Buddhists in space

Dhr. Seven, CC Liu, Ashley Wells, Wisdom Quarterly (9/22/08); Christopher Bodeen (ap.org)

Chinese female astronaut Liu Yang, biography and facts (britannica.com)

Big and phallic: The Shenzhou-7 manned rocket and spaceship, 9/20/08 (Reuters/Stringer)

.

Can a billionaire do it better than a country?

Ignored, denied, or discounted by artificial technicalities, Buddhists in fact comprise the third largest religion in the world. More than a billion Buddhists are regularly left out of the count.

And American analysts seem not to recognize that Asians regularly hold more than one religious affiliation. In addition, official Chinese Communist Party census takers do neither ask nor care about religious affiliation. Communist officials would rather there were no affiliation.

Rocket assembled at Jiuquan Launch Launch Center (Reuters/Stringer)

The state should be the object of adoration, not religion. Monotheistic traditions are happy to see their member counts appear to trump all contenders in the absence of a viable alternative.

What is in fact the fastest growing religion? That changes from month to month and place to place. It's probably always been animism. But Catholicism (imperial Roman "universalism") is almost certainly the largest official faith.

No one discounts the Vatican's numbers. Why is Catholicism so popular? Could it be on account of the dual-affiliations of its many adherents in the developing world?

Shenzhou-7 manned spaceship, Long-March II-F

For example, Latin American and African Catholics retain many pre-Christian beliefs in spite of the colonialism that brought the Catholicism religion to them as soldiers and missionaries conquered them with guns and Bibles.

Those pre-Christian (and quite un-Christian) beliefs still thrive in Catholic guise — such as the worship of a large pantheon of gods using Catholic saints as their representatives.

The billion plus uncounted Buddhist are mostly Chinese mainlander, who also adhere to a Taoist philosophy and Confucian social principles. Buddhism is thoroughly embedded in the Chinese zeitgeist as the Light of Asia.

Therefore, as China develops and expands its presence in space, Mahayana Buddhists move into space. And that includes, politically and philosophically, Vajrayana Buddhists from Tibet (a semi-autonomous region of China), Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia.

• PHOTOS: The Shenzhou-7 manned spaceship, the Long-March II-F rocket and the escape tower are transferred to the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in Gansu province, 9/20/08 (Stringer/Reuters).
• The Long-March II-F rocket is assembled at a workshop at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, Gansu province, China, 8/10/08. Astronauts readying for China's next leap into space have arrived at the launch site of the Shenzhou 7 craft, official media reported, as enthusiasm grew over the Olympic host nation's next attention-grabbing feat (Reuters/Stringer).
• The Shenzhou-7 manned spaceship, the Long-March II-F rocket and the escape tower are transferred to the launch pad at the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center, in Gansu province, 9/20/08 (Stringer/Reuters).

China's third manned mission to include spacewalk

Christopher Bodeen (AP.org)

See-off ceremony held for Chinese astronauts of Shenzhou-12 mission (english.news.cn)

Visions: Chinese Goddess Kwan Yin

BEIJING — China this week launches its most ambitious space mission yet, a sign of rising confidence as Beijing cements its status as a space power and potential future competitor to the United States.

The Shenzhou 7 mission, to launch as early as Thursday, will be the first to carry a full complement of three astronauts, one of whom will perform China's first space walk, or EVA for "extra-vehicular activity." It is China's third manned mission.

The maneuver will help China master docking techniques needed for the construction of a space station, likely to be achieved initially by joining one Shenzhou orbiter to another. The mission launches from the Jiuquan launch site in northwestern China.

The lead astronaut, Zhai Zhigang, is expected to carry out the 40-minute spacewalk, which China will broadcast live.

"Shenzhou 7 is an incremental but important step forward," said Joan Johnson-Freese, an expert on the Chinese space program at the U.S. Naval War College in Rhode Island. More