Archive for the ‘Religion and faith’

  • 7 May, 2010
  • 1,076 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Identity,
    Religion and faith

The Agnostics vs. The Believers regarding karma, reincarnation, nirvana as described in Buddhism being real aspects of this world

One of the challenges put forth by The Agnostics camp (myself, SomewhatDisgusted, BalangodaMan, with help from Heshan) to The Believers (Yapa, Wijayapala, Off The Cuff, etc.) in the 1000+ comments discussion/debate that’s taking place in the comments section of the Akon & Buddhism article at Groundviews is: prove, using modern science or math or any other verifiable method available, to non-believers, that karma, reincarnation, nirvana, as described in Buddhism, are real aspects/actual things that exist in this world. So far, in spite of their strong feeling that karma, reincarnation, & nirvana are real, and in spite of hundreds of comments by them, The Believers have not been able to show that karma, reincarnation and nirvana are in fact real – and not just speculative items used to introduce and sustain the Buddhist world view. So, I will renew the call at this new article (since the previous article mentioned now has over 1000 comments – many wildly off point –…

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Akon and Buddhism in Sri Lanka: A Response to Bhikkhu K. Tanchangya

[Editor's note: This article is a rejoinder to “Akon and Buddhism in Sri Lanka – A Monk's Response” by Bhikkhu K. Tanchangya published on the Buddhist Channel website on the 28th of March 2010. Bhikkhu K. Tanchangya's article was a response to the author's original article 'Akon and Buddhism in Sri Lanka'.] I wrote “Akon and Buddhism in Sri Lanka” exclusively for Groundviews, a prominent citizen journalism website in Sri Lanka. I expressed my opinion on the “Akon issue” as a citizen of Sri Lanka. Groundviews published my article on the 27th of March 2010 and later ‘The Buddhist Channel’ website published it attributing the original article to Groundviews. The Constitution of Sri Lanka guarantees its citizens the freedom of speech, expression and publication [Article 14(1) (a)]. Therefore, as a citizen of Sri Lanka I have every right to publish what I think and write be it under my name or under a nom de plume. I feel that Bhikkhu…

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Akon and Buddhism in Sri Lanka

The Government on Tuesday (March 23rd) announced its decision to deny an entry visa to singer Akon who was scheduled to perform next month in Colombo with co-singers, J-Sean and Kelly. The basis for the denial of Akon’s visa was a music video of the singer, containing a clip of scantily clad models dancing against the back drop of a Buddhist statue. The Government’s decision has been ratified by the Cabinet. The announcement came soon after the MTV/MBC head office was attacked by a group of armed thugs attached to a notorious politician for organizing the event. Prior to the attack, a group of Buddhist Monks expressed their dismay over bringing down someone like “Akon” who had insulted Lord Buddha and Buddhism in his music videos, an allegation the singer vehemently denies. It is against this dramatic backdrop that I wish to express my views on the whole Akon drama. As a follower of the Buddhist Philosophy, I don’t think…

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Jumma: The last bastion of the boys

The other day I was chatting to my dad and told him that sometime in the future I would like to give a Jumma sermon. He shook his head sadly and told me that unfortunately in this country, women cannot give sermons. I asked him why? And he couldn’t really tell me a good reason. So I am throwing the question out to the rational and reasonable public – Why can’t a woman give a Jumma sermon? I know from my brother and cousin that most of the Jumma sermons are totally irrelevant. Firstly they are given in a language they don’t quite understand – a tip to Imams: try Sinhala or English as a rule please, in Colombo mosques, secondly the Jumma is dead boring. Thirdly what exactly is the criterion to give a sermon? I know one big one: you have to be a man. But after that, what? From my limited knowledge I know that there is…

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Renunciation

We turned out of bed saddened and furious when we heard Taliban detonated the Bamiyan Buddhas: What savagery, to destroy testaments aged over centuries, to a now effaced history; but today let us rejoice, Akon the singer has been denied a visa and a chance to feed the unruly and sexual minds of a sold-out Sri Lankan crowd, Christians no doubt, urbane Muslims certainly, even some fallen gautamas, they can’t be trusted pogo dancing, and we don’t want skin exposed near Lord Buddha. Yet, I wish to offer a disclaimer along with a refusal to appear before a court-martial or an investigative judge to testify about the nature of We to which I belong.

