Influential Political Leaders Throughout Buddhist History
We see the Buddha as a monk, it is hard to imagine him as a politician, but politics has been a deeply rooted theme in Buddhist life.
These are figures that represent the intersection between traditional Buddhist and political values:
There was a particular kingdom that resisted domination, the Kingdom of Kalinga.
He waged a very bloody and cruel military campaign to bring the Kalinga people under his domination.
The brutality of this campaign apparently provoked Ashoka to convert to Buddhism.
After his conversion, Ashoka accepted the Buddha's Dharma with its implicit idea of no violence.
Ashoka declared himself a protector of the Dharma, he sent missionaries out to spread the Buddhist teaching in India and elsewhere in South East Asia.
There was formed a peculiar relationship between the king and the religious leaders in India.
The king protects and promotes the Dharma.
In return, the king is recognized and legitimated by the religious authorities.
There is a ritual way monks can designate this guy as somebody whom people should respect and trust.
This is an important two-way relationship.
The king supports the monks, the monks support the king.
This makes it possible for the king to develop a sense of trust and loyalty among his people.
He served as a monk for over twenty-five years before he ascended to the throne.
He was a person deeply influenced by monastic practices, something that is not common in a king.
As king, he believed that Thai monastic life needed to be reformed, purged of superstitious practices and return to the pristine model of the early canonical scriptures, the scriptures that we call the Pali Canon.
This is an important aspect of contemporary Buddhism you would encounter throughout South East Asia, and in fact, throughout the world.
There is a modernizing impulse, an impulse to strip away what people think of as being superstitious practices.
Thailand continues to be an example, even today, of the close alliance between king and Sangha in the extension and protection of Buddhist values.
Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Rangoon, Delhi and Oxford.
She settled down to raise a family in Oxford.
He married an Englishman, had two sons and was living a rather comfortable life as an academic in England.
She went back to visit her mother in 1988, just during that time the military government in Burma had declared the possibility of an election.
She was drawn into the movement for democratic reform.
Eventually, she became the symbol of that movement.
Despite being placed under house arrest, her movement won a colossal election victory in May 1990.
The military government dismissed the results of the election and imprisoned its leaders.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been held under house arrest since 1990 in Rangoon but he has continued to speak out in favor of the democratic movement.
In 1991, she was given the Nobel Peace Price for what the Nobel Committee called her "unflagging efforts for democracy, human rights and ethnic reconciliation by peaceful means".
Aung San Suu Kyi's career brings together modern democratic values and the fundamental Buddhist values of courage, patience, tolerance and non-violence.
It is a powerful mix that should draw the attention of anyone who thinks Buddhist values belong only in the monastery.
Here they play an active role in political life, as they have in the Buddhist tradition all the way through its history, from the time of Ashoka to the present.
These are figures that represent the intersection between traditional Buddhist and political values:
- King Ashoka: The Protector of the Dharma
There was a particular kingdom that resisted domination, the Kingdom of Kalinga.
He waged a very bloody and cruel military campaign to bring the Kalinga people under his domination.
The brutality of this campaign apparently provoked Ashoka to convert to Buddhism.
After his conversion, Ashoka accepted the Buddha's Dharma with its implicit idea of no violence.
Ashoka declared himself a protector of the Dharma, he sent missionaries out to spread the Buddhist teaching in India and elsewhere in South East Asia.
There was formed a peculiar relationship between the king and the religious leaders in India.
The king protects and promotes the Dharma.
In return, the king is recognized and legitimated by the religious authorities.
There is a ritual way monks can designate this guy as somebody whom people should respect and trust.
This is an important two-way relationship.
The king supports the monks, the monks support the king.
This makes it possible for the king to develop a sense of trust and loyalty among his people.
- Mongkut: Monk and King
He served as a monk for over twenty-five years before he ascended to the throne.
He was a person deeply influenced by monastic practices, something that is not common in a king.
As king, he believed that Thai monastic life needed to be reformed, purged of superstitious practices and return to the pristine model of the early canonical scriptures, the scriptures that we call the Pali Canon.
This is an important aspect of contemporary Buddhism you would encounter throughout South East Asia, and in fact, throughout the world.
There is a modernizing impulse, an impulse to strip away what people think of as being superstitious practices.
Thailand continues to be an example, even today, of the close alliance between king and Sangha in the extension and protection of Buddhist values.
- Aung San Suu Kyi: A Buddhist Hero
Aung San Suu Kyi was educated in Rangoon, Delhi and Oxford.
She settled down to raise a family in Oxford.
He married an Englishman, had two sons and was living a rather comfortable life as an academic in England.
She went back to visit her mother in 1988, just during that time the military government in Burma had declared the possibility of an election.
She was drawn into the movement for democratic reform.
Eventually, she became the symbol of that movement.
Despite being placed under house arrest, her movement won a colossal election victory in May 1990.
The military government dismissed the results of the election and imprisoned its leaders.
Aung San Suu Kyi has been held under house arrest since 1990 in Rangoon but he has continued to speak out in favor of the democratic movement.
In 1991, she was given the Nobel Peace Price for what the Nobel Committee called her "unflagging efforts for democracy, human rights and ethnic reconciliation by peaceful means".
Aung San Suu Kyi's career brings together modern democratic values and the fundamental Buddhist values of courage, patience, tolerance and non-violence.
It is a powerful mix that should draw the attention of anyone who thinks Buddhist values belong only in the monastery.
Here they play an active role in political life, as they have in the Buddhist tradition all the way through its history, from the time of Ashoka to the present.