A wolf in a sheep’s clothing? The suspicious case of Brother Charles
Posted on May 26th, 2021
By Vaisrawana
I started writing the following as a casual comment on C. Wjeyawickrema’s බ්‍රදර් චාල්ස් තෝමස්ගේ <දහම් පහන> හා සිංහල බුද්ධාගම/May 24, 2021.But it became longer than originally intended. So here it is offered to my fellow readers as a separate column. Please see if you can agree with observations. This is just a personal opinion.
I agree with Dr Wijayawickrema’s take on the subject. My own opinion is that there is no need for this so-called Brother Charles’ services (even if he is a genuine advocate of Buddhist values, which is unlikely) in educating Buddhists and Hindus about compassion and non-violence, for these are the fundamental values on which Hindu and Buddhist cultures are based. Hinduism and Buddhism predate Christianity by centuries (indeed by millennia, in the case of Hinduism). Why can’t the government departments mentioned in this article use preachers from among the Buddhist clergy and laity in their personality development or stress management or ‘spirituality’ promoting programs? Authorities can also use similar preachers from the Christian community for the same purpose. However, I don’t think that any of the star preachers among Buddhist monks should be invited to take part in this task, because they are already entangled in irrelevant controversies or have lost their credibility through narcissistic displays of material wealth (which is invariably paralleled by intellectual/spiritual vacuity). There are enough good monks and lay preachers who are well versed in the dhamma and whose moral credentials are perfect who can handle this job without having to employ suspicious characters, who may be agents of a proselytizing Christian fundamentalist sect.
At the beginning Charles used to shout “Jesus thama parama satyaya” “Jesus is the supreme truth” in the midst of preaching to mesmerized audiences that he managed to additionally mislead by inviting some idiotic uneducated Buddhist monks or yellow-robed quacks to attend his programs. He must be getting funds from somewhere (from some fundamentalist Christian organization). Or is he known to be a moneyed person who can afford heavy expenses while engaged on his disguised Christian missionary work, which involves travelling to foreign lands? Now he has started attacking “religion” as a destructive force, because he seems to have recently heard that the Buddha never preached a religion, and that though Buddhists adopt certain cultural traditions like ritual practices that are characteristically associated with religions (but which are indispensable for the survival of the dhamma among ordinary humans, the unenlightened pratujjanas), they do not believe in a supreme creator being or a supreme truth that they have no option but to propitiate or worship.
Sri Lanka is the target of attack from five sources, three geopolitical, and two religious. America, India, and China on the one hand, and on the other Christian fundamentalism secretly sponsored by the West, and Jihadism supported by Saudi Arabia, but exploited by the West for their own purposes. All these forces undermine the age old Buddhist cultural foundation of Sri Lanka on which the survival of the Sinhalese, the majority community whose ancestors’ blood and toil bequeathed to the world the fabled island state of Sinhalay. What gives them temporary relief is the fact that these external forces are currently divided among themselves. However, the impact of their cumulative hostility is not small. Among them, only China shows some empathy towards Sri Lanka, but that is for its own sake. In any case, Sri Lanka, faced by an aggressive hegemonic West, has no alternative but to find refuge under China’s wing.
Returning to the point, even Arun Siddhartan should be treated with suspicion, but he can be easily made to see the truth that the future of both the majority-Hindu Tamils and the majority-Buddhist Sinhalese, as well as that of Tamils and Sinhalese who have embraced Christianity, depends on wholehearted unity among them. The Marxist Arun represents the oppressed low castes of the north. So, unlike Sinhala-Buddhist haters such as Rajan Hoole and Kumar David whose ancestors escaped caste oppression by embracing Christianity and benefiting from education through English made available to them by the British, Arun can be trusted as a Tamil politician as an ally. Especially, Buddhists and Hindus must unite in order to protect themselves from the Jihadist violence and the intolerance of Christian fundamentalists. Christians will have some respite from Jihadists as Ahl al Kitab or People of the Book (believers in revealed truth, so allies of Muslims). Hindus and Buddhists will have none, for they don’t come within that category. But some moderate Muslims have lately started including Buddhists and Hindus too among Ahl al Kitab (which is nothing but deception). Christians are also changing their dogmas to suit their agenda of neutralizing the attraction to the world of the non-violent, and peaceful teachings of Buddhism and Hinduism.
