Word: buddhisme
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...Chariots. For all the local varieties of the Buddhist lotus, two divergent traditions are responsible for the stance of Buddhism in Asia today. The split goes back 2,000 years, and much of the original quarrel is lost in the misty past, though apparently it included some indelicate polemics over whether a monk's nocturnal emission constituted proof of an unredeemed lust. The main argument was really a conflict that sooner or later afflicts most religions: between the fundamentalists and the liberals...
...Twofold Path. When the modern world broke into Asia during the 19th century, Buddhism resisted. In the Boxer Rebellion, Buddhist deities were relied on for help against the Christian bullets. In Indo-China, Burma and elsewhere, Buddhism became identified with the nationalist struggle against colonial rule...
...CAMBODIA. One of the greatest kings of early Buddhism was Cambodia's Jayavarman VII, the builder of Angkor Wat. Today leftist Prince Sihanouk, as Cambodia's Chief of State and High Protector of the Buddhist religion, assiduously cultivates the god-king role. Following the Buddhist road of the middle, intones Sihanouk, he means to be halfway between capitalism and Marxism at home and neutralist abroad...
...THAILAND. Probably nowhere in Asia is Buddhism a gentler, more pervasive force than in pro-Western Thailand. Though now a constitutional monarch. King Bhumibol is still widely revered as a Buddhist god-king. Everywhere monks are valued not only as spiritual leaders but as astrologers and diviners. Some have even become management consultants, called on by businessmen before major investment decisions...
...Thais tithe their annual income in contributions to temple building and Buddhist ceremonies?good Buddhism but a serious drawback to the government's efforts at capital formation. Not long ago, Bangkok carried out a little-publicized roundup of leftist-oriented monks to prevent any Communist infiltration of the clergy. But by and large, in peaceful, prosperous Thailand, the golden mean rules. Bangkok is still rocking from the Sarit scandal?the tough, able late Prime Minister is charged with misappropriating vast government funds?and King Bhumibol has been urged to strip Sarit posthumously of his title of field marshal...