China vs. India: the battle for Buddha

China and India seek to leverage their ties to Buddhism for soft power in the region.
Jason OverdorfJanuary 19, 2012 06:32

A Nepalese woman lights prayer candles at the stupa Boudhanath for the Buddha's birthday in Kathmandu. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images)

LUMBINI, Nepal — For a few short hours, as dancers imported from Kathmandu leapt and twirled for the bemused president of this tiny Himalayan republic, the sleepy, provincial town of Lumbini, in western Nepal, became the focus of the great chess game underway between India and China.

After a sudden, unannounced, and brief visit from Chinese premier Wen Jiabao in Kathmandu, Nepalese President Ram Baran Yadav had flown in to take the stage here — at the birthplace of Buddha — to inaugurate “Visit Lumbini Year 2012” on behalf of Nepal tourism.

But as he set fire to a symbolic, Olympic-style “peace flame,” more than a few observers were wondering about the fortuitous timing of the event, which coincided, like the flourish of a magician's cape, with the preventive detention of hundreds of Nepalese Tibetans in the capital.

The detention of Tibetans is nothing new, of course. And Nepal is always rife with rumors and conspiracy theories. But for the past several months a curious mystery has unfolded around Lumbini — the latest beachhead in the quiet battle for Buddha underway between China and India.

With competing conferences, organizations, and cultural tours, both China and India have sought to leverage their historical ties with Buddhism for so-called soft power in the region.

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India seeks to use its common cultural heritage to overcome China's ethnic ties to the overseas Chinese in Southeast Asia, and China seeks to limit the damage from its repression of religious freedom in Tibet and its incessant sparring with the Dalai Lama.

“This is part of China's effort to use Buddhism to gain an entry into Nepal, [and] to show to their Buddhists that they're showing equal attention to Buddhism outside the country,” Jayaveda Ranade, formerly additional secretary for East Asia with the Indian government, said of a Chinese proposal for the development of Lumbini.

Yadav, Nepal's president, made no mention of China before the crowd gathered at Buddha's birthplace, though in Kathmandu Wen pledged more than $140 million in aid for the building of infrastructure and other projects. Wen also agreed to consider Nepal's request to extend the 1,200 mile Qinghai-Tibet railway onward to Kathmandu and Lumbini.

GlobalPost's series: Buddhists in arms

“Both sides started worrying about this once the Dalai Lama started giving intimations of mortality, shall we say,” said Jabin Jacob, assistant director of the New Delhi-based Institute of Chinese Studies, an independent think tank.

“If the Dalai Lama is disappearing from the scene or he is going to be stepping back from the political scene, as he already has, then there is this huge resource lying out there untapped,” he said.

India and China: their claims to Buddhism

Born Prince Gautama Siddhartha in what is today Nepal, the Buddha achieved enlightenment, gained his spiritual following, and died (or achieved final nirvana) in India. As a result, Bodhgaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar, located in the north Indian state of Bihar, remain major pilgrimage centers for believers from around the world.

But in India Buddhism was subsumed by Hinduism, and New Delhi has done little to spread the wealth from tourism to Lumbini — which most view as less significant than the three pilgrimage sites in India. So as Nepal's tourism ministry seeks to lure 500,000 visitors to Lumbini in 2012, expectations of Indian support are not too high — though India claims to be “more than happy” to contribute.

“Most of the inter-governmental bodies are dysfunctional,” said Aditya Baral, director of the publicity department of the Nepal Tourism Board.

At the same time, even though China is notorious for its suppression of Tibetan Buddhism, and India is home to the exiled Dalai Lama, in its other forms Buddhism is reportedly the fastest-growing religion in China and accounts for only a tiny, neglected minority in the land where it originated.

And China's largesse, at least on paper, or in rumor, appears to know no bounds.

“Nearly 40 percent of Chinese believe in Buddhism. Several of the Chinese leaders themselves are practicing Buddhists, despite being members of the Communist Party,” said Shrikanth Kondapalli, a professor of Chinese studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“So from that point of view it's quite natural for China to be interested in Buddhist projects,” he said.

According to Ranade, China held its first World Buddhist Forum in 2006 in an effort to project its handpicked candidate, Gyaltsen Norbu, as the legitimate Panchen Lama, after secret police allegedly kidnapped and spirited away the boy chosen by the Tibetans in 1995.

