Thursday, September 01, 2005
From Buddhaputra to Bhoomiputra |
A look at the role that the sangha play in the ethnic conflict and the peace process in Sri Lanka, and a questioning of my belief in an increasingly hostile and intolerant faith that I call Sri Lankan Buddhism.
I was born a Buddhist, into a fairly religious Buddhist family. I studied Buddhism as my religion in school. I wasn't a very religious person anyway, but I never had a problem respecting monks or going to the temple on Poya days with my Grandmother.
But then, one day, while on an assignment, I was beaten up by monks. Why? Because I was a journalist. They didn't ask me for my religion or what institution I work for. I had a camera, and that was enough for them to hit me and kick me when I was down. This came as a shock to me and I didn't fight back. I ran. But it led me to question the future of the sangha and of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and where I stand in the spectrum.
By the next such confrontation I was over my shock. I fought back. I had lost all respect for the sangha and I had no problems throwing a punch and catching one of them squarely across the jaw, to protect myself and my footage. They would never shock me again.
According to the scriptures the 'Sangha' are the Buddhaputhra, the 'children' of the Buddha, the sons of the faith. They are the guardians of the faith, the protectors of the Dhamma. They are supposed to be teachers, mentors and guides.
But in Sri Lanka this is no longer so. The addition of the sangha to the formula of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has led to a further complication of our identities. Earlier, one a very basic level, one could say the conflict was between the 'Tamils' and the 'Sinhalese'. But now these identities no longer exist in that form. There are now 'Sinhala Buddhists' and 'Tamil Hindus', and the conflict has spilled over the boundries of ethnicity. It is the sangha in Sri Lanka who are to blame for this.
I put the rise of the most brutal form of Sinhala nationalism to the creation of the Sinhala Veera Vidhana (SVV). This association of Colombo based Sinhala traders who sought to use ethnic sensitivities to put a dent in the profits of their Tamil and Muslim counterparts, was even at its very inception inextricably intertwined with the radical nationalist Sangha in Colombo who had been seeking for an outlet to express their political opinions. As they marched up and down the streets of Colombo asking the people not to patronise Tamil and Muslims shops, the traders of the SVV rallied the monks behind them to gain legitimacy among the Sinhala people.
'We are the Aarakshaka Devathavas (guardian angels) of this island and of the Sinhala people' says Maduluwawe Sobitha, and a new identity, the Sinhala Buddhist is born. One is no longer able to be a Sinhala Hindu or a Tamil Buddhist. This new ideology states that only Sinhala Buddhists have any right to call this island their homeland and scores of monks, heads filled with dreams of what this new-found political ideology can bring them, rally behind it.
But thier causes are purely selfish. In a society swiftly moving away from religion and from the constant patronage that the monks depend upon for their lavish lifestyles, they are afraid that soon they will have to resort to walking from house to house with a bowl as the Buddha did. They will no longer be able to sit in their temples like Vito Corleone and demand money and tribute from the faithful as an experssion of their belief. This attitude had begun to eat away at the core of Sri Lankan Buddhism long before they joined Hate-Mongers Inc. To bring the faithful back to the temples and to keep themselves and their sexually-abused temple-boys fed they needed something to revive the faith. Something with which to embed Buddhism so deeply in an institution that it would keep them alive and living like kings for generations.
The time was ripe for the birth of the Sinhala Buddhist identity, and it was born.
The Buddha never dappled in statecraft. Matters of kings and nations were of no consequence to him. His followers who saw the sense behind this fought hard to divorce the philosophy from the state, so that no one state or no one king may lay claim to it as their own. Buddhism, fundamentally, cannot be married to a state, or to governance. Even in the time of the Buddha it was the 'other' personified into the character Devadatta who constantly sought state patronage. This was one of the fundamental differences between the followers of the Buddha and the followers of Devadatta.
Unlike in many other religions, where there are clear cut guidelines for the governance of a people, Buddhism does not set guidelines for nations, governments or even communities, but for individuals. This is the undeniable form of the Dhamma. Any old upasaka will tell you that the philosophy is not to be followed by people, but by a person.
The identification of the philosophy of the Buddha as something belonging only to the Sinhala people, was the greatest perversion of one of the greatest philosophies the world has ever seen. An unprecedented crime against humanity.
It has been many years now and the Sinhala Buddhist ideology has turned many from Buddhaputhras to Bhoomiputras, sons of the soil. Athuruliye Rathna, Uduwe Dhammaloka, Alle Gunawansa and even Gangodawila Soma echo(ed) the very same idea.
