Topless protests, Pussy Riot, Mayan Calendar

Femen.org; Eleanor Beardsley reporting from Paris, France (All Things Considered, npr.org, Oct. 19, 2012); Amber Larson, Dhr. Seven, CC Liu (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly

Poor Putin. Angela Merkel is spared, but he has to stare down a bare-chested demonstrator.

Send more weapons. We're naked and we all look like Scarlet Johannson. Marriage visa?

Putin Kills – Sextremist protests against Russian Aggression in Ukraine – FEMEN

Topless protests: "sextremists" march in Paris

"PUTIN GO HOME!" – FEMEN (feminist activists in Russian-occupied Ukraine)

French policemen on Oct. 15, 2012, detain topless FEMEN protesters (Francois Mori/AP).

.

We love Putin. FEMEN doesn't.

[It was late in 2012, and the world was about to end, according to the way we in the West misinterpreted the Mayan Calendar. In Ukraine, topless activists were drawing attention with the help of the CIA, Western PR firms, and their own ingenuity.]

Sometimes, less is more. [Less clothing = more attention.] That's certainly the thinking of the Ukrainian feminist movement Femen (FEMEN.org), best known for its bare-breasted protests in its home country.

Now it has brought its self-described topless "sextremism" to Paris, opening its first international training camp and wasting no time attracting new recruits, causes, and attention.

Those Puritanical Americans should relax like us.

On a recent sunny morning, seven young women stride purposefully toward the stone façade of France's Justice Ministry.

Suddenly they throw their coats to the ground. Slogans are painted across their bare bosoms; garlands decorate their hair.

"Justice screws us," they yell in French as they unfurl a black banner that reads "Rape Club. This is Femen."

On this day, the group is protesting the verdict of a recent gang rape trial where a few of the accused got suspended sentences and the rest were acquitted.

"Now Paris is not the capital of love but the capital of rapists," says Inna Shevchenko, the Ukrainian leader of Femen.

This is the later Aztec Calendar, not Mayan

"Today we came here to demand to put in jail rapists, and we say that if [the Justice Ministry] will not change their decision against group rapists of two 16-year-old girls, we're going to catch them and castrate them."

The petite blonde has a steel glint in her eye. Shevchenko calls France the center of feminism, which is why the group is opening its international headquarters in Paris.

But she says whether it's Paris or Kiev, women share a common cause, fighting against patriarchy and all of its manifestations: religion, the sex industry, dictatorship.

Guaranteed to attract attention

Inna Shevchenko yells at cops.

The group is already well-known in Eastern Europe for protesting against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Belarussian leader Alexander Lukashenko.

Shevchenko fled her native Ukraine last August after sawing through an Orthodox Christian cross with a chainsaw to support the jailed Russian feminist punk band Pussy Riot.

• Topless activists from Femen protest a court ruling that acquitted 10 of 14 men accused of repeatedly gang-raping two teenagers in a Paris suburb (Martin Bureau/AFP/Getty Images).

Shevchenko has demonstrated for women's causes for years. But she says it was only when they began doing it topless that people paid attention.

Don't we have enough problems without boobs?

"In a protest like that I see a great potential of women's nudity [being used] as a weapon. And I understand every time, more and more, that it works. That it is a peaceful way," Shevchenko says.

"But they are even ready to use violence against our peaceful, naked bodies." The protesters chant in English and French and move constantly; they lie on the sidewalk or circle the guards.

Several scale the iron grids on the Finance Ministry's enormous windows. More

The trouble with Burma (audio)

TheWorld.org, PRI, Public Radio Int'l (audio); Wisdom Quarterly

Dictator Gen. Than Shwe crushed Buddhist "troublemakers" with backing from China until US Sec'y of State Hillary Clinton started coming by and acting like the highest bidder.

 

The monks rose up for the Saffron Revolution

RANGOON, Burma - Myanmar is emerging from decades of repression and international isolation. The one-time military government has enacted democratic reforms, and the U.S. and others have responded by suspending sanctions. 

Now the country also known as Burma is viewed as a promising frontier economy. But there’s a downside. A rush of foreign investment could imperil Yangon’s collection of colonial-era buildings, an emblem of a time when the city was a cosmopolitan hub in the English empire.

