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This 99-page report written by longtime Burma watcher Bertil Lintner, describes the repression Burma's monks experienced after they led demonstrations against the government in September 2007. The report tells the stories of individual monks who were arrested, beaten and detained. Two years after Buddhist monks marched down the street of the detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, hundreds of monks are in prison and thousands remain fearful of military repression. Many have left their monasteries and returned to their villages or sought refuge abroad, while those who remained in their monasteries live under constant surveillance--Human Rights Watch web site.
The war in Sri Lanka was violent and costly in human and material terms. This was one of the longest wars in modern South Asia. Often referred to as an 'ethnic' conflict between the majority Sinhalas and the minority Tamils, the war had a profound religious dimension. The majority of Sinhala Buddhist monks (the Sangha) not only opposed any meaningful powersharing but latterly advocated an all-out military solution. Such a nexus between Buddhism and violence is paradoxical; nevertheless it has a historical continuity. In 2009 when the war ended amid serious questions of war crimes and crimes against humanity, monks defended the military and its Buddhist leadership. Taking the lives of three key Sangha activists as the modern framework of a Sinhala Buddhist worldview, this book examines the limitations of Western theories of peacebuilding and such solutions as federalism and multinationalism. It analyzes Sinhala Buddhist ethnoreligious nationalism and argues for the urgent need to engage Buddhist politics - in Lanka and elsewhere - with approaches and mechanisms that accommodate the Sangha as key actors in political reform. Sinhala Buddhism is often studied from a sociological or anthropological standpoint. This book fills a gap by examining the faith and practice of the Sinhala Sangha and their followers from a political science perspective.
"In association with the Center for Ethnic Studies and Development (CESD), Chiang Mai University."
This pioneering study of the fate of Buddhism during the communist period in Cambodia puts a human face on a dark period in Cambodia’s history. It is the first sustained analysis of the widely held assumption that the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot had a centralized plan to liquidate the entire monastic order. Based on a thorough analysis of interview transcripts and a large body of contemporary manuscript material, it offers a nuanced view that attempts to move beyond the horrific monastic death toll and fully evaluate the damage to the Buddhist sangha under Democratic Kampuchea. Compelling evidence exists to suggest that Khmer Rouge leaders were determined to hunt down senior members of the pre-1975 ecclesiastical hierarchy, but other factors also worked against the Buddhist order. Buddhism in a Dark Age outlines a three-phase process in the Khmer Rouge treatment of Buddhism: bureaucratic interference and obstruction, explicit harassment, and finally the elimination of the obdurate and those close to the previous Lon Nol regime. The establishment of a separate revolutionary form of sangha administration constituted the bureaucratic phase. The harassment of monks, both individually and en masse, was partially due to the uprooting of the traditional monastic economy in which lay people were discouraged from feeding economically unproductive monks. Younger members of the order were disrobed and forced into marriage or military service. The final act in the tragedy of Buddhism under the Khmer Rouge was the execution of those monks and senior ecclesiastics who resisted. It was difficult for institutional Buddhism to survive the conditions encountered during the decade under study here. Prince Sihanouk’s overthrow in 1970 marked the end of Buddhism as the central axis around which all other aspects of Cambodian existence revolved and made sense. And under Pol Pot the lay population was strongly discouraged from providing its necessary material support. The book concludes with a discussion of the slow re-establishment and official supervision of the Buddhist order during the People’s Republic of Kampuchea period.
“With this memoir by a ‘simple monk’ who spent 33 years in prisons and labor camps for resisting the Chinese, a rare Tibetan voice is heard.” —The New York Times Book Review Palden Gyatso was born in a Tibetan village in 1933 and became an ordained Buddhist monk at eighteen—just as Tibet was in the midst of political upheaval. When Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950, it embarked on a program of “reform” that would eventually affect all of Tibet’s citizens and nearly decimate its ancient culture. In 1967, the Chinese destroyed monasteries across Tibet and forced thousands of monks into labor camps and prisons. Gyatso spent the next twenty-five years of his life enduring interrogation and torture simply for the strength of his beliefs. Palden Gyatso’s story bears witness to the resilience of the human spirit, and to the strength of Tibet’s proud civilization, faced with cultural genocide. “To readers of this memoir, however untraveled, Tibet will never again seem remote or unfamiliar. . . . Gyatso reminds us that the language of suffering is universal.” —Library Journal “Has the ring of undeniable truth. . . . Palden Gyatso’s clear-sighted eloquence (in Tsering Shakya’s fluent translation) makes his tale even more engrossing.” —San Francisco Chronicle
This thesis examines the doctrinal grounds and different approaches to working out this "new Buddhist tradition," a startling contrast to the teachings of non-violence and compassion which have made Buddhism known as a religion of peace. In scores of articles as war approached in 1936-37, new monks searched and reinterpreted scripture, making controversial arguments for ideas like "compassionate killing" which would justify participating in war.
