[Buddha-l] Extreme practice

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Stuart Lachs schreef:
> Years ago I stayed at a Vietnamese Buddhist Temple in Los Angeles. I was 
> told there that the Buddhist
> self immolations, I believe there were six, during the Vietnam War were done 
> to keep the government,
> made up of Vietnamese Catholics as Dan pointed out, from killing the 
> leadership
> of the Buddhist resistance. I was told that the gov't. had the Budd. 
> leadership in their hands
> and were driving them from place to place as cover for before killing them. 
> The self immolations I
> was told was to bring world attention to Vietnam and keep the gov't. from 
> killing these Budd.
> leaders. If this story is true, then the self immolations were successful 
> because it did save the lives
> of the Buddhist leaders.
>
> Stuart
>
>  
>   
The conflict in Vietnam was a very complex one. Underlying was the 
conflict between the rich industrial and Western orientated South with 
old Khmer traditions and the poor agricultural Chinese orientated North. 
Then there was the Cao Dai who tried to become an independent state. 
Religion was a side motive, perhaps only because the social networks 
were coloured by religion. Then of course there was the influence of 
Mao. His devotee Ho Chi Minh dreamed to become the leader of a communist 
Southeast Asia. Finally the U.S.A. tried to stop Mao and Ho and get a 
foothold for itself. In such a situation it doesn't help much to pretend 
that the whole conflict was about Catholics against Buddhists. It 
doesn't make any sense to say that religious leaders where about to kill 
each other. Why? Do people stop to be Catholic if someone kills the pope?

-- 


Erik

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