[Buddha-l] At Last

[d f tweney]

A 250-part CD? Yeah, that'll get the masses all fired up... just 
remember all the excitement over Georg Solti's 14-CD edition of Wagner's 
Ring cycle? A 250-part CD collection will undoubtedly be even more 
popular than that.

Stephen Hopkins wrote:
> Denizens -
> 
> At last, a sure fire, modern, way........  And from a real estate developer
> too.
> 
> Best,
> 
> Steve Hopkins
> 
> 
> 
> Buddhist monks to produce video route to nirvana
> 
> John Aglionby, south-east Asia correspondent
> Wednesday January 25, 2006
> The Guardian 
> 
> If the Thai masses won't come to Buddha then Buddha will come to the Thai
> masses by video, an alliance of monks, Buddhism experts and a devout
> businessman announced yesterday.
> 
> The group is seeking to arrest the declining popularity of Buddhism and
> materialism's seemingly unstoppable rise by using 21st-century technology to
> reach the masses in a way they can relate to.
> 
> It will produce a 250-part video CD - a simpler version of a DVD - series on
> Buddhist teachings in the hope that a generation which has largely given up
> reading, and thus the religion, will be drawn back to the faith.
> 
> "We will translate text scripts into moving pictures to encourage people to
> practise Buddhist teachings," Phra Rachamethaphon, the acting head of
> Mahamakut Buddhist University, told the Associated Press.
> 
> Buddhism, which teaches compassion for all beings, and achieving inner peace
> through detachment from desires, is officially the religion of 90% of
> Thailand's 65 million people but in the past decade the number who see
> themselves as practitioners of the religion has dropped significantly. "I've
> been to the countryside and seen abandoned temples. There were no monks,"
> said real estate developer Sanan Sukdi, who plans to produce the videos.
> 
> "I was thinking of ways to help people understand Buddhism, and how to
> maintain religion in Thai society."
> 
> Monks will take three months to translate the Tripitaka - the three
> collections of Buddhist teaching - from Pali, the largely defunct language
> in which most Buddhist texts are written, into vernacular Thai. Film experts
> will then adapt them into a video series covering the Tripitaka's 45 books,
> which have 48,000 sections.
> 
> "We want to make that which is deemed difficult easy and accessible to
> Buddhists," Mr Phra said.
> 
> The project will cost some 97m baht (£1.4m) and the video CDs will sell for
> 200 baht (£2.80) each.
> 
> The first run will take up to four years to complete and will all be in Thai
> but there are plans to make an English version for the international market.
> 
> The videos are being made to celebrate the 60th anniversary of King Bhumibol
> Adulyadej's accession to the throne in June. Video production is scheduled
> to start before the king's 79th birthday in December.
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Dylan Tweney   writer/editor

dylan at tweney.com
mobile: (650) 483-2896
http://dylan.tweney.com