Roanoke first impressions

I just finished reading Karen Kupperman's Roanoke. I read it over the course of three days and it fueled my weird dreams lately involving the Algonquian Indians. I had one dream I was out collecting oysters or clams at night in a slow moving narrow river. I then dreamed that I was drilling holes in the pearls to make a necklace. I had another dream about being in Roanoke and being frustrated with the fact that I'm a low priority to the English investors, who favor privateering and immediate returns, and I believe I was made at Ralph Lane for being too heavy handed with the locals and pissing them off. I felt frustrated and endangered. But since in the dream I was in the Lane colony and not the White colony, at least I had a chance of going back to England.

In my reading I was taken by the idea of how Roanoke fits into the larger context of Britain being a marginalized parasitic nation that's on the verge of usurping Spain's position as the main superpower in the world. Kupperman touches on the larger Protestant verses Catholic themes of the day, which I was aware of but never truly ever considered how that might of faired in early American colonization.

I was also surprised to learn about French Huguenot attempts to colonize Florida, that's an interesting tid-bit of trivia. I was also surprised to learn about Joachim Ganz who was probably the first Jew in British America. I've read before about how a at least a few of the people that went with Christopher Columbus on his first voyage were probably secret Jews (so called Marranos or swine)and later on how Dutch Recife Brazil became a 16th century haven for Jews, but to my knowledge there isn't a similarly interesting and exciting story to tell about Jews in the British colonies.

I think Kupperman does a really good job of describing the mindset of the gentry and how that played into their dealings with the Indians. Things that seemed plainly obvious to them seem stupid and fool hearted to me, such as Ralph Lane attacking the Indians over a cup, which I imagine would of really pissed them off. Into this delicate situation come the Lane colonist that then mistakenly attack Indians that are friendly to them, granted this time it was a more honest mistake. But still I'm left with a feeling that the English were very unskillful with their dealings with the Roanoke area Indians.

One more thing about Algonquians Indians, the "flyer" or Shaman described by and painted by John White seems to fit in with what I know about larger Shamanic studies. The name alone "the flyer" might be indiciative of the whole shamanic experience of soul travel and "flying" around the world making spirit frineds (perhaps he's friend with a bird?). This is speculation on my part though.

Internal Vs External Sources for Dreams

Do dreams come from within the person or do they come from some place outside of the person? There are many different ways to answer this question, either inside, outside, or a combination of the two. For ancient Near East peoples, some of the Greeks, and early Muslims the answer is a combination of the two. For Aristotle and Freud the answer is that dreams come from inside the person. Despite different causes for dreams, both camps arrive at similar conclusions about the nature of dreams and some of their meanings.

In the ancient Near East dreams were said to be sealed baskets of legal contracts from the gods, but it is clear that not every dream was something from the gods because the emphasis placed on reoccurring dreams. It was custom of the day to report reoccurring dreams to priest or kings because they were likely to be significant. Here it is evident that people like priest and kings were better able to interpret dreams and it is likely they were more apt to have more significant dreams. Dreams were of a high importance to ancient Near East peoples as one can tell from the pressure one may of felt to relay a potentially significant dream to the priest.

Kings and priest were much more likely to have significant dreams than regular people. This, in and of itself, is evidence that significant dreams came from outside the person, mainly from the Gods. Significant dreams come from outside the body and as such are somewhat mysterious and need special interpretation. In the ancient Near East there was much need and appreciation for dream interpreters. Dreams interpreters worked off of puns, they would rearrange the letters in a word to come up with a new word, or they would relate words to rhyming words or a word with a similar root, etc. It was rare that a dream meant what it appeared to mean and often dreams would have nearly the opposite meaning of what a face value reading would of resulted in. It is also said that figuring out the meaning of a dream may there by nullify the dream, an idea that echoes in Freudian thought.

For ancient Hebrews dreams had a similar function but the two most famous examples of dream interprets in the Hebrew Bible, Joseph and Daniel, were both working in foreign countries. Other keys from the text may lead one to believe that dream interpretation was natural and easy among the Hebrews. For example Joseph’s brothers did not have any trouble interpreting Joseph’s dream of the sheaves. Other themes from the ancient Near East are also present in the Joseph story such as Pharaoh having two dreams that were a message for the same thing (the wheat and the cows). By the time of the prophet Isaiah there seems to have been some controversy over people lying about their dreams and then dream interpretation became less popular.

Ancient Greek writers like Artemidorus and Aristotle because they wrote specifically about dreams, and their writings aren’t in the context of a larger story so they say things more directly about dreams. For Artemidorus dreams can either come from the self or come from the gods. Dreams that came from within were generally considered to be gibberish and were called enhypnia while dreams from the gods were called oneiroi. Oneiroi were subdivided into two types; those that can be directly interpreted and are plainly obvious, theorematikoi, and those that need interpretation, allegorikoi. To interpret the allegorikoi Artemidorus would of used word play, the principle of opposites, and visual free association, and numerology.

Another important issue Artemidorus took up was that different dreams mean different things to different people. Artemidorus looked at the person that was having the dream to try to figure out what that dream meant. An identical dream from a priestess and the dream of a prostitute would of meant something different. Artemidorus’ notion that not only the dream but the dreamer mattered echoes later in Freudian theory.

Another thing that makes Artemidorus’ theories different from the ancient Near Eastern traditions is that to Artemidorus a dream being reoccurring did not make it special. In fact he says that a reoccurring dream will mean different things at different times and gives the example of somebody that dreams they lost their nose. The first dream means the dreamers perfume business will go under, the second dreams means that he will lose face and be degraded.

Unlike Artemidorus or the peoples of the ancient Near East, Aristotle believed that dreams arose internally. The Aristotelian soul was made up of perception, judgment, and imagination. Perception accounted for sensory input, judgment was able to make rational decisions based on that input, and imagination was part of the mind that made wild associations and was a source of creativity and spontaneity. When one falls asleep one’s judgment becomes dormant and the perceptions fade. While faded the perceptions do not disappear and also there are some residue perceptions still in the organs that will take some time to dissipate. While sleeping, the imagination is dominant part of the brain that is still awake. It uses the residue of the perceptions as well as some random memories to make dreams. The value of dreams in the Aristotelian system is that dreams allow you to explore a part of your mind that you usually don’t have much access to.

For medieval Muslims dreams played a huge role in their religious practice. John C. Lamoreaux argues that dreams played a central role in the early Islamic communities by way of the charisma of early dream interpreter. And now dreams exist in many strings of Islamic scholarship and culture such as Sufism, high culture, sharia, and the non-Muslim Islamicate. Puns play a large role in Islamic dream interpretation as it does in Arab poetry. Also popular in the Islamic world are dream manuals like the kind Artemidorus made. These dream manuals.

For Freud dreams are internal wish fulfillment. Somewhat similar to Aristotle’s imagination Freud believes that the mind can be divided into conscious and unconscious parts. The unconscious part of our brains is where a lot of our thoughts actually happen but a lot of these thoughts would be unacceptable to our conscious mind because they are crass, sexual, and violent. It is when we sleep that our unconscious mind takes control; Freud uses the analogy of an invading army. Our mind is taken over by the unconscious and things do not work the same as they do when we are asleep. The unconscious, again like Aristotle’s imagination, makes wild and free associations between things observed in waking life. Because of these wild associations often what we see in our dream does not really mean what it seems to mean, a theme that is echoed in all the traditions mentioned so far.

Many of the things we see in our dreams are symbolic of other things, but it is a hard to know exactly what they are symbolic of because of the nature of the unconscious. A vision seen in a dream may be representative of something it is very different from or it may even be it’s direct opposite. To Freud everything in our dreams matters and has great significance. There is nothing in our dreams that does not come from inside of us and there is nothing in our dreams that does not have some kind of greater meaning. In the Freudian system, like the ancient Near Eastern traditions, once you figure out why a symbol is in your dream you gain control over it and it will not bother you any more, provided of course you found the real cause and not an imaginary one.

This idea of conquering our dreams may be at the root of all of these traditions but nonetheless there are similarities in these theories even if they don’t agree on where dreams come from. The notion that dream images are representative of something other than what they are appears in all these ideas about dreaming and beyond that one may wonder if it is not self evident and intuitive that our dreams are rarely to be taken at face value.

Dreams in the Sefer Hasidim - an incomplete thought

Monford Harris explores how the Ashkenaz Pietists viewed dreams in his article “Dreams in the Sefer Hasidim”. Harris begins by briefly exploring Rabbi Moses ben Jacob of Coucy’s halachic work the “SeMag”. Although that work primarily deals with non-dream issues it does eventually deal with dreams. The one question that R. Jacob was never able to satisfactorily answer is why dreams flow from the mouth from the interpreter and why is it said that people should only ask for dream interpretation from somebody that will be favorable to the dreamer.

The answer that R. Jacob found was that some people are predestined, by luck, to be dream interpreters and it is only those predestined people that the Berakhoth 55b refers to and the reason you should only go to a dream interpreter that’s likely to be favorable to you is that the dream interpreter has an angel on either side of him and if he says a good interpretation the good angel will take the good interpretation and make it so and the same is true for the bad interpretation.

The thirteenth century Ashkenaz Pietiest also addressed the issue of dream interpretation as well as other aspects of dreams and visions in the Sefer Hasidim. For the Pietiest there was a distintion between dreams and visions. Visions were seen while awake and dreams were seen while asleep. Dreams were always talked about in terms of “seeing” the dream.

The answer the Pietiest find to what Berakhoth 55b means is different from what R. Jacob found. The Pietiest said that nothing happens to a man that doesn’t first reveal itself in a dream, however nobody is pious enough to receive direct revelation so the symbols in our dreams are vague an allegorical. Also the dreams of regular people intermingle with the words of demons, the body and desires also influences dreams, so the interpretation of dreams is very important to try to figure out the meaning of dreams. Therefore not all dreams about God are said to be purely prophetic or angelic because if somebody spends their days being pious its only natural that they will have a dream about God that comes from their desire and not from angels.

This dichotomy of internal verses external dreams is important in the Sefer Hasidim for figuring out the meaning and source of a dream. Internal dreams, those influenced by the body, desire, and the mind, will be of things that person has been thinking about recently. If you dream about something that’s been on your mind lately then it is safe to assume that this dream is an internal dream without much meaning.

Dreams are not ruled by reason, it is said that in Psalms 16:7 that at night during a dream the reins instruct, therefore a man’s reason is not turned on during dreaming. Most though, be they good, bad, true, or false are not intended. They just kind of happen. The chaotic thoughts we have while dreaming have their own momentum and sometimes dreams are random and akin to when somebody throws a ball and it rolls where you didn’t expect it to roll.

Besides reason, our sense of self is distorted in dreams as is evident by the fact that people can do lewd thing in our dreams and not feel embarrassment. However a pious person can maintain their sense of embarrassment in dreams.

External dreams are usually about thing that are alien to the dreamer. External dreams can have three sources: angels, demons, and the ba’al halom. External dreams are recognizable as external because they will contain themes, images, teachings, etc that are completely alien or beyond the capabilities of the dreamer.

Dreams from demons are said to happen when one is not quite asleep, but only kind of asleep. The demon whispers into your ear and influences what you think. The demon does now, however, control you or directly give you a bad dream. Another external figure that gives dreams is the ba’al halom, Harris brings up scholarship about but remains neutrual about whether or not ba’al halmom is a crossover a Babylonian god that made into the Babylonian Talmud. To me it seems likely.

Harris comments that Gershon Scholem and himself agree that the Sefer Hasidim has many original ideas that it proposes, such as the idea of dream images having their own momentum, but it never develops the ideas much. The criticism is that it says what it says and then moves on even though the reader may want more about a certain insight.

Harris comments that the he thinks one of the most unique and interesting approaches to dreams the Sefer Hasidim offers is its interpretation of Berakhoth 55b. How is it that dreams flow from the mouth of the interpreter and yet different people can find different interpretations to dreams? Unlike R. Jacob the Pietist don’t postulate that some people are predestined to be dream interpreters and that their interpretations will be carried out by angels. The Pietist propose that like the Torah, dreams can interpreted multiple ways and multiple times, as long as the interpretation holds true to the contents of the dream, without all of their meaning being extracted.

Dreams and scripture are truly multilevel and need to be interpreted in terms of Oral Torah and Torah. Harris makes the claim that because both scripture and dreams are divinely inspired and flow from the mouth of the interpreter that dreams are a kind of scripture (63). However I don’t think he provides enough evidence to make his case convincing because I could imagine somebody arguing that dreams and scripture are similar but not the same thing.

Because of the emphasis placed on dream interpretation and the multilevel meaning of dreams, Harris argues that it would be logical to assume that dream interpretation and the meaning of symbols would of played a large part in lives of Pietist but Harris says that the Sefer Hasidim is surprisingly quiet on cases of dream interpretation and has very few symbols in it except for an ark representing death. Harris argues that a reason for this may be that the Pietist would have been so steeped in Biblical and Talmudic lure and associations that symbolic interpretations would of been clear and uncomplicated.

So then whose dreams need to be interpreted? Harris says the the only two real examples of somebody going to get their dreams interpreted in the Sefer Hasidim is when gentiles go to get their dreams interpreted. Harris argues that while this may seem unusual it fits in surprisingly well the Biblical precedents of Joseph and Daniel who were both strangers in a foreign land interpreting the dreams on foreigners.

To “interpret” a dream to the Pietist meant more than to simply give an analytical reading of the dream. The interpretation of dreams was said to have a therapeutic effect on the dreamer. Similar to ancient Near Eastern ideas about dreams the Pietiest thought dreams came with secret messages that needed to be decoded and that decoding the dream was very important. For the Pietist decoding a dream was even more important than whether the dream was true or not. Sometimes somebody is shown a harsh dream so that he may investigate his conduct (69). If somebody receives such a dream fasting may be done in the stead of animal sacrifice. Figuring a dream out or “solving it” cancels out any bad effects the dream has.

Harris relies heavily on a Hebrew copy of the Sefer Hasidim and also draws in some modern work took. He cited Leo Oppenheim’s “The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East” and argues that there are enough parallels between thirteenth century German Jewish ideas about dreams and ancient Near Eastern ideas to make the comparison valuable.

The rest of this paper has been lost and for the time being I'm not terribly interested in going out of my way to either find the finished version of this paper or try to redo it. Although one day I do hope to revisit this subject.

