Word: buddhism
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...others apparently sincere monks-turned up in Peking for a three-day rally, listened to a Viet Cong delegate denounce South Viet Nam as "a hell on earth created by United States imperialism and its lackey, the Ngo Dinh Diem clique." Ignoring Red China's own subjugation of Buddhism, the meeting unanimously adopted a resolution accusing Diem of "atrocities." By serving as a vehicle for Red Chinese propaganda, the Buddhists hardly strengthened their case...
What does seem clear is that the Buddhists' startlingly efficient tactical and propaganda leadership has been severely hurt. Many of the dissident Buddhists, if they are not in jail, have apparently gone underground. Last week leaflets, signed by something called "The Unified Movement for the Rescue of Buddhism," called for a general strike, date not announced...
Just as the anticlerical French government used Catholicity as a pretext for ending China's 4,000-year suzerainty over Viet Nam, so is China's atheistic government using Buddhism as a pretext to renew that suzerainty...
Crusader & Yogi. In many Western eyes, Buddhism is socially useless. It has only a limited tradition of good works; the chief duty of monks and nuns is contemplation. In The Lotus and the Robot, Arthur Koestler says of Oriental mysticism in general: "The messianic arrogance of the Christian crusader is matched by the Yogi's arrogant attitude of detachment towards human suffering...
...spear. In Viet Nam and elsewhere, Buddhists often took an active part in fighting against colonial powers. During the Korean war, at least some Buddhists were preaching that "to wipe out the American imperialist demons is not only blameless but meritorious." Ignoring the Chinese Communists' cruel persecution of Buddhism in Tibet, some Buddhists reason (as one scholar puts it) that when the Marxists' material needs are satisfied, they will "need something spiritual above and beyond," and that Buddhism will be able to supply it. It is this sort of self-delusion-existing alongside Buddhism's nobility...