Buddhist monks to produce video route to nirvana

[emad]

John Aglionby, south-east Asia correspondent
Wednesday January 25, 2006
The Guardian


If the Thai masses won't come to Buddha then Buddha will come to the Thai masses by video, an alliance of monks, Buddhism experts and a devout businessman announced yesterday.
The group is seeking to arrest the declining popularity of Buddhism and materialism's seemingly unstoppable rise by using 21st-century technology to reach the masses in a way they can relate to.

It will produce a 250-part video CD - a simpler version of a DVD - series on Buddhist teachings in the hope that a generation which has largely given up reading, and thus the religion, will be drawn back to the faith.

"We will translate text scripts into moving pictures to encourage people to practise Buddhist teachings," Phra Rachamethaphon, the acting head of Mahamakut Buddhist University, told the Associated Press.

Buddhism, which teaches compassion for all beings, and achieving inner peace through detachment from desires, is officially the religion of 90% of Thailand's 65 million people but in the past decade the number who see themselves as practitioners of the religion has dropped significantly. "I've been to the countryside and seen abandoned temples. There were no monks," said real estate developer Sanan Sukdi, who plans to produce the videos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/religion/Story/0,,1694166,00.html

[Strong Atheist]

1. I always thought that the

"detachment from desires" part was nonsense... I am a hedonist!

Edited to add: Life is to be enjoyed, that is its purpose! Thus, I would never agree with the minimalists and ones who suggest that we give up earthly pleasures... that is just :eyes:

[htuttle]

3. Unlike the Abrahamic religions,...

...most Buddhism doesn't seem to condemn the 'pleasures of the flesh' as 'evil'. It seems to just say that earthly pleasures are irrelevant and distracting. There isn't much of a concept of 'sin' in most Buddhist traditions that I've seen.

Then there are some rather obscure Buddhist sects that believe that after a long term of contemplatory life in a monastery, the adherent should 'descend from the mountain' as it were, and fully experience ALL the pleasures of earthly existence -- drinking, whoring, dancing, chewing gum, the whole lot. Partly to 'test' oneself and validate the experiences they had in meditation, and partly to help those in 'regular' society. At least I think it's a Buddhist sect that does that. Might be Taoists (who tend to be more into partying...).

[Strong Atheist]

4. Toaists sound cool .... nt.

[moggie]

2. Ha, a "devout businessman"!

Presumably his "detachment from desires" doesn't extend to the desire for money.