Scholarly comments on religion and the cyclone

New Mandala pointed out this article from the San Francisco Chronicle. One part mentioned:

The Buddhism practiced by the generals running the country is not mainstream Theravada Buddhism, but involves a high degree of mysticism and superstition that harkens back to pre-Buddhist animist traditions, according to Priscilla Clapp, who served as the top U.S. diplomat in Burma from 1999 to 2002.

"They pretend they're traditional Theravada Buddhists, but they really aren't," she said. "They indoctrinate their officers especially and also the rank and file soldiers politically. ... So they can justify really outrageous actions on the basis of Buddhism, including attacks on monks and letting people starve. It has everything to do with keeping them in power."

This is just beyond belief. I have to wonder what kind of nonsense they are telling their soldiers.

I should take this opportunity to mention that this blog is about the impact of Buddhism on politics and trying to figure out what the implications of certain Buddhist beliefs are. I also hope to try to free Buddhism from use as a political tool. I believe people of any political belief should be free to learn about and practice Buddhism, and that nobody should ever be excluded just because they don't meet what some people think of as the proper "Buddhist" political faction. People who's political beliefs don't agree with Dhamma I would hope would change once they learn something, but obviously this can't be guaranteed and it's up to them to decide what does and doesn't agree.

We have some people in the west who I think hold their political beliefs to be higher than Dhamma and only believe in Buddhism because they think it helps them further their political beliefs or agenda. They'll happily discard Dhamma or Buddhism if it turns out to not support their beliefs because their political faction or party or whatever is higher than Dhamma or Buddhism to them. So:

1. Buddhism is not for people to use as a political tool.


2. If something regarding Dhamma contradicts your political beliefs, I'd seriously hope you'd look at changing your political beliefs rather than ignoring Dhamma.

No doubt some people at some point are going to accuse me of trying to use Buddhism as a political tool, but that's nonsense. I am attempting to explore political implications and not push some pre-existing external agenda that I just happen to think Buddhism might be useful for pushing. Still, as I express opinions on interpretations of things in Buddhism my political beliefs can't be avoided, but my goal is to do what's best, not push some preconceived notion of what's best. Unlike some people I will happily discard any political position I have if it turns out to be harmful.

Anyway, regarding superstitious practices, especially performed by monks, the Tipitaka (DN 2 in the Great Section on Virtue) can't be more disapproving:

"Whereas some priests and contemplatives, living off food given in faith, maintain themselves by wrong livelihood, by such lowly arts as: reading marks on the limbs [e.g., palmistry]; reading omens and signs; interpreting celestial events [falling stars, comets]; interpreting dreams; reading marks on the body [e.g., phrenology]; reading marks on cloth gnawed by mice; offering fire oblations, oblations from a ladle, oblations of husks, rice powder, rice grains, ghee, and oil; offering oblations from the mouth; offering blood-sacrifices; making predictions based on the fingertips; geomancy; laying demons in a cemetery; placing spells on spirits; reciting house-protection charms; snake charming, poison-lore, scorpion-lore, rat-lore, bird-lore, crow-lore; fortune-telling based on visions; giving protective charms; interpreting the calls of birds and animals — he abstains from wrong livelihood, from lowly arts such as these.

On the positive side:

Many Burmese citizens are going around government authorities and beginning to organize themselves to respond to the disaster, Clapp said. Grassroots Burmese groups are working with monks and with the handful of international aid agencies on the ground to improvise solutions such as fashioning replacements for lost rain barrels to collect the monsoon rains for drinking water.

"It's that kind of activity that will eventually overcome the grip the military has on the country: learning how to work together to organize and make things happen," Clapp said.

I hope some real monks can also train those solders and try to undo some of the brainwashing performed by the junta. It might be one of the more important things they could do.