Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, And Maduluwawe Sobitha
By Jagath Asoka -January 12, 2014 |
Dr. Jagath Asoka
This article has two sections; the first part is related to my previous articles. The second part is about Dalai Lama, Pope Francis, and MaduluwaweSobitha Thera.
The recent articles written by Shyamon Jayasinghe, Mahendra De Silva, andKapila Abhayawansa demonstrate the snowball effect of the conversation that I started on Buddhism. The Buddhist in me constantly struggle not to undress people in public with my words, but if you are trying to tell me that you do not believe in God, first, convince yourself and ask yourself, “Have I ever asked God’s or gods’ assistance; have I ever prayed to the Buddha when I was totally helpless?” God is transcendental, beyond name and form, and beyond human description. God is protean and take many forms. In Shyamon, Mahendra, and Kapila, God has taken the name and the form of the Buddha. I do not have to be a professor or pundit, and have a Ph.D. in God or Buddhism to talk about God and Buddhism. I began my ferryboat journey with Kalama Sutra. As far as Buddhism is concerned, like Christianity and Islam, the truth is that nobody can ever produce the original words of the Buddha, Jesus, or Mohammed with absolute certitude because they were illiterate, and did not write anything for posterity, even though all of us venerate them as if they were God, except Mohammed who is just a messenger of God. All articles are very thought-provoking and interesting and deal with different facets of this subject, but none has the authority due to paucity of authentic texts. We can conduct a scholarly textual analysis or comparison, but we do not know the authenticity of any canonical texts in Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam. In one of my very first articles, I talked about pseudepigraphy, which scholars have extensively studied in Christianity; most Sri Lankan scholars who study Buddhism are reluctant to open the door of pseudepigraphy in Buddhism because even a mere suggestion of pseudepigraphy evokes a violent reaction in people who suffer from neurosis caused due to the infantile and puerile attachment to Buddhism. My thoughts on Buddhism and politics in Sri Lanka have produced both positive and negative reactions; I have not seen a lukewarm response or an attitude of insouciance when people comment; most people enjoy reading my articles, but that does not mean that they agree with everything that I have to say; that is exactly what it should be. Those who write schizophrenic gibberish are just mental patients. Schizophrenia—the Prevalence Rate is approximately 1.1%—is a serious mental disorder; I have worked on Central Nervous System (CNS)-related diseases for nearly two years. External factors such as reading the articles that I have written can precipitate Schizophrenia, so if you have a vehement and uncontrollable reaction that causes you to spew schizophrenic gibberish when you read my articles, please see a psychiatrist immediately because schizophrenia is highly treatable. So when you are reading my articles, you are inadvertently being tested for schizophrenia.