Comparing Theravada and Zen

Theravada can claim to be the oldest form of Buddhism. Theravada can also be one of the most “fundamentalist” Buddhist sects with totally different paths for laity and ordained monks and nuns. Theravada in Sri Lanka has recently been influenced by western thoughts and ideas. Theravada holds the Pali Canon to be one and only Canon, unlike Zen which uses Mahayana sutras like the Lotus Sutra. In the book “The Empty Mirror” the Lotus Sutra is one of the Sutras the Japanese monks chant in Chinese. Theravada and Zen both however have Jataka, or stories of the Buddha’s previous births to teach moral lessons. Harvey mentions that Theravadans will use them when ministering to laity and Wetering mentions the Roshi telling them to the laity. The Jataka stories may be slightly different from one another and these differences may reflect differences in philosophy or maybe just cultural differences.

Zen Buddhism emphasizes meditation and innate Buddha nature. The term “Zen” is usually used to distinguish it from Chinese Ch’an. Ch’an itself is a translation of the Sanskrit word “dhyana” which means meditation. So just by looking at its name it is clear to see that Zen emphasizes meditation. The founder of the Ch’an School, Bodhidharma, is said to have cut off his own eyelids so he could meditate in front of a wall without falling asleep. Whether that story is true or not isn’t important but it does demonstrate the importance of meditation to Zen.

Zen was brought to Japan by Eisai and then Zen split into two main schools: Rinzai and Soto. Both schools, pulling from their Mahayana background, stress sudden enlightenment or “kensho” spiritual “ah ha” moments. One may have several kenshos until one finally reaches total enlightenment, or satori. However Bodhidharma also studied and was influenced by Taoism. And because of this Zen also puts a stress on intuition, realizing unity, and spontaneous experiences and reactions. The Taoist leg of Zen is also where a lot of the “beyond logic” ideas come from.

In Zen moments of satori are brought on by meditation. Meditation also plays a huge part in Theravada circles as well. Where Zen emphasizes meditation Theravada offers two general paths for monks to follow: “book-duty” (gantha-dhura) and “insight-duty” (vipassana-dhura). Monks with book-duty tend to live in large cities and monasteries and monks with insight-duty tend to become forest dwellers. One can change focuses thought out one’s life. Zen stresses that enlightenment is beyond all words and scripture and instead focus on seeing one’s innate nature. Theravadans would argue that having an innate nature implies a self, but Zen would argue that the “innate nature” is selflessness.

In both Theravada and Zen concentration meditation and insight meditation are stressed. Both for example, hold sweeping floors to be a very good form of concentration meditation to bring on mindfulness. However the philosophies going into them are slightly different. For a Theravadan sweeping a floor is a great practice in concentrating one thing. The better one gets on concentrating on one thing the easier it is to then make the “next step” to concentrating on zero things. This is also true in Zen but there is an added emphasis on the Madhyamaka idea that Samsara and nirvana are not different from one another. So from that point of view sweeping the floor is an enlightened activity but it is up to the sweeper to wake up and realize it, to have a kensho.

In Theravada there has traditionally had two very different paths for laity and monks and nuns. However this distinction has been breaking down as Theravada has become influenced by outside ideas. In 1815 the British conquered Kandy the capital of Sri Lanka. Theravada Buddhism was disestablished as the main cultural force in Sri Lanka and had to adapt itself to survive. It was during this time that the Pali Canon was translated into English, by English scholar Rhys Davids, and then widely circulated. For the first time Buddhist scriptures were available to the masses and as lay people

become more educated about Buddhism there was a shift in the laities spiritual quest. The line between monk and laity became more and more blurry and the British discouraged monasteries. This was especially true when Anagarika Dharmapala tried to bring meditation to the masses. Dharmapala brought a new meditation lineage to Sri Lanka from Burma. Before Dharmapala bringing Buddhism to the masses like he did there were a lot of Sri Lankan practices such as possession that were more common. Also like almost everywhere Buddhism adopted the local Sri Lankan pantheon and incorporated them into Buddhism. However the Dharmapala movement would distance itself from these “folk beliefs” and try their best to practice “pure Buddhism”.

In Zen meditation can be hard. In Zen practice and meditation are helped by visiting a Roshi, or master. The Roshi has the wisdom (pranyana) and skillful means (upaya) to gauge where people are on their spiritual path and give them advice accordingly. In Rinzai there is a tradition of a Roshi giving his pupils koans to solve. A koan is a nonsensical riddle and the goal of it is to crash the minds logical processes. In the book “The Empty Mirror” the main character goes to a Rinzai school. He tells of his frustrations with the koans and also says that people aren’t encouraged or technically allowed to talk about what koan they’re working on but many people do. The goal is to try to “experience” the answer and move “beyond logical”.

Accepting alms is a major part of all traditions. Harvey says that alms are more popular among Theravadans then Zen monks but Harvey says that Zen trainees will sometimes take alms as part of their training. Wetering specifically mentions some Zen monks that were collecting alms while shouting “HOOO” to get people’s attention. The monks were so caught up and in a daze from shouting “HOOO” that people would have to run to catch up with them to give alms.

Dharmapala tried to establish a new social role in Theravada that would be halfway between a monk and a layperson. He called it an “amagarika” which was a Pali term from wondering homeless person. An amagarika would take all the vinayana vows except the one about handling money. The role of the amagarika never really caught on but ever since then monks all over have become more socially conscious and lay people have made more attempts Nirvana. In Japan about 800 years ago there was a new social role made, that is the role of the priest. A Zen priest can marry and his main function is to minister to lay people and run the in's and out's of small local temples. Zen priest may also lead meditation sessions for his followers.

For both Theravada and Zen the role of a monks is basically the same but also subtly different. In Theravada, for example, once somebody is enlightened and becomes and Arhat they are take out of Samsara. In Zen, like other Mahayana schools, the goal is not to leave Samsara but to help others become enlightened. This is accomplished by taking the Bodhisattva vow, which is where the person simply vows to stay in Samsara until every sentient being is enlightened. Zen and other Mahayana may hold their view is more noble and does the most good, some Theravadas may rebuttal that since all life is suffering the longer they stay in Samsara the ore harm they are doing, despite what their intentions are. Also inside the monastery Theravada stresses the Vinayana more so than Zen does.

As previously mentioned there have been some radical shake-ups about the role of the laity in Theravadan circles recently. Despite that Theravada and Zen are still philosophically different in that in Theravada one works towards enlightenment and in Zen one has to realize that he or she is already enlightened. Also the way one goes about this is different. As mentioned there is more room in Theravada for book study than there is in Zen, but that’s not to say that Zen monks don’t read. Also in Theravada concentration meditation (samatha) and insight meditation (vipassana) are done separately. In Zen they’re combined into one practice called “zazen”.

Zazen is notably different from Theravada practices because, again, there is a stress on “realizing” that one is already enlightened. Just like with the sweeping example, if one is already enlightened one only needs to “wake up” to that fact. However the goal of zazen is not to concentrate on this idea because that would be as futile and as pointless as pointing out that the sky is blue and would may also misplace the persons motivations. The goal in zazen is to “just sit”. There is a lot of stress placed on not having any expectations but just sitting. Wetering points out that this is a lot harder than it sounds and details his physical as well as emotional pain that goes along with zazen. Another Zen practice is the use of compassion sticks to hit people that aren’t meditating satisfactorily.

