--- Bhikkhu Pesala <pesala@...> skrev:

> At the time that the Bamiyan Buddha was being
> destroyed, I was residing at
> the Ambedkar Buddhist Vihara in Southall, West
> London. My supporters
> organised a demonstration outside the Afghanistan
> embassy. I declined to
> go. I told them, "No one can destroy Buddhism in
> this way. Only Buddhists
> can destroy Buddhism by not studying it and
> practising it properly." I
> don't think they understood me very well.

Perhaps iconolatrics and iconoclastics alike tend to
confuse the picture with the pictured.

What happened in Bamiyan was a tragedy to archeology,
and perhaps to Islam, but not to Buddhism; it just
drove home the point of anicca.

And when some people criticized mass media for being
more interested in dead statues than in living,
suffering people, I think the Buddha would have been
the first to agree.

Gunnar

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gunnargallmo@...