How can you condemn monks who chant Metta Sutta walking past army guns?
by Visakha Kawasaki, Kandy, Sri Lanka, The Buddhist Channel, Sept 23, 2007 I write with regards to “Blindness and the many levels of motivation” by Dharmakara Boda on Sept 21, 2007. Unfortunately, Ven. Dharmakara Boda is convinced that he knows that the Burmese monks in Pakkoku were motivated to take hostages and set cars on fire, which is an overt act of aggression. Perhaps Ven. Dharmakara Boda should give Burmese monks the benefit of the doubt, but he is too hasty to condemn where he doesnt know anything of circumstances. Monks were tied to a lampost and publically beaten in Pakkoku but perhaps he didn’t know that background information. Furthermore, if a monk has acted improperly, there are procedures stipulated in the vinaya for dealing with that. It is not appropriate for Ven. Dharmakara Boda, halfway round the world, to condemn the monks of Burma for actions he really knows nothing about, apart from some headlines in the popular press. According to eyewitness reports, heres just