 

The generals who ruled [and renamed Burma] Myanmar since the 1960s isolated the country and drove its economy into the ground. Being stuck in time has been a curse for Myanmar’s people, among the poorest in Asia. But it’s also had the unforeseen effect of preserving hundreds of ornate buildings from the 19th and early 20th century. More

Burma's Pagan or Bagan, an ancient city of thousands of pagodas and shrines (Wiki commons)

   

What was the "Saffron Revolution"?

Seven, Wisdom Quarterly

Burma's Saffron Revolution (Amnesty Seattle)

An explosive situation in Burma was fueled in 2007 by crushing price hikes for basics opposed by 35,000 Buddhist monks and their supporters, who defied the military dictatorship. Rising prices for essentials set off protests. A junta of generals warned peaceful demonstrators as they staged days of anti-government protests. Military leaders reacted by imposing a nighttime curfew and banned gatherings of more than five people. The country's hard-line military rulers soon resorted to extreme force to stop the biggest anti-government demonstrations Burma had seen in nearly two decades, led by the country's Theravada Buddhist monks. Soldiers in full battle gear were deployed throughout the country's largest city, Rangoon, setting the stage for a showdown with a determined pro-democracy movement previously led by "The Lady," Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, who rather than being allowed allowed to rule was deposed in a military coup immediately after democratic election and kept under house arrest for years.

• Burma's Lady wastes no time after being freed
• Burmese hold many expectations for Suu Kyi 
• Taung Byone Fest celebrated by Burma’s LGBT
• Burma to excavate World War II fighter planes
• Burma won't allow Muslims to open OIC office
• Myanmar's ruling party re-elects president as chief
• What a 2nd term might mean for Obama’s Asia policy
• FIRST HAND: An American Traveling in Burma
• SoCal Burmese welcome democracy leader Suu Kyi to LA

Burma’s "Frontier" Investor

Burma is going through some rapid transitions. In just the last year, the country’s military dictators have freed Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from house arrest and allowed [rigged] elections [that keep them in control] to be held. Now the country is opening up to foreign business as well. [Enter Hillary Clinton and other suitors.]

Suicide and Self-Immolation in Tibet (video)

Editors, Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

(ITN News)  Disturbing video from the Free Tibet group allegedly shows a Tibetan Buddhist monk after he committed self-immolation in Ngaba (Aba). Report by Mark Morris.

Suicide is never advisable. Running from suffering (dukkha) by running toward more suffering is no way to end suffering.
   
Self-martyrdom is no way to garner attention of a cause. The world knows Tibet is suffering. Decades ago when the CIA entered the Himalayas to thwart China, India, and Central Asian states and assert strategic control of the Himalayan region, it brokered a deal with the Dalai Lama and Tibet's church-and-state government. 
  
The result has been part of fallout of that devil's bargain.
  

Chinese police beat burn survivors to death and courts imprison others.

    

The Dalai Lama, technically speaking, by accepting such aid and advice from US imperial forces (the West's multinational Military-Industrial Complex) became a CIA operative. When did he ever renounce his membership? What did that lesser-of-two-evils choice do for Tibet?

   

It may have kept Tibet on the map. But the US can neither control China nor defeat it. In its attempt to subvert the world's biggest country, it has made Tibet a pawn.

   

As Tibet is seen to align with Western military forces and India, who hosts its government-in-exile in Dharamsala to spite China, China applies medieval police state special weapons and tactics (SWAT) on it. Those weapons and tactics are American exports.

   

Self-immolation only causes China humiliation, and it uses the loss of face to justify becoming more and more draconian

   

What do the US, MIC, NATO, or any other Western nation do? They secretly fund and train paramilitary forces around the world on how to use these exact same tactics against civilian populations.

  

In the meantime, Buddhism is misrepresented as applauding this form of suicide and self-directed violence.

  

(SVS) Stratfor's Rodger Baker, Vice President of Strategic Intelligence, examines the tactic of self-immolation as a way to galvanize protest movements.

   

Self-immolators are exhibiting nationalist tendencies far more than exemplifying any Buddhist teaching. 

   

A selfless act in line with anatta ("not-self," the impersonal nature of ego, the physical-and-psychological phenomena we feel closest to) or shunyata (the "emptiness" of all conditioned phenomena) would exhibit qualities the Buddha was famous for: 

• equanimity (non-bias), compassion, kindness, wisdom...