These monks frequently resort to violence and abuse to get closer to their aims and they openly advocate a return to war. I don't need to explain why I see this as being fundamentally contradictory to the very core teachings of the Buddha. The Sinhala half of the identity has overpowerd the Buddhist half and has taken away from the monks and their 'Buddhist' followers the ability to understand even the most simple principles of the Dhamma.
Almost all other religions and faiths have long histories of wars against each other, and have examples with which to justify the violent expression and protection of their own. Buddhist history, very strangely, lacks of bloodbaths and great wars by those who sought to protect it from the infidel. The only real mention of a great war in Buddhist history is the one that inspired the Chandashoka-Dharmashoka transformation!
It is no longer possible for me to call myself a Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I hated the sangha, and by extension, the Buddha and Dhamma.
But there is still hope. My recent trip to Leh brought me into contact with another form of Buddhism. The same philosophy, put into practice by a different people, with a very very different result.
Let's look at who these people are. In Ladakh, the district of which Leh is the capital , a vast majortiy of the people are of Tibetan origin. They come from a country that no longer exists. Having lost their homeland to the Chinese, these Tibetan Buddhists have only their faith. Yet they abstain from ANY insurgent activity, or anything that could be remotely associated with violence. The most violent expression I have ever seen by a Tibetan is a poster saying 'CHINA! GET OUT OF TIBET!'
At present, they have as the leader of their people the Dalai Lama, unelected, but loved and respected by each and every one of them. But he does not resort to statecraft. He does travel the world speaking of the Tibetan cause and attempting to apply pressure on Chine to let them have thier homes back, but he does not resort to the corrupt, conniving statecraft that we see the monks in Sri Lanka gleefully taking part in.
They are Tibetan Buddhists. Again and ethnic and religious identity tagged together, but their priorities are different from the Sinhala Buddhist. For them being the Buddhaputra comes first. And I mean this not only of the monks, but of the entire Tibetan people in Ladakh. Each one of them, from the man who sells vegetables in the market to the police officer who watches the streets, is more a Buddhaputra than the very Mahanayakes of the Malwathu and Asgiri temples in Kandy.
I was deeply ashamed of Sri Lankan Buddhism. I did not have the courage to tell anyone that I come from Sri Lanka, because many of these people know of Sri Lanka only as another Buddhist country, where they assume the philosophy is followed in the same way it is followed in Ladakh. I would have been forced to burst their bubble and explain to them the nature of the rot in the faith in Sri Lanka and that would have been a rather depressing experience both for them and for me.
In at present the Buddhists of Ladakh are threatened by outside forces. The Indian Army build Shiv Mandirs and the Muslims of Kashmir build mosques and madrassas. But they remain tolerant, because that is what they must do in order to seek Nirvana. They do not burn Hindu and Muslim places of worship, and they do not loot Hindu and Muslim homes when they feel threatened, but neither do they blindly convert. In a playing field where the other kids are fighting for space they sit quietly in a corner and play their own game by themselves and smile to themselves at the absurdity of it all.
For the Buddhists of Ladakh, tolerance is not something they hear about in a monthly poya day sermon from the monk at the temple, it something that each single individual pratices each day of their lives. They live and breathe the philosophy. But they do not follow it as a mob, as Sri Lankans do. For them it is a deeply individual experience.
Leh made me think. I'm still thinking, trying to understand the very nature of my beliefs. I do not yet consider myself a Buddhist, but a little seed of the faith that remained inside seems to have begun to grow. Now I have an idea, albeit minute, of what is possible. How and when still remain questions.
All Sri Lankan Buddhists, I beg of you. Go to Ladakh, and try to understand thew difference between the Bhoomiputra and Buddhaputra.
***
NOTE ON TOOTHACHE: Coming to the issue of relics, Buddhism has never been about the worship of relics. If those who follow this corrupted perverted form of the great philospohy want to prostrate themselves before something that doesn't really exist, then go ahead. But do not expect me to respect your perversion of something I hold to be sacred, which is the Dhamma.
Your monks pissed on my Dhamma and perverted it beyond recognistion, so I'm going to piss on your tooth! Somewhere in a bottle I have a tooth I had pulled when I was about 14. I'm going to make a little karanduwa for it and put it on my head and walk around town. If you want you can fall on your feet and worship it. If you're really lucky I'll let you see it, which is more than they let you do at the Dalada Maligawa.
