Buddhist monk on Gender Equality (video)

Claralynn N.(United Kingdom); Dhr. Seven, Ashley Wells, Seth Auberon, Amber Larson, Wisdom Quarterly; Abbot Ajahn Brahmavamso (BuddhistSocietyWA, June 27, 2014)

PERTH, Western Australia - Ajahn Brahm -- an enlightened Western Buddhist monk from England living in Australia after a decade in Northeast Thailand (Isan) at Wat Pah Nanachat, the International Forest Monastery -- talks about the banning of his United Nations' speech on gender equity, equality of the sexes.

Viewers who support Wisdom Quarterly and women's right to full ordination in Theravada Buddhism as well as supporting Ajahn Brahm's work striving for the equality of females within all Buddhist schools, particularly his more traditional and monastic tradition, are encouraged to consider signing the online petition here.

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  Sangha: nuns, monks, female, male supporters.

  Traditionally, it was thought that women could no longer secured full ordination due to a rule the Buddha laid down when his foster mother ordained. However, evidence found in the background stories (Vibhanga) of the Nuns' Disciplinary Code (Bhikkhuni Vinaya), research by the Theravada nun Ayya Tathaloka, shows that those rules or garudhammas are a historical impossibility. Had the Buddha laid them down with all the fanfare in front of the Shakyan women as is claimed, questions would not have arisen regarding etiquette between male and female monastics and ordination, as those would have been settled issues. But that questions did arise, as recorded in the stories accompanying the formation of each rule, those sexist and patriarchal garudhammas could not have been preexisted. The function of these additional rules seems to be little more than to subordinate female Sangha members to males and was clearly in the interest of monks to have hastily inserted at some point in time.

Let's invite Ajahn Brahm to present his gender equality paper at the 2015 UNDV conference

3,242 signers so far. Let's reach 10,000 United Nations' Day of Vesak (UNDV)
 
Supporting Buddhist women at the U.N.

Nuns are necessary for a complete Sangha

We, the undersigned, are astounded and deeply disappointed by the banning of Ajahn Brahm's paper on gender equality at the 2014 United Nations' Day of Vesak (UNDV) conference in Vietnam.

 

The paper was clearly aligned with the UN’s Millennium Development Goal 3 (Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women), which the UNDV is committed to uphold through its connection with the UN. Moreover, Ajahn Brahm's paper had already been approved for presentation when it was suddenly banned 36 hours before its scheduled presentation.

 

We value free and open dialogue. We therefore ask that the UNDV, in accordance with Millennium Development Goal 3, promotes dialogue about the participation of women in contemporary Theravada Buddhism by inviting Ajahn Brahm to publicly present his gender equality paper at the next UNDV conference in 2015.

• READ: Ajahn Brahm's paper
• Remembering Asherah, the Western God's wife
• NUNS: Alliance for Bhikkhunis (bhikkhuni.net)
• Ongoing: Israel's Gaza offensive – Ebola outbreak – Ukrainian unrest 

(To view signers, go to petition2014.org. This petition will remain open until October 1st, 2014. The petition can be read in Chinese (petition2014.org/2001325991.html), Thai and Vietnamese (petition2014.org/3616363436253634365236073618-vi7879t.html), and Sinhalese (petition2014.org/35233538345835243517.html).

Unbelievable rapes in India; police participate

Ashley Wells, Pfc. Sandoval, CC Liu, Wisdom Quarterly; Julie McCarthy, Scott Neuman

Teen gets three years in gang rape, murder of Indian woman: a protester in India chants slogans as she braces herself against the spray fired from police water canons during a protest sparked by the gang rape of student. This is the first verdict in a case that has sparked international outrage over the brutal crime (Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images/NPR).

Young girls hold banners during a demonstration Thursday in Lucknow, India, after police arrested several men for allegedly gang raping and murdering two teenage children, sisters, then hanging their bodies from a tree. At least one of the perpetrators was a policeman (Azam Husain/Barcroft Media/Landov).

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Slutwalk, London (Garry Knight)

NPR's Julie McCarthy reports today on another alleged gang rape and murder in India -- this one involving two teenage sisters from the lowest Hindu [slave or "untouchable"] caste, whose bodies were found hanging from a mango tree.

 

McCarthy says the two girls, ages 14 and 15, were killed in a village about 140 miles east of India's capital New Delhi.

 

What U.S. child rapists look like, incest, too

"They reportedly had gone to a field to relieve themselves but never returned," McCarthy says. "Like hundreds of millions of Indians, they lacked a bathroom at home."

The girls' family belong to the Dalit caste, formerly known as "untouchables," the lowest rung of India's ancient [social stratification-by-birth] system of societal hierarchy.

What Indian rapists look like. Men convicted in notorious case to be sentenced (npr.org)

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Men say no to rape of their female relatives

The Press Trust of India says charges have been filed against seven people, including two police constables. Local media report that one of the policemen allegedly participated in the attack. The other is said to have refused to listen to relatives who reported the two girls missing.

 

Prison guard and homosexual rapist

The Associated Press says: "Hundreds of angry villagers stayed next to the tree throughout Wednesday, silently protesting the police response. Indian TV footage showed the villagers sitting under the girls' bodies as they swung in the wind, and preventing authorities from taking them down until the suspects were arrested."

 

Human Rights campaigners say Dalit women are frequently the target of attacks, and this incident is yet another in a series of violent rapes against Indian women in recent years that have united India in anger.

FEMEN says no to rape, no to patriarchy!