In desperation, to heat up a cold war with the Chinese Empire, guerrilla tactics are no way to win. We burn ourselves, we burn the other, and we both are the worse for it.

   

Of course, as humans, as Buddhists, as Americans, we side with Tibet. Of course, we side with the 14th Dalai Lama (a benevolent king/pope, who fortunately retired from his role as head of state). But we do not side with the forces of war.

  

It is not clear that the CIA is any better than the Chinese Communist regime putting into effect its own dreams of empire. 

  

Will the CIA/MIC win and deliver semi-autonomous Tibetan, Uygur, and Taiwanese regions to freedom? Not a chance. It is only exchanging one dictator for another. "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss" (The Who). Look what CAI/MIC plotted using Japan to ransack China's gold during the time of the pre-Communist government.

• PHOTOS: Magic pictures of Buddha(s)

Burma: a fresh look after 17 years (audio)

Bruce Wallace, The World (PRI, Public Radio International, Feb. 24, 2012)

The World’s Mary Kay Magistad is in Burma (Myanmar) speaks with anchor Lisa Mullins about the changes she is seeing in this ancient Buddhist land. For one thing, now Aung San Suu Kyi t-shirts are available at the airport.

• LISTEN: A fresh look at Burma after 17 years
  
• PRI’s The World vistis Senegal, UK, and Burma
• VIDEO: Burma’s All-Girl Band Me N Ma Girls

Me N Ma Girls is an all-girl group from Burma. The girls conjure up images of the Spice Girls and other female pop singers like Britney Spears with their colorful wigs and dance tunes.

• Watching Changes in Burma with cautious optimism
  

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has announced that Washington will start the process of exchanging ambassadors with Myanmar (Burma) following the release of political prisoners there.

The Saffron Revolution was led by Buddhist monastics protesting totalitarianism that inspired the novel 1984. It was crushed by a corrupt, China-backed regime (robertamsterdam.com).

Burmese Political Prisoners Released

Burma has released the most prominent political dissidents of the country from jail. One of the dissidents released is Mya Aye who had been serving a 65-year jail sentence for speaking out against the Burmese government.

Burma’s Key Dissidents

Most political prisoners in Burma are serving long sentences and are expected to remain in jail.

• Slideshow: Burma’s fearless political prisoners

Photographer and activist James Mackay photographed former political prisoners including prominent activists such as opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

British cartoonist Ronald Searle dies

Anchor Marco Werman talks to British cartoonist Steve Bell about the life and work of British graphic artist Ronald Searle who died at the age of 91. Searle was the author of the St. Trinian’s series and was an illustrator for many news publications.

Burning for change in China: Tibetan protests

(mattthesamurai.deviantart.com)

How to Burn Yourself
Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY)

Is setting oneself on fire ever a peaceful protest? Hoping to call attention to unbearable oppression is certainly understandable, but believing that governments change because of self-immolation is a fantasy.

Why do things usually change? Clandestine spying (MI6, CIA, Mossad...) agencies have in mind for something to happen. As movers and shakers they set things in motion behind the scenes then capitalize on events to attribute them to:

The Arab Spring began because of one person's extreme act...or the multinational military-industrial complex saved itself the time and trouble of deposing leaders (useful tyrants) who were no longer economically useful?

Lt. John Pike recommends one not pollute the environment or endanger other. Use pepper spray instead. It burns just as much and makes a great meme.

Tibetan monastics, hearing of what others have sacrificed, rush to an orgy of flames -- and that is supposed to kowtow China? It goes without saying that self-immolation is a preposterous act of violence and pseudo-spiritual showboating.

Stay among us free of third degree burns meditating for the inevitable peace. For there are repercussions for emotionally blackmailing authoritarian governments.

This extremism only fuels allegations of Tibetan terrorism turned inward and China's complaint that it is dealing with an unpredictable, irrational, and irresponsible (minority) segment of its own population.

• Are Uygurs any better off for fire-bomb rioting?
  
• Is the Dalai Lama any more endearing for embarrassing communicapitalists and their Red Army?
  
