Maybe I Don't Know Much About Buddhism, but ...
Lately I've been trying to find ways of reclaiming my time, which has meant slightly less computer games, and slightly more TV. Philosopher Les Wynan might not call this progress, but Les Wynan should do more thinking and less whinin'. Anyway, the other night on TV I tuned in for a bit of a round table discussion on the influence of the pope, where the guests represented various religious groups. Now this should have made for a good discussion, except that the hosts asked stupid questions and the guests spoke out of their own biased agendas.

In response to a question on the pope's view of women, a Muslim leader took the opportunity to share how freeing Islam is in the lives of women. In response to the question of whether the pope was a spiritual leader or a religious leader, the Buddhist leader ranted about how evil Christian missionaries are. I changed the channel shortly after that.

This guy pointed to Asia where he knows of Christian groups are only giving Tsunami aid to people who convert to Christianity. I admit that that type of proselytizing is destructive, and I won't deny that it's happening, although the word of one man doesn't make it definite. He went on to say how destructive Christianity is to families in many parts of Asia, and how proselytization is inherently evil. I started to think about the churches that I know in Vietnam, whose leaders are arrested, tortured and/or killed with little to no trial or evidence because of an edict made by Buddhist authorities. I thought back to the Buddhist monk who burned himself alive in Saigon during the Vietnam conflict to prove a point. Actions like that are not conducive to healthy families either. Isn't Buddhism supposed to be about internal issues, not external issues like family? Even Engaged Buddhism is supposed to be about social justice issues, which over-ride family. He's the Buddhist leader, not me, but I was quite confused by his reasoning.

Don't get me wrong, I love families. I get strength from my family, but it also saddens me when they make independent choices outside of my religious framework. Aren't all religions based on focus on the sacred? Isn't family part of the civic (or mundane, or whatever the opposite of sacred is)? Or is it simply that Buddhism has the same problem as Christianity, that the leaders of the institutions are more concerned with the stability of those institutions rather than the application of the sacred texts.

   [ posted by William @ 12:15 PM ]