Vietnam Buddhist Sangha holds a conference to mark 30th anniversary of establishment

Buddhism was born in Bodh Gaya, India. Sakya Muni Buddha is the founder of Buddhism in this world. From the birthplace of Buddhism, India, it was early spread to many Asian countries in ancient time. Buddhism was propagated into Vietnam in early years of the first century AD by two path, seaway and road. From the dawn to nowadays, almost 20 centuries, Vietnamese Buddhism was undergone many ups and downs along with Vietnamese history.

Most Venerable Monks and Governors attend the conference

In recent time, especially in 1960s, many people around the world knew Vietnamese Buddhism through the movements to struggle against religious repression and discrimination of Ngo Dinh Diem government. Among those movements, the self-immolation of Most Venerable Thich Quang Duc was an outstanding event that touched millions of heart had all over the world and had strong effect to the collapse of Diem’s Government. The Most Venerable burned himself on the 10^th of June, 1963, at the intersection of Phan Dinh Phung street and Le Van Duyet street, Saigon city (nowadays, Nguyen Dinh Chieu and Cach Mang Thang Tam street, Ho Chi Minh city) in order to protect Vietnam Buddhism and to request equality and freedom in religious policy in Vietnam. After his self-immolation, his heart was still unburned. Then people burned it under the heat of 2.000⁰C of a special electric stove, and the heart was still intact. His heart became a precious item of Vietnam.

Representatives participate the conference

When the state of Vietnam was united the North and the South, Vietnam Buddhism also came to a new stage with many challenges. In 7^th of November, 1981, Vietnam Buddhist Sangha was established as an official organization of Vietnamese Buddhist community which was recognized by Vietnam Government. With the birth of Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, various schools and traditions of Vietnamese Buddhism had a representative organization and had collective voices. Up to now, Vietnam Buddhist Sangha had experienced 36 years with its nation and had provided lots of benefits to many fields in society, such as culture, education, welfare, etc. in Vietnam as well as in the world.

To mark 30^th anniversary of establishment of Vietnam Buddhist Sangha, on 23^rd of December, 2011, the organization held a conference at the office II of Vietnam Central Buddhist Sangha (at Quang Duc Monastery, Ho Chi Minh City). There were many Buddhist leaders in provinces and cities nationwide and intellectual Buddhists as well as scholars and researchers in Vietnam participated and made presentations, gave suggestions at the conference. Besides, some officers and leaders, governors of Vietnam Government also attended the conference.

The conference is a chance for Vietnam Buddhist Sangha to examine its activities and programs, listen to comments and suggestions from local Buddhist leaders and scholars, researchers and intellectual Buddhists as well. At the same time, representatives of the conference have to help Vietnam Buddhist Sangha set up programs, projects and actual activities in order to improve Vietnam Buddhist up to a high new level, uphold internal power of Vietnamese Buddhists and provide more positive effects and benefits to social community.

In present, Vietnam Buddhist community has 46,000 monks and nuns, 15,000 Buddhist temples. There are 4 Buddhist Universities, 31 Buddhist high Schools and some Buddhist colleges nationwide. In addition, there are elementary Buddhist schools in many districts and provinces.

The one-day conference was closed with hopes that the Sangha will have meaningful transformations in various aspects in order to overcome all challenges and suit all needs of a strongly developing society in Vietnam. 

Representatives participate the conference

Representatives participate the conference

 Minh Nguyen  

   

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Vietnamese Buddhists celebrate Amitabha Buddha’s Birthday

According to Mahayana Buddhism, Amitabha Buddha is a Buddha who lives in Pure Land in the west. His realm is also called Extreme Happy Land. Amitabha is the principal Buddha in the Pure Land sect, a branch of Buddhism practiced mainly in East Asia. “Amitabha” is translatable as “Infinite Light” hence Amitabha Buddha is often called "The Buddha of Infinite Light”. As described in Buddhist scriptures, Amitabha Buddha used to practice Boddhisattva’s conduct over countless past lives and there was a life in which he is a monk named Dharmakara, he took forty eight vows in order to save human beings in this worldly realm with full of sufferings.

Recent years, Pure Land School is strongly developing in Vietnam. There are more and more devotes follow practices of Pure Land School. Therefore, on the Amitabha Buddha’s birthday, 11^th December (17^th November in Vietnamese calendar), from south to north of Vietnam, there were many Buddhist temples celebrated the anniversary. Especially, some big temples organized the ceremony imposingly with thousands of Buddhists participated and a greatly solemn platform. The scene of thousands of candles illuminating on devotes’ hands in dark night combined with sounds of chanting Buddha’s name created a holy atmosphere as if Pure Land is presented in front of our eyes. This is an auspicious occasion for Buddhists to express their respect and appreciation to the Buddha, and to strengthen their belief to pure land practices. 