• Does some Vajrayana nirvana await suicidal monastics for their martyrdom?
• Should Tibetan boy monks fly to Hawaii and appease Pele?
• Maybe one hopes to be reborn a wrathful deity?
  

Tonight's event: non-vegetarian BBQ with choice cuts wrapped in saffron and momo stew.

Monk who self-immolated "called for Dalai Lama return"
Agence France-Presse (via the Hindustan Times)

BEIJING, China - A senior Tibetan monk who self-immolated last month urged Tibetans to unite and called for the return of the Dalai Lama in a message recorded before his death, advocacy groups said on [Feb. 2, 2012].

Lama Sobha, also known as Sonam Wangyal, was the most senior of 16 Tibetan clerics and former monks to have set themselves alight in the past year in protest against China's policies in Tibetan-inhabited areas.

In the nine-minute audio recording, Lama Sobha said his sacrifice was in solidarity with "heroes" who have died seeking to protect Tibetan culture, the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said in a statement.

The people of Tibet "must unite and work together to build a strong and prosperous Tibetan nation in the future," the group quoted him as saying.

"I pray that His Holiness the Dalai Lama will return to Tibet and remain as Tibet's temporal and spiritual leader."

Tibet's spiritual leader, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, fled into exile in 1959 following a failed uprising, and is a considered a separatist by Beijing -- a charge he has repeatedly denied.

The ICT also posted images of Lama Sobha's charred body, which it said were obtained by exiled Tibetans after the self-immolation in Qinghai province, northwest China, on its website savetibet.org.

Lama Sabha's recording was obtained by the US government-run Radio Free Asia, the campaign said. AFP has been unable to independently verify the authenticity of the recording.

Tibetans have long chafed at China's rule over the vast Tibetan plateau, accusing Beijing of curbing religious freedoms and eroding their culture and language. More

A Better Alternative

The many advantages of passive resistance (The Zeitgeist Movement)

There is no way to peace.
Peace is the way.

Tibetan nun sets herself on fire (video)

Tibet: Video purports to show nun on fire

(GlobalPost) Palden Choesto is one of 11 Buddhist monastics who have set themselves on fire (self-immolated) since March to protest Chinese crackdowns on Tibet. Other nuns witnessing the... This shocking new video, which Tibetan activists say they smuggled out of China, shows the most graphic images yet seen of a growing protest movement spurred by monks and nuns setting themselves on fire in often fatal displays of dissent against Chinese rule. More

• Tibet: Self-immolation won't trigger "China Spring"
• So who cares for human rights in Tibet or Manipur?
• More

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
   

Occupy Together vs. The Police (cartoons)

Wisdom Quarterly, Occupy Everywhere Demand Nothing, Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy Boston, Occupy San Francisco, Occupy Tokyo... Occupy TOGETHER
Officer Cartman: "You will respect my authority!" (Runescaper443*)

• CLICK IMAGES FOR VIDEOS

PHOTOS: Occupy Los Angeles (UPI.com)

Hippie InfestationSOUTH
PARK

Occupy Together

Wisdom Quarterly
Occupy Los Angeles has cooperated with police requests on where to squat and what space to leave open. Amazingly, things have remained peaceful. Usually, the LAPD is eager to riot, arrest, and brutalize. Fellow at work forces in New York, Boston, San Francisco, Yemen, Egypt, Syria, Greece, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other places that feel the Arab Spring resonate with the American Fall. The police see to it because the motto of a police state is "We don't want to have to tell you twice." You have no rights -- unless you assert them. What gets into Little Eichmanns/Officer Cartmans? It is a different view of the world from that side of the line, where punitive, obedient, conservative, oppression, and (often) hypocrisy rules. Many officers are ex-military or active-reserve agents of the state. They are trained to humiliate, brutalize, and kill civilians in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Northern Africa, and in other secret "kinetic actions." They take that training into American society saying, "I fought in Afghanistan for your free speech, so the h*ll if I'm going to stand here and let you mouth off!" Officer, isn't that a contradiction? "You will respect my authority!" Deploy pepper spray, baton, Taser, tear gas, less-than-lethal projectile shotgun, disorienting EMF emitter, microwaves, semi-automatic handgun, automatic weapons, water canons at will. Why? It is because, as we learn from an observation by the Dead Kennedys, "Police can riot all that they please."

