doubt his extraordinary personality. Even despite the great distance in time between he and us, the heavy editing of the suttas and their rather stilted language, the Buddha’s warm and compassionate presence shines through on nearly every page. The logical consistency of his Dhamma must have been an important factor also. However, no matter how appealing a teacher or how common-sense a teaching it will not attract converts unless they can come into contact with it. The Buddha was a missionary from the very beginning and this was, together with the two things mentioned above, the most important factor in the early success of his teachings. He had a still heart but a very mobile body.
According to the Tipitaka, almost the first thing the Buddha did after his enlightenment was to embark on a long journey in order to teach others what he had discovered. Equally significantly, his instructions to his first five disciples was that they should ‘wander forth’ to teach others what he had taught them.
The area in which the Buddha wandered during his life corresponds roughly to the modern Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The furthermost east he went which can still be identified is Kajangla (now Kankjol, 18 k south of Rajmahal right on the Indo-Bangladesh border) and the furthermost west he is known to have gone is Mathura, some 180 kilometres south of Delhi. These two locations are nearly a thousand kilometers apart. The Buddha’s movements northwards were of course limited by the then impenetrable jungles of the Himalayan foothills and it is unlikely that he ever went further south than the southern edge of the Ganges watershed. Still, this would mean that his wanderings covered an area roughly equivalent to 200,000 square kilometers, a huge area by any standards.
The evidence suggests that the Buddha only occasionally visited the outer edges of this region. For example, he only visited Mathura once and he probably visited Anga in the east (i.e. Campa, Bhaddiya and Kajangla corresponding to modern Bhagalpur District) only once also. Incidentally, I believe that Bhaddiya or Bhaddiyanagara as it is also sometimes called in the Tipitaka, can be safely identified with the village of Bhadariya some 12 kilometers south of Bhagalpur. However, most of the Buddha’s wanderings took place in the eastern part of this area, between the great cities of Savatthi, Rajagaha, Vesali and Kosambi. The Tipitaka mention carriageways in towns and paths, roads and highways through the countryside. However there is little doubt that these names referred to the frequency of traffic on these arteries, not to the quality of their paving or their width. All roads in ancient India were little more than dusty, rutted tracks in the summer and impassable rivers of mud in the rainy season. Banditry added to the risks of long distance travel.
Travellers on the road between Savatthi and Sakheta were often robbed (Vin, IV: 87) and of course the fearsome Angulimala was a robber and murderer who operated in forested areas around Savatthi. Once the Buddha and an attendant were on tour of Kosala when they came to a fork in the road. The Buddha said they should take one fork while the attendant said they should take the other. This debate continued for some time until in a huff the attendant put the Buddha’s bowl down and walked off on the way he thought correct. He hadn’t gone far before he was attacked by bandits who ‘struck him with their fists and feet and tore his robe’ (Ud, 90). In the more remote districts travellers might have difficulty finding food, water and shelter. The Tipitaka mentions a traveller getting down on all fours to drink from a puddle in a cows footprint because no other water was available and of two parents lost in the wilderness who saved themselves from starvation by killing and eating their child. More normally though travel was just uncomfortable, tedious and undertaken only when necessary. And yet it seems that the Buddha spent most of his time on the road in order to reach as many people as possible. Such was his determination and compassion.
In keeping with the rules laid down by himself and in accordance with long established samana tradition, the Buddha spent three months of the rainy season in one location and the rest of the year on what were called ‘walking tours’. According to the commentarial tradition after the 20th year of his ministry he spent every rainy season in or near Savatthi, the capital of Kosala. The fact that more of his discourses are set in this city that in any other place suggests that there is some foundation in this tradition and if it is true he may have decided to limit his wanderings at that time due to age. He would have been sixty years old at the time. All the Buddha’s journeys were undertaken on foot although as there are numerous rivers in the land he knew he must have often had to use boats or ferries despite being no specific mention of him ever actually doing this.
We read of monks once crossing a river by holding on to the tails and backs of a herd of cattle that was swimming across the same river suggesting that when there was neither bridges, boats or rafts that the Buddha might have had to improvise as these monks did. There is no mention of the Buddha travelling by carriage or cart. In only one place is he described as wearing sandals, so he probably went bare footed most of the time (Vin,IV:186).
The Tipitaka mentions the itinerary of many of the Buddha’s journeys giving us an idea of the distances he sometimes travelled. For example, we know that within the first twelve months after his enlightenment he went from Uruvela to Isipatthana via Gaya and Benares, spent the three months of the rainy season there and then travelled to Rajagaha via Benares, Gaya, Uruvela and Lativanna. All these places can be identified with certainly and thus we can calculate that he must have walked at least 300 kilometers. In the longest single journey recorded in the Tipitaka, he went from Rajagaha: to Vesali to Savatthi and back to Rajagaha via Kitigiri and Avali, a round trip of at least 1600 kilometres (Vin,IV,189). It is likely that he would have started a trip like this at the end of the rains retreat and arrived back in time for the next retreat nine months later. Unfortunately, it is not possible to know how much time these or any of the other journeys might have taken.
In the famous Mahaparinibbana Sutta we know that he went from Rajagaha to Kusinara via Nalanda, Patna and Vesali, a total distance of about 300 kilometers. According to the sutta he left Vesali at the end of the rains retreat (October) and of course he is supposed to have attained final nirvana in Kusinara on the full moon of Vesakha (May). This suggests that he took seven months to travel about 95 kilometres. Even allowing for the fact that he was old and in ill health this seems like a very long time. It should be pointed out that only later text in the Tipitaka mention that the Buddha’s parinivana took place at Vesakha and the sutta gives the impression that while his last journey was slow it was at a steady pace. However, it seems likely that the Buddha conducted his journeys at a leisurely pace.
The evidence suggests that he would wake before sunrise, go for pindapata in the nearest town or village just after sunrise and having eaten, would set off while it was still cool. He would walk until the midday heat became unpleasant and then take an afternoon rest. If there was a village nearby he might stay until the next morning and if not he might continue walking until he got to the next village. How long he stayed at a particular place would have depended on many factors - whether local people came to talk with and listen with him, whether food and water was available, whether the atmosphere was congenial. We know for example that he cut short his first stay in Rajagaha when people began to complain that too many young men were leaving their families to become monks (Vin,IV:43). Once he arrived in the village of Thuna to find that there was no water to drink because the brahmin inhabitants, hearing that he was coming, had blocked up their wells with rice husks and cow dung (Ud,78). The warm and respectful reception that Buddhist monks get today was not always available to the Buddha and his disciples. He is often described as travelling with either 500 monks (a conventional number meaning ‘a lot’) or simply with ‘a large group of monks’. At other times he would dismiss his attendant and companions telling them that he wanted to wander by himself for a while (S.III:94).

The Meaning Of Life

2011-06-22T15:48:00.000-07:00

From the biological perspective the purpose of life is to acquire the necessities for continued existence, to reproduce and to survive. But what about the purpose of life from the religious point of view? If life has a single and specific purpose, as some religions and philosophies claim, then one would expect everybody, sooner or later, to naturally gravitate towards it, discover it and then strive to achieve it. In actual fact, we see that the various religions posit quite different and sometimes contradictory purposes of life. We also notice that many people manage to get through life alright without ever asking or thinking about whether or not life has a meaning. Others take one path, then another, according to circumstance, embrace each one, and manage to get through. We see yet others who claim that what they believe has ‘given their life meaning’ but later we here they have abandoned it for something else. This suggests very strongly that beyond the biological, life does not have any innate purpose or meaning.
From the Buddhist point of view, this is a good thing - it means that we have the freedom and the possibility to give our life the meaning that we want. If we decide to make the accumulation of wealth or power the purpose of our life, then it will become so. If we decide to make the pursuit of pleasure, dedication to our family or the contemplation of the divine the purpose of our life, then it will become so. Whenever one of his disciples attained enlightenment and became an arahat, the Buddha would always say that he or she had `done what had to be done' (S.III,68). From this we can deduce that for the Buddha, the meaning, the purpose and the fulfillment of life is to attain the joy and freedom of enlightenment.

The Dhamma In Decline?

