Swastika Festival Torchlight Parade Shock Horror!

Hitler Youth?

No, it's  Buddha's Birthday Celebration...

South Koreans celebrate Buddha's Birthday with a Lantern Procession


More Pix and article at the Vancouver Sun



Transcultural shock 
Isn't it strange how a particular symbol can produce an immediate gut reaction of horror and menace in Westerners (at least those of a certain age), and yet seem completely innocent to people of another culture?

The swastika has been an auspicious symbol in Buddhism for 2500 years, long before the Nazis appropriated it for their own evil purposes. But this hasn't stopped the European Union proposing to ban it, in a somewhat belated attempt to address the continent's problems of the 1930's, coupled with an arrogant display of EUrocentric cultural ignorance and control freakery.

Maybe it's time to rehabilitate the swastika, and reclaim it for its rightful owners, though I don't expect to see it displayed prominently on Western dharma centers anytime soon.  

This might raise some eyebrows in Tunbridge Wells

From the viewpoint of Buddhist philosophy, the Eurocrats' knee-jerk  swastikaphobia clearly shows how the mind projects attachment or aversion onto objects, which in themselves are neither intrinsically good nor bad.


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Will Thai education follow the American example?

From the Huffington Post 

Brian C. Stiller, Global Ambassador for The World Evangelical Alliance, laments the failure of hordes of mega-funded missionaries to convert Buddhists in Thailand to his brand of Christianity...

The Difficulty of Evangelizing in Thailand

"...Speaking with pastors, educators, mission leaders and on-the-ground spiritual inventors, I heard it time after time. I tried to understand the question in context in a land of lush landscape, neighborhoods so remarkably clean and people incredibly respectful and kind. The question is this: After all the people, money and years, why is the Christian mission here so small?"

"...Why is that after over 183 years of evangelical missionary work, an investment of thousands of lives and millions upon millions of dollars, out of a total population of 65 million there are only 370,000 evangelical Christians, one half of one percent?"

"...I heard many reasons. Among them missionaries viewing Thais as unequal to the task of leadership held on to controls within their foreign mission boards.

In this brief dispatch, rather than analyze the past, my interest is in their current vision and plan. I wanted to hear from them their optimism and hope for discipleship and church growth.

The national plan was in part triggered by polling which showed the Thai people didn't find the words "Jesus" and "God" objectionable, an assumption many made on why the slowness of Gospel advance [sic]. In 2004 the DeMoss Foundation organized the Power for Living campaign which asked the Thais if they found those words offensive. They then invited people to call in to receive a book. Organizers estimated a couple hundred thousand would call. Surprised, some 2.9 million responded."

Why should Buddhists find 'Jesus' objectionable?  Jesus was a Bodhisattva who developed his teachings in Buddhist India.  And why should the word  'God' be objectionable?   According to some views, 'God' is just another word for the Dharmakaya.    

So the slowness of Gospel advance may be due to other factors, for example the need to believe the literal truth of this...

It's likely that in order to make progress, the evangelists will need to launch an attack on the Thai educational system to suppress science, as they have done very successfully in formerly Buddhist South Korea.

Full article here. 



TIP FOR CHRISTIANS  - If some aspects of Buddhist beliefs seem unfamiliar, obscure, or confusing, then bear in mind that Buddhism is a process philosophy.   Difficult aspects of Buddhism often become much clearer when viewed from a process perspective.




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