30 April 2013, 5:25 pm
By
Vishnuguptha
“I never will, by any word or act, bow to the shrine of
intolerance or admit a right of inquiry into the religious opinions of
others.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
The intentions, methodologies and strategies of the Bodhu Bala
Sena (Army of Buddhist Power) have so far been most unBuddhistic and
bordering on the pagan and archaic. Their obvious intolerance and the
crudest way they show it on village squares and town-halls, trashing
other religions and their faithful devotees sometimes spill over the
banks of decency and civility, a verbal diarrhea discharged at the whims
and fancies of Buddhist fundamentalists preaching a new kind of
‘oriental jihad’, as some pundit said.
If they ever have any care for the people whom they claim to
represent, they must change course and they must do it now. When Karl
Marx proclaimed that religion is the opium of man, he basically referred
to the eighteenth century Europe dominated by Christianity, certainly
not to Buddhism which was always known to be a religion based more on
free-thinking and realistic evaluation of things mundane and material.
In fact, some of the modern Buddhist academics still contend that
Siddhartha Gautama was the first materialist in history, equating
Buddhism to materialism in every which way they could.
The dogged thinking and rigid regimentation that is preached in almost all other faiths, the stubborn infallibility that is taught by them and the lack of tolerance shown towards other religions- they are all negated and rejected by the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha. The very denial of a ‘soul’ (Anaathma) stood out as a very modern concept in the days the Buddha practiced and taught more than two millennia ago. The disarming directness of the Buddhist way of life opened many eyes of that world and it is still continuing to do so to the astonishment of many diehard faithfuls of other religions.
The dogged thinking and rigid regimentation that is preached in almost all other faiths, the stubborn infallibility that is taught by them and the lack of tolerance shown towards other religions- they are all negated and rejected by the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama the Buddha. The very denial of a ‘soul’ (Anaathma) stood out as a very modern concept in the days the Buddha practiced and taught more than two millennia ago. The disarming directness of the Buddhist way of life opened many eyes of that world and it is still continuing to do so to the astonishment of many diehard faithfuls of other religions.
When other religious leaders, both contemporary of the Buddha and
those who came afterwards preached inflexible devotion and unquestioning
obedience, Buddha offered open-mindedness and free thought; he asked
the man and woman of the ancient world to inquire and probe, question
and doubt; instead of self-mortification and materialistic indulgence,
the Buddha taught us to tread a middle-path. When India of the ancient
world was so bogged down in a self-destroying caste-system, he opened
the doors of his way to the untouchables and other outcastes. Never did
Buddhism of the ancient world depend for its propagation and spread, on
violence and cruel conversions. Treatment of women as co-equals of men
changed society’s outlook towards women thereby adding a totally
original dimension to the dynamic of ancient society that treated man as
the all-powerful, omnipotent being in society.
The patience and tolerance based on complete and unqualified
universal love and kindness took root in each and every mind and heart
of those who chose to follow the Noble Eightfold Path, the fundamental
way of life prescribed for all mundane human beings on earth. As opposed
to other religions, Buddhism did not try to go where no man had gone
before: Buddha refused to give an explanation as to how the Universe
originated, he did not accept a concept of an omnipotent God. His
concern was the now and present. To that end he asked his followers to
practice what he preached amongst them which were love and kindness and
great indifference (Upekkha). The bogus armies of the Bodhu Bala Sena
organization and other Balakayas are preaching and practicing exactly
the opposite.
In such contradictory circumstances, the average devotee is left with
the easy way out. Savagery of mind and venomous intentions when garbed
in ‘patriotism’ become very easily saleable in the marketplace of
religions and faith. When such evil concepts are getting ‘royal’
patronage, the sale becomes even easier and quicker. That is what
exactly is happening with the Bodhu Bala Sena’s demonic demonstrations
and its rapid rise in public acceptance.
The middle-class Sinhalese Buddhists are the harbingers of this evil
gospel. When a Buddhist Monk gets on stage and pontificates about the
evils of Islam, evil Muslim intentions of attempting to curb the
increase of Sinhala population by introducing sweets and lozenges with
anti-birth drugs and when these same monks preach that when Muslims
make Biriyani, they spit thrice before they serve it to a Sinhalese
Buddhist, what is evil per se are not the words that are uttered; what
is really evil and distressing is that there is no living Sinhalese
Buddhist who would question and probe those evil statements. The
followers are dispelling outright the very thing that the Buddha asked
them to do in order to attain ‘Nirvana’.
The Sinhalese Buddhists have stopped thinking; they have stopped
probing and investigating and exploring. Their open minds have closed to
fresh winds and soothing breeze. A mindset has taken root and its
stocks are gradually but surely spreading, causing cracks and fissures
all over the soil on which the seeds of thinking are planted. One only
reaps what one sows: Venomous fruits and buds of bad odor.
Any probable attacks on Muslim-owned business houses might spread to
the villages. They might spread all over the country until it reaches
the serene beaches of the Eastern Province or the shanties of Colombo
Central. While we must hope and pray that it should not ever happen, the
speed with which such episodes, one after another, unfold before our
very own eyes, the probability of such a violent crescendo is not all
that remote.
The real tragedy lies, once again as in the war against the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Ealam (LTTE), in the innocent lives and homes
that these violent eruptions would eventually harm and dissipate. In a
likely riot between the Muslims and Sinhalese, the blood that will be
spilled by our people would be hardly distinguishable from the blood
that flowed along the mighty rivers of the dry zone during the LTTE war
when our own brethren in the Army and in the Northern territories fought
to the bitter end.
When provoked, it’s very easy to stay provoked and reciprocate in
kind; some would reciprocate on the wrong notion that it is not fitting
to be not manly enough to reciprocate. When the fundamentals of Buddhism
are being vandalized and debased by the neo-Buddhist Fundamentalists,
when the preachers are preaching venom and revenge instead of tolerance
and patience, when devotees are overwhelmed by the cruel and pungent
rhetoric of bigoted Monks, sane minds must prevail, if such minds still
do exist.
The call of the day is to that sanity; to that serene thought and
to that courageous heart, for that kind of grace under pressure only
would dwell in such a pristine mind and heart. BBS must unclothe itself
and if they don’t, someone else would but the cost of that de-clothing
might prove exorbitantly expensive, in terms of blood, sweat and tears.
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