Last year, four men were sentenced in the highest-profile of the cases -- one involving a young woman on a bus who was gang raped [in front of her boyfriend who was beaten unconscious] and later died from injuries she sustained in the [violent sexual] assault. More (MORE)

• Report: main man accused in India rape case commits suicide in jail
• Mother of India gang rape victim faces suspects in court
• The truth about incest (urban shaman Deborah King)
• Does cosplay go too far? Is it depersonalization?
• Why licking peanut butter or nuts is bad for you

China to silence Dalai Lama in Tibet (video)

Wisdom Quarterly; Reuters in Beijing, Staff Reporter (scmp.com, Nov. 2, 2013); NTDTV.com

The Dalai Lama jokes in response to a question about the Chinese government. Making gestures like horns, the Tibetan spiritual leader said, "Why the Chinese government is sort of afraid of me? The totalitarian government think of me as a demon" (10-21-09). He talked about the Four Noble Truths to thousands of Buddhists from Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, China, Vietnam, and Indonesia who converged at Tsuglagkhang temple (demotix.com).

British: "China staged Tibet riots"

Magic Tibetan ritual (sacbee.com)

(NTDTV) The G2 Bulletin has just published an important update on the situation in Tibet. Britain's GCHQ monitors half of the world from space. They have confirmed the Dalai Lama's claim that CCP agents posed as Buddhist monks and triggered riots that have left hundreds of Tibetans dead or injured. GCHQ analysts believe the Beijing leadership is behind the large riots as a way to provide an excuse -- or pretext -- to stamp out the simmering unrest in the region. The same has been confirmed by British intelligence officers in Beijing. Satellites orbiting the earth closely monitored the situation. The images they downloaded from the satellites provided confirmation the CCP used agent provocateurs to start riots.

  

China to silence Dalai Lama in Tibet
Reuters in Beijing and Staff Reporter (scmp.com, Nov. 2, 2013)

The 14th Dalai Lama and actor/activist Richard Gere, D.C. (japanese-buddhsim.com)

  

Comedian Russell Brand and Dalai Lama

The government says it will confiscate illegal satellite dishes and increase monitoring of online content to keep his voice quiet in his homeland

Beijing aims to stamp out the voice of exiled spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in Tibet by ensuring that his "propaganda" is not received by anyone on the internet, television, or other means, a top [Chinese] official said.
 

China has tried, with varying degrees of success, to prevent Tibetans from listening to or watching programs broadcast from outside the country, or accessing information about the Dalai Lama and the exiled government [of Tibet] on the Internet.

(Sky News) One hundred have died in riots in Tibet's capital against

Chinese authorities. Police used tear gas during clashes in Lhasa.

 

But many Tibetans are still able to access such news, either via illegal satellite televisions or by skirting Chinese Internet restrictions.

 

The Dalai Lama's picture and his teachings are also smuggled into Tibet but at great personal risk.

 

Writing in the ruling Communist Party's influential journal Qiushi, the latest issue of which was received by subscribers yesterday, Tibet's party chief Chen Quanguo said that the government would ensure only its voice is heard.

 

"Strike hard against the reactionary propaganda of the splittists from entering Tibet," Chen wrote in the magazine, whose name means "seeking truth." More

• Boy, 10, jumps to his death after Chinese teacher orders
• Tragic death of woman gives rise to anti-mainland Chinese
• Tragedy of stalked Japanese teenager forces police to act
• Asia gains unravel on China worries, dollar skids, jobs
• Scientist: Asia's lost continent, OK, shaped ancient China
• China's lunar probe a missed innovation

Chinese authorities invited journalists to Lhasa to interview Buddhist monks.

But during a visit to one of Lhasa's temples, a group of 30 monks stormed the

news briefing, accusing Chinese authorities of lying about violence and unrest.

Tibet is a plateau region north-east of the Himalayas. It was incorporated (i.e., forcefully invaded and occupied) by China in 1950 and is currently called an autonomous region in China, a growing empire of more than a billion Buddhist inhabitants ruled by the officially communist but actually capitalist dominant Han Chinese ethnic group. The conflict between many Tibetans and the Chinese [communist] government has been nonstop as many demand cultural autonomy, religious freedom, and basic human rights. In March, 2008, a series of protests -- using Chinese military agent provocateurs -- turned into "riots" in different regions across Tibet. The Chinese government used these as a pretext for Draconian measures of social control and genocide. Deadly Tibetan rioters were accused of attacking ethnic Han inhabitants and burning their Chinese-sponsored businesses.

Fire Under the Snow

Foreign delegate, GBC (Hindustan Times)

(2008) As the international debate over Tibetan freedom unfolds, the documentary "Fire Under the Snow" (see below) tells the story of a Tibetan Buddhist monk who was imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese communist army for 33 years.

The Tibetan Buddhist monk still has eyes that smile serenely. But the lines on Palden Gyatso's face tell a different story, a story of torture and decades of imprisonment. Gyatso recounts his arrest in 1959 while he was peacefully demonstrating with thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns. The CCP put him in prison for 23 years where he was tortured and in labor camps for 10 years. He was finally released in 1992.

 

Siberian Buddhist from Russia at BGC (HT)

Japanese film-maker Makoto Sasa was drawn to Gyatso's story mostly because of his strong, unbroken spirit despite such soul-wrenching suffering. Makoto Sasa says: "He could have gotten out of the prison if he would have said -- 'Yes, Tibet belongs to China, so I agree with what the Chinese government says.' But he didn't do that because he didn't believe in it. And this spirit I think is what people feel most from the film. And with that, they can look at the Tibetans, the current situation in Tibet and I think that's what they are going to get from the film."

Palden Gyatso: "When I finally got to India, I felt that I had reached the land of freedom and I felt that the atrocities that I had experienced, the atrocities that my fellow prisoners faced in prison, I felt that I had the duty to tell about those atrocities to the outside world."
 

 

Heidi Minx interviews Palden Gyatso and asks why he was arrested. He was a political prisoner held by the Chinese in Tibet for 33 years. To read his tragic story, see Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk.