Word: buddhisme
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...located on the old caravan route from Tibet to India. There, the Swiss group witnessed the traditional New Year's dance beneath the giant prayer banner, or thangka, which portrays Padmasambhava (Lotus-born), the Indian missionary-and central figure in Bhutan's art-who converted Bhutan to Buddhism in the 8th century. In his hand he holds a thunderbolt, symbol of enlightenment to the pageantry-rich people...
...FACE OF BUDDHA, by Jerrold Schecter. The first comprehensive, country-by-country analysis of modern Buddhism's entry into the political arena discusses the attempt of militant monks to cope with the conflict between tradition and transition in Asian life...
...Buddhism in Viet Nam is accorded Schecter's closest scrutiny and lengthiest appraisal. From the last days of President Diem, who fatally underestimated the power of the political monks, to the past year's Buddhist uprisings, which Premier Nguyen Cao Ky expertly quelled with a combination of "tenacity and guile," the book reconstructs the sorties to the barricades in Viet Nam. There, as elsewhere in Asia, the Buddhists' problem is to resolve "the conflict between tradition and transition in Asian life...
...Because Buddhism has for so long been "the ultimate source of Asian values," says Schecter, it was inevitable that the pressures of colonialism and modernization would stretch the faith into new shapes. One of the strangest shapes may some day emerge from the confrontation between Buddhism and science; the Vietnamese Buddhists hope eventually to create a Buddhist university whose curriculum would include engineering, mathematics and medicine, but today that prospect seems close to fantasy. At present, Buddhism is less concerned with adopting Western ways than with providing a kind of "cultural defense" against them. Part of that defense rests...
Essence & Integrity. The better the defense, the crueler the dilemma for Buddhists and the more awkward the questions that arise. Can Buddhism accommodate itself to nationalism and the modern desires for material advancement, which are seemingly the very opposite of Buddhist doctrine? The author's answer: "If Buddhism does not adapt, it will become a cultural fossil. If it adapts too much, it becomes adulterated and loses its essence and integrity." It is the search for the middle way between these two alternatives, suggests Schecter, that causes the painful grimace so often discernible today on the new face...