{"id":89028,"date":"2013-05-28T16:29:54","date_gmt":"2013-05-28T10:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?p=89028"},"modified":"2013-06-02T00:12:42","modified_gmt":"2013-06-01T18:42:42","slug":"burmas-religious-battleground-and-the-monks-at-the-heart-of-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/index.php\/burmas-religious-battleground-and-the-monks-at-the-heart-of-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Burma&#8217;s Religious Battleground And The Monks At The Heart Of It"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Peter Popham &#8211;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Six years ago, the world cheered the monks behind Burma\u2019s Saffron Revolution. Now, a horrific new eruption of religious slaughter is being blamed on a \u2018Buddhist Bin Laden\u2019. So what happened to the mantra of non-violence?<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 13px; line-height: 19px;\">He writes; Professor Jordt explains that the psychological background is that Theravada Buddhism \u2013 found in Burma and Sri Lanka, and regarded by its followers as &#8220;the pure teachings&#8221; of Buddha, as opposed to the supposedly impure developments in the Mahayana branches found in Japan, Korea, Tibet and Vietnam \u2013 is thought to be in peril. The Buddha supposedly predicted that his teachings, the Dharma, would remain in human memory for 5,000 years. Burmese Buddhists, says Jordt, &#8220;feel their religion is in decline in cosmological terms, and historically under threat. They are preoccupied with the fact that it is already past the 2,500-year midway mark.&#8221;<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Read more in the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/asia\/killing-with-kindness-burmas-religious-battleground--and-the-monks-at-the-heart-of-it-8627571.html\">Independent<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/?attachment_id=80769\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-80769\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-80769\" title=\"Burma 1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Burma-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"640\" height=\"431\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Burma-1.jpg 800w, https:\/\/www.colombotelegraph.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/04\/Burma-1-300x202.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p> [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":80769,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,3402,46,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-89028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-colombotelegraph","category-editors-choice","category-constitutional-reforms","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.3 - 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