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Cc: <manager.secretariat@iabu.org>;
<researcher.secretariat@iabu.org>
No, I can not open our IBUA.ORG website
as it ought to be, it may require some refinement.
But, because of communist
politics, there are NOW only 2 main Buddhist Nikayas in Vietnam
Hence these are some very special
/ unique characters of the VBS: d- and most if not all important VBS Sangha in Vietnam, whether they like it or not, are forced to get political appointments in different government structures, most prominently the National Assembly (= Parliament), the Fatherland Front and the People's Committee and all levels (provincial / district/ ward/ village, etc);
see here for more info Venerable Thich Chon Thien http://www.na.gov.vn/htx/Vietnamese/C1336/C1362/?sAction=DETAIL_PERS&intPerrID=360 Venerable Thich Thanh Tu http://www.na.gov.vn/htx/Vietnamese/C1336/C1362/?sAction=DETAIL_PERS&intPersID=221;
Venerable Thich Hien Phap
http://www.na.gov.vn/htx/Vietnamese/C1336/C1362/?sAction=DETAIL_PERS&intPers
These 3 senior monks were all re-elected to the National Assembly just a few months ago. Can we find any other sangha politicians like these in the world??? It is believed that these 3 monks may not like to be there in the politic and Parliament, they were trapped/set for the political convenience of the VAC. They can not resign or resist, they just must lend their names for the VAC to tell the world that in their one-party system, every section of the population are represented (even just as a puppets as other 500 National Assembly members; every order and authority is known to come out from 14-member Party Politburo Committee -they are all in the Assembly as well)
You may have met and known all/some of these high ranking monks, haven't you?? They were sent by VAC/GSRV to different international gatherings (UN, USA Congress, Buddhist conferences, etc.) for praising / promoting the VAC/GSRV and its record of 'good governance', 'wonderful freedom', 'top human rights conditions in the world, 'most democratic in the world' that 85,000,000 Vietnamese are enjoying there, so on, etc. Old trick, but IS HOPEFULLY STILL working FOR THE EVERLASTING VAC???
d- the VBS is being (for
the last 26 years of its creation and for the many more years to come,
unless and until the VBS can find a way to regain its deserved
independence and non-political)
under strict control
(ie. all Dhamma appointments of all VBS admin. levels are made /
recommended/ agreed to / vetoed/ -openly or secretly; the Government
hold veto rights on all sangha affairs, such as enrolling new monastic
trainees, ordaining new Semanera/ bikkhu/bikkhuni, etc, open new
monastic colleges, recruiting dhamma lecturers for these colleges,
numbers of new sangha students for each college term and its interval of
taking new term students, appointing new abbot/abbess, etc. I just
simply say the Viet Government put their hands on everything you sangha
NEVER NEVER experience in your countries) by
VAC?GSRV policies & officials
The VBS' over-claim is based on political but empty favourable given to it by the VAC/GSRV without any duly and officially acceptance by real Buddhist themselves. Monks/Nuns/lay Buddhists from around the country have been sent to Nov. 1981 Hanoi conference only just for showing their hands to irresistible join the VBS, not single of them can offer or discuss or alter anything that the VAC/GSRV has well planned and arranged and paid for (all by its agents and its officials; including delegates' air tickets, meals, conference venue's banners, flowers for Uncle Ho, etc.)
An ordained sangha joining --or taking refuse into-- a secularly political group and to be governed by all those politicians who are either atheist or non-atheist is a Vinaya breaker, isn't s/he? what about doing that on the sake/name of the 'national security/ unity/ solidarity/ prosperity??? seems too political, isn't it??? what about if not their own interest but they were politically enforced to do that?? what about if they resign from that FF political body then these Sangha will be imprisoned/ harassed/ punished/ labelled as anti-revolutionary element/ etc. How they can escape this dilemma ??? Can you ask them while in Hanoi; because these 'big monks' will be all in Hanoi next year for 2008 UN Vesak, anyway, for praising / appreciating the VAC about 'religious freedom', 'free of belief enjoying by all Vietnamese under the VAC clever leadership, blah, blah, etc, , you know that ; their 'Vesak speeches' all written by Govt. Committee on Religions' officials, we all also know that anyway, regardless whatever these VBS high-ranking monks may declare and guaranty that it is their own words - Hanoi spy after reading my this account here may order my Viet Sangha to denounce/blame me as ' Thich Quang Ba, a big liar, a national unity destroyer, a failed / vinaya breaker/ etc.., blah, blah, -we all can predict that- as they have condemn me by many ways during the last 24 years anyway).