What Charles seems to be launching is a preemptive strike on the currently burgeoning solidarity between the Sinhalese in the South and Tamils in the North. Dr Wijeyawickrema sees him for what he really is. He implies that Charles could be another Ranjan Ramanayake: “ලංකාවේ හාමුදුරුවරු නොසිටින්නට ඔහු කතාකරණ ත්‍රිපිටකයක් ලෝකයේ නැත. සංඝ සාසනයේ අද දක්නට ලැබෙන නොයෙකුත් අර්බුද වලට සුද්දගෙ නීතිය හා පක්ෂ දේශපාලක කළු සුද්දන්ගේ ක්‍රියාකලාපය හේතුවී ඇතිබවත් ඒවා නිවැරදි කල යුතු බවත් අමතක කිරීම වැදගත් සමාජ ක්‍රියාකාරීන්, සැඟවුණ න්‍යායපත්‍ර සහිත තවත් රංජන් රාමනායකලා බවට පත් කරයි. මෙසේ අන්තිමේදී ඉතුරු වන්නේ තවත් සිංහල බෞද්ධ විරෝධියෙක් පමණය.”
There is no doubt that the Cardinal means well, and he is doing his duty. But the ‘hidden agenda’ that Dr Wijeyawickrema is warning against is proceeding apace. A church in Ragama had an alms giving today, May 26, (Vesak Day) for a group of monks to celebrate the important Buddhist event. The Christians had their service in the church in the normal way. Christian Buddhist friendship is good, but can it be established through this sort of hypocrisy? Don’t these monks have some sort of leadership to guide them? Can’t the two communities hold their rituals separately as they have always done, but get on well together outside of the church and the pansala without indulging in utterly counterproductive hypocrisy like this in the name of peaceful religious coexistence, which the likes of Charles use as a stratagem to subvert the Buddhist establishment (Buddha Sasanaya)?
The Mahanayakes who lack the Cardinal’s wisdom and his knowledge of the current realities both in Sri Lanka and in the world outside are getting increasingly ignored by the powers that be. Gotabaya is doing something to reclaim the ancient Buddhist archaeological sites that are being vandalized or forcibly occupied by Muslim extremists and opportunistic Muslim politicos (some Tamil politicians are among them too) who use extremists as a cat’s paw; but his older brother Mahinda seems to be too preoccupied with an inexplicable commitment to please a few crafty Muslim politicians, who never fail to have the best of both worlds, whichever national party comes to power. The ultimate victims of the dire consequences of these lapses on the part of politicians and priests are the majority Sinhalese Buddhists, who, nevertheless, have always been very tolerant, accommodating and nice to all the racial and religious minorities.
May 26th, 2021 at 9:38 pm
While agreeing 100% with C. Wije, I like to put my two cents for what it is worth here as follows:
Reading between the lines from what Sinhala Buddhists say in this forum, I get the impression that they think they are the owners of Buddha’s teaching and blames the west for all the ills. They have not realized that it is the west that has protected it for whatever reason when it was to be taken over by the Muslims. I believe it is valid to this day. If not the wealthy ME countries would have had their way already in this land. We know it is not happening even under this government who think they need the dollars coming from that region for them to survive. Even the majority pea brained yellow robes (the high level ones) who always side with the powers that be cannot destroy that teaching. We see that some of them are given facelifts (and expensive vehicles) to appear in public to come and utter this and that thinking that majority Sinhalese always follow their advice; they are unable to separate wheat from the chaff.
The Indians are incapable of taking over this land, if not that would have happened a long time ago!.
I think this era of utter chaos that started in mid 80s, will end in less than five years.
May 27th, 2021 at 3:19 pm
Buddhism can continue without Jesus and Christianity. However Brother Charles’ attempt is to use Buddhism for Christianity’s survival. His is a lowly attempt to confuse and use well meaning but idiotic Buddhists and their vote hunting political and business leaders.
This man must be seen through and investigated for foreign connections and funding.
බුද්ධාගම ඔය තරම් හොඳනම් සහෝදර චර්ලෙස්ට තියෙන්නේ බුද්ධාගම වැළඳගෙන බුදු බන කියන එකයි. ලෝගුවක් ඇඳගෙන මේ කියන කතා වලින් කරන්නේ ලෝකය පුරා වන්දවීගෙන යන ක්‍රිස්තියානි ධර්මයට බුදු එළියෙන් ගොඩ එන්න බැලීමක් මිස වෙන යමක් නොවේ. ක්‍රිස්තු ධර්මයෙන් බුද්ධ ධර්මයට එළියක් ලැබෙන්නේ නැහැ.
ක්‍රිස්තියානියෙන් බුද්ධාගමට සහ බෞද්ධ සංස්කෘතියට අනාදිමත් කාලයක් තුල සිදුවී ඇත්තේ විනයක් මිස අන් දෙයක් නොවේ.
මේ ටික රටේ ඉන්න වඳුරන්ට තේරෙන්නේ නැහැ.