A second conference in 2009, for which the concluding ceremony was held in Taiwan, was aimed at convincing neighboring Buddhist nations that China had embraced the religion, despite its continued opposition to the Dalai Lama.

Similarly, Beijing has undertaken other cultural intiatives, such as the displaying of tooth and hair relics of the Buddha in a traveling exhibition in Myanmar.

“All of this is to keep the Dalai Lama in his place,” said Jacob. “It's to ensure that they have a handle on his succession, an influence on his succession, and that they will be seen as legitimately intervening in that succession.”

At the same time, India has sought to build on the goodwill it receives naturally as home to the exiled leader of Tibetan Buddhism and reach out to other sects.

In 2007, for instance, the loan of an extensive collection of Buddhist art and artifacts from India's National Museum subtly reinforced the message that the religion traveled from India to China and beyond in conjunction with an East Asia Summit where Beijing had sought to shoulder out New Delhi.

Together with representatives from Singapore, China, Japan and Thailand, India has undertaken a $1 billion project to develop a modern university in the ancient Buddhist learning center of Nalanda, in modern day Bihar, under the leadership of Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen.

Beginning this summer, however, the struggle for soft power has begun to seem as though it were scripted by John Le Carré.

The plot thickens in Lumbini

For Lumbini, the story begins in July, when China's state-run People's Daily reported that a peculiar Hong Kong-based outfit called the Asia Pacific Exchange & Cooperation Foundation (APECF) had signed a memorandum of understanding with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to create a “special cultural zone” in Lumbini.

Touting a planned investment of $3 billion, APECF claimed to have the full support of the Nepal government for its scheme to build roads, telecommunications networks and tourist facilities in the area.

The dusty, one-horse town of Lumbini could certainly use the money. But at nearly one-tenth of Nepal's entire gross domestic product, $3 billion was a stupendous sum — and, some suspect, a wholly fictional one: a carnival barker's cry, crude propaganda, or a “trial balloon” to gauge how Nepal might react.

The answer was swift.

Soon afterward UNIDO and Nepal, by turns, disavowed the project. It surfaced that both Pushpa Kamal Dahal, the Maoist leader popularly known by his nomme de guerre Prachanda, or “Fearless,” and the controversial Paras Bir Bikram Shah Dev, Nepal's former crown prince, held positions on APECF's board of directors.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) blasted APECF's scheme as a threat to Lumbini's status as a World Heritage site. And Culture Secretary Modraj Dotel resigned in protest over alleged pressure to approve the project.

“What to me was worrying was the wheeling and dealing through which they had managed to get both Prince Paras and Prachanda, an unholy alliance from opposite ends of the spectrum,” said Kul Chandra Gautam, a former assistant secretary general of the UN who has publicly criticized the project.

“All kinds of shady deals happen in Nepal, and for our most influential political leader to be made part of this venture to me sounded very fishy.” (Prince Paras is no longer listed as a board member by APECF's website).

For Indian foreign policy think tanks, APECF — nominally a non-governmental organization (NGO) — was an obvious clandestine arm of the Chinese government.

Its Lumbini project was a transparent attempt to leverage Buddhism to station platoons of People's Liberation Army engineers within a stone's throw of the Indian border. And the bizarre snafu of the fake agreement with UNIDO was simply another example, apparently, of the inscrutability of Chinese espionage.

So, too, it goes in New Delhi.

This week, Beijing's special representative Dai Bingguo is in New Delhi hoping to flag off a “golden period” for India-China relations. But it's lucky he made it at all, in the wake of the latest Indian salvo in the battle for Buddha.

In November, Beijing scrapped Dai's planned visit to discuss an outstanding dispute over China's borders with Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir in protest over an Indian rival to its own World Buddhism Conference. Organized by the Asoka Mission, another NGO that receives government funding, the meeting brought Buddhist leaders from around the world together with the Dalai Lama the same week that Dai was to arrive for talks.

“Clubbed with the South China Sea dispute, clubbed with the Yellow Sea incident where the Chinese opposed the USS George Washington into that region and a host of other problems that China had with the US and their neighbors, including even with India, it did cost [Beijing] some soft power,” said professor Kondapalli.

“The convention decided to set up an international Buddhist institution somewhere in India, to codify the Buddhist scriptures and so forth,” he said.

Coincidence? Representatives of the Indian government say so. But just as in Lumbini, there are plenty of people ready to concoct a master plan behind the chaos.

