Lazy_eye wrote:I don't think one has to be a simple-minded hippie pacifist to oppose the pogroms that are going on in Burma -- or the participation of certain elements among the Buddhist clergy. That's simply a matter of basic morality. If the Venerables involved think they are demonstrating their enlightenment in this way, or delivering some sort of Dhamma lesson, then enlightenment has no meaning and the Dhamma is nonsense. One might just as well join the Mafia.
Honestly, I don't really think spreading the Dharma is the first thing on their minds.
I would like to give them the benefit of the doubt and think that all Buddhist monks and nuns, of whatever sect, are the old, docile but jolly men and women that brought Buddhism to the West, who came with an unflinching desire to spread the dharma. As much as I would love share the opinion of the OP and believe that somehow Buddhism is somehow a notch above the rest, being a social policy analyst, I can't allow myself to ignore the fact that in Theravada countries especially, Buddhism still has enormous political and social influence and power. There are monks who want to work their way up and use their position to exert influence.
In some Theravada countries, Buddhism is a highly salient element of identity and politics. It forms the basic foundations of ethnic identities. The distinctions between religion, politics and ethnic group gets blurred, such as the adoption of Buddhism as the official religion of Myanmar. Believe me, they didn't pass that legislation just because they like to meditate a lot. There are also upwardly mobile and ambitious monks who have their own agenda and get themselves into politics. Some of these monks go on to lead movements and because of their highly respected position in society, and because they share the same ethnic hatred in society, they gain followers. They start taking actions against the other group, legal or not, and the other group starts feeling marginalized and threatened. Et voilà, you've a religiously-charged ethnic conflict. You see this wherever on earth there are mutli-national or mutli-ethnic societies especially if they have strongly religious populations, and even more so if they have different religious sects or religions. Myanmar, for instance, has basically somehow managed to hide from the past 50 years of economic hypergrowth that other countries in the region have experienced. I mean, as you've probably heard, Coca-cola is finally making its first foray into the country. While their employment and literacy rate isn't too shabby, their level of general education and quality of life is still very low. You put multiple highly-diverse ethnic groups in the same borders to fight over a limited amount of resources, and all of those factors only reinforce the likelihood of religiously-based conflict. If you live out in the country, you are illiterate and you have no true formal education, it doesn't matter what the sutras say or not, because you probably don't have access to them (if you can read them): you look up to the monks at your temple as speaking the truth, whether it is in line with Buddhist orthodoxy or not. And so violence gets carried out in Buddhism's sake, even if the act itself flies in the face of Buddhist teaching. So, I don't really understand what the use is of playing semantics "Well now, was this
reaaaaally Buddhist violence? Because technically speaking, it can't exist." It doesn't matter if it can't, those extremists are committing violence in the name of Buddhism, whether the majority of people approve of it or not.
But, we've really got to stop thinking that Buddhists or Buddhism exists in some sort of political/economic/social vacuum. We just have to realize that Buddhism is a religion, just like any other, and that its body of followers are also susceptible to human tendencies, just like any other.