A small selection of banners and flags from the various groups and unions taking part, including Disability Groups and the Royal College of Midwives protesting the cuts to maternity care in UK hospitals;
Author: Adrian (釋大道)
Keep Racism Out of the UK
Through rightwing movements such as New Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats, BNP, and UKIP, the working class is being taught to hate itself and to hate others. It is being destroyed from within by the infestation of greed and self-interest.
Carl Jung & Buddhism
Jung was not religious in the conventional sense, as through the use of psychological insight, he saw through religious structure and understood its historicity. He might be described as spiritual due to the obvious spiritual content of much of his work, but even this appellation is problematic. In reality Jung viewed religion as being a subject of much psychological interest due primarily to its obvious archetypal content. Through his developed psychological method, Jung demonstrated an often profound and startling insight into the inner structures of subjects like religion that at once swept away any unnecessary obscuration or excessive mystification, to reveal the true developmental nature of the teachings.
Buddhism & Islamophobia
There are a number of Buddhist monks from Myanmar and Thailand, who are advising the lay people in their communities to attack and kill their fellow citizens who happen to be Muslim. A recent BBC Radio Four documentary investigating this phenomenon found that it was a minority of high ranking Buddhist masters (in Myanmar) who were responsible for this behaviour, and that the majority of masters did not agree, or had no opinion. This demonstrates that theses rogue masters are behaving in an unBuddhist manner and not only creating hellish karma for themselves, but also causing hellish karma for all those who unthinkingly follow their delusion without question.
The Desire Mechanism
For those living in ordinary society but wishing to practice the Dharma, the Buddha advocated that the desire mechanism be controlled rather than transcended. This ‘control’ centres around applying an appropriate sexual manifestation in society that is not excessive or that violates the social codes of the time. This is the practice of appropriate sexual discipline that allows the desiring mechanism to function through strictly defined parameters.
The Mysterious Stone Tablets of Ancient China
Within Chinese texts the Dropa Stones story is referred to as ‘杜立巴神秘石’ which in modern pinyin is written as ‘Du Li Ba Shen Mi Shi’ – with ‘Dropa’ of the conventional transliteration equating to ‘Du-li-ba’ (杜立巴). The terms ‘Shen Mi’ (神秘) literally translate as ‘spirit’ and ‘secret’, and when used together implies a ‘profound mystery’ originating beyond the material world. The character ‘Shi’ (石) simply translates as ‘stone’, but can be used to refer to stone tablets. Therefore the Chinese title ‘杜立巴神秘石’ (Du Li Ba Shen Mi) refers to mysterious stone tablets associated with the Du-li-ba (Dropa) people, despite the fact that the Du-li-ba people had allegedly been responsible for the killing of the aliens who had apparently created the stone discs. The other connection with the Du-li-ba is that the aliens who survived the killing might have interbred with the Du-li-ba There appears to have been an expedition in 1938, but the details and consequences of that expedition have remained uncertain and obscure ever since. and that their genetic distinctiveness passed on as a consequence.