Diverse issues invite diverse solutions at Occupy LA; clip from "Hippie Infestation."

*Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976: "Allowance is made for 'fair use' for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

"The Buddha at War" (book)

Many Buddhist masters believe the present era of worldwide upheaval -- from 9/11 and the US War on Iraq, to the tsunami disaster and global warming -- is a new Dark Age (Kali Yuga) that requires powerful strategies for coping.

This book offers hope by bringing together Tibetan Buddhist teachings and contemporary politics. Presenting traditional Buddhist philosophy in a practical, accessible way, the book helps readers cultivate the inner resources necessary to meet challenge and conflict -- both in themselves and in the world.

Author Robert Sachs lays out a series of steps necessary to achieve this, including:

• taking personal responsibility for the future,
• understanding that there is no need to despair, and
  
• becoming "conscious, engaged activists" with a firm spiritual foundation to inform political actions.
  

Sachs's book is a galvanizing reminder, providing a strikingly Buddhist argument that actions can count, both to foster personal change and improve the world. Goodreads.com

• Obama to greet incoming troops he killed in Afghan chopper
  

The Buddha Still Standing (Burma)

The "Saffron Revolution" that happened in Burma in 2007 was the precursor to the protests we see around the world today. We will not remain quiet in the face of tyranny (VespaTS/Flickr.com).

We found a magnificent Buddha still standing after the government crackdown in Burma. The dictatorship could not stomp the spirit of freedom and liberation represented by the Buddha.

We changed buses in Pegu and took a short trip around the city avoiding government fees. We saw the need for helping Burma (which the government renamed Myanmar). This police state is ruled by a military junta after a coup in 1990 that imprisoned Aung San Suu Kyi, the country's only legitimate, democratically-elected leader.

In 2010, an election was rigged to keep the country's reviled military dictators in their current positions. People are starving and engaged in forced labor. My pictures may seem one sided. It is prohibited to take pictures of the military and the police. I do not simply take pictures of the many poor on the streets instead.

The Burmese people are the kindest people I have ever met. Their loving-kindness filled me with a sense of compassion to support or find a way to free them from tyranny, even if I do not know how. The country needs our support in America: I have posted some links to international organizations helping Burma.

• uscampaignforburma.org - humantrafficking.org
• myanmar-kinderhilfe.org - doctorswithoutborders.org

Burma is NOT a usual travel destination, except for adventurous spiritual travelers. Even if one avoids all governmental fees, for example using public transportation, it is difficult to say that traveling the country helps the people. Perhaps all travel should be boycotted and help given less directly.

The government with its embezzled profits has moved the country's capital to a make believe, reinforced never land called Naypyidaw. Seeing it from the bus, tears came to my eyes. I understood how the "generals" had extracted the money from starving people to create a world-class capital for themselves and their relatives. It was so shocking that I neglected to photograph it.

Buddhist sets himself on fire (Tunisia)

Jessica Ravitz

In Chinese Mahayana Buddhism, self-ignition dates back more than 1,500 years. Thich Quang Duc publicly set himself on fire in Vietnam in 1963. Self-immolations are in the news again after Tunisian's act spawns copycats in Africa.

(CNN) Night had fallen when the men heard the sounds on the mountain. First it was a chime, then a recitation of verses, followed by the crackle of wood burning. They scrambled to the summit to see what was happening.

There, seated with his palms together and facing west, was their friend. Flames leapt around the peaceful man, engulfing him. It was just as he'd intended.

The year was 527.

This story of Daodu, a Mahayana Buddhist monk, is told in James Benn's Burning for the Buddha: Self-Immolation in Chinese Buddhism. Benn, an associate professor of religion at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, writes that the act of setting oneself on fire dates back in Chinese Buddhist tradition to the late 4th century.

But no matter how old, self-immolation still leaves people horrified, riveted, and moved.