The bombing of the Dalada Maligawe angered me because of the damage done to the precious artwork, which is undeiably of great value. The LTTE couldn't blow the tooth up BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE!!!! If you want to worship a tooth come worship mine, at least it's REALLY THERE!!!
The worship of relics is a perversion of Buddhism and I don't like it. Deal with it.
Like Fox Mulder says 'The TOOTH is out there!'
I was born a Buddhist, into a fairly religious Buddhist family. I studied Buddhism as my religion in school. I wasn't a very religious person anyway, but I never had a problem respecting monks or going to the temple on Poya days with my Grandmother.
But then, one day, while on an assignment, I was beaten up by monks. Why? Because I was a journalist. They didn't ask me for my religion or what institution I work for. I had a camera, and that was enough for them to hit me and kick me when I was down. This came as a shock to me and I didn't fight back. I ran. But it led me to question the future of the sangha and of Buddhism in Sri Lanka, and where I stand in the spectrum.
By the next such confrontation I was over my shock. I fought back. I had lost all respect for the sangha and I had no problems throwing a punch and catching one of them squarely across the jaw, to protect myself and my footage. They would never shock me again.
According to the scriptures the 'Sangha' are the Buddhaputhra, the 'children' of the Buddha, the sons of the faith. They are the guardians of the faith, the protectors of the Dhamma. They are supposed to be teachers, mentors and guides.
But in Sri Lanka this is no longer so. The addition of the sangha to the formula of the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka has led to a further complication of our identities. Earlier, one a very basic level, one could say the conflict was between the 'Tamils' and the 'Sinhalese'. But now these identities no longer exist in that form. There are now 'Sinhala Buddhists' and 'Tamil Hindus', and the conflict has spilled over the boundries of ethnicity. It is the sangha in Sri Lanka who are to blame for this.
I put the rise of the most brutal form of Sinhala nationalism to the creation of the Sinhala Veera Vidhana (SVV). This association of Colombo based Sinhala traders who sought to use ethnic sensitivities to put a dent in the profits of their Tamil and Muslim counterparts, was even at its very inception inextricably intertwined with the radical nationalist Sangha in Colombo who had been seeking for an outlet to express their political opinions. As they marched up and down the streets of Colombo asking the people not to patronise Tamil and Muslims shops, the traders of the SVV rallied the monks behind them to gain legitimacy among the Sinhala people.
'We are the Aarakshaka Devathavas (guardian angels) of this island and of the Sinhala people' says Maduluwawe Sobitha, and a new identity, the Sinhala Buddhist is born. One is no longer able to be a Sinhala Hindu or a Tamil Buddhist. This new ideology states that only Sinhala Buddhists have any right to call this island their homeland and scores of monks, heads filled with dreams of what this new-found political ideology can bring them, rally behind it.
But thier causes are purely selfish. In a society swiftly moving away from religion and from the constant patronage that the monks depend upon for their lavish lifestyles, they are afraid that soon they will have to resort to walking from house to house with a bowl as the Buddha did. They will no longer be able to sit in their temples like Vito Corleone and demand money and tribute from the faithful as an experssion of their belief. This attitude had begun to eat away at the core of Sri Lankan Buddhism long before they joined Hate-Mongers Inc. To bring the faithful back to the temples and to keep themselves and their sexually-abused temple-boys fed they needed something to revive the faith. Something with which to embed Buddhism so deeply in an institution that it would keep them alive and living like kings for generations.
The time was ripe for the birth of the Sinhala Buddhist identity, and it was born.
The Buddha never dappled in statecraft. Matters of kings and nations were of no consequence to him. His followers who saw the sense behind this fought hard to divorce the philosophy from the state, so that no one state or no one king may lay claim to it as their own. Buddhism, fundamentally, cannot be married to a state, or to governance. Even in the time of the Buddha it was the 'other' personified into the character Devadatta who constantly sought state patronage. This was one of the fundamental differences between the followers of the Buddha and the followers of Devadatta.
Unlike in many other religions, where there are clear cut guidelines for the governance of a people, Buddhism does not set guidelines for nations, governments or even communities, but for individuals. This is the undeniable form of the Dhamma. Any old upasaka will tell you that the philosophy is not to be followed by people, but by a person.
The identification of the philosophy of the Buddha as something belonging only to the Sinhala people, was the greatest perversion of one of the greatest philosophies the world has ever seen. An unprecedented crime against humanity.