Amitabha Buddha's birthday at Tu Xuyen Pagoda - Thai Binh Province, Vietnam

Amitabha Buddha's birthday at Ba Na pagoda, Da Nang City

Amitabha Buddha's birthday at Hoang Phap pagoda, Hoc Mon District, HCM city

Minh Nguyen    

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To build a compassionate house for a poor family in Long An

Mrs. Tu standing at the door of her house

We went to Muong Chai hamlet, Phuoc Lai commune, Can Gio district, Long An province, Vietnam in a raining afternoon. There was a local person who had volunteered to guide us to a poor family at Muong Chai hamlet. We followed her to a small road leads to Truong Van Loa’s thatched house. To reach his house we had to wade through a muddy piece of ground because there is no track leading to the house. It is difficult to go on rainy days because the ground becomes swampy, slippery.

At present, Mr. Truong Van Loa is 37 years old; his wife is Truong Thi Be Tu, 37 years old too. Their house is located nearby a river that its bank is falling down and their house is at the risk of collapse in near future. Because of this, one of their relatives gave them a small ground which is quite far from the river bank, at that they can build their house. However, with their current conditions, they don’t know when they can build a simple house, it is beyond their poor competence.

They have two sons. As they don’t have enough money to pay for school fees, their elder son had to stop his study in order to help his parents to earn money for their living. The younger son is studying at grade seventh. The house they are living in is just a miserable thatched house, only enough capacity to protect them from rain and sunshine. There is nothing valuable in their house, it is almost empty, except two weak beds.

Currently, their work is to cut nipa palms and weave them together. With this job they earn about 50,000VND (50 thousand dongs = 2,5US dollars) per day. Unfortunately, Mr. Loa usually gets sick, so that they must pay for his medicine as well as health care. Therefore, their family had to live in a miserable condition for long. From the date they lived separately from their parents’ family up to now, more than 16 years, they still can’t build their own acceptable house. Knowing this situation, we, Huong Tu Bi Group, are planning to build a compassionate house for them. In our estimation, the house costs about 25.000.000VND (25 million dongs). We invite donations from you all. Hopefully, donators will zealously join with us in this meaningful activity in order to make our compassionate-house building plan becomes true soon.

Thank you for your kindness.

And this is a video clip we recorded:

Huong Tu Bi Group

To join with us in this charitable activity, please contact us via this email id: huongtubigroup@gmail.com

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Hello Vietnam: How emotional this song!

Singer Pham Quynh Anh

I heard about singer Pham Quynh Anh in 2008 when she visited her homeland (Vietnam) after her long time living far away and she sang the song "Hello Vietnam" as a spirit gift that she gave to Vietnamese people at a theater in Ho Chi Minh city. At that time, with her all affection torwards her country and her sweet voice, she made many people could not keep their tears.

Unfortunately, I didn't listen to this song at that time. Today, I listened to it by chance and I listened it again, again and over again. This song really evoked a special emotion in my heart that I can't not express it in words. The song expresses her emotions as well as her feelings of her homeland which she doesn't know much about. And this is not her own sentiment, it is very common in many Vietnamese people  who are living aboard and left Vietnam when they were very young and don't have an opportunity to visit their fatherland.

Thank you Pham Quynh Anh, you helped me to recognize how music can strongly influence on one's feelings. May you, Pham Quynh Anh, be successful and peaceful in your life!

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What Is Happiness?

How do you define happiness?

I think happiness is a level of contentment that exists within a person so that, basically, on any given day, they walk around feeling like "Everything's OK in my world. The world's an OK place." It really is that old adage about "I'm OK and you're OK." So, "Other people, the world, and me. All is well in my life." Then, occasionally, when you're generally happy, you have little bursts of excitement or enthusiasm that just feel like moments of joy. I think it's that base line of contentment with those moments of joy that actually define happiness.

What are the essential ingredients of happiness?

Well interestingly, depending on where you are on the hierarchy of needs, if you're worried about survival and your surviving, you have a way to be happy with that. If you're more comfortable with your physical needs and your "in-belonging" and love and self esteem and you feel like those things are being met, you'll be happy there. So it depends on where you are in terms of taking a step beyond where ever you began and growing beyond the generation previously, to see how far you believe you need to go in order to reach the goal that you established, and again, meet your own expectations and you will feel happy as of result of that. I have a story for you, it was something I actually read on the internet one time and it was a story about a woman who was entering a nursing home who was completely blind, and as she entered the nursing home the aid that was taking her to her room, showed her her room and was sort of walking around helping her - say, you know "this is where the bed is" and "this is where the nightstand is" and the woman kept talking about how beautiful it was, and the aid asked her, "well, you know, I don't want to be disrespectful but, why do you think it's beautiful? I mean, frankly you can't really see.", and she said "I've already decided it was going to be beautiful in my mind and that's all that matters." And I think there's truth there because it really isn't about what is, its about what you believe there is, and theres a line I heard once, I think it's a Don Henley song which said that he wished not to have what he wanted but to want what he had, and I think thats it right there, is that you recongize that what you have is enough, that you establish a position of gratitude about what you have and that you look at that as being plenty and you look at yourself as being enough, and all of those things work synergistically to create joy and happiness within.

Is happiness important?

I think it's important to each individual that they allow themselves to choose happiness. So, to that extent, I think happiness is important, and I think it's really important that they understand they have the option to do that. In terms of my job, that's what I would really want to teach people all day long, is to know that they can be happy if they allow themselves to be, and if they create it from within. And because they can, my job is very fulfilling. Because I see people choose to do that every day. Not perfectly, certainly, I would never espouse perfection as even a goal. It's not a worthwhile goal because no one's perfect. But to continue to strive, and feel like you're a work in progress, and let yourself be enough, let that be enough, creates happiness, and that's achievement.

Is happiness relative?

I don't think that you can compare your own personal level of happiness with someone else's because we are like snowflakes and we are so different. It is impossible to compare. Well I am happier than you are on some level. It is just too individualized. I think it can be relative in terms of your own life and you can see periods in your own life where you had times when you were happier than others. Certainly situational factors can enter into play: Lifestyle changes over decades or processes that one goes through as they grow older, as they grow up, as they get healthier, as they become ill. All those factors are relevant. So it is relative internally but again, outside or externally, I don't know that you can compare and contrast.

Is culture a factor in how we view happiness?

I think that different cultures have different expectations about what they believe is the optimum level of happiness. And some cultures really teach survival because of where that nation is or where that culture is in those moments and in that time. So if they allow a person to really believe that happiness is within their grasp that culture has an opportunity to sort of instill that belief across the board. Some cultures really prize self sacrifice, some cultures prize altruism, some belief systems or religious theories. Everybody's philosophies is going to determine what they feel is their optimum level of happiness and what opportunity they have to actually attain it. So there are cultural factors that probably weigh in and as you independently try to figure out whether or not you are happy and what chance you have to increase your level of happiness, those cultural factors are going to play a part. The messages that you received from your family, from your environment, from your philosophy or religious belief system or cultural belief system are all going to be relevant. And those things are things that you need to explore, understand, analyze, take apart, and modify. Because if you want to change how you feel within and those things are factors that are creating the feelings that you actually have especially if there you cognitive frame work. You have to change the frame work in order for the picture to be different.

What's the difference between happiness and pleasure?

Pleasure is a moment, happiness is a lifetime. Pleasure is something you can strive to achieve in an action or an activity, and often people confuse pleasure with happiness so they become pleasure-seeking or pleasure-driven. What's interesting is that because they're searching for something outside of themselves, it actually winds up almost having the opposite result. The more you're driven to try and find it, the less you're actually slowing down enough to find it within.

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Go Beyond with singing

This is a spiritual message given by Tina Turner with beautiful music by Dechen Shak-Dagsay and Regula Curti.
The message is wonderful and deserves to be heard by everyone.
"Nothing lasts forever, No one lives forever.
A Flower fades and dies when the pass of the spring comes. Embrace the fact of life is the greatest love.
Go beyond fear.
Feel yourself, Start everyday singing like the birds. Singing teaches you beyond.
Let go our old habits of mind.
Go beyond the right and the wrong..."

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Buddhism in the Soviet Union

Karl Marx declared religion ‘the opiate of the masses’. This single statement has served as the foundational thought regarding the Communist attitude to religion in general ever since. But exactly what this means for non-European religions has never been made clear.

Both Marx and Engels thought deeply about the influence of religion upon the working classes in Western Europe, and as a result, analysed the effects of the established Judeo-Christian religions upon the masses. The other religions of the world were virtually unknown in 19th century Europe at that time, beyond vague, obscure, and often misunderstood, fragmentary references.

As a result, ‘ALL’ religion has been defined by this initial statement of Karl Marx, by Communists ideologues who came after him, regardless of the particular religion’s place of origination, philosophy or distinctive history. Religion, itself, is viewed as an internalisation of outer hopeless circumstance, a hopelessness that is the reality of external, oppressive, social forces, a symptom of living in a bourgeois, Capitalist society that allows for little or no freedom of expression outside of the exploitative, economic arrangement, but instead promises only a ‘daily grind’ for survival. In such circumstance, the human being experiences a need to ‘transcend’ the oppression, but instead of changing the outer circumstances, this tendency is averted away, and focused into building an inner structure of mythological escape in a distorted attempt to relieve the outer, social pressure. The source of outer suffering is never relieved, of course, and the religious attitude has to create a compensatory award system that promises ‘salvation’ in some far off time and place, but never observable in the present.

