Sunday, August 7, 2011

Blind-sided by our own religion

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/8/6/nation/9247879&sec=nation

Referring to the news above, I do not wish to comment on the incident but want to remind my fellow Buddhists that we must not have this urge to do things merely to protect the interests of only Buddhists. We must consider the impact and consequences to all others, besides the interest of Buddhism and Buddhists. Sometimes we are blind-sided by our own religions, and do not consider what will happen to the rest. For example, a small group of over-zealous Buddhist monks/laymen often brings up the question of whether which Buddhist tradition is the original teachings of the Buddha and which one is not. I do not want to identify this small group but we find these sort of issues are being posted in youtube again. On the one hand, they do that on the reason that they are protecting the orthodox teachings of the Buddha, yet they are blind-sided to other consequences of them doing so. It's sad but it's true. 

So, we must be careful not to be blind-sided by our own religious tradition or lineage affliation. We cannot right every wrong in this world. We are not Superman. But even Superman cannot save every single person in this world. He has his own limitations too. Anyway, there are causes and conditions that may not be apparent to us. We can only do what we can in the circumstances and not adopt a "holier than thou" attitude when looking at people from other tradtions, lineages or religions. Such attitude may be permissible subtlely but not too overtly until we take actions detrimental to peace and harmony in the society. This is my message to fellow Buddhists.

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