Doubt impairs Cambodia struggle

PACIFIC DAILY NEWS
Jun. 29, 2011
A. Gaffar Peang-Meth

Said Buddha, "There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed." And, "Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most."

And he said: "One thought leads to heaven, one thought leads to hell."

Two thousand, five hundred years ago, Lord Gautama Buddha taught: "Doubt separates people. It is a poison that disintegrates friendships and breaks up pleasant relations. It is a thorn that irritates and hurts; it is a sword that kills."

He said, "There is nothing more dreadful than the habit of doubt."

Indeed, it remains so, and it will continue to be a destructive emotion.

Doubt raises the question of trust, the fundamental foundation of human relationships. Raise the level of doubt, increase the level of mistrust. Respect is diminished. As the great Chinese teacher Confucius asserted, "Without feelings of respect, what is there to distinguish men from beasts?"

This brings to mind English philosopher Thomas Hobbes' "poor, nasty, and brutish" kind of world: A state of nature. French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau thought that in such a state of nature, humans are mere wild beasts driven by unbridled instinct.

Fourth-century B.C. Indian brahman Chanakya Kautilya advised his emperor that in order to protect his and India's interests, he must amass power, the beginning of realpolitik. Later, Italian Renaissance thinker Niccolo Machiavelli, known as the father of the science of politics, presented the concept of power as a natural survival behavior.

But Confucius, who said, "It's easy to hate and difficult to love," preached: "The more man meditates upon good thoughts, the better will be his world and the world at large." He warned, "To see and listen to the wicked is already the beginning of wickedness."

The younger Buddha, who said, "Nothing is permanent," called on mankind to "Fill your mind with compassion," and to accept and live up to what "agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all."

Buddha taught: "There has to be evil, so that good can prove its purity above it."

Raising doubt. Today, some individuals make it a business to detract, defame, disinform and misinform, dig dirt, engage in character assassination -- with the purpose of diminishing human trust and undermining a person's credibility. But Buddha assured: "Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

The truth likely is that those who are most hateful in their characterizations of others are those who have the most to hide from public scrutiny. They put forth "straw men" to draw attention from their own corruption.

As responsible citizens, we have an obligation not to be swayed by hateful rhetoric, but to inform ourselves and make our own decisions based on the most objective information we can acquire.

Buddha's teaching of the "Four Reliances" that represent the foundational elements of life includes: rely on the spirit and meaning of the teachings, not on the words; rely on the teachings, not on the personality of the teacher; rely on real wisdom, not superficial interpretation; rely on the essence of your pure wisdom mind, not on judgmental perceptions.

I write often in this space about people who are entrenched in destructive intolerance, characterized by a lack of civility. A couple of years ago I wrote about psychology professor Jonathan Haidt's "The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom."

Haidt posited that we don't live in a world of rocks, trees, and physical creations, but a world of our own creations -- "a world of insults, opportunities, status symbols, betrayals" created by humans who "believe in them." He sees human beings in all cultures possessing an "excessive and self-righteous tendency to see the world in terms of good versus evil," or "moralism" that "blinds people" into believing "We're good, they are evil."

On his website,CivilPolitics.org, Haidt observes that over the past 20 years, political leaders, political parties and mass media outlets have become "more polarized, strident and moralistic."

He says: "When political opponents are demonized rather than debated, compromise, and cooperation become moral failings and people begin to believe that their righteous ends justify the use of any means."

And so, here we are coming full circle: believing in one's "excessive and self-righteous" ends allows one to inject into relationships and into civil debate what Buddha called "poison," "thorn" and "sword that kills" by sowing doubt.

Haidt cited "The Perfect Way," a poem by eighth-century Chinese Zen master Sen-ts'an, who brands an individual's "judgmentalism" as "the mind's worst disease (as) it leads to anger, torment, and conflict."

"The perfect way is only difficult for those who pick and choose" -- between like and dislike, "for" and "against." The Zen master taught "nonjudgmentalism."

And Buddha taught mankind to meditate to calm down and not to be agitated by the "petty provocations of life."

Some readers may be wondering how I will tie this column to the contemporary political context in Cambodia, as I usually do. As Hun Sen and members of his ruling party assuage their greed, they suck into their orbit the "willing executioners" who do their bidding, hoping for a small share of the ill-gotten largesse. Meanwhile, those who assert their opposition to autocracy are riven with doubt that is a byproduct of the rumors and accusations initiated by Hun Sen and his followers or, worse, insinuated by political colleagues who perpetuate the fractures in the opposition by adhering to a single charismatic individual rather than to a set of principles.

Said Buddha, "There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed." And, "Each morning we are born again. What we do today is what matters most."

And he said: "One thought leads to heaven, one thought leads to hell."

A. Gaffar Peang-Meth, Ph.D., is retired from the University of Guam. Write him
at peangmeth@yahoo.com.

http://www.guampdn.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/201106290300/OPINION02/106290321

Failed State Mirrored by the Buddha's Applied Teachings

Dear Koun Khmer et al;

I am grateful for your knowledge sharing in this blog forum. Lord Buddha said "knowledge contribution (dana) will surpass all other contributions" or "Sabba Danam Dhamma Danam Jinati" in Pali. I have read all your articles for public discussion in here with attention and prestige.

Failed state theory has been broadly defined by scholars in the enlightenment era and this post cold-war transition. The attributions rest upon the affect of two rival ideologies: democracy and communism. This approach might be best described on the external observation of the failed states researchers. However, I totally agree with the definition of failed state that falls upon its failed leadership and people liberation.

I am fully affected by the teaching of "liberation" particularly "individual liberation" to reach "Enlightenment" by the Buddha, and this teaching has been well applied to the modern enlightening world. This is not different from failed state index 2010 posted by The Foreign Policy. In general, Cambodia is better than Burma and Lao in its 42 range, but Cambodia has been categorized by high scores in its documentation of demographic pressures, delegitimization of the state, and public service.

Demographically speaking, Cambodia is facing with youth bulk in recent statistic revelation by NGOs. More than half of Cambodian population is under age of 20 years old (pactcambodia). They are struggling to seek a better life by hunting for career opportunities; they are very different from their elders in both critical thinking and belief. They can be boon for government to heighten their strength as well as they can be the powerful agent to undermine the government. In other word, demographic pressures can define in the context of people exploitation to legitimate the power of the powerful. In this circumstance, the past genocide of Cambodia has become a main tool for politicians to legitimize their power. They have continuously gained power at the expense of their peoples past suffering and trauma. Their elders were directly affected by their traumatic experiences and their younger generations are indirectly affected by this inalienable trauma heritage. With the powerful delivery of controlled media and laid-down policy of the patron-clientele system have surely exacerbated the situation.

Delegitimization of the state is explained as to invalidate the status of a recognizable sovereign state by inclining to live under other state by either brotherliness, ideologies or economic dependency. In this matter, we cannot come up with concrete explanation of Cambodia unless we have some back up references. And I think your next topic of Elitism or Indochina would light up this story.

Third is the public service. Frankly speaking, the public service basing on patron-clientele relationship will not produce any progressive. Some paper has found that patron-clientele relationship in most developing countries are becoming a base for social and political reforming and yes it has taken longer time and sometime it has significantly failed to reform for the a betterment. Cambodia has carried out the culture of patron-clientele since the era of Angkor Wat. It was effective in that time, but it is not effective in this time. The rule of law and law enforcement can surely replace the culture of patronage, patron-clientele bureaucracy, favoritism and cronyism.

All those three high scores of failed state of Cambodia implies well to the teaching of "liberation" by Buddha. Lord Buddha said liberty and self-realization is the ultimate goal for all beings. In contrast, Cambodian people has not yet been projected to release themselves from bondage of pressure, exploitation, abusing of power by the powerful, and poor public services.

For instance, Cambodian people have been exploited by their past traumatic memory of Khmer Rouge; Cambodian people have been counterfeited by the generosity (dana) donated by the elitists and powerful people; Cambodian people have been brainwashed to pay gratitude to others without having chance to balance their gratefulness and truthfulness; and Cambodian people have been poorly treated by the public services, and they have perpetually gone through the same track of political conundrum.

Only one way to wake up our country to embrace the Enlightenment Era and update themselves to grab the current globalization is to "liberate" them from post-war trauma by handing them the space for free speech, allocating them by inventing neutral mass media, teaching the younger generations by the school of analytical thinking (not a parroting classroom), and all Buddhist monks have to learn on how to apply the Buddha's teachings with the current context of social changes and they should not memorize those teachings and parroting to the congregations only etc.