2011-06-09T20:23:00.001-07:00

Recently the statistics for Singapore’s 2010 censes were released. For local Buddhists they make sad but perhaps not surprising reading. In the 10 years between 2000 and 2010 the number of Buddhists dropped from 42.5% to 33.3%. A further breakdown of the figures also showed that the older a person was and the lower their education standard the more likely they are to be Buddhist. During the same period Christianity in the republic grew from 14.6% to 18.3% and the younger a person is and the better educated, the more likely they are to be Christian. The same was true for those who described themselves as having no religion. They grew from 14.8% to 17%. The trend is clear. Even having no religion is a better option that Buddhism. Sorry to say statistics from Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan show a similar trend. Buddhism is failing to speak to young, well-educated, modern people. A visit to a good number of temples and Buddhist societies will show the reasons for this trend; commercialized spirituality, absence of Dhamma education, lack of social engagement, poor leadership, etc. The almost complete absence of networking between Buddhists also doesn’t help either. ‘You do your thing. I’ll do mine’ is the norm for Buddhist groups, temples and organizations. In contrast to this Christian churches in Singapore (and everywhere else in Asia) are dynamic, socially engages, highly motivated and well-organized. Their outreach strategies are also highly effective, although some would describe them as intrusive and aggressive as well. Nonetheless, they bring in the converts. Trying to find out about Dhamma from the average Buddhist rarely works because they rarely know any. Temples and societies emphasise ritual activities rather than solid Dhamma education. During the 1980s the decline of Buddhism slowed somewhat probably because of the introduction of religious knowledge in schools. This meant that a generation of nominally Buddhist kids got from school what they never got from the temple – some basic knowledge of the Dhamma.
Of course the recent statistics could be read from another perspective. It is actually likely that there are more ‘real’ Buddhists (‘real’ in the sense that they are more than just nominal Buddhists) today than there were in 2000. It may be that nominal Buddhists are simply defining themselves differently, as non-religious or as Taoists. Whatever the case, there is no room for complacency, although I suspect that the complacency will persist.

On Being Wrong

2011-06-06T16:29:00.000-07:00

This is a rather interesting video on a rather unusual subject. For the realization and then the admission that one is wrong there has to be at least a few moments of doubt. Doubt (vicikiccha) is usually thought of only as a hindrance (nivarana) by we Buddhists. But it is worth reminding oneself of these words of the Buddha in the Kalama Sutta. ‘Uncertainty is good, it is good to doubt. Uncertainty (should) arise in doubtful matters’ (A.I,189). Anyway, enjoy the video.
http://blogmyway.org/videos/2011/04/28/kathryn-schulz-wrong/

An Unusual And Moving Story

2011-06-05T04:49:00.000-07:00

BUFFALO, New York. Identical twins Julian and Adrian Riester were born seconds apart 92 years ago. They died hours apart this week. The brothers were also brothers in the Roman Catholic Order of Friars Minor. Professed friars for 65 years, they spent much of that time working together at St. Bonaventure University, doing carpentry work, gardening and driving visitors to and from the airport and around town. "It was fun to see them, just quiet, gentle souls," Yvonne Peace, who worked at the St. Bonaventure Friary for nearly 21 years, said Friday. They died Wednesday at St. Anthony Hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida, Brother Julian in the morning and Brother Adrian in the evening. Both died of heart failure, said Father James Toal, guardian of St. Anthony Friary in St. Petersburg, where the inseparable twins lived since moving from western New York in 2008. "It really is almost a poetic ending to the remarkable story of their lives," St. Bonaventure spokesman Tom Missel said. "Stunning when you hear it, but hardly surprising given that they did almost everything together." Julian and Adrian Riester were born Jerome and Irving on March 27, 1919, to a couple who already had five daughters. They took the names of saints upon their ordination in the Catholic Church. "Dad was a doctor and he said a prayer for a boy," Adrian once said, according to St. Bonaventure. "The Lord fooled him and sent two." After attending St. Joseph's Collegiate Institute, the brothers were turned away by the military because of their eyesight, the university said. One had a bad left eye, the other a bad right eye. Eventually they joined the friars of Holy Name Province in New York City. They received separate assignments before reuniting at the seminary at St. Bonaventure from 1951 to 1956. After serving parishes in Buffalo for 17 years, they returned to St. Bonaventure in 1973 and spent the next 35 years there. They had separate rooms in the friary but one telephone extension that rang into both, Peace recalled. It was usually the more talkative Adrian who answered, though Julian possessed a quiet authority. They never said who was born first." Brother Julian was like the big brother. Brother Adrian would defer to him," Peace said. Funeral services are scheduled for Monday at St. Mary Our Lady of Grace Church in St. Petersburg. Afterward, the brothers' bodies will be flown to Buffalo and buried Wednesday at St. Bonaventure Cemetery, across the street from the university.

