American Buddhist Net

This article recalls a little known but very significant non-violent contribution that Ven Dhammananda made to the counter-insurgency operation which the British euphemistically called the `Malayan Emergency’ over six decades ago in then the Federated States of Malaya (now Malaysia) which included Singapore. His role was primarily in defence of Chinese civilians who had little or no part in the uprising

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Animal sacrifices in Sri Lanka – Requirement for ‘Animal Welfare Legislation’

...The Attorney General has complained that the Ven. Sumana Thero had retained 50 hand grenades, two T56 assault rifles and 210 live bullets in his possession in violation of the Emergency Regulations and Offensive Weapons Act.

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A Sri Lankan housemaid with nails embedded in her body is to undergo surgery, her doctors said.

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Aug 25, Chilaw: Sri Lankan Police officers today prevented a group of protesting Buddhist monks form marching towards the Munneswaram Kali Amman Hindu Temple in Chilaw in the North Western Province.

The protesting monks have decided to march to the Kovil to protest against an animal slaughter ritual that is expected to take place today.

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A recent Tamil diaspora visitor who went to see the archaeological site at Kantharoadai in the heart of Jaffna peninsula found all signboards in the site in Sinhalicized Sinhala. Further, he was asked to remove shoes to walk the site, indicating that this important heritage site of the people of Jaffna is fast becoming a cult centre of contemporary Sinhala-Budhhism to culturally and psychologically alienate the people of Jaffna from their land.

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A court martial convicts the general for engaging in politics whilst in active duty and indicts him on mutiny. He loses rank, medals and pension. Instead of showing clemency, President Rajapaksa accepts the court’s ruling, breaking with Buddhist tradition. Some prominent figures underscore the judges’ lack of objectivity and the personal revenge aspect of the case. The net result is that democracy has suffered a major blow. Without Fonseka, Rajapaksa would not have had his “victory” and become “king”.

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Victory can be a bad thing. Winning can have unexpected negative consequences. It does seem that Sri Lanka's victory over the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam has brought about - or brought to the surface - a Buddhist cultural arrogance and triumphalism that deeply contradicts the Dharma. America experienced many difficulties after being on the winning side of WW2—we became inattentive and allowed a nasty, secret side of our society to develop, and this led to the murders of JFK, RFK, MLK, the Vietnam War, Iran-Contra, 9/11, the 9/11 wars, ruined economy, etc. ABN

Colombo Chief Magstrate Rashmika Singappuli today sentenced two individuals who had damaged, defiled and insulted Buddhism by selling key tags with the image of Lord Buddha.

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Keeping them there teachins pristine! If you ain't pristine, go to prison! That'll learn 'em! ABN

'I trust that the present activities of the Buddhist and Pali University of Sri Lanka, reminiscent of the ancient pattern of education of Thaksila and Nalanda, will bring much fame to Sri Lanka in the future as a centre of Buddhist learning’, stated President Mahinda Rajapaksa.

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Yet another example of the politicization of Buddhism. Three in a row this morning, yikes. Also, this story contains that horrid Sri Lankan cliche about their version of Buddhism being "pristine." Please. If it ever was, which is most debatable, it is not now, as this story shows full-well, even without considering many other recent events that use Buddhism as a tool of Sri Lankan politics. ABN

A group of eminent global leaders that includes Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter has hit out at the Sri Lankan government over its poor human rights record.

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Calling on the government to immediately initiate a programme to reconstruct Buddhist temples that were destroyed during the war in the north and resettle the Sinhalese people who were displaced during the terrorist domination in the area, a fast-unto-death had been launched by the Chief Incumbent of the Mangalaramaya in Batticaloa who is also the Anunayake of Ampara and Batticaloa- Ven.Ampitiye Sumanarathna, yesterday morning.

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Darwin. ABN

...I was shocked to see that a new minister is going to introduce Pali in schools as a language from lower grades so that students could study Buddhism in depth as it is written in the Pali language.

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Convert believes faith-healing cured cancer, according to motion

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There are not enough details to get a good handle on this story, but on the surface it is interesting and challenging because it involves so many conflicting rights, laws, beliefs, and obligations. The girl in question does not want to undergo chemotherapy; her reasons are religious, but that is only part of whether she has or does not have the right to decide; she is under eighteen right now, but not for long; she ran away from home about one year ago; converted to Christianity from Islam; she and her parents are from Sri Lanka; she does not have legal status to stay in the states for much longer, etc. Does she have the right to choose her own treatment? Do her parents? The state? ABN

A Dasasilmatha, who had been arrested on suspicion of defrauding Rs.3.55 Million from a devotee in Pelenwatte, Pannipitiya, on the pretext that she would be shown the path to Nirwana, was remanded till August 6 by Kesbewa Magistrate and Additional District Judge S. Ishani Jayasena.

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A Buddhist nun who had defrauded a lady for Rs. 3.5 million promising to show her the path to Nibbana has been remanded by the Kesbewa Magistrate.

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Following the story under the caption “Residents Furious Over Bossy Monk” in the July 11 issue of The Sunday Leader, more revelations have surfaced as to how Ven. Pitaduwe Siri Dhamma Thero of the Siri Sadhaham Ashramaya in Bellantara continues to harass and disturb the lives of innocent people in and around the temple.

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by Satheesan Kumaaran

(July 31, Colombo, Sri Lanka Guardian)The United Nations-backed tribunal found the former Khmer Rouge chief jailer, Kaing Guek Eav, aka Duch, guilty of war crimes against humanity on July 26, 2010? During the four-year hard-line communist reign from 1975 to 1979, the Khmer Rouge, which was headed by Pol Pot, was blamed for the deaths of 1?7 million Cambodians. Duch was one of the perpetrators of the crimes against humanity and sentenced to 19 years. The question is, why doesn’t the UN do the same for perpetrators in Sri Lanka for unleashing genocidal war against Tamils?

