Word: buddhists
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...moon had waned, the seasonal rains had begun to fall, it was time for the planting of rice, and throughout the Far East last week, Buddhists were bowed in prayer. They had flocked to their temples carrying offerings of flowers and incense, and many had journeyed to Nakorn Pathom (meaning First City), 40 miles west of Bangkok, to honor the local temple's huge, pumpkin-colored, glazed stupa (tower) that marks the site of Buddhism's establishment in Thailand 21 centuries ago. The occasion: Purima Pansa, the three-months-long Buddhist Lent that gives many of the devout...
...disciples, wandering the countryside begging for alms, were trampling the newly sprouting rice plants, and the Lord Buddha ordered his priests to keep out of the way until the crop was full grown. As centuries passed, the practice turned into a kind of spiritual excursion that every Buddhist layman tried to enjoy, and eventually entering the temporary priesthood became a matter of course; laborers, businessmen, monarchs (King Phumiphon in 1956) went through the 90-day ritual. "It's like going to college in the United States," explains a Thai. "Every boy wants...
...crazed theology student dynamiting Chartres Cathedral would be an approximate Western equivalent of a crime that shocked all Japan in 1950. It was the burning of the 14th century Zen temple of Kinkakuji ("Golden Pavilion") by a Zen Buddhist acolyte. The arsonist intended to die in the blaze, but he lost his nerve. At his trial he said, "I hate myself, my evil, ugly, stammering self." But he had no regrets about burning down the Kinkakuji. He envied the Golden Temple its beauty, and he was possessed with "a strong desire for hurting and destroying anything that was beautiful...
...companies: a total of 51 crashes, 15 deaths, 843 injured. President Hatano's manager did some oriental-style brain-storming and came up with an idea any adman would be glad to put on the train for Westport. The idea: send the bus drivers to a Zen Buddhist temple to cool off with a little meditation...
Captain Schmitt, officially absolved of blame in the crash, offered his apologies to the townspeople, through the press, and 35 airmen attended Buddhist funeral services for the children. Though Kame-jiro Senaga, leader of the pro-Communist Minren Party, tried to make political capital out of the accident, no one else did, and most Okinawans seemed genuinely impressed by U.S. rescue efforts following the crash. And any critics would have to ignore a startling safety record: the crash caused the first Okinawan fatalities in 14 years of U.S. occupation...