Pagodas over Pungo

A victory for the International Campaign for Tibet: Congress passed a resolution allowing them to host a ceremony honoring the Dalai Lama on the grounds of the U.S. Capitol on October 17th, 2007. That same day in the rotunda Congress will also give the DL the “highest civilian honor” Congress can give (the Congressional Medal of Freedom?) It’s actually pretty amazing. Don’t worry, we’ll hear from China on this one. Some Buddhist monks are running into trouble from neighbors in Pungo, Virginia who want to keep their neighborhood rural. Three monks want to live in the house and hold services there. There’s an issue over property rights — in order to attend services, could people come visit the house? Yes, but how many? It’s hard not to think a Christian prayer group wouldn’t run into this kind of trouble, but a Christian prayer group probably wouldn’t put in a request to build a 6,000 square-foot pagoda on the front lawn. Warning shots fired at monks at a protest march in Burma. And there’s more bullets where that came from. Two amazing weeks of open dissent in Myanmar so far! Brad Warner on Buddhism and Violence, citing a Stephen Batchelor article originally published in the Winter 2001 Tricycle. Can Buddhism end violence in the world? Short answer: not really. Fun haiku stuff on ZenFrog! And always good poetry stuff on A Hoodie Monk. And finally a great post on Buddhism-informed vs. Buddhism-inspired blogging from peaceful turmoil. Although there’s really no “versus” here — it’s inclusive rather than exclusive, which is a big thing. But still it reminds me of Meeting It Everywhere on Buddhists vs. “Buddhists” in the wonderfully titled post Buddhists are Jerks. – Philip Ryan, Webmaster