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  • 25 Mar, 2010
  • 131 Comments
  • Colombo,
    Identity,
    Religion and faith

Aroused by Akon’s Sexy Bitch: the Rise of Sinhala-Buddhist Fundamentalism?

Could it be that the sight of the Buddha statue was a complete turn-off to those who were utterly aroused by the dancing girls, the ‘sexy chicks’, seen in the music video ‘Sexy Bitch’, by David Gruetta, which featured Akon? If not, can such a scene, which in this particular video lasted for not more than two seconds, truly give rise to the kind of intolerance in a Buddhist; which was shown when stones were hurled at the MBC office? A further question that arises is the following: how many more seconds would it have taken, of that or similar kind of scene, for these people to strap a bomb round their bellies and blow themselves up in front of the MBC Office? Surely, if one or two seconds caused such anger and hatred, things would have been much more serious if the entire music video featured a Buddha statue or a temple in it. More fundamentally, then, are these…

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Living Secular in the ‘Sinhala Buddhist Republic’ of Sri Lanka

Two years ago, in a moment of panic, I rushed my young daughter to Colombo’s only children’s hospital. To be honest, I don’t normally turn to our overcrowded government hospitals for healthcare. But a doctor friend had recommended the Lady Ridgeway Hospital as the best place for administering the anti-rabies vaccine. As with all government hospitals, they first wanted to record the patient’s basic bio data. Fair enough. I provided the child’s name, age and street address. For some reason, the form also asked for the patient’s religion. Before I could say anything, the nurse in charge wrote ‘Buddhist’. Now, this was both incorrect and highly presumptuous. But when I objected, it sparked off an argument. The formidable woman insisted that with a ‘good Sinhalese surname’ like ours, we simply had to be Buddhists! When I said her assumption was wrong, she asked me with some disdain: are you then a Christian? No again. Now she was beginning to be…

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Interview with Ameena Hussein

Ameena Hussein is one of Sri Lanka’s best known English authors. She is also one half of the Perera Hussein Publishing House, that since 2003 has published some of the best new English writing in the country. The Moon in the Water, Ameena’s first novel, was long-listed for the first Man Asian Literary Award in 2009. Zillij, a collection of short stories I reviewed four years ago, won the State Literary Prize in 2003. Our discussion touched on Ameena’s tryst with cancer and how this influenced her writing and outlook on life. We also talked about English literature in general, and the quality of contemporary English fiction in Sri Lanka. Ameena also talked about identity, gender and violence – both in and through her fiction and their manifestations in the real world. We spoke at some length on the politics of representation and the contested space for women in Islam, harking back to two articles on Groundviews published last year in…

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The Buddha Sasana: Sri Lanka’s biggest NGO?

Sometimes words are used so often and so uncritically that they not only lose communicative value but those who utter them and those who hear them no longer know what they mean.  We really don’t know what ‘democracy’ means, do we?  Decency, anyone?  How about justice?  Love?  There are thousands of such words and terms including ‘people’,  ‘sustainability’, ‘development’ and ‘hegemony’, but I am thinking of a name, an acronym, a term, a phenomenon, a curse and an agent, all rolled into one.  NGO. Non-Governmental Organization.  I first heard it in May 1988 at the Marga Institute, while engaged in a study of development assistance, its sources and destinations.  It didn’t take long for acronym to comfortably replace term.  And so we had NGOs and INGOS (i.e. those NGOs that were ‘international’ in character), repositories of wealth, residences for all kinds of shady creatures and especially internally displaced and thoroughly confused self-styled Leftists. A study on the ‘NGO Sector’ commissioned…

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Justice Everywhere?

This article is inspired by a programme called Justice Everywhere – an exhibition and events with Martin Luther King III, son of US Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. presiding held in Colombo and other parts of Sri Lanka in January 2010. A young TV journalist asked me whether Martin Luther Kings’ philosophy of non-violence will work in bringing true peace to Sri Lanka ? I cannot remember how I answered it facing the camera, but I hope I would have said something like this. Martin Luther King Jr. paid the ultimate price violently driving a non violent campaign to win freedom for African American people who gained their official freedom 100 years earlier.   In my eyes, Martin Luther King Jr. was spiritually a fearless warrior.  He took on a system, a society and a people who were fearful of what he was asking for.  These fearful people though, had the power and guns to resist his dream of…

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Saving the World from Ourselves through Spirituality