Since the resurgence of the written word and book study in Theravada Buddhism the notion that Zen is in contrast iconoclastic is all the more relevant. Zen has been accused of being iconoclastic because of they don’t stress art and music very much. That’s not to say that they don’t have art though because Watering mentions statues of the founder of the monastery he was staying out as well as a figure of Manjusri in the Meditation Hall.

Both also share similar core philosophies about karma. In the “The Questions of King Milinda” karma is explained as being like a fire, in that it is impersonal but has tangible effects which can be observed. Both Theravada and Zen seem to be ok with this way of looking at Karma. Both also stress the idea of no permeanete self. Besides the fact that Theravada and Zen have some common scripture, they also have related ideas about translations of scripture. In Theravada English translations of the Pali Canon are widely read and studied and in Zen Chinese and Japanese copies of scriptures are also widely read, studied, and chanted.

Theravada is generally accepted to be one of the three vehicles of Buddhism. Zen is one school inside of Mahayana. Zen is one of the more visible and accessible schools of Buddhism in the West but the notion that Buddhism is a “philosophy” and not a “religion” is refrain I’ve personally heard a lot of as well. The notion that Buddhism is a philosophy and not a religion is a somewhat trivial issue from any “Buddhist point of view” because “Buddhism” like anything else is subject to anatta and any attempt to study and label it ultimately will no be satisfactory. But to apply the term “philosophy” to Buddhism seems even more incorrect than applying the term religion because philosophy means love of wisdom. The goal of accumulating wisdom is a far cry from the Buddhist goal of stopping suffering, and it also would imply that there is a “self” to love the wisdom. This whole debate from a Theravadan and Zen point of view is contrary and against what they’re trying to do. Both schools Theravada and Zen do not claim to be an ultimant truth of reality, they claim that they can end suffering.

Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Zen Buddhism in Japan are both arguably well adjusted to living in a secular society. In Sri Lanka monks and nuns had to give up their central position in society and adjust. They also had to deal with the opening of state schools, so the monistaries were no longer the best way for people to get educated. Zen too survives in a country, Japan, where secularism is high and on the rise. It could be because of this that these two schools of Buddhism have been able to adapt neatly to the West where secularism is also prized. Having the Pali Canon translated into English has also gone a long way to make Theravada Buddhism very visible in the West. The works of monk activist and educators has also exposed the West to Buddhist ideas, especially Zen Buddhism through the works of Thich Nhat Hanh. Theravada Buddhism and Zen Buddhism have both made a last impression on the world.

Supression of Religion in non-Tibet China

When the Communist took over China, the question of how to deal with religion was a complex question. Holmes Welch, a research assistant at Harvard University, explains that in the early days following the Communist Revolution many temples and monasteries were were occupied by by government offices, there was a mass exodus from monastic life, and difficulty getting monks and nuns to become good communist. It is the intention of this paper to explore these three issues presented by Welch .

On September 29th, 1946 the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference passed the “Common Program”, Article 5 of this program guaranteed freedom of religious belief to members of the People's Republic (Welsh 3). According to Welsh this religious freedom was not an inalienable right and could be denied to reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, and “rightist” because since they do not support the government they are not entitled to the rights that a member of the government should have (Welsh 4, 12). Also Buddhist suffering discrimination were told in an September 1951 issue of “Modern Buddhism”, a magazine published by the new Chinese Buddhist Association, that it was their responsibility to prove to their discriminators that they were pro-government by helping expose counter-revolutionaries (Welsh 12).

The Chinese Communist Party's policy towards religion intentionally stayed vague while different ideas and strategies were discussed at various times and places. Firstly there was the idea that religion is a byproduct of suffering and as the conditions improved in China, religion would just naturally fade away, any attempts to forcibly remove it would not work (Welsh 4). Secondly, there was also the idea a reformed idealized Buddhism could be used as a foreign relations tool to convince nearby Asian-Pacific states to become communist (Welsh 9). The idea of using reformed Buddhist ideas as a tool for the spread of “liberation” may have been of interest to those interested in the “liberation” of Tibet (Welsh 9).

The idea to to use Buddhism as a catalyst for world communist revolution was the brain child of one Chu-tsan (Welsh 7-10). Chu-tsan was a monk that was in favor of reform long before the communist ever took over China (Welsh 7). He studied under the Republican Buddhist reformist, T'ai-hsu who had urged monks and nuns to become involved in the community by starting orphanages, schools, and hospitals, etc (Welch 7, 80). Chu-tsan called for reform in the sangha, in this context the communities of ordained monks and nuns, to “shift to production” and “shift to scholarship” (Welsh 8-9). The “shift to production” will be covered later, but it is not clear how much influence Chu-tsan had on later policies that required monks and nuns to start working (Welsh 9, 51-68). Chu-tsan argued, in a memorandum to Mao, that a shift to scholarship would eliminate superstition and would help Buddhism become a vehicle for world revolution (Welsh 9). “Superstition” was probably meant to convey acts that the Chinese Communist thought were immoral, such as charging for rights of the dead, considered to be exploitation of people's ignorance and insecurities (Welsh 9, 65). Chu-tsan argued that all change and reforms in Buddhism must first be applied to monks and nuns, since they were the top tier in Buddhism, and then later to lay people (Welsh 8). This may have been a ploy to secure his own role of leadership because he was competing against lay people who also had an interest in reforming Buddhism, like Chao P'u-ch'u, a lay person who also had interest in reforming Buddhism that became very influential in the Chinese Buddhist Association (Welsh 8, 17).

There were three main tools used by the Chinese Government to influence Buddhism; they are the publication Modern Buddhism, the new Chinese Buddhist Association, and the Religious Affairs Bureau (Welsh 11, 17, 29). At time went by their practices and policies became more defined, and they would collectively address issues and promote policy (Welsh 14, 35).

Chu-tsan was told time after time that his reforms were too radical and the government could not reorganize the sangha as fast as he wanted (Welsh 9-10). But all of his efforts to make himself seen as become to “go to” guy for Buddhism paid off somewhat when in 1950 he was chosen to become editor-in-chief of a new publication; Modern Buddhism (Welsh 10). This was to be the way the government was going to try to influence Buddhist ideas and practices until later the Chinese Buddhist Association we reestablished (Welsh 11, 17).

According to a later issue of Modern Buddhism in their early years of operating Modern Buddhism made many “mistakes” (Welsh 12). Evidently these mistakes were their willingness to publish questions in their question and answer column which reflected too much negativity towards policies of the Chinese Communist (Welsh 12). For example the letter that prompted the response about how monks and nuns are responsible for making sure people don't confuse them as counter-revolutionaries is an example of Modern Buddhism publishing things which may cause the Chinese Communist to lose face with foreign powers (Welsh 12-13). But by 1954 when Modern Buddhism was taken over by the recently formed Chinese Buddhist Association “serious mistakes” stopped happening (Welsh 13).

The next year 1955, the Chinese Buddhist Association passed a resolution asking all of its members, contributers, and readers to practice self-censorship and not submit any material that wasn't of a “patriotic nature” or criticized the regime (Welsh 14). The publication faired well but never published in large numbers, even after its competition of other Buddhist journals were outlawed, this may because of a paper shortage or because of the unwillingness of the Communist to mass produce a religious publication (Welsh 16). In 1960, according to Welsh, there was a shift towards making a good impression on foreigners and less emphasis on trying to educate local Buddhist (15). This may have been because of the reluctantence and inability of monks and nuns, who were now mostly elderly without new young members joining regularly, to support themselves (Welsh 55-67). According to Welsh it is very difficult to see how much influence Modern Buddhism had on changing the way monks and nuns thought, or even how widely it was read (17-18).

