Rev. Danny Fisher

A couple days, I posted on the Agence France-Presse report about the efforts of some Cambodian Buddhist monks to keep a rock opera they perceived as blasphemous off the air. The mighty Arunlikhati at Dharma Folk offers some vital nuance and detail lacking from the AFP’s story. Among other things, he points out that the opera is based on a traditional narrative and was put together by a Cambodian organization devoted to preserving traditional arts. The project has even been endorsed by the King of Cambodia. Arunlikhati also raises questions about the leader of the monks claiming that he is the “leader of the Cambodian Buddhist Sangha,” and closes his post by putting this outcry into context:

So what would get this monk so angry? Keep in mind that less than a month ago, Cambodia’s seventeenth monastic conference convened, where hundreds of monks had to discuss the dark sheep in the flock. With plenty of news reports and rumors of felonious monks, I imagine this particular Sangha leader might have been a bit overdefensive about TV portrayals of ill-behaved monks. It was probably the last thing he wanted to think about.

Read Arunlikhati’s post in full here.

Via the awesome Rod Meade Sperry over at Shambhala Sun Space: Lama Choyin Rangdrol‘s new film Festival Canceled Due to Heavy Rain has been awarded the Aloha Accolade Award for Excellence in Filmmaking at the 2009 Honolulu International Film Festival. Rod points us to the film’s plot description at the IMDB:

One of very few African-American Buddhist teachers in the United States, Lama Choyin Rangdrol, makes a redemptive pilgrimage to the famous Buddhist temples of Angkor, buried in the heart of the Cambodian jungle. Festival Canceled revisits the violence and unrest surrounding the American civil rights and anti-war movements, from the black men on the front lines in Vietnam to the rise of urban gangs and the FBI-sanctioned war against them.

The trailer is below.