Monday, Feb 24 2014
The Buddhist World lacks an effective
mechanism to help save a Buddhist Nation in Danger
The crisis facing the Buddhist world is neither a
decline in religious conviction nor an apprehension that truth underpinned by
rational argument and new scientific discoveries will one day overtake and
outstrip the core teachings of its founder which is a perennial fear bordering
on despondency that characterizes several other competing religions, but the
lack of an effective institutional mechanism that can lend support when a
Buddhist institution, Buddhist community or even a pre-dominant
Buddhist nation is in danger. We see the lack of substantial networks of
support driving threatened Buddhist nations or Buddhist communities into a
sense of despair and hopelessness at times of an emergency. Traditional
Buddhist countries such as Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Cambodia and Laos are
now under severe pressure to distance themselves from extending state patronage
to Buddhism and erase their Buddhist country identity and embrace a secular
identity with no such pressure being applied to countries in other parts of the
world such as the Middle East or the Catholic belt of
Europe.