Authors note: I was inspired to write this as we have an election around the corner and saddened to see the way our human values and even human life is sacrificed to gain political power.  I am not a supporter of any particular party or any person.   I want to support a person with integrity and compassion and I am not sure I can see such a person in our political arena.  My wish is to see Sri Lanka become a model of peace and compassion, the way King Dharma Asoka transformed his nation.  History has taught us that religion and dogma have not brought us both – inner and outer peace.  It has only divided us. Yet, we are fortunate to have foundation of knowledge about living a spiritual life.  Now we have to change this knowledge into a way of life through self inquiry and mindfulness.  That has to begin at a young age and education is the…

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Christmas 2008 to Christmas 2009 in Sri Lanka

Last Christmas, together with few friends, we prayed desperately, hoping a bloodbath would be avoided This Christmas, we prayed and lit candles for the thousands killed and missing during the war, the ones who doesn’t have a grave as their family members had to run over the dead (and sometimes dyeing) bodies to save their own lives. Last Christmas, we prayed for a stop to political killings, disappearances, forced recruitments, unjust arrests and torture. And for families of those detained, disappeared, killed. This Christmas, we did the same. Last Christmas, we prayed for easing of government restrictions on food, medicine, shelter and access for aid agencies to help the people affected by war. This Christmas, we prayed for those injured & sick – as they were denied access to food and medicine and were also denied the opportunity to get help from those who wanted to help. Last Christmas, there were prayers for a military victory during the Christmas mass…

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The transformation of Buddhism in Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, the Dhamma preached by the Buddha has gone through many transformations. First we had the Hinduization, bringing in Hindu deities into our temples, sometimes converting them to ‘Buddhism’. Next came the Christianization, which led to the coining of the term ‘Protestant Buddhism’. This was influenced more by Christians who turned to Buddhism, than from a direct influence of the Christian church. We saw this with the start of ‘Sunday Schools’ instead of teaching the Buddha Dhamma to the children on poya days. We saw the Bhakti Gee, Wesak Cards, Schools on the lines of the Missionary schools. Saying ‘Theruwan Sarani’ for ‘God Bless’. Even performing marriages in temples, officiated by Buddhist monks, even though there was no legal status in the ‘temple marriage’. Now we are seeing the Islamization of Buddhism. It too had begun gradually, almost unobtrusively, like the proverbial camel getting into the tent. Some of the first changes happened in ‘Buddhist schools’, where mothers…

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President’s Birthday, General’s Resignation and the Angulimala Piritha

“Victory breeds hatred, the defeated lives in pain. Happily the peaceful live, giving up victory and defeat.” — Dhammapada 121) “A man may plunder, as he will. When others plunder in return, he who is plundered will plunder in return. The Wheel of Deeds turns round and makes the ones who are plundered plunderers.” — Buddha In November, 2009 I read two notable news stories in the internet.  The first was a news story that appeared on 8 November, on a pro-JVP website: “[U]pon the advice of the astrologers the next presidential election would be disadvantageous to the President and to avoid that the Ministry of Cultural Affairs is in Charge of organizing Island wide religious ceremonies on the 18th November that would begin with Angulimala Piritha.”  The second item was the publication of General Sarath Fonseka’s letter of resignation on several internet news sites. The General felt he was badly treated by the President and slighted by the Defence…

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From Here to Hanoi

Vietnam was the first country to be informed by Sri Lanka of its victory over the Tigers. It was from the on the record remarks of a top Vietnamese leader that I learned that. In their separate speeches of welcome, the President, Prime Minister and Secretary General of the ruling Communist party of Vietnam all congratulated the Sri Lankan President for “the country’s historic victory over the LTTE” and promised to cooperate in “the elimination of the remnants of the LTTE”. On the issue of whether or not the Sri Lankan victory over the Tigers was one worth celebrating, the word of leaders who, as young men, actively fought the world’s mightiest superpower and won has an overriding credibility and authority. Vietnam hosts an international Buddhist Conference next year but it’s purely part of the cultural matrix and plays no role in the identity of the state.  This is because they have separated religion from the state and government. Vietnam…

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About Groundviews

Located at the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Colombo, Sri Lanka, Groundviews is a citizen journalism website that uses a range of genres and media to highlight critical perspectives on governance, reconciliation, human rights, the arts and literature, democracy and other issues. The site has won two international awards, including the prestigious Manthan Award South Asia in 2009. The grand jury's evaluation of the site noted, "What no media dares to report, Groundviews publicly exposes. It's a new age media for a new Sri Lanka... Free media at it's very best!"

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