I have great admiration for the Buddhist tradition but this question puzzles me. Buddhism is about eliminating desire in one's life which in turn eliminates suffering. If the Buddhist monks in Tibet and Myanmar have no desire, then why are they vehemently protesting the Chinese and Burmese governments, even to the point of violence? Isn't that what ordinary, non-enlightened people would do? If you have no desire and have inner peace, why would things upset you so much? Shouldn't you be at peace no matter what government you live under? This is not a critique of Buddhism in any way, just a question which puzzles me about Buddhist philosophy.
Religion & Spirituality - 11 Answers
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1 :
They might feel it is a necessity to keep the land on which they practice their monkhood. They would be better able to practice their peace if the government does not object to them.
2 :
Buddhists still have desires, such as the desire to be enlightened. It is desire of things to remain the same which should be avoided. Everything changes, and trying to cling on to something expecting it not to change causes suffering.
3 :
they are protesting the fact that they are losing their rights more and more each passing day as they are being made a minority in their own home and soon their religios rightes may be extinguished completely. then they wont thave the right to dismiss worldly possesions. they wont be given the choice
4 :
because they like with all religions are not able to seperate their beliefs from their emotions about the issues. In other words, they have gotten caught up with the matters of the world and in some aspects, failed
5 :
Correcting injustice by vocal demonstration is not related to desire - in fact, it's the opposite - purging anger is a selfless, enlightened act.
6 :
Thats a damn good question
7 :
If anybody invaded my country, I'd fight them. There's a gaping hole of a flaw in your question. The Chinese Government, and others, won't let religions exist in peace. Fight for what's right. I say. Your question is a critique of Buddhism, by the way, even if you say it's not.
8 :
Communist China annexed Tibet and placed a military there. Buddhism is teaching the opposite of Communist doctrines, and thus, Tibet was assumed threat to ever-expanding communist regime at that time.Communism was, long before the cold war, spread from Russia, to neighboring countries and many of them were annexed as well and some of them are under communist influence as we speak. Tibetan - Buddhist protests are reflecting that. NO ONE bares for a long time dictatorships and oppressions from others. Including Tibet.
9 :
Firstly, there is a huge difference between the guidelines of a religion, and what individual people of that religion do. (Otherwise, we would never had any wars...) Secondly, in Myanmar and Tibet, the general population is suffering from serious repression, it is not at all a sign of desiring your own welfare when you go out and risk your life to help others. By the way, 'desire' in Buddhism refers to wanting your own worldly happiness, it does not mean that you would not take action when you see others suffering; these actions are done out of compassion. By the way, have you looked well at the images of the violence in Tibet? Can you imagine - in a country where people can be simply shot by police/army with any consequences for the police/army - that the people who set the shop on fire etc. look so relaxed about it? Yes, there is also one person in red robes among them; do you really believe it is a monk? If you think so, you really have no idea how the Chinese government operates..... The first few days, there was harly any violence from the Tibetans, and China did everything to keep the protests quiet. Of course they couldn't hush it up, so it is quite easy to hire a few guys to put on red robes, so you have excellent images to show on TV about 'violent monks'. If you think this possibility is merely my imagination, please do have a good look at the images again. By the way, there were coincidentally no images about Tibetans being killed and the loads of Tibetans that are now imprisoned, where they can join the many thousands of other Tibetans who are locked up because they have a photo of the Dalai Lama or a Tibetan flag in their house....
10 :
They were instructed by Dalai Lama who is funded by anti-Chinese foreign governments to create this VIOLENT "incident" on purpose at the time before Olympics.
11 :
In brief, monks are not buddhas.
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