But by recounting all these, I do not for one second or one very small concept to blame my dear 'vulnerable sangha of both Nikayas in Vietnam; It is all about the VAC/GSRV's policy as I understand it
Their unchanged policies for the last 60 years are - to demean Buddhism/ - to damage Sangha traditional structure/ -to manipulate VBS role/ - to control all VBS personnel's --including VAC/GSRV is reserving their veto power to agree/disagree who can be a novice, who can be ordained/ who can be appointed as an Abbott/Abbess or who can be VBS officials, etc. [that why my UBCV will not, can not join VBS anyway], -- / and - to confuse the true spirit of Dhamma & Vinaya leading to the corruption of our beloved Sangha!!
What a shame!!
Can we look around Asia, Muslim and Hindu countries included, see whether any other government are damaging their Buddhist community as in Vietnam????? for 60+ years, and the VAC doesn't want to stop !!!!
The unfortunate destiny for my all Sangha in Vietnam is they can not refuge/ oppose/ against these political interventions, anyway. Even if I were still living in Vietnam nowadays, I may also have to do/say the same things like them (???) if I were to protect my robe and uphold my monkhood, or the VAC will keep me in prison or punish me forever !!!
I trust that my Vietnamese Sangha are trying, and will be trying, harder and harder, to zic-zac around Government policies for preserving our true Dhamma spirit, as much as possible. That why I respect them all, except the ones (bearing VAC membership or not) who rely on, and make use of , VAC/GSRV political support for 'buying' easy ways (fame, awards, medals, material gain, etc.) for themselves and even worse, for taking over advantages from, and abuse, belittle, taking bribes from and control over to, their Sangha venerable brothers / sisters.
But by making the VBS as much as political as possible (by centralising its authority -against the 6-harmony quality taught by the Buddha; and by disbanding the traditional sangha karma procedures but vesting all power into the hands of very few corrupted, VAC-cadre or pro-VAC monks) the VAC has been and will be doing all they can to damage essential spirit of Vietnamese Dhamma-Sangha (cleverly, because it is damaging it without blood and physical confiscation, as before)
Since 1990s, the VAC has, of course we can recognise, slowly been --- reducing the confiscation of Buddhist (mostly UBCV's) monasteries/ nunneries/ institutions / properties/ University/ Colleges/ schools/ clinics/ etc, --- hiding its iron hands while (still) harassing, punishing, imprisoning (fewer than in numbers during the 1940s-60s in the North and 1970s-80s in the South) UBCV sangha, --- lessening the murder/imprisonment of top/active UBCV leaders as happen in 70s-80s, --- lessening the disallowance and punishment to UBCV’s activities, and --- allowing the VBS to run certain Dhamma-Sangha activities, - etc. (we UBCV abroad most if all strongly support our VBS sangha for their limited Dhamma activities; we have NO PROBLEM with VBS at all)
It is funny that the VAC/GSRV is asking the VBS to thank them because of their less brutal treatment toward VBS, not as bad as before.
but the all listed above reductions are happening not because of VAC goodwill or confessing of their mistakes but only because of pressures by world governments, western media and human rights organisations, lobbying by us the UBCV abroad and our (secular + Dhamma) friends. (In May-Oct 1963, while the then Catholic government of South Vietnam prosecuted Buddhist community there, we international Sangha had shown our appeals and supports. How about now? Can we still gently showing our support to Tibetan and Vietnamese Sangha both are under iron hands of their Governments which know well how to deceive and manipulate the world information and opinion, how to gain and buy the gesture support from the world governments, and know well how to ignore world pressure and making many even praising them for their little conditional favour given to their respective local sangha after many decades of seriously damaging them to the core of its life).