I must end my thought now and I am delightful to your articles and all comments here.

Sincere Regards,
Sophan

The contributions of the Buddha and Buddhism

(Photo/Stephanie Carter) Meerut, India, May 06 — Gautama Buddha and Buddhism have made excellent contributions towards strengthening the Indian Way, which is based on universal acceptance, particularly in making it dynamic and bringing the common man into its fold. Buddha’s contribution for taking this way in his time, when it was a narrow path, cannot be underestimated.

Buddhism’s roots are deep. It is believed that Buddhism existed long before the birth of Siddhartha Gautama. Buddhist texts say that Gautama Buddha was one among a thousand awakened to attain Buddhahood. The chain of Buddhas will continue, with the Maitreya Buddha being the next one to come.

Buddhism is an accessible way of life as shown by the Buddhas. By overcoming negative ideas, a Buddha develops positive virtues and rises to the stature of being a mentor to the world. Anyone, by knowing the reality of life, through self-control, restraint and discipline, and by following the Middle Way, can get through the journey of life. By continuously doing good acts, he develops virtues, escapes the bond of sorrows, and attains the stage of being a Buddha.

Siddhartha Gautama, born in 563 BC, the son of Suddhodana and Queen Mahamaya of Kapilvastu, belonged to the Ikshavaku family line, which also gave birth to most of the Jain Tirthankaras – one who achieves enlightenment through asceticism, becoming a teacher to others – as well as to the great King Harishchandra and Lord Rama. At the time of Siddhartha’s birth, social and political conditions were very complicated. People were victims of atrocities and exploitation. There was a great void of love and sympathy among people for one another. Competition and jealousies at their worst dominated human practices. People were busy with rivalries and conspiracies against one another. The religious field had become discriminatory and isolated, and the center for achieving self-interest.

At that time, Siddhartha rose to the stature of the Buddha. He, as per the demand of the time, re-established Ahimsa, the supreme human value, in different walks of life in the form of Karuna, or compassion. His unique work added a matchless dimension to the Buddhist tradition. By making the way of human equality accessible, based on the ideal of Karuna, he gave new life to the Indian Way.

Gautama Buddha’s contribution to the Indian Way and to humanity can be highlighted in three ways. On the strength of his intense and highly philosophical research based upon knowledge, logic, and exercise, and having the four Arya Satyas − sorrow, its cause, its cessation, and the means of its cessation − in the center, he described the reality of human life. This was his first great contribution. He clarified to the suffering world that sorrow was the supreme reality of life.

Birth, disease, old age, death, astonishment, depression, grief, contact with the unloving, separation from the dear, and the non-fulfillment of desire are sorrows. Desiring enjoyment, power, wealth, and the will to live are the causes of sorrow. Desire and lust give birth to a state of struggle and conflict, become the source of striving and lead people toward the ocean of sorrows. Cessation of these desires is the way to become free from sorrow. Gautama Buddha established the Eightfold Middle Way as the way to free oneself desire, the cause of sorrow.

His path, besides becoming the Way’s best introduction, proved to be a milestone of the Way. Buddhism flourished, affecting millions of Indians and becoming the basis for the lives of many around the world. It touched the heights of the spiritual world in his lifetime. The simple and practical teachings of Buddha saved man.

Shakyamuni’s call for equality and people’s response to it paved the way for social change in India. It was his second noteworthy contribution. Perhaps many are unaware that, on many occasions, Buddha expressed views on the importance of democracy. He called upon people to strengthen democratic values for the common welfare. Despite the existence of democratic institutions in India centuries before his birth, his advocacy of a democratic system, at a time of complicated social and political conditions, was a historical event.

He stressed making collective decisions; cooperating to implement them; respecting the pre-established system of welfare and law and elders’ advice; not using force on women; protecting Dharma; respecting the monks; strengthening morality and dutifulness in life; and showing reverence for others’ views and faiths. These principles continue to have significance today for the prosperity of the system, if adopted as per the demands of the time.

Gautama Buddha brought all movable-immovable objects and views within the scope of Law of Change. Purification according to the demands of the time and place is an indivisible part of this Law. Hence, his call to accept this Law for all-around progress is his third important contribution to the Indian Way and to humanity.

Reference source: http://www.upiasia.com/Blogosphere/Ravindrak/20090507/the_contributions_of_the_buddha_and_buddhism/