In 1952, after much lobbying and at least one failed attempt by Chao P'u-ch'u, a new Chinese Buddhist Association (CBA) was formed (Welsh 20). Their function was to be a liaison between the government and the peasants on subjects related to Buddhism and Buddhist reform ( Welsh 20). However as time went by it became clear that they began to promote some ideas that a large part of the sangha could not support, such as compassionate killing ( Welsh 21, 100). The members of the CBA were elected but it is not know by whom, but their members were representative of the the whole of Chinese Buddhist, with members from every minority, even an unbalanced number of Tibetans prior to the Tibetan Rebellion (Welsh 20, ). Despite the CBA's position of being a liaison they were very reluctant to set up local branches, like the former CBA had done, because they said it would cause inequality for the lay people (Welsh 19). However members of the CBA did function in local independent groups all over the country (Welsh 26-27). These local groups were usually run by high ranking monks and lamas and lay people were a minority, congruent with Chu-tsan's ideas about reforming the sangha from the top down (Welsh 10, 26).

The final and most important organ of the government, to be discussed here, related to Buddhism was the Religious Affairs Bureau. Because of the delicate nature of religion and how important it was to foreign policy, foreign opinion, and possibly to the spread of communism a special bureau was set up to be in control of all government policies related to religion (Welsh 29-31). The Bureau would also be in charge of identifying and squelching counter-revolutionary actions that took the guise of religious practice (Welsh 30). The chain of command of the Religious Affairs Bureau was complex but they did seem to enjoy some autonomy and freedom because they were practically a direct branch of the Chinese Communist Party, but they were technically classified as being under the Civic Affairs Bureau (Welsh 30 -32).

One of the Chinese Communist Party's polices that had a profound effect on the sangha was land reform because Buddhist monasteries were some of the largest landholders in the country (Welsh 42). There was a lot of resentment towards landlords by communist and rent was one of the main way many monasteries made money (Welsh 42-45). The Agrarian Reform Law stipulated that the land of monasteries be requisitioned and then redistributed (Welsh 43). This caused some problems with interpretation because since monasteries were seen as communal property it was unclear if the land redistributed back to the monks was suppose to be done so on an individual basis or if the land they received back was to also be communal (Welsh 43). Welsh says that the there doesn't seem to be a clear policy either way and different localities did different things, but Modern Buddhism published an question and answer article which said that the land belonged to the monks as individuals (44).

Welsh says that his informants report that the land the monasteries received after the land reforms were usually not as high quality as the property they had owned before the reform, and not as high quality as that given to people seen as more favorable to the regime (45). Additionally, monasteries were not given more land if population rose, but land was taken away from them if their population fell (Welsh 45). This seems to have been very devastating to some monasteries where the population would fluctuate (Welsh 45, 49). The reason for the large fluctuation is because smaller monasteries in rural areas would close down, and the monks that didn't disrobe, usually the older ones, would move into a larger monasteries that had remained open (Welsh 45, 64, 67, 73).

According to Welsh, many monks proved to be bad candidates for farm labor because they had spent most of their life studying Buddhism and didn't have the technical knowledge to effectively farm (48). Also many of them tended to be older because the younger monks were more likely to leave the sangha after being exposed to pressure from the communists (Welsh 45). The lack of able bodied persons, the poor land, and also an unwillingness to work lead to tensions between the government and the sangha (Welsh 48, 58).

Very soon after the Chinese Communist Party took control of the country there were a lot of young monks and nuns who decided to leave the sangha (Welsh 67). Monks were “taught” to learn that the whole world depends on labor and were expected to feel shame and change their ways (Welsh 63). Monks were encouraged to disrobe and many of the young ones did (Welsh 67-68). One of the easiest jobs for them to acquire was to join the People's Liberation Army, PLA, (Welsh 99).

Another significent cause to the lack of younger monks and nuns was also because smaller monasteries were being shut down (Welsh 73). Smaller monasteries served the function of training young nuns and monks the rules of how to live in a monastery, without this advanced training it would have been nearly impossible for the larger monasteries to function with so many people living so close together (Welsh 73-75). This compounded with the Chinese Communist Party activily discouraging people from joining the sangha and fear that being associated with the sangha would also mean being associated with the landlord class it is easy to see why there were not enoung young people around to help the monasteries become self suficent (Welsh 80). But this doesn't mean that some monks did not enthusiasticly try to meet the new demands on them be reviving the lost tradition of “Farming Ch'an”. Farming Ch'an was an old tradition from the T'ang dynasty and it provided the model for many monks that wanted to live well under the new regime (Welsh 85).

Monks living in urban areas where this kind of land reform wasn't a problem for them had their own set of problems. If an urban monastery had empty rooms the local government officials could “borrow” or rent the rooms from the monastery (Welsh 51). The monastery had the right to be consulted and could refuse, but could not do so unreasonably, if they had empty rooms that really weren't being used then they had to let the government move in (Welsh 51). This however wasn't new to the monks and nuns, because their buildings were used this way by the Republic as well (Welsh 52).

One of the jobs that was decided the Buddhist monks may be good at is producing gunny sacks out of burlap because this wasn't a labor intensive , didn't require much skill, and only required a small investment (Welsh 51). Some monks put up their own capital to get into the gunny sack trade, others rented out their monasteries to a third party that they would in turn work for (Welsh 51). Monks that lived in monasteries that were traditionally places of pilgrimage and recreation continued to do traditional hotel and restaurant services (Welsh 52).

Buddhist monks have long been accused to doing communal work for the good of the monastery and for working without pay, except for being able to live in the monastery (Welsh 52). However this tradition didn't always translate well into mutual aid teams (Welsh 52-56). However monasteries were some of the first to apply for cooperativization (Welsh 52). One of the problems seems to be a subtle idealogical one, mutual aid teams goal was to improve the material world and create a paradise on Earth while traditionally Buddhist monastic life was to escape from samsara and help others do so as well (Welsh 54). Welsh cites one example of monks who pretended to be deaf and dumb in order to avoid doing worldly activities (60).

Making monks and nuns become self suffient was seen by the monks to be less than ideal because they felt that they were already doing what was best for society be praying for people and bringing themselves to higher spiritual levels (Welsh 59).

Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

Aishah as a Symbol for Women in Islam

Aishah has been interpreted as a symbol for women by several Muslim thinkers. Generally the Sunnis have had a more favorable opinion about Aishah than the Shiite Muslims. Among the Sunnis stories about Aishah have mostly been stories that praise Aishah's virtues and show Aishah as an ideal woman that other women should emulate, or they are used to show as an example of why women should not be in politics. Aishah has served has served as a unifying factor in some Muslim communities and as an object of strife in others. More Hadiths are attributed to Aishah than body else and she is a central figure in one of the most unique and detailed Hadiths.

Aishah is unique in Islamic literature in many ways. Firstly, we known an usual amount about her because of the Hadith al-ifk. Secondly Aishah is said to be Muhammad's favorite wife. Lastly, Aishah highly involved with the running of the early Umma after Muhammad passed away and she was also highly involved in the disputes over the Caliph lineage of Uthman and the subsequent political incidents with Ali and his followers. Because of her position of favor and power she is one of the most controversial figures in Islamic history.