The VCP/GSRV is trying harder and more clever to avoid condemnations on their religious intolerance -and other human rights abuses record- by the world for their own (ie. VAC/GSRV #2-million members and their colleagues, not the 83 MILLIONS normal / ordinary people) economic / political benefits. It also tries to deceive the world opinion/attitude toward it religions-damaging policies :
- by playing legislative games; the VAC/GSRV is creating more and more laws to the effect that if a sangha does not want to breach 'civil' laws, not wanting to become a 'crime', then there is only one way that they must be doing is to take side with, and to obey completely all things said, done and ordered by the VAC/GSRV, NOT by the Buddha and Dhamma and their Master. To be recognised as a good monk in Vietnam nowadays, you must LEARN HOW TO BE a government puppet, or a political supporter of the VAC/GSRV. You must be 'clever' enough to be willingly paying BIG bribes to officials from PA38s, Governmental Committee on Religions, the Fatherland Front, and Peoples Committee, at all levels, for buying the 'easy way' for your monkhood life. If you want to repair your temple, to give your succession order to your chief disciple, to have a special dhamma function at your temple, to send your novices to a buddhist college, to obtain 'residency certificate ** (ho khau)' for your monks/novices to be as a legal person living at your temple, to gain your deserved sangha seniority / promotion status, or hundreds of other things you Sangha wanted to do / to earn / to achieve, YOU SANGHA MUST KNOW HOW TO BUY THE EASY WAY, THE FAVOURABLE TREATMENTS, FROM VAC/GSRV OFFICIALS. These Officials are there --YOU MUST INVITE THEM HONOUR THEM AND EVEN YOU HAVE TO OFFER THEM RED-ENVELOPE EVERY TIME-- to seat with senior monks for presiding over all the big dhamma/ ceremonial functions, the ordination process, the rain retreat / kathina ceremonies, the monks' funerals, the new temple openings, etc..... That is the way they VAC/GSRV to support Buddhism !!!!! That is the way they claim there are more than enough 'religious freedom' !!! And therefore you Sangha must appraise them, appreciate them, paying tribute to them .....
- by corrupting / trapping then blackmailing many VBS sangha, by to inserting VAC-cadre monks into important VBS positions,
- to giving favourable treatments to some Sangha for inciting other Sangha in obeying its planned activities, etc. ** funny that there are thousands of Vietnamese monks / nuns who have lived their monastic life for more or less 20 years, or have been ordained for a long time, but still, their local government do not, or do not want, to issue a 'residency certificate' to approve them as a legal monk / nun -that made them always fear of government, because they are there in the temple 'illegally', that made them have to 'buy', expensively, their residency certificate from their local government, with a lot of thanks, . Can you see the trick???)
At the same time, answering the world media questions, VCP/GSRV always say they support Buddhist, they grant more than enough 'religious freedom' to everyone !!!!
This is just a few small examples. How I can tell you all and everything happening there in Vietnam for my sangha brothers?
By writing to you all, my dear International Sangha friends, about all these sufferings that my 40,000 sangha brothers/sisters are facing there in Vietnam, I will surely be strongly blamed, again, as usual (then you will soon hear about that), by the VAC/GSRV propaganda system, things like this: Thich Quang Ba is a very bad monk, an anti-revolutionary element, a political activist, a shameless crime doer, as one wanting to destroy national unity, to damage social stability, to plot throwing People Government, to confront Sangha solidarity, etc. all the faults that anyone can imagine, and that may made me to be condemned to death by the VAC/GSRV laws, or deserving to go to hell after this life!!!!!
And if I say all these above things in Vietnam, or any sangha living in Vietnam saying all these, we will be severely punished, by the VAC/GSRV and the pro-VAC sangha of the VBS (but who will dare not to pro- the VAC if living in Vietnam??? I understand that there is NO ONE, except my living UBCV leaders -others have been killed, keep quiet after imprisoned, going abroad, or reluctantly joined the VBS) I can assure you that. And I think you also can imagine that easily.
