[Buddha-l] An arresting story about Myanmar

[Chan Fu]

On 8/22/07, Richard Hayes <rhayes at unm.edu> wrote:
> http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/08/22/myanmar-arrests.html
>
> The cited story mentions Myanmar's universities. There was a time when the
> only universities allowed to operate in Myanmar were Buddhist institutions.
> The relationship between the bhikkhu-sangha and the military government in
> Myanmar has baffled me for years. Idealistic Western secular humanist
> ex-hippy small-c communist that I am, I always assume that Buddhists will
> automatically be anti-establishment and especially anti-military. Reality,
> therefore, nearly always comes as a bit of a shock to me. But I continue to
> ignore it. Reality, I think, is quite overrated.

Not a bad shock, as shocks go.

Will it baffle you when state-supported religion becomes de-rigeur
here? Of course not. So why should the parallel baffle you? Look at
Sri Lanka or Thailand. Buddhism in Asia has become indistinguishable
from christian or islamic purity and prudity.

Our universities are folding like dominoes in their eagerness to appear
"non-sectarian". Of course you know that the islamic "foot-bath"
thing was to keep those feet from stinking up another muslim nose
during prayers. I'm thinking an "ass-bath" would have been more
appropriate and more generally applicable.

Reality is just the middle way between birth and death. If you're
not used to it by now, you may never be. After the commercial,
I think I'll spend 100 milliseconds thinking about the billions who
died unenlightened and without "knowing jesus".

(I don't capitalize those nouns because they're not proper.)