In the Judeo-Christian theistic tradition, it is the promise of heaven or the threat of hell. A central God figure dispenses arbitrary justice upon the masses, and virtue is defined as the accepting of suffering in physical life, enhanced by not changing or eradicating the source of the social suffering. For Marx, the religious attitude teaches that we should accept suffering and oppression today for a far off reward that never arrives because it does not exist. Marx likened a society in the grip of established religion as being like a drug addict viewing the world through a drug induced haze. The religious mind-set, therefore, prevented the working class from establishing a clear view of what is really going on in society. A working class with no awareness suffers from a ‘false consciousness’, and can not rise up in revolution. Therefore, Marx views religion as part and parcel of the oppressive, capitalist system which actively strives to keep the down-trodden firmly in their place.

Not all religions are theistic; that is, require an unquestioned belief in a central god concept. It is true that virtually every religion in the West is theistic, but in Soviet Russia, the philosophical path of Buddhism existed, and an attempt was made to integrate it into the Communist framework of society. Buddhism acknowledges that life is suffering, and actively strives to over-come that suffering through meditative endeavour. Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik party (that took power in Russia in 1917 – eventually forming the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), was of the opinion that Marx was correct, but that religion, itself, should not be oppressed or outlawed, creating a sudden, and potentially damaging, historical rift with the past. Therefore, Lenin prevented the Bolshevik party being declared officially ‘atheist’. He thought that religion was so entrenched in the suffering masses that a mere outer propaganda offensive would not get to the root of the matter. Lenin, like Marx and others, wanted to build a Socialist society through the use of scientific planning. When living standards rose to never before seen levels of affluence and compassion, heaven would have been made on earth. And as a consequence, the archaic thought structures and superstitions of theistic religion would eventually wither away. When viewed in this light, religion is an inner reaction to outer oppression, nothing more. When the outer oppression ceases, the inner religious attitude is not triggered and does not occur.

Lenin sought a natural progression over time, rather than a sudden and abrupt ending of religion in the Soviet Union. This is seen in the continued existence of the Russian Orthodox Church, and the forming of the Russian Buddhist Church, under Bolshevik rule. The Russian born Buddhist Lama, Agnav Dorzhiev, (1854-1938), worked to propagate Buddhism in Russia both under the Tsarist regime, and under the Bolsheviks. In John Snelling’s book entitled ‘Buddhism in Russia’, we learn why Dorzhiev believed Buddhism and Marxism were compatible.

Dorzhiev, himself, argued that Buddhist doctrine is largely compatible with current Communist tradition because:

That the weak should not be oppressed but cared for; that everyone should be regarded as though they were a {close} relative; that non-virtues, such as stealing, should be avoided; that the various kinds of avarice and magic should not be allowed; {and} that one should engage in a truthful and upright livelihood. He also ingeniously proposed the consonance of Buddhism with dialectical materialism on the grounds that it did not doctrinally assert the existence of God and so was a “religion of atheism”.

Despite the work of Dorzhiev and others, all religion came under suspicion in the USSR. Russia, as a country in Europe, was probably the first European country to develop Buddhist practice, particularly amongst European Russians. However, at least two national minorities – the Buryat (south central Russia), and the Kalmyks (west Russia), were descended of Mongolian stock, and practiced mainly Tibetan Buddhism. Dorzhiev, himself, a Russian born Buryat, was the tutor of the 13th Dalai Lama, and Lhasan emissary to the Tsar. He was also instrumental in the building of the Buddhist temple of St Petersburg (completed in 1915).

Stalin declared Collectivisation in 1931, and a new wave of religious persecution was begun. And this time period witnessed a new anti-Buddhist rhetoric in Communist propaganda. Stalin, (unlike Lenin), did not believe that religion would wither on the vine without actual destructive pressure from the outside. Dorzhiev, himself, like thousands of others, was arrested by Police in 1938, where it is believed he died of a heart attack. The Kalmyks of eastern Russia, were cleansed from their homeland, and banished to Siberia where many thousands died of starvation.

Buddhism has the potential to be a very progressive and supportive force in social reform and change that could benefit all beings. Buddhist meditation frees the individual from the bonds of inner tyranny. Today, multi-ethnic and multicultural Russia allows Buddhist practice. Buddhism encourages and develops a state of inner Socialism that in the right circumstances can manifest in the outer environment. It is interesting to contemplate what would have happened if the Bolsheviks had approached Buddhism in a different light, and attempted to equate Buddhist loving kindness and compassion with Communist collective sharing and progressive science - the outer freedom that the Bolsheviks promised the oppressed masses of Russia and that Karl Marx intended for the world.

by Adrian Chan-Wyles 

Source: Dissidentvoice.org

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