It has been many years now and the Sinhala Buddhist ideology has turned many from Buddhaputhras to Bhoomiputras, sons of the soil. Athuruliye Rathna, Uduwe Dhammaloka, Alle Gunawansa and even Gangodawila Soma echo(ed) the very same idea.
These monks frequently resort to violence and abuse to get closer to their aims and they openly advocate a return to war. I don't need to explain why I see this as being fundamentally contradictory to the very core teachings of the Buddha. The Sinhala half of the identity has overpowerd the Buddhist half and has taken away from the monks and their 'Buddhist' followers the ability to understand even the most simple principles of the Dhamma.
Almost all other religions and faiths have long histories of wars against each other, and have examples with which to justify the violent expression and protection of their own. Buddhist history, very strangely, lacks of bloodbaths and great wars by those who sought to protect it from the infidel. The only real mention of a great war in Buddhist history is the one that inspired the Chandashoka-Dharmashoka transformation!
It is no longer possible for me to call myself a Buddhist in Sri Lanka. I hated the sangha, and by extension, the Buddha and Dhamma.
But there is still hope. My recent trip to Leh brought me into contact with another form of Buddhism. The same philosophy, put into practice by a different people, with a very very different result.
Let's look at who these people are. In Ladakh, the district of which Leh is the capital , a vast majortiy of the people are of Tibetan origin. They come from a country that no longer exists. Having lost their homeland to the Chinese, these Tibetan Buddhists have only their faith. Yet they abstain from ANY insurgent activity, or anything that could be remotely associated with violence. The most violent expression I have ever seen by a Tibetan is a poster saying 'CHINA! GET OUT OF TIBET!'
At present, they have as the leader of their people the Dalai Lama, unelected, but loved and respected by each and every one of them. But he does not resort to statecraft. He does travel the world speaking of the Tibetan cause and attempting to apply pressure on Chine to let them have thier homes back, but he does not resort to the corrupt, conniving statecraft that we see the monks in Sri Lanka gleefully taking part in.
They are Tibetan Buddhists. Again and ethnic and religious identity tagged together, but their priorities are different from the Sinhala Buddhist. For them being the Buddhaputra comes first. And I mean this not only of the monks, but of the entire Tibetan people in Ladakh. Each one of them, from the man who sells vegetables in the market to the police officer who watches the streets, is more a Buddhaputra than the very Mahanayakes of the Malwathu and Asgiri temples in Kandy.
I was deeply ashamed of Sri Lankan Buddhism. I did not have the courage to tell anyone that I come from Sri Lanka, because many of these people know of Sri Lanka only as another Buddhist country, where they assume the philosophy is followed in the same way it is followed in Ladakh. I would have been forced to burst their bubble and explain to them the nature of the rot in the faith in Sri Lanka and that would have been a rather depressing experience both for them and for me.
In at present the Buddhists of Ladakh are threatened by outside forces. The Indian Army build Shiv Mandirs and the Muslims of Kashmir build mosques and madrassas. But they remain tolerant, because that is what they must do in order to seek Nirvana. They do not burn Hindu and Muslim places of worship, and they do not loot Hindu and Muslim homes when they feel threatened, but neither do they blindly convert. In a playing field where the other kids are fighting for space they sit quietly in a corner and play their own game by themselves and smile to themselves at the absurdity of it all.
For the Buddhists of Ladakh, tolerance is not something they hear about in a monthly poya day sermon from the monk at the temple, it something that each single individual pratices each day of their lives. They live and breathe the philosophy. But they do not follow it as a mob, as Sri Lankans do. For them it is a deeply individual experience.
Leh made me think. I'm still thinking, trying to understand the very nature of my beliefs. I do not yet consider myself a Buddhist, but a little seed of the faith that remained inside seems to have begun to grow. Now I have an idea, albeit minute, of what is possible. How and when still remain questions.
All Sri Lankan Buddhists, I beg of you. Go to Ladakh, and try to understand thew difference between the Bhoomiputra and Buddhaputra.
***
NOTE ON TOOTHACHE: Coming to the issue of relics, Buddhism has never been about the worship of relics. If those who follow this corrupted perverted form of the great philospohy want to prostrate themselves before something that doesn't really exist, then go ahead. But do not expect me to respect your perversion of something I hold to be sacred, which is the Dhamma.