The popular uprising that led to the toppling of Tunisia's government began after Mohamed Bouazizi, an unemployed 26-year-old college graduate, ignited himself in protest and died earlier this month. Since then, a wave of self-immolations has rolled through North Africa, with other incidents in Egypt, Algeria, and Mauritania. More>>

Then Tunisia, Now Egypt

How Egypt shut down the Internet

The country has done what many experts once thought was impossible. Egypt's Web shut down - World markets sink - Eyewitness account

• North Africa crisis: Egypt is no Tunisia
• Will Egypt follow Tunisia's lead?
• ElBaradei: The man to lead Egypt?
• Egyptians brace for protests as Web, IM disrupted
• American, Chinese diplomats meet in Beijing

Fire in the Lotus Sutra

In Buddhism, the subject of self-immolation is controversial, said Robert Sharf, the chair of the Center for Buddhist Studies at the University of California, Berkeley.

"Many (Buddhist) schools strongly condemn suicide," he said, "but at the same time, in East Asia, self-immolation has been practiced on and off for well over a thousand years."

Like most religions, he said, the canonical literature is so vast that, if you dig deep enough, you can find teachings to fit your needs.

Enter the Lotus Sutra, considered one of the most significant [Mahayana] Buddhist scriptures in East Asia. There's a small passage in one chapter that speaks of a Medicine King, one with great spiritual and moral wisdom.

"The sutra tells us that as an offering to the Buddha and to display his insight that the body is not a permanent, unchanging self, he poured fragrant oil on himself and allowed himself to be burned by fire," wrote Buddhist monk, author, teacher, and peace activist Thich Nhat Hanh is his book,

"Peaceful Action, Open Heart."

"This is a quite radical demonstration of his freedom and insight, one that was made out of a very deep love," he wrote.

And it was this part of the Lotus Sutra that Vietnamese monks and nuns pointed to when it came to self-immolation in the 1960s.

But people don't burn themselves to death "simply because the Lotus Sutra says to do it," emphasized UC Berkeley's Sharf. "While it is an extreme and contentious practice, some Buddhists regard it as the ultimate form of self-sacrifice, justified in times of social crisis to bring about political transformation."

As for the recent self-immolations in North Africa, As'ad AbuKhalil said they are about sought-after change, not about religion. More>>

More than 1,000 monks to join Thai protest

(Bangkok Post) BANGKOK, Thailand - Over a thousand Buddhist monks are planning to show their solidarity with the Red Shirt demonstrators today (March 20, 2010). They will also offer temples in Bangkok as a resting place for Red Shirt protesters so they can prolong their rally against the Abhisit Vejjajiva government, which was the result of a military coup.

Ven. Phra Panya Panyataro, a Buddhist monk from Surat Thani, Thailand said various groups of people, such as student and trade union leaders, had supported the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) demonstrators, so now it was time for the monks to do so.

Ven. Panya, coordinator of the Buddhist monk network for unity, said all monks who are at Sanam Luang have brought along an identity card and have registered so there were no fake monks [impersonators who are often planted provocateurs] among them. The monks' routine so far had been offering morning and evening prayers for peace and non-violence and walking round Sanam Luang once every day. Sathien Wipromha, a coordinator for the network, said some 1,200 monks had gradually arrived at Sanam Luang since last night to witness the Red Shirt vehicle caravan rally today. More>>

• We encourage these [sex scam] unholy godmen
  On the one hand, Hinduism is a league of religions that has a built-in tolerance. [This is particularly true in India, where Karnataka state plans to probe Swami Nithyananda's sex scandal.] This is typical of revealed religions. But Buddhism and Jainism began as protest/reform movements...
• More Jains embracing ancient "suicide" ritual
  MUMBAI, India - The death of 60-year-old Jain nun Sadhvi Charan Pragyaji on September 11 last year was different from any the tiny town of Bhilwada in Rajasthan had witnessed. Over 20,000 Jains from across the country thronged the hamlet. They did not come in white to mourn the loss but in their finest celebration clothes to mark her death. For she was the only Jain to have survived a Santhara ritual of 87 days. Santhara is the Jain practice of voluntary and systematic fasting to death. Jain texts say it is the ultimate route to attaining spiritual liberation (moksha) and breaking free from the whirlpool of life and death (Samsara).
• Anne Frank told fairy tales in concentration camp, says survivor
• Eva Braun, no dumb blonde, was in Hitler's inner circle: Book
• Jain nun with cancer fasts to death
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• Boy Scouts accused of homosexual sex abuse cover-up
• US Army jittery over whistleblower site
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