බෞද්ධ කුඩාරමට මේ රිංගන්න හදන්නේ ලෝක ක්‍රිස්තියානි ඔටුවාය! සහෝදර චර්ලෙස්ගේ ඔටු ගමන නතර කල යුතුය.
May 29th, 2021 at 4:51 am
Totally agree with @Ratanapala. In fact, this piece developed from an unpublished comment by me on C. Wijeyawickrema’s article. That unpublished comment, like this one, started with the words “Totally agree with @Ratanapala”. Thank you, @Ratanapala, for both of your comments, this one and your comment on CW’s write-up.
Dear @aloy, thank you also for considering my incidental column worth commenting on. You agree with CW; so do I. But you seem to have missed my point. If it is not inconvenient, and if you so wish, please read the above short column again. I believe you can infer whom I mean by ‘”star” preachers among Buddhist monks’ in the following: “However, I don’t think that any of the star preachers among Buddhist monks should be invited to take part in this task, because they are already entangled in irrelevant controversies or have lost their credibility through narcissistic displays of material wealth (which is invariably paralleled by intellectual/spiritual vacuity).” Sinhalese Buddhists never claim to be the owners of Buddhism, contrary to what you assert. The fact that they – through the Sangha – are the principal protectors of the Dhamma is a historically proven fact. Not all individual monks are virtuous. This was the case even when the Buddha was living. Most average Sinhalese are not educated enough about this important fact (about the real meaning of the oft repeated guardian status of monks). CW is talking about that real importance of the Sangha when he writes: “ලංකාවේ හාමුදුරුවරු නොසිටින්නට ඔහු කතාකරණ ත්‍රිපිටකයක් ලෝකයේ නැත.” The Tripitaka was committed to writing in Matale, central Sri Lanka in the first century BCE during the reign of king Valagamba (between 89-77 BCE). The script used was ancient Sinhala, not Brahmi or some other foreign script. Christian European invaders, mostly treasure hunters and pirates, did not want or mean to protect Buddhism. In the same breath it must be saidwith gratitude that, as you’d yourself suggest, great European scholars and orientalists like the German Wilhelm Geiger, and the British T.W. Rhys Davids, and civil servants like archaeology commissioner HCP Bell, and the American spiritual seeker, soldier and journalist Colonel Steel Olcott did yeoman service to reveal to the world the Buddha Dhamma, the ancient Sinhala Buddhist heritage and the buried history of the island, and thereby resuscitate the Buddhist cultural foundation of the country. These seekers knowledge and enlightenment were not after treasure, or temporal or spiritual conquest. But there were also much less civilized, self-seeking adventurers who plundered our ancient literary treasures in the form of ola leaf manuscripts and numerous bronze and gold and other excellent artifacts and carted and shipped them to England, where they are still there in museums to reclaimed by future generations. The Western powers did not want or mean to protect Buddhism. How could they? They only wanted to destroy it because it was the cultural bulwark that stood (as it does today) between them and the nation they wanted to subdue. You must have read about the atrocities that the Portuguese committed on the nonviolent Sinhalese Buddhists and the monks, and the Hindu Tamil minority in the 16th century in order to propagate their Christian religious culture…. That is a long story.
Right from the beginning, it was traders (first from different parts, particularly the southern parts, of what is called the Indian subcontinent today, and then from the West) who were attracted by the resource-rich island and its strategic location on the historic Chinese Silk Route, as a commercial hub with its numerous sea ports (whose indelible history still remains to be unearthed and deciphered). New archaeological discoveries suggest (according to Prof. Raj Somadeva) that the legendary Vijya was probably such a merchant adventurer who came from the north-west coast of India , instead of a royal prince from a fabled Vanga Desa as believed to date. Elara (205-161 BCE), who occupied Anuradhapura for 44 years until he was defeated and killed by Dutugemunu, was not of royal descent either; he was from a powerful trading family in southern India. The Portuguese, Dutch and English invaders were first and foremost seafaring mercantile nations. Even today, Sri Lanka is under threat from a complex of foreign invasive forces at the centre of which are commercial interests. The nucleus of their power has always been the shared bedrock of the Judeo-Christian culture of the West. Brother Charles may be sucking up to that.
May 29th, 2021 at 10:47 am
Thanks Vaisrawana for your reply.
With regard to Buddhism, I believe that we all are still scratching on the surface. If you listen to the conversation in the link below, you will see that they are going to steal not only the resources but also the Buddha himself. A lot is being unraveled!.
BTW, Tripitaka was written in Mathula, near Kegalle and not in Matale.
And also they say the origin of Aryan languages family is based on a Hela language called Kakkala, remnants of which can be found in A’pura area.
This discussion is with a Lecturer of a Canadian University and is a bit long. It is worth listening to the end.
“https://youtu.be/eJSKgdSr4tA”