Rev. Danny Fisher

This from Tibet Will Be Free: the U.S. House of Representatives has just overwhelmingly passed an important piece of legislation called House Resolution 1070. It resolves that the House of Representatives:

This via Digital Dharma: Paul Harrison, professor of Buddhist Studies at Stanford University, speaks to the Council on Foreign Relations about the involvement of Buddhist monastics in political activities:

From Myanmar to Tibet, saffron-robed monks have been taking to the streets in protest against political repression. Paul Harrison, a professor of Buddhist studies at Stanford University, discusses Buddhist teachings and the acceptable role of monks in politics. “Direct involvement in political activity, strictly speaking, is not sanctioned,” he says. Although non-violence is a primary tenet of Buddhism, Harrison says there has been an emergence of militancy among the religion’s followers since the beginning of the twentieth century. “To some extent,” he says “this is a testimony to the situation in many Buddhist countries where previously things were not so bad in terms of political oppression.” Therefore, members of the sangha, the Buddhist order, he says, feel obliged to take up the struggle to improve the situation of the people.

Harrison says from the nineteenth century on, the role of members of the sangha has been redefined as new forms of Buddhism began to emerge. While some believe it is the proper duty of the members of the order to engage in social activity in order to improve the lot of the people, he says, others hold on to the traditional idea of strict abstinence from such activities. One of the major challenges faced by religion going forward, he says, will be the status of the Buddhist order in society. Previously, he says, the religion had great prestige as well as a lot of resources, but that is “no longer to be assumed.”

Dr. Harrison’s comments are well worth a listen. Download the MP3 here.

Via TibetanPhotoProject.com:

GetReligion.org offers a piece worth taking a look at: it has to do with the recent press coverage of the situation in Tibet. Author Mark Stricherz starts his post by looking at a recent Washington Post article by Jill Drew about Tibetan monks struggling with the forced education protocols of the Chinese government. He then points out how the lack of information about Tibetan Buddhist religion and culture hinders the piece.

Besides not specifying which concessions the Chinese make to Tibetan Buddhism, Drew neglected to note why Tibetan Buddhists are fighting Chinese rule [more] than other [religious minorities in China]. Is their intransigence related mainly to their religious beliefs? Or is it related more to nationalist sentiment–the Chinese are unjust occupiers?

Posing these questions and answering them would have served Drew well. She could have highlighted that Tibetan Buddhist monks are the most tenacious fighters against China’s policy.

Perhaps I protest too much. Drew is based in Beijing, and she must have struggled to write a story about a closed country such as Tibet. But it’s important to keep in mind that in this occupied nation, politics and religion are close cousins.

I think Stricherz identifies an important problem in most reporting on the Tibetan uprising. I suspect that certain answers to the questions he asks will be richer than others, but they’re all certainly worth asking and exploring–if only because that’s not really being done in the mainstream media.

Via ~C4Chaos: