Monday, November 21, 2011

Buddhist Nuns versus Invading Military

Wisdom Quarterly
Out of sight but now in mind: Tibetan Buddhist nuns walk to Ganden Jangchup Choeling nunnery, accessible only by a twisting, rocky mountain road (Daily Mail)

Imagine a world where hapless nuns are attacked by world class soldiers. Imagine an invading military government fond of destroying indigenous cultures attacking natives. Imagine a dictatorship and an unquestioning military force shooting at spiritually bound pacifists.

Invaders: a class of young Chinese military recruits gather in Beijing for a ceremony prior to their departure for Tibet.

Impossible? It is not the Cavalry versus the Old West, or Europeans, or even Columbus "discovering" and conquering an uninhabited new world. It is China's Red Army assaulting and dismantling Tibet (a culture related to Native Americans).

Tibetan Buddhist (Vajrayana) monastics under massive thangka quilt. Their culture is very different from that of Han Chinese invaders who claim their land.

Desperate Buddhist nuns seeing no alternative protest with their bodies the way a Buddhist monk protested America during its war on Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
  1. Columbus, the Indians, and Human Progress
  2. Drawing the Color Line
  3. Persons of Mean and Vile Condition
  4. Tyranny is Tyranny
  5. A Kind of Revolution
  6. The Intimately Oppressed
  7. More

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