Maulana Ashraf 'Ali Thanawi mentions Aisha several times in his writings on Perfecting Women but because a lot of his writings deal with trying to teach Indian Muslims to follow Islamic customs about marrying and remarrying widows and divorcées, he often mentions Aishah as the exception of Muhammad's wifes because she was the only one of Muhammad's wives that had not been previously married. Whenever he mentions her or any of Muhammad's wives he always does so favorably.

Thanawi cites two Hadiths involving Aishah back to back. In the first one he praises Aishah for giving praise to her co-wife Sauda and in the second one he says that there once was a woman that was so great that scholars consulted her on problems of religion. In both incidences he goes on to say that women in Thanawi's day do not reach the ideal that Aisha represents. The ladder example is interesting because Thanawi is using Aisha as an example of the fact that women can become very educated, to the point that people will seek them out to ask for religious advice. This contrasted with what else Thanawi had to say about women, one may conclude that Thanawi believes that there is a fundamental difference between modern women and women from the age of Muhammad. With this in mind one must consider if Aishah is suppose to represent an attainable goal or if she represents an unattainable ideal.

Some modern Muslim feminist, such as Nawal Saadawi, have used the story of Aishah as an example of a strong, self thinking, woman who was able to be an excellent Muslim yet not be unreasonably subjugated to the whims of men. Not every Muslim thinker has been as kind to Aishah as Thanawi and Saadawi. Some will use the story of Aishah as an example of why women should not be involved with politics.

Some Muslim thinkers would not draw the same conclusion about the Hadith where people sought out Aishah for religious advice. They would use this story as an example of what can go wrong when a woman is involved with politics. This view may be most dominate in Shiite circles where the discourse that took place between Aishah and Ali are considered to be most unfortunate and Aishah is considered to be the wrong mistaken one in the conflict.

Some Muslim thinks may argue that there exist some foreshadowing of the Uthman controversy in the Hadith al-ifk. In one of the versions it is Ali who tells the prophet Muhammad that women are plentiful and he could easily change one for another. One may wonder if Ali's remarks here have anything to do with what will happen between Aishah and Ali later. One may also wonder if Ali's remarks in this Hadiths are indicative of a Shiite perspective of women, or if they represent how Sunnis perceive Shiites view of women.

Aishah has come to represent a difference between Sunni and Shiite Islam. Because of this Sunnis may go out of their way to exemplify the actions of Aishah and are adament in their claim that Aishah was Muhammad's favorite wife. There is even a story about Gabrial bringing an image of Aishah before Muhammad and telling Muhammad to marry her. In this story not only is Aishah Muhammad's favorite wife, they are also divinely matched. Shiite however may go out of their way to denounce and vilify her, use her as examples of why women should not get involved in politics, and associate her with fitna.

The idea that Aishah's story serves as an example of why women should not be involved with politics may owe something to the idea of fitna. Fitna is the idea that women have some primordial association with chaos; fitna also means civil war. Considering Aishah's role in the Uthman controversy linking Aishah to fitna may be a logical jump for some Shiite Muslims. Associating Aishah, and women in general, with fitna may have been a big issue for some early Muslim converts that had a preexisting belief in the inherent impure and chaotic nature of women. The idea of the inherent impurity of women hasn't remained a popular in Islam but there definitely seems some remnant of the belief that women are chaotic and random. It is not uncommon to find female characters in Islamic named Fitna that represent some sort of chaos or misfortune.

Less controversial lessons have also been inferred about the Hadiths involving Aishah. Since Aishah presumably did not have water with her when she excused herself from her howdah to use the restroom, so one could use this story as an example of how one can use clean earth for ablution. Or one could contemplate how Um Mistah cursed her own son and Aishah scolded her for that. Cultural things can be inferred from the Hadith about the world that Aishah lived in such as her people's tendency to use the bathroom outside.

It is difficult but one can try to detangle Aishah from the Hadith, to try to figure out who Aishah really was and what her world view was like. A young girl married to a revolutionary figure, who's very existence has shaped much of the modern world's view on women and Islam. Aishah is one of the most beloved women in the Sunni Islamic tradition. Her stories have been used as proofs for many, sometimes contradictory, ideas. To be able to control Aishah and remake her in your own ideals, is to be able to define the role of women in Islam. That is why so many people have tried to tame her story, to bend it into agreement with their ideology. And when studying Aishah it is important to realize that we are studying her through multiple lens of history, culture, and perception.

The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

The Tibetan Sacred Outlook

Religion has swayed the whole life of many Tibetans. Religion is an unextractable component of their culture and almost every aspect of life has a religious significance to Tibetans. Opinions on the soul, the interconnectedness of everything, the importance of art, the social role of spiritual teachers, all play a role in how Tibetans view their world.

A popular religious tradition in Tibet is nature reverence. Tibetans believe that the world is heavily populated with spirits and demons; these spirits and demons must be acknowledged and appeased in order to have a prosperous and strife free life. Offerings such as burn juniper and alcoholic beverages are often put out for spirits. Mountains and lakes are considered to be very powerful spirits or deities that are often protector deities. When crossing a mountain pass it is tradition to carry a stone from the base of the mountain to the other side of the mountain and put it in a pile. This is to show your thanks to whatever spirit allowed you to safely pass through the mountain.

Mount Kailash is an important mountain to Tibetans and it is also the mountain that some believe that Sherab Mibo ascended to from heaven. The idea that sacred people descend from heaven onto mountains is a popular Tibetan motif; seven Tibetan kings are said to have descended from heaven onto various mountains (Tucci 218-219). There is also a popular creation story in Tibet about a white yak that creates the world by perpetually dividing a sacred mountain.

The idea that the world is full of spirits plays a big part in how Tibetans look at the world. In popular Tibetan tradition one has a soul, or bla, and shares it with multiple other beings (Tucci 191). When you are sleeping or in a trance your bla leaves your body and travels around (Tucci 191). There are four safe places for your soul to go when it is traveling: a specific lake, a specific yak, a specific tree, or a specific bird. The bla of those specific entities can also inhabit the human they are associated with. The bla can become lost while it is wondering, especially if it is scared by a demon (Tucci 191-192). When that happens it is necessary to visit a shaman and have him or her go out and find your bla and take it back either by force or by ransom.

Besides indigenous Tibetan beliefs, Tibet has also had its sacred outlook influenced by Buddhism. In Tibet Vajrayana Buddhism is the dominate form of religion. Several aspects of Vajrayana Buddhism have shaped the way Tibetans view the world from a sacred perspective. Almost all Tibetan Buddhist practices associated with mainstream Vajrayana doctrine will involve trying to overcome dualities.

Tibetan Buddhism teaches that everything is interconnected; this is called patichasamupada. Everything is considered interconnected because nothing has independent origin and no being has a continuous self through time. Nothing has independent origin because everything is the result of something that has happened, nothing comes out of a vacuum. No being is believed to have a self or atman because it is believed that everything can be broken down into separate independent, yet related, components that are constantly subject to change and decay. Because of that it is said that to draw any distinction between one thing and another is a false distinction because everything has one taste or one essence. So if one was to say that he or she was Albert Einstein, he or she would be deceiving themselves into believing that Albert Einstein is continuous through time and that Albert Einstein is somehow separate and distinct from somebody else. Because it is believed that one has no self and everything has dependent origins, Tibetan Buddhist assert that dualities are inherently false and must be over come. This is in contrast to Bon tradition which is very heavily dualistic.

