Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
I think Buddhism is very fragile religion to be 'religion of state'
rohit
Maharrashtra Veteran
In India during several invasion only Hindus and some Jains left. Other got converted to Islam or Christianity.
Dalai lama had to flew away from tibet and large portion of demography and people are now facing slavery.
0
Comments
Bhutan is a country of the Tibetan Buddhism. Maybe not the best place to live for people with another belief.
A religion of state is usually just politicized religion, just as cultural Buddhism is usually just a tribal form of Buddhism.
Both of these forms have little to risk or offer and so are not fragile.
It is said though that Buddhism, as a religion of spiritual practice, best thrives in the lands and times of relative peacefulness.
This aspect of Buddhism as a practice promoting harmlessness and personal accountability is unlikely to well represent the intents any political medium.
This aspect of Buddhism does make it a very fragile religion of state.
I think it's a good thing that Buddhism can be looked at as either a formal (or informal) religion, or a choice of perspective.
After the Dalai Lama fled Tibet, western media became susceptible to supporting his point of view: The Chinese were, roughly speaking, depicted as the autocrats and the bad guys and the peace-loving Buddhists were getting the rough end of the stick.
Of all the news stories I ever read about Tibet and its Chinese "invaders," one stood out to me because the Los Angeles Times actually sent a reporter to Tibet to ask people who lived there how things had changed since the Chinese asserted their will. Other media tended to rely on press releases, protests, etc.
And it was in that LATimes story that one farmer's comment stood out for me. When asked how things had changed since the Chinese came in, he said, "Well, at least we're not slaves any more." There was no further probing of what he meant and to what extent it might be true -- and if so, in what way had he previously felt himself enslaved -- but the comment hung in the air for me -- an interesting contrast to the "Free Tibet" bumper stickers.
Theological or not, governments are not in business for religion except to the extent those religions/spiritual leanings can keep the peace as governments define it. Is that really peace? I doubt it.
Just a little noodling.
The 'Karmic right' of Bodhi Lamas is little different from the Divine right of Queens
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_right_of_kings
God save the Queen. We mean it mam!
HH Johnny Rotten [oops went a little punk for a moment]
Can you imagine a modern government were one of the advisors was a possessed medium (or Tibetan State Oracle)? [yikes]
Unfortunately the Natural Law Party
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_Law_Party
are not fielding a candidate in the upcoming UK elections . . . I was so looking forward to a flying MP ... (teaching yogic flying is part of their manifesto)
Ah well ...
>
Yes. I'd say that if you think Buddhism is too "fragile" to be a religion of state, you should go interview peasants and herders in Tibet. Short of that, you can read American journalist Hanna Louise Strong's interviews with them not long after the Chinese took over, and you can read Heinrich Harrer's observations in 7 Years In Tibet. Also, "The Struggle for Modern Tibet, the Autobiography of Tashi Tsering", by Goldstein. Buddhism was a religion of state for hundreds of years in Tibet. It was far from "fragile". Also, far from compassionate.
http://www.amazon.com/Struggle-Modern-Tibet-Autobiography-Tsering/dp/0765605090/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1428960460&sr=1-1&keywords=The+Struggle+for+Modern+Tibet,+Tashi+Tsering
OP, did you know that the Tibetan theocracy didn't allow the wheel to be used in Tibet? Everyone around them (the Uighurs to the north, the Chinese to the east, Nepalis and India to the south) were using animal-powered wheeled vehicles/carts for transport and portage, but that wasn't allowed in Tibet. Everyone had to carry things on their backs or on pack animals, if they owned any. High-status monks and landowners used their own servants as pack animals and as riding animals; they would ride on the back of their servants when traveling, for fording deep rivers, and so forth.
I'm not sure what you mean by your statement that the Tibetan people are "now facing slavery". Could you clarify that, please?
They are forced to live under Chinese rule. They are forced to do family planning. Their land and resources are used for Chinese development. Tibetans have no voice for their own rights.
So, it seems to be that a fair question is to examine Rohit's statement that what the Tibetan people are undergoing now is "slavery". While I don't approve of what is happening to them, I'm not sure that "slavery" is a correct term in this instance.
Thoughts.
Thank you.
Have the Chinese changed their position on the number of children minority nationalities can have? Or do they not allow above a certain number? Family planning for Tibetans is a good thing. They used to have huge families (if all the children survived), some of whom ended up being given away to monasteries/nunneries, in part because many parents couldn't afford to feed all those kids. Also, not all of the kids survived past the first year or two, as in the Dalai Lama's family. The women went through life with one pregnancy after another after another, and still had to manage the family farm, or work for the overlord. It was a hard life.
True, their land and resources are used for development. Some of that benefits Tibetans (schools, electrical stations, etc.), some of it is for housing and jobs for Chinese, it's true. Forests are being cut, and there's probably mining going on that causes environmental damage. We don't hear too much about that in the West.
"Slavery" seems like an overstatement. What concerns me are the violent clashes between Chinese and Tibetans, and the harsh treatment of Tibetans in the legal system. Also, the government hasn't built schools in the rural areas, only in the cities, from what I've been able to learn here and there on the internet. In many rural areas, the only schools are monastic, so there still isn't a modern curriculum. And there are no job opportunities for girls. Too many Tibetan girls end up working as prostitutes. Nun or sex worker are their only "career" options, if they don't pursue higher education elsewhere in China.