My dear international Sangha brothers/sisters !! Could you tell me whether these above things are happening in your countries, Korea, Japan, Burma, Thailand, Sri Lanka, etc. ?????
If you GO TO VIETNAM and seeing any good Dhamma things happening in Vietnam, then it is the result of the last 60 struggling years that tens of thousands (UBCVs' and VBSs' and others') sangha/lay people, who have to enduring and shouldering all sufferings, whose many lives have lost, whose monkhood have been disallowed, whose freedom have been denied, whose enormous efforts have been wasted thru their struggle for their own survival their temples' and brother/sister sangha' survival, whose faithful and devotion to dhamma noble causes have been misused and manipulated, etc.
CERTAINLY NOT BECAUSE OF THE SUPPORT AND KINDNESS OF THE VIETNAMESE COMMUNIST PARTY. (you have never heard such a theory from a sangha in Vietnam who may have to always say all things are good for them in Vietnam and all good things come from the VAC/GSRV and all bad things come from UBCV leaders, Thich Quang Ba included. It is easily predictable).
On the name of liberation the South, of national unity and prosperity, my dear Sangha in Vietnam now are being forced to absolutely obeying the VAC because they claim their wisdom and capacity is supreme and incomparable, Sangha can't afford NOT TO FOLLOW THEM.
On the name of benefiting society and 'dhamma', the VAC has in then past 60+ years managed to utilise all sangha resources for Buddhist community's self-conflicting and self-damaging.
My only wish is the VAC/GSRV needs to withdraw their hands from Dhamma/Sangha affairs completely. And do it NOW.
Then everything will slowly revive and regain its traditional/noble roles. Noble Dhamma if properly practised will surpass the secular achievements. And we Sangha know how to work out the best of Dhamma. We do not need the 'officials' teaching us how to be good citizens and good monks and how to made contributions that benefiting the society.
We will be an ordinary citizen with obey the (good) secular law, but we can not accept that the law bending us from good teachings of the Buddha. The line between political power that can interfere into Sangha-Dhamma affairs need to draw clearly, with the agreeable, voluntarily and freely - not with threatening and fear and punishment - by both sides, not imposed from secular / political power. As a citizen, anyone, a Buddhist included, deserves the rights to peacefully criticise the 'unwholesome, wrong, bad' policies of the government, and anyone bearing the duty to work for and protect the good moral / social ground of the nation that they live in. Anyone is responsible to change things for becoming better, their karma, their family, their jobs, their house, their temple, their government, their economic development, etc. A good government is one that respecting and allowing its every citizen to do that broadly, including changing the government of the day itself for a better one, and only stopping ones who damage the society and other people, not stopping the people to taking turn to govern the country.
That why I think the world-wide Sangha needs to keep neutral position, not taking side with any party / fraction in the society, both good and bad, be that political, economic or whatever. Sangha is only making its good contributions directly from itself toward people, and always distancing itself from any form of partisan government.
The VBS and UBCV both do not need the VAC/GSRV's mentoring and guidance roles for its 'correct' activities and 'right' services to the nation and society.
We hope that the VAC/GSRV will learn how to listen some social comments and political advices that time to time certain sangha may kindly offer to them, for the benefits of the nation-society without making any harm to its survival.
Lots of blank truths can not be spoken out in Vietnam, by people still living in Vietnam. If you my dear international Sangha are fully informed about how the Public Security and Special Police Bureau PA38 forces have treated the conscious sangha in Vietnam for their speaking out about the truth, in the last 60 years, then you may understand the level of suffering that we Vietnamese Sangha have been going thru.
Not only UBCV-trained-educated sangha (ie. ordained before 1975), like me, but most younger (entered monastic after 1980s, now in their 30s, 40s or 50s) Sangha members all share very conscious worries about VAC/GSRV's attitude and policies toward religions, particularly Buddhist (applicable since 1945 the year they took power in the North; the level of damage is worsening, not better, as the VAC/GSRV has definitely and shamelessly mis-claimed) that are corrupting and damaging the whole Dhamma / Sangha traditions.