In Bon it is believed that there is a good white force and an evil black force. Every being is either associated with white force or black force (Tucci 214). The spirits mentioned previously are considered to either be good spirits associated with the white force or bad spirits associated with the black force. However in Tibetan Buddhism, at least in the Tantric Monastic setting, such dualism is considered false and must be over come.

The desire to overcome dualism has greatly influenced the Tibetan Buddhist out look on the world and has shaped many of their practices. Many ceremonies involve deliberately manipulating symbols that represent opposite forces and one must try to experience how these dualisms are in fact not a dualism.

The chief way to experience the non-duality of existence is through deity yoga. Deity yoga is the primary form of Tibetan meditation. In deity yoga one must first visualize a deity in front of them. This can be a very hard processes and requires a lot of practice and skill. Because of the importance of deity yoga it is very important that one knows what a deity looks. This has highly influenced Tibetan art and almost all Tibetan art has some sort of religious significance. Sometimes one must be empowered to learn all of the multiple meanings of a Tantric image.

The second step of deity yoga is to become one with the deity. This is another example of trying to breakdown duality. In Tantric Buddhist practice there is no difference between one and the deity. One must only realize this. When one does realize that one is not different from the deity, then one develops deity pride. Deity pride is recognizing that you are the deity and the deity is you. Nothing has changed except the realization and experience of the practitioner.

Because we are talking about deity yoga in a Buddhist setting there must naturally be a last step to deity yoga. That is the step of dissolving the self into nothingness. This is the last step of deity yoga, if one can fully experience this step it is said that he or she has reached enlightenment. However once one does reach this state of enlightenment one does not leave samsara. Because Vajrayana is closely related to Mahayana schools it retains the bodhisattva vow.

The bodhisattva vow is simply a vow one takes to not reach full enlightenment, in the sense that one is freed from samsara, until every sentient being has reached enlightenment. This has greatly influenced the way Tibetans have views their world Because enlightened individuals are not going to leave samsara they are reborn to help other people reach enlightenment. This is where the Tibetan idea of a tulku comes from; a tulku is an enlightened individual who is reborn. The idea of the tulku has had many implications for Tibet.

Because people can be reborn it is possible that a new born baby is a fully enlightened being. One could even be the incarnation of a deity, such as the roles of the Dalia Lama and the Panchen Lama. Because of Tibetans typically sacred outlook on life, their system of government has traditionally been lead by spiritual teachers or spiritual beings. Pre-Buddhist Tibet had a tradition of divine kings, and then they later had a tradition of divine leaders in the tulku lamas.

Because of the importance of lamas in Tibetan society they do practice lama devotion. Because lamas are often considered to be incarnations of spiritually powerful beings, it is natural that Tibetans have incorporated lama devotion into their daily life. Also it is believed that lamas have magical powers such as the ability to read minds. Many important folk heros and saints in Tibet have been lamas such as Milarepa.

As mentioned above art is very important in Tibet because of deity yoga, but also because it helps keep one constantly reminded of religioius themes. Besides art depicting deities, art depicting different realms of rebirth and art depicting the truths of impermenance are very important in Tibet. Also in keeping with maintaining a sacred attitude many Tibetans will carry a prayer wheel with them and spin it all day long, in essence spinning the prayers into the world.

Not every Tibetan agrees with every other Tibetan on issues of religion, naturally. Some Tibetan practices are not congruent with other Tibetan practies, such as the the aforementioned Bon notion of duality and the Vajrayana notion of over coming duality. They also disagree about animal sacrifice, Bon do it and Buddhist do not. Animal sacrifice is more popular in the outskirts of the country than it is in the cities. Another thing that Bon and Tibetan Buddhism have in common is circumambulation (Tucci 150, 242). However they do differ on which direction; Bon go counter-clockwise and Tibetan Buddhist go clockwise.

Shamanism plays a big part in Tibetan religiousity. It is believed that a shaman is capable of rescuing lost souls, can tell the future, and can heal. The defining characteristic of a Shaman is deliberate soul travel brought on by trace. Shamans also practice exorcisms and are routinely possessed by spirits. Being possessed by spirits is another instance of the differencing opinions between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism. Buddhism in general does not teach of exorcisms, but to a Tibetan exorcisms may very likely be labeled as Buddhism.

Shamanism, deity yoga, lama devotion, art, and philosophy have all contributed to the Tibetan's sacred out look on life. When one believes in the interconnectedness of everything or that one shares their soul with the enviornment around them then it is easy to understand why Tibetans typically have a sacred outlook on life.

Works Cited

Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet. Trans. Geoffrey Samuel. Los Angelas: University of California P, 1980.

The issue of headscarves in France

The issue of headscarves in France

The Muslim population in France, as it is else where, is representative of a whole spectrum of practices and beliefs; however in France the Islamic headscarf became a popular symbol for the problems associated with Muslim immigration, “Islamism” in France, and the role of secularism in French society (Bowen 4,5). The issue of Muslim women wearing headscarves has become a heated issue in France especially after a law banning all religious garb in public schools went into effect in 2004.

Hijab is an Arabic term used to describe proper dress according to Islam. There is variation to what exactly hijab, which is related to modesty for both men and women, exactly means. Different Islamic schools of thought, called madh'habs (not to be confused with larger more general sects such as Sunni or Shiite) have different answer. What's considered hijab in one movement may not be hijab in another movement. Here on out I will use the term hijab specifically to refer to headscarves worn by some Islamic women.

In 1994 it was reported that of the whole Muslim population in France only 700 girls wore hijab to school (Hamel 295). John Bowen, an anthropologist and Islamic scholar argues that through the combined workings of French media, politicians, and popular writers the hijab not only became a symbol for the tensions between Muslims in France and the larger, supposedly secular, French society but it became an externalization for everything that is wrong with French society and was associated with everything from anti-Semitism to the suppression middle class suburban women (Bowen 3).

In French politics there is a trend to justify current actions by putting them in context of larger French history and this is what was done to justify promoting secularism and barring religious apparel in public schools (Bowen 5, 6). Therefore the argument, whether valid or not, is that Muslim immigrants to France should have to adapt to a long standing tradition of secularism and keeping religion out of the public forum and one need not only know how this fits into the larger French history but also one must be well versed in all the major French political and philosophical writings of the last few centuries (Bowen 6).

The tensions between Muslim immigrants wanting to maintain some of their linguistic or ethnic culture verses a French society, that while ferociously denying it, promotes and harbors “la pensée unique ” or the single [French] way of thinking are obvious. What is less obvious is how all these complex issues became epitomized and externalized into the hijab. However irrational or convoluted the reasons for the hijab becoming the focal point of many complex issues, it is not really surprising when one puts it in the larger context of Islam's relationship with the West and how women's role in both societies have a tendency to become not only issues in their own right, but also symbols of the larger struggles of the West and the Middle East.

March 15th, 2004 Jacques Chirac signed a bill from the national legislature that banned the wearing of religious garb that is immediately recognizable from being worn in French public schools (Bowen 7). While this bill bans all religious garb unilaterally there are several issues we need to unpack first before we can appreciate why some Muslims felt like this bill was specifically targeted towards them.