The Lord's Compassion

2011-05-30T02:32:00.000-07:00

Putting aside the bonds offspring have for their parents, and giving up the love he felt for his wife and child, the Lord renounced the world and dedicated himself to the quest of truth. He did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, for the good, the welfare and the happiness of gods and humans, out of compassion of the world.

Turning his back on wealth and royal glory, and all the security they provide, the Lord renounced his palace to live in the lonely forest. He exchanged a golden palace for the roots of the trees. He did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

Assailed by Mara and his army, attacked by fearful shapes and sounds, enduring menace and doubt, the Lord remained calm and resolute, never being diverted from his noble quest. He overcame Mara and his army for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

When the Lord attained enlightenment and achieved his high purpose, he decided to teach what he had realized to others, rather than enjoy the happiness of liberation alone. The Lord did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

When he heard that Angulimala was waylaying travelers and murdering them, the Lord disregarded the dangers of the lonely roads and went to teach him the Dhamma of peace. He did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world. When the Lord could have partaken in royal banquets, he was content to eat scraps and simple fare. He could have worn cloth of gold gowns but he was satisfied with a robe of rags. The Lord did this for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

Disregarding the heat and dust of summer and the icy gusts of the winter, the Lord traversed long roads and paths, byways and jungle tracks, to teach the Dhamma to one and all. He undertook such journeys for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, out of compassion of the world.

Although abused by Asurinda, denied alms by the people of Pancasala, and mocked by the ascetic Nigrodha, the Lord never turned his back on the hostile, but remained open and friendly to all. He acted thus for the good of the many, for the welfare of the many, for the good, the welfare and the happiness of gods and humans, out of compassion of the world.
Composed by Bhante S. Dhammika

A Naughty Jataka

2011-05-26T18:22:00.000-07:00

This is one of several ‘rude’ stories in the Jatakas and has, I think, never been translated into English before. Like other such stories, Cowell thought it best to render it into Latin so that only scholars could read it. The purpose of the story is to highlight the Bodhisattva’s equanimity and non-retaliation. But the author or authors uses the opportunity to poke fun at greedy brahmins who carry away more food than they can eat from various festivals and rituals, the tortoise’s shell looking something like a begging bowl. A ribald element is included to add to the fun and the tone of the story is generally light-hearted. In keeping with this ribald light-heartedness I have translated angajata as ‘dick’. The Kacchapa (Tortoise) and the Kondannas were two clans or tribes that usually did not intermarry. The monkey (makkata) in this story is a Rhesus Macaque, the most aggressive and mischievous of the several species of primates found in northern India. Interestingly, while the Bodhisattva is often depicted in the Jatakas as being reborn as one of these other types of monkeys, he is never reborn as a Macaque. One can well imagine village people roaring with laughter as a monk or learned lay person related this story to them at a religious festival or on a full-moon night.

I would like to thank Ven. Anandajoti for helping me with this translation.

Kacchapa Jataka

Once, when Brahmadatta was king of Banaras, the Bodhisattava was reborn into a brahman family in Kasi. After finishing his education at Taxila, he decided to give up sense pleasures and ordain as an ascetic. He established an ashram in the Himalayas on the banks of the Ganges and there attained spiritual powers and the jhanas. In this birth, it seems, the Bodhisattva was exceptional impartial, having developed equanimity to perfection. One day, while he was sitting at the door of his leaf hut, a mischievous and naughty monkey crept up on him and tried to put its dick in his ear. The Bodhisattva resisted this and being equinimous continued to calmly sit there. Then on another day, it happened that a tortoise, having come out of the water onto the bank of the river, went to sleep in the sun with its mouth open. Spying this, that lusty monkey stuck his dick in the tortoise’s mouth. Waking up, the tortoise snapped its mouth shut (like someone banging) a chest, causing the monkey great pain and gripping its dick tightly. Unable to bare the pain the monkey thought, ‘Who can free me from this pain? Only that ascetic. I will go to him.’ Carrying the tortoise in his hands the monkey approached the Bodhisattva and he, teasing the naughty monkey, spoke this first verse -

You have such a great meal (in that bowl),
Like a brahmin with a big handful of rice.
Where did you go for alms?
What funeral did you attend?
On hearing this, the naughty monkey spoke the second verse -

I am truly a foolish monkey,
In that I have touched the untouchable.
If you can release me
I will go back to the mountains.

The Bodhisattva, having compassion for him and addressing the tortoise, spoke this third verse

The Kassapa tribe are tortoises.
The Kondanna are monkeys.
Kassapa, please free Kondanna,
From having sex with you.