"I stayed [in the forest] for two nights. The first night, nothing happened. The second night, at about one or two in the morning, a tiger came--which meant that I didn't get any sleep the whole night. I sat in meditation, scared stiff, while the tiger walked around and around my umbrella tent (klot). My body felt all frozen and numb. I started chanting, and the words came out like running water. All the old chants I had forgotten now came back to me, thanks both to my fear and to my ability to keep my mind under control. I sat like this from 2 until 5 a.m., when the tiger finally left." --A forest monk During the first half of this century the forests of Thailand were home to wandering ascetic monks. They were Buddhists, but their brand of Buddhism did not copy the practices described in ancient doctrinal texts. Their Buddhism found expression in living day-to-day in the forest and in contending with the mental and physical challenges of hunger, pain, fear, and desire. Combining interviews and biographies with an exhaustive knowledge of archival materials and a wide reading of ephemeral popular literature, Kamala Tiyavanich documents the monastic lives of three generations of forest-dwelling ascetics and challenges the stereotype of state-centric Thai Buddhism. Although the tradition of wandering forest ascetics has disappeared, a victim of Thailand's relentless modernization and rampant deforestation, the lives of the monks presented here are a testament to the rich diversity of regional Buddhist traditions. The study of these monastic lineages and practices enriches our understanding of Buddhism in Thailand and elsewhere.
They may shave their heads, don simple robes, and renounce materialism and worldly desires. But the women seeking enlightenment in a Buddhist nunnery high in the folds of Himalayan Kashmir invariably find themselves subject to the tyrannies of subsistence, subordination, and sexuality. Ultimately, Buddhist monasticism reflects the very world it is supposed to renounce. Butter and barley prove to be as critical to monastic life as merit and meditation. Kim Gutschow lived for more than three years among these women, collecting their stories, observing their ways, studying their lives. Her book offers the first ethnography of Tibetan Buddhist society from the perspective of its nuns. Gutschow depicts a gender hierarchy where nuns serve and monks direct, where monks bless the fields and kitchens while nuns toil in them. Monasteries may retain historical endowments and significant political and social power, yet global flows of capitalism, tourism, and feminism have begun to erode the balance of power between monks and nuns. Despite the obstacles of being considered impure and inferior, nuns engage in everyday forms of resistance to pursue their ascetic and personal goals. A richly textured picture of the little known culture of a Buddhist nunnery, the book offers moving narratives of nuns struggling with the Buddhist discipline of detachment. Its analysis of the way in which gender and sexuality construct ritual and social power provides valuable insight into the relationship between women and religion in South Asia today.
Myanmar's transition to democracy has been marred by violence between Buddhists and Muslims. While the violence originally broke out between Rakhine Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims, it subsequently emerged throughout the country, impacting Buddhists and Muslims of many ethnic backgrounds. This article offers background on these so-called "communal conflicts" and the rise and evolution of Buddhist nationalist groups led by monks that have spearheaded anti-Muslim campaigns. The authors describe how current monastic political mobilization can be understood as an extension of past monastic activism, and is rooted in traditional understandings of the monastic community's responsibility to defend the religion, respond to community needs, and guide political decision-makers. The authors propose a counter-argument rooted in Theravada Buddhism to address the underlying anxieties motivating Buddhist nationalists while directing them toward peaceful actions promoting coexistence. Additionally, given that these conflicts derive from wider political, economic, and social dilemmas, the authors offer a prescription of complementary policy initiatives.--Résumé de l'éditeur.
The Battle for China’s Spirit is the first comprehensive analysis of its kind, focusing on seven major religious groups in China that together account for over 350 million believers: Chinese Buddhism, Taoism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Islam, Tibetan Buddhism, and Falun Gong. The study examines the evolution of the Communist Party’s policies of religious control, how they are applied differently to diverse faith communities, and how citizens are responding to these policies. The study—which draws on hundreds of official documents and interviews with religious leaders, lay believers, and scholars—finds that Chinese government controls over religion have intensified since November 2012, seeping into new areas of daily life. Yet millions of religious believers defy official restrictions or engage in some form of direct protest, at times scoring significant victories. The report explores how these dynamics affect China’s overall social, political, and economic environment, while offering recommendations to both the Chinese government and international actors for how to increase the space for peaceful religious practice in a country where spirituality has been deeply embedded in its culture for millennia.