Regardless of how many new temples and monastic colleges are being built and rebuilt (only happening in the last 15 or so years, and mostly by financial aids –hundreds of US millions for the last 30 years- from UBCV sangha and lay communities abroad), how many BAs, MAs, PhDs younger sangha are now being obtained (mostly by financial aids also by UBCV sangha and lay communities abroad – who know how much??), etc, since the true spirit of Sangha / Dhamma has been politically manipulated and intentionally abused / misused by the politics, then the empty form and colourful VBS structures are in no use for the good cause of the Dhamma / Sangha.
For the many senior UBCV leaders who since 1981 bearing a hurtful mind while inescapable joining and working for the VBS – many of them are my classmates- (including one of my most respected past Acarya Thich Tri Thu, Head of UBCV National Admin Council who personally on his compassionate dilemma on 1979 had – while contemplating on thousands of young sangha forced out of their robes, hundreds others gone to jails and ‘re-education labor camps’, countless open Buddhist monument mined/slashed down, many many temples confiscated, ALL UBCV educational, charity and cultural institutions closed down and occupied by the VCP, just for the short duration of 3-4 year 1975-1979, he then had no choice but himself agreed [against the majority UBCV Admin Council members’ consent of NOT going with Hanoi plot. The VCP could never be able to imagine the democratic spirit within UBCV leadership; it may think that once they can persuaded / blackmailed/ pressed the UBCV Head to follow VCP plot then others must follow him; it is dead wrong] to lead the so-called “Vietnam Buddhist Unification Committee” knowingly to be a puppet in the hand of VCP and fulfilling its political plot of forcing all Buddhist Nikayas into a merged body named VBS), I offer to my superior, my senior sangha, my even junior sangha who now still in Vietnam my deep respect because they have to be so much compassionate for enduring –for too long, before they can regain some confident- so much shame, drowning down so much guilty just for the sake of Dhamma-Sangha survival –at their conscience price- .
We all believe that the VCP is to be responsible for the sudden ‘death’ of my beloved Most Venerable Thich Tri Thu on April 1984 after our IOC 2008-Chair Le Manh That and his genius workmate Thich Tue Sy and many other top academic sangha have been arrested few days before his death. The VCP is also responsible for the ‘death in dark prison cell’ of a very distinguished UBCV leader since late 1950s Most Venerable Thich Thien Minh in October 1978 (the month I was in the same Saigon T20 Prison with the Most Venerable during my first 37-month prison term [1/1977 to 2/1980] for ‘reforming’ my labelled ‘crime’: gotten an UBCV appointment, and born my duty, as UBCV Head of the Phu Bon Province in September 1976).
What these responsible sangha had seen happening in the whole North Vietnam between 1946-1975 and the South 1946-1954 (only in areas where Communist forces occupied, collected taxes and controlled people mind-and-life forcing all to go along with their ‘holy war’ against ‘imperialism’ to the ‘last Vietnamese’ , as expressed by their top leader. The VCP had killed and punished so many people, many monks our current UBCV leader Thich Quang Do’s principal Master included) making them decided to reluctantly, unwillingly joining the VCP’s VBS for the sake of Dhamma-Sangha survival, whatever it may mean to the Tripitaka and traditional teachings.
Note that ALL non-communist SE and E Asian countries did regained their independence peacefully in late 1940s and early 1950s after hundreds of foreign-occupied years, WITHOUT MILLIONS OF LIVES HAVE LOST FOR –ISM WARS, WITHOUT HUNDREDS OF THOUSAND MEN AND WOMEN HAVE LOST THEIR LIVES IN PRISONS AND RE-EDUCATION CAMPS, WITHOUT ‘MILLIONS OF BOAT-PEOPLE’ FLED OUT THE COUNTRY AFTER ‘VICTORY’ AND ‘INDEPENDENCE, AS IN CASE OF VIETNAM. You think of yourself about these historic facts, my Dhamma friends, I do not need make any comment on politic and war, so on.
But that is why I am here writing to you from Australia, not Vietnam my home country. I never want to leave it, if I ever had a small chance to uphold my monkhood in Vietnam, under Communist policy of course.