The tortoise, having heard the Bodhisattva’s words and pleased with his reasoning, let go of the monkey’s dick. The moment the monkey was free, he bowed to the Bodhisattva, then ran away so fast he didn’t even look back. The tortoise worshiped the Bodhisattva and returned to his own place. As for the Bodhisattva, without ever having fallen from the jhanas, he eventually passed away and was reborn in the Brahma world. Jataka No 273

A Vesakha Message

2011-05-20T15:18:00.001-07:00

Dear Buddhist friends, on the occasion of Vesak Day, I join in prayers with you that this annual festival may bring serenity and joy to Buddhists in Singapore and throughout the world. in Singapore, the respect and of different religions and faiths is a building block o of our society, and we wish to acknowledge the importance that the Catholic Church places on inter-religious dialogue as a means to living in peace and working together to achieve the best outcome for all. Pope Benedict XVI in his message for World Day of Peace this year, has stated, “for the Church, dialogue between the followers of the different religions represents an important means of cooperating with all religious communities for the common good.” We value our work with representives from the Buddhist community and other religions in the Presidential Council for Religious harmony to promote peace and harmony among all people. As we witness great suffering around the world today on so many levels, from natural disasters to religious persecution and war, it is important that we join together in our efforts to spread peace, working hand-in-hand to alleviate the suffering of those around us. My dear Buddhist friends, on behalf of the Archdiocese of Singapore, I pray that your celebration of Vesak will be a source of spiritual growth. Happy Vesak! Yours sincerely, Archbishop Nicholas Chia.

Giving Sanctuary

2011-05-17T18:42:00.000-07:00

Sanctuary (abhayatthana or pujjatthana) is the right of asylum available in certain religious establishments and which is recognized by the government. Sanctuary in Buddhist monasteries had a long history in Sri Lanka lasting for at least 1000 years. Royal officers or those who believed a crime had been committed could easily be infuriated, jump to conclusions and dish out swift justice to whoever seemed to be the most likely offender. This sometimes led to innocent parties being punished. An accused who was able to flee to the nearest monastery would be protected from such mob justice. Sanctuary would give him an opportunity to explain himself and allow his accusers to calm down so that the facts could be more objectively examined. The monks in the monastery the accused had sought sanctuary in would also be able to adjudicate on the accused’s behalf. Numerous documents from ancient Sri Lanka show that royal officers and others were forbidden to enter certain monasteries or sometimes even monastic estates, to apprehend offenders without permission of the monks. The rules of sanctuary varied at different times and in different places but usually a person was given sanctuary for five days or until the next full moon. If the monks decided the person seeking refuge was guilty they would expel him or allow royal officers to enter the monastery to arrest him. On other occasions they might negotiate a settlement between the accused and his victim and the judicial authorities.
Sanctuary was usually given to those accused of committing what were called ‘the five grave offences’ (pancamahaparadha), although exactly what constituted these is unclear. It might have been breaking the five Precepts or five of the six ‘acts of immediate retribution’ (anantariyakamma, Miln.25), i.e. murdering one’s mother, one’s father, an arahat, injuring a Buddha or causing a schism in the Sangha (Atthasalini 358). In this context injuring a Buddha was understood to as stealing or desecrating a Buddha statue or other sacred objects. Other versions of the five grave offences included assault, killing cattle, banditry and rape.
Violating the right of sanctuary could have very serious consequences for those who did it. The Mahavamsa records an example of this. During political upheaval in the reign of King Udaya III (934-937) a number of court officials fled to the monastery of some monks revered for their simplicity and holiness. The king and his soldiers pushed their way into the monastery and summarily executed the officials. As a protest against this violation of the right of sanctuary and the shedding of blood in their monastery the monks rose in a body and left the capital for the forest. In response to this protest riots broke out in the capital, sections of the army rebelled and the life of the king himself was threatened. To calm the situation the king had to send his senior ministers after the monks to beg for their forgiveness and plea with them to return to their monastery. The humiliated and chastened king had to promise never to violate the right of sanctuary again.
There is nothing in the Tipitaka addressing the matter of sanctuary in monasteries although it is may have evolved from a general respect for the Sangha and the Buddha’s teaching allotting punishment with compassion.
I have been unable to find any material showing that the custom of offering sanctuary in monasteries existed in Buddhist countries other than Sri Lanka. Do any of my readers know of any?