First off we need to understand a key difference between attitudes towards the role of the government in France verses the Anglophone world. One of the key differences between what Bowen categorized as Lockian views of personal liberty verses what Bowen categorized as Rousseauian ideas of personal liberty is that in the Lockian system the government is only responsible for providing for the safety of its citizens. People give up their right to take justice into their own hands in exchange for living in a safe society. I being very simplistic here but in the Rousseauian system the government, besides securing the safety of its citizens, is responsible for providing ways for people to become good citizens.

In France citizenship is based on being integrated into the larger dominate society and adopting their social roles, unlike the United States that bases citizenship on birth or Germany that bases citizenship on ethnicity (Killian 21). In the Rousseauian system you cannot be a good citizens without certain things, so the government is responsible for making sure that all of its citizens have access to those things. One very important social agent in this system is the schools (Bowen 17). Schools, more so than any other institution, are the agents by which people learn what it means to be good citizen, and in the case of France what it means to be a good French citizen.

The school is a system of the state used to make people into good equal citizens. The notion of equal citizenship is an important notion in the Rousseauian system. It is important that in order to facilitate this equality students should not set themselves apart in any kind of subgroups. Habits that do not promote becoming a good citizen are discouraged. Therefor some argue that religious markers are a problem because they divide up the student body into subgroups and promote non-unity. So in order for somebody to grow up to appreciate equality, fraternity, and appreciation of the over-arching dominate culture religious markers should be discouraged.

Notice that this system puts a great deal on precedence, and that the goal is to become a good French citizen. What it means to be a good French citizen is the issue where people tend to find themselves disagreeing. Imagine being an Islamic family that your daughter should wear a headscarf at all times and then imagine that the school system says your daughter cannot wear a headscarf to school because it is contradictory to what they want to teach them about what it means to be a good French citizen. You might be understandably upset.

Although it is a crude system, integrating women can be viewed in two different lights, either as “barriers of assimilation” or as “vehicles of assimilation into the dominate society” (Killian 11). The issue of hijab is an example of women being used as pawns in a larger struggle, a struggle that is less about women or hijab and more about France’s fear of Islamic extremism being harbored in French ghettos, or le citiés, that some French people were scared had become nodes in an international Islamic fundamentalist network (Killian 15).

The French media played no small part in making the public believe that Muslims in France, especially Muslims in bad neighborhoods, were in on a larger Pan-Islamic plot to take over the whole world (Bowen 157, Silverstein 4). French fears of radical Islam were shaken up by the linking of French-born Muslims to the 1995 bombings in Paris and Lyon as well as the arrest of French-Moroccan Zacarias Moussaoui (Silverstein 4).

This is an issue of integration (Bowen 247). Some Muslims think this system is unfair because it favors those who, “drink wine and wear berets” over “those who prefer tea and headscarves” (Bowen 427). The issue of integrating Muslims into the larger French society is also a complex issue we'll return to after one more point about Lockian versus Rousseauian views.

A criticism of the Rousseau point of view that people need to be conditioned and taught how to be equal is that in practice sometimes it seems that the quest for equality infringes on people's personal freedom to do what they want. A related issue of laïcité or the idea of a secular state that's devoid of religious influence or input (Bowen 3,156).

According to Bowen some staunch supports of laïcité will trace its lineage back unbroken to the French revolution, however Bowen argues that the real issue is much more complex (Bowen 23). Those that say that there is a precedent for laïcité are correct however the notion that laïcité is unyielding and absolute can't be right and to prove his point Bowen says that even if you omit France's relationship both culturally and in legislation towards the Catholic church and use only Islamic examples the precedence of laïcité begins to fade (Bowen 27). Bowen points to examples like that French state and local governments giving monetary aid to help build mosques, to provide graveyard space for Muslims, and the creation of the quasi-state Muslim Council (Bowen 27, 35).

And it's hardly fair to say laïcité is a 200 year old institution when, the interplay of church and school has been complex but mostly has leaned towards favoring the Church. It wasn't really until after the Paris Commune in 1871 that there was really an big push to use the schools as an instrument to create "French citizens" and thus make and an attempt was made to decrease the influence the Church has on schools, previous to this time besides have major influences over schools Priest could dismiss school teachers in their diocese that they didn't like (Bowen 27, 30-33).

In 1989 three young ladies were expelled for refusing to take off their headscarves (Silverstein 3, Killin 23). The Highest French court decided that students may wear religious garb as long as it wasn’t “ostentatious” or “political” in nature (Silverstein 3). The court’s decision set the precedent of letting the individual school decide what and was not ostentatious or political and most hijab school issues after this were settled through parent-teacher compromises and when that couldn’t be done be done special Stasi commission, a special commission established in 1998 to specifically handel issues of laïcité members were sent to try to mediate (Silverstein 3).

Why women wear hijab is another issue. Its kind of a no win situation for the women that want to wear hijab because many French people argue that she's only wearing it because she feels pressured into it and even if she really wants to wear it she only really wants to wear it because of how she's been raised. So even arguments by Muslim women defending their choice to wear hijab fall on deaf ears according to Bowen (45).

Besides attacking hijab in lieu in other more serious problems, another tactic the French have used to quell their fears has been to create its own brand of secular-Islam and sell it back to the French community as a whole (Silverstein 4). Many young Muslims and other Muslims that have been acculturated enough to French society enough or it are just naturally ready for such a progression to prefer that kind of Islam.

These developments have made the issue of hijab very complex. I can only imagine what it would be like to be a Muslim in France that on the one hand you have your traditional culture pulling at your loyalties, you have a larger society that’s trying to bring you over to the French way of thinking, and you also have the voices of successfully integrated Muslims to listen to. Growing up in such a world must be having some effect on young Muslims today and I’d imagine that these tensions pulling them in all different directions will be the source of many interesting novels and coming of age books in France in the next few decades.

The separation of church and state, integration, and learning to become a good citizen are all superfluous issues being used as an excuse to attack Muslims, specifically hijab wearing women, as a reactionary retaliation to the tensions surrounding immigration and fears of radical Islam (Bowen 198). Bowen argues that the hijab became a symbol of all the problems with society and that some politicians, news media, and popular writers fueled the fire of over simplifying issues.

According to Bowen one of the really serious issues underlying the hijab issue is the issue of Muslim immigrants and few-generation Muslims in France and the fear of Islamic extremist terrorist (Bowen 155, 182). The issue of immigration of Muslims into France is complex but it is fair to say that many Muslims in France come from or are decedent from families from North Africa, especially Algeria (169). However modern waves of immigration have people coming from all over the Muslim world (Bowen 170).

Paul Silverstein argues that the notion of “religious freedom” has been sacrificed in France in France’s strive for national unity. Silverstein argues that this isn’t a case of separation of Church and state but the case of a new state religion of France that supresses other religions. The notion of laïcité has become some abstract source of morals and people have been eisegesisically using it as a tool to supress the religious freedoms of others, thus making laïcité not only a quasi-state religion but also a suppressive tyrannical one.

For many first, second, and even third generation Muslims in France the whole situation of trying to find a happy medium between being true to their ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious roots while also being good French citizens must be very frustrating.

Works Cited

Bowen, John B. Why the French Don't Like Headscaves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2007.

Hamel, Chouki E. "Muslim Diaspora in Western Europe: the