With new VCP policy of spending up
[one small example: the VCP to dutifully subsidy billions of Vietnamese Dong for the last 30 years publishing the only Buddhist Weekly -Giac Ngo or Enlightenment- ; the VCP appoints a VCP-cell lying within the magazine 30+workforce to control everything and everyone, from the top – its editor is my 1980 workmate at UBCV headquarters- Thich Tri Quang, to down, the cleaner-]
and making up a prosper ‘Buddhist façade’ for showing VBS up to the world,
the VCP was till 2007 not be able to set up certain VBS provincial committees in certain South Vietnam areas (because local sangha non-cooperation attitude, or number of sangha in the area had severely reduced to the minimum during the last 32 years to the situation that no one can manage to take the VBS administration jobs). For the Northern Buddhism, even so much support form the Southern Sangha sine 1975, and after so much self-struggle by the very few left-over sangha after ‘1945 liberation’ [the starting year for most of northern sangha to be demised, killed, forcible disrobed, imprisoned, etc; and less than hundred running to the South after the Geneva Accord in 1954; for the ten of thousands of sangha in the North there were only few hundred very old of them still in robs in 1975 for only ‘caring temples for the government’, nothing else they can do for the Dhamma during whole of those years], the situation is the ‘womb’ of 2000-year Vietnamese Buddhist is in 2007 still far less than adequate in every front for it to progress and prosper.
Together with calm, effective, on-going campaign on ‘religious freedom’ run by many overseas Vietnamese and especially the UBCV leadership everywhere, the brave Sangha in Vietnam has brought back some certain quality form VCP’s dark plot.
But how about us, the international sangha, while we will be there in Hanoi May 2008???
Can we brave enough to speak for Viet Sangha?? to express our sympathy with them?? Or because of the very generous treatment /hospitality -all things for 2008 Hanoi UN Vesak to be paid for by the VAC, including airfares and 5-star hotel rooms, anyway- then we IOC and international Dhamma friends need to be polite and not to disturb/hurt/confuse/anger our 'kind' host ???
Wisdom will tell???
http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2003/Dec/01-499319.html;
Back to our 2008 UN Day of
Vesak Celebration, in Hanoi, May 23-25, 2008.
more about Le Manh That on
http://www.fva.org/0998/story04.htm;
an UN doc for you here
http://www.unhchr.ch/Huridocda/Huridoca.nsf/0/a70d5b323123d85e80256739003c7b
IOC Chairmanship has been
rearranged for changing hands
(a Nalanda University
1965-PhD-graduate, a great/respected Pali-Vietnamese sutra translator,
an upto-1975-UBCV-Van Hanh-Buddhist-University Rector, a political
activist as a Vietnam's National Assembly Member for many terms, and
sadly, a now near-totally-incapacitated & bed-bound 90+ year old monk),
Are we IOC going to agree with this?? If not, and what we can do?? Sorry about this long email. But this is a bit too much for us not to be concerned, seriously.
(Is it right that from now on, any country, any group can go ahead to organise an UN Vesak Celebration??? Thailand can do that too, but it did not do that. The MCU Rector has been appointed by Thai Government as the Chair of Organising Committee, but the Rector is a true international and broad-minded figure. He invited as many as possible international sangha and scholars known to him for establishing an independent IOC. He worked together with us, he listen us, he consulted us, he made decisions on our advice and recommendations, for the unity of the world Dhamma / Sangha growth and prosperity. Not for the political benefits of the Thai Governments (both democratically elected and junta military ones)
There may be some grammatical and stylist errors on this email, but I am responsible for all I has written here, at least for its content and spirit.
- UN Day of Vesak Celebration's IOC member - UBCV International Council member - Chair, Australian Sangha Association - Deputy Chair, UBCV of Australia-New Zealand - Founding Abbot VAN HANH Monastery / SAKYAMUNI Buddhist Centre
Viet. only 02-6257 5517; Fax 02-6257 7733;
Eng. only 02-6257 5280
Ven. THICH QUANG BA, JP
Tel (+61) Viet. only
02-6257 5517; Fax 02-6257 7733; Eng. only 02-6257 5280
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