Your monks pissed on my Dhamma and perverted it beyond recognistion, so I'm going to piss on your tooth! Somewhere in a bottle I have a tooth I had pulled when I was about 14. I'm going to make a little karanduwa for it and put it on my head and walk around town. If you want you can fall on your feet and worship it. If you're really lucky I'll let you see it, which is more than they let you do at the Dalada Maligawa.
The bombing of the Dalada Maligawe angered me because of the damage done to the precious artwork, which is undeiably of great value. The LTTE couldn't blow the tooth up BECAUSE IT ISN'T THERE!!!! If you want to worship a tooth come worship mine, at least it's REALLY THERE!!!
The worship of relics is a perversion of Buddhism and I don't like it. Deal with it.
Like Fox Mulder says 'The TOOTH is out there!'
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# posted by
 : September 01, 2005 8:39 AM |
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# posted by
: September 01, 2005 8:54 AM |
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# posted by
: September 01, 2005 9:25 AM |
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# posted by
: September 01, 2005 10:39 AM |
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# posted by
: September 02, 2005 1:10 AM |
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# posted by
: September 02, 2005 1:54 AM |
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# posted by
: September 02, 2005 3:29 AM |
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I mentioned in a post on Ian's blog that reality is subjective to the system of belief that we have been brought up on. I find Morq's statements true on many counts - and certainly have gained more of an insight into his perspective on issues. As for sittingnut, I find your opinions almost evangelical - are you an evangelist? You give the impression of someone who is profoundly convinced in what he believes - to the detriment of tolerating other peoples' opinions. How can you be a libertarian and dismiss the views of another people or degrade their beliefs? |
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# posted by
: September 02, 2005 8:26 AM |
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# posted by
: September 02, 2005 9:11 AM |
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Piyasena - Enough wih the capitals. Can you please stop using the Shift key or Caps Lock. It makes it harder to read your posts. |
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# posted by
: September 03, 2005 4:22 AM |
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# posted by
: September 03, 2005 10:33 AM |
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# posted by
: September 03, 2005 11:51 AM |
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# posted by
: September 03, 2005 9:09 PM |
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# posted by
: September 04, 2005 10:39 AM |
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# posted by
: September 05, 2005 3:03 PM |
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# posted by
: September 05, 2005 10:05 PM |
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# posted by
: September 06, 2005 4:17 AM |
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Ashanthi : Does it really matter if there is ... No, it was a personal question from an offline discussion. Strictly speaking such a statement is not needed in arguing for a more doctrinal acceptance of Buddhism, probably would help though. ...even IVAP shows deference to Indi... deference? No, just idolatry. My ego dictates that I respond. So here goes. I assume you are referring to this blog by indi. If so I haven’t seen you involved in a point-by-point critique of indi’s views either, just general rambling. Other than the fact that indi could have chosen much worse examples of terror I can’t see anything unreasonable in his views. He is not advocating war or intolerance but to hold the LTTE more accountable. Let’s see (selectively quoted)… Slowly, however, things have gotten better….. A crappy democracy, but it kinda creaks along. …There are certainly minority abuses all over the country – to both Tamils and Muslims. There is no denying Sri Lanka’s sins, but Sri Lanka has one redeeming quality. It is democracy. We have the tools to make things better... All the LTTE has is Prabhakaran, torture, and death…see the LTTE for what they are – dictatorial, facist, inefficient, and corrupt. Extortionists, child abusers, and terrorists…… It’s not time to return to war, but it is time for the LTTE’s halo of efficiency and righteousness to come down a notch…. They cannot do all of these things and call themselves the sole representatives of the Tamil people. Otherwise the responsibilities for all these crimes fall fairly and squarely on the shoulders of all Tamils Sri Lanka just has to negotiate with them until they calm down and become an annoying political party like the JVP The way I see it, internationally the moral compass is changing in favour of GOSL and away from the LTTE but not away from the Tamil struggle. I’ll blog in detail when I have more time. |
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# posted by
: September 06, 2005 6:44 AM |
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# posted by
: September 06, 2005 1:32 PM |
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# posted by
: September 06, 2005 3:22 PM |
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# posted by
: September 06, 2005 11:54 PM |
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# posted by
: September 06, 2005 11:58 PM |
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# posted by
: September 07, 2005 12:03 AM |
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# posted by
: September 07, 2005 2:01 AM |
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# posted by
: September 08, 2005 8:56 AM |
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# posted by
: September 16, 2005 9:41 AM |
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Sanjaya Senanayake's blog, eh? Seems like I've been wasting my time. -Captn. Sais |
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