Who destroyed Nalanda University & Buddhism in India. Who destroyed Buddhism in Indonesia, Malaysia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Maldive Islands & in some more countries? Please think reasonably.

DJ; Sri Lanka needs people like you to be even more strident now than before, in articulating the TRUTH without fear or favour, diagnosing the root cause and laying it firmly at the foot of the right door, and encouraging and urging the police and the judiciary to act impartially in stamping out this menace. This would be a very good topic to address in your excellent fortnightly talk show on MTV, but the time has come for the likes of you and Kalana, to be even more direct and spell out that the likes of this saffron robed monk has no place in the civilised world.

If you ask any enlightened man he would say that Buddhism is fine and there is nothing to rescue it from, but it is men like this mad monk who need help and rescue. Buddhism is an idea and it live in the minds of every enlightened man and woman. It cannot be destroyed.

This must start from Majority in the country from Sinhalese,
when/if the Muslim minister doing something wrong and if it is affecting
innocent (Sinhala, Tamil or others) this must be addressed with the law, if the
law is not strong enough this could lead to see what is happening today ! Affected
people have to seek different alternatives rather than the law….

So, this simply means
we must ensure the law and order in the country to treat equally to all citizens….

Unfortunate Buddhism
and monks in Sri Lanka have become frightening word to the outside world! Which
is very shame indeed….

Ref. last para, once the holidays are over, will get this translated into Sinhala to publish on http://www.vikalpa.org.

From the perspective of the BBS types “cultural Buddhism” is fundamentally important because without it, they would argue, doctrinal Buddhism will never survive. In fact this is a point that Gnanasara made in a YA TV interview where he made spoke about a tradition of “Grama Vasi” (village dwelling) versus “Wana Vasi” (forest dwelling) monks. Gananasara’s argument was that it is the tradition of “Grama Vasi” monks with their socio-political involvement that has preserved Buddhism in Sri Lanka and what he and the BBS is doing is a continuation of this tradition. It is here I feel that the secular-liberal critique of Sinhala Buddhism faces its greatest challenge.

There have been many attempts to delegitimize the nation, religion and people triad of Sinhala nationalism from both academic and activist fronts. For instance many revisionist historians have argued that the links between Sinhala identity, Buddhism and the nation were far more complicated in pre-colonial times than what we imagine today (e.g., how come a Nayakkar Telegu king who spoke Tamil and signed his name in Tamil became the last king of the Kandyan kingdom?). However, none of these debates have had much traction on the popular Sinhala psyche.

One option is to argue that state and religion need to be clearly separate in a classic secular arrangement but this is unlikely to have much impact because electoral politics in Sri Lanka replicate very closely the ethno-religious divisions of the country. Again I have no answers but changing the Sinhala psyche from within will require some serious and creative thinking on how to alter the Sinhala Buddhist mindset that preserving Sinhala identity at any cost is equal to preserving Buddhism because of the ingrained sentiment that Sinhalese are the inheritors and protectors of the Theravada Buddhist tradition in its purest form. It is this thinking that has led to what some have called “just war” ideology — that it is just to wage war, to kill or maim because it is done in service of the higher principle of preserving Buddhism.

Kalana’s kind of intervention, I feel, has a significant impact to make here. But it needs to happen in the Sinhala language and not just among Sinhla progressives or “radicals”. This discourse needs to break into the Sinhala mainstream. I have no answers and I am just posting these thoughts as food for discussion.