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"Sri Lanka is a pathetically polarized country. The problems are Sinhala majoritarianism, Sinhala-Buddhist ethnoreligious chauvinism, and after the end of the war, Sinhala triumphalism with no consideration of the (Tamil) civilian cost of achieving this ‘victory’. This is not going to change, indeed there is every indication that it will get worse, despite international concerns."

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Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith of Colombo has appealed to Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa to recruit more Catholic teachers to teach Christianity in government schools.

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This cute furry primate is the first of its species to ever be photographed.

The Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides) was thought to be extinct. Between 1939 and 2002, no one spotted the animal. In 2002 someone reported a possible sighting, but didn’t get any pictures.

Seven houses were burnt and two persons including a Buddhist monk were reported to be assaulted in Panama when the Pradeshiya Sabha, in Pottuvil tried to evict the residents from the area.

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July 14, Colombo: Sri Lankan Buddhist monks-led Jathika Hela Urumaya Party (JHU) has organized a campaign to lobby against the second term of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

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One thing that bothers me about traditional Buddhist groups doing politics is they always, invariably, and completely and entirely without fail do something only when it affects their Buddhist group, or their nation, or their ethnic group. Too many traditional Buddhist groups are so mired in their own ethno-racial-cultural identities, they fail to see the value of anything else while at the same time contradicting the basic tenets of Buddhism. The reason they oppose Ban Ki-Moon, of course, is he appointed a panel to investigate human rights violations during Sri Lanka's civil war. You can find a lot of info on this subject if you care to look. Here is one background story: Sri Lankan Buddhist monks protest UN rights panel. ABN

A Sri Lankan lawmaker entered the fifth day of a protest outside the main UN compound in Colombo on Saturday despite a plea from UN chief Ban Ki-moon for authorities to "normalise conditions".

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Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon closed the main U.N. office in Sri Lanka and recalled a top official Thursday in a deepening standoff over the U.N.’s refusal to stop investigating alleged abuses in the country's civil war.

The U.N. chief decided to close the U.N. Development Program's regional center in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo and recall Neil Buhne, the U.N.’s resident coordinator for Sri Lanka, for private consultations at headquarters in New York, the U.N. said Thursday.

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...Sri Lanka has created Buddhist Fundamentalism, something that I would have thought impossible to do. It is a gigantic contradiction to the mere essence of Buddha’s philosophy, a huge, tragic thorn in the side of a philosophy that is all about compassion, understanding, and inward reflection. We have infused the practice of this philosophy, which was entirely founded on the idea that anyone could arrive at eternal peace and that all were equal in trying, with idiotic and archaic separations like caste and nationality, friend and foe. We have used this idea, one that was so pure in its intentions, to feel superior to others.

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Well-worth reading. ABN

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka—Hundreds of protesters, led by a government minister, laid siege to the U.N. compound in Colombo on Tuesday, refusing to let the workers out until the world body canceled its investigation of alleged abuses committed during Sri Lanka's civil war.

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...A diplomat in Colombo was not relaxed. "People are drinking and dancing in front of Buddha’s images. It’s a sensitive issue, it’s a disgrace. How can Buddha’s images be used commercially?" he asked me.

So, Lankan envoys in countries where the bars are located – Beirut, Moscow, Shanghai, Kiev, Dubai, Jakarta, Prague and Sao Paolo and so on – have been instructed to take it up with governments.

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July 04, Colombo: Sri Lanka's Sinhala Buddhist political party Jathika Hela Urumaya (JHU) has decided to urge Russia and China to use veto power to not to let United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to contest for a second term.

Ban's first term ends in December 2011 and needs the blessing of the five veto power holding nations to vie for a second term, said a Sri Lankan Sinhala newspaper Lankadeepa quoting a senior spokesman of the JHU.

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As ABN commented recently, this is "yet another example of Buddhism melding with nationalism and/or ethnocentrism." Robyn

Friends:

Careless Attention grows Mental Hindrances!

The Blessed Buddha once said:
When one attends carelessly and irrationally then:
Greed, Lust, and Sense-desire arise, increase, and expand...
Hate, Anger and Ill-will arise, increase, and expand...
Sloth, Lethargy and Laziness arise, increase and expand...
Agitation, Restlessness and Regret arise, increase and expand...
When one attends carelessly and irrationally then:
Doubt, confusion and uncertainty arise, increase and expand...

Friends:

Evil Will Infuriate an Enraged Mind!

A Brahmin Priest once asked the Blessed Buddha:
Master Gotama, what is the cause of being unable to remember something
that has been memorized over a long period & also that which has not?
Brahmin, when mind is obsessed by evil-will, enraged & dominated by evil-will,
and one does not understand any safe escape from this arisen ill of evil-will,
in that very moment, one neither sees nor understands, what is advantageous,
neither for oneself, nor for others, nor for both... On such enraged occasions,
even texts, that have been long memorized, cannot be recalled by mind.
Why is this neglect so? Imagine a bowl of water boiling and bubbling being
well heated over a blazing fire. If a man with good eye-sight were to inspect
the reflection of his own face in it, he would neither see nor recognize his
own face, as it really is! So too, brahmin, when mind is obsessed by evil-will,
maddened, beset & dominated by evil-will, on that occasion even those texts,
that have been long memorized do not recur to the mind, not to speak of
those texts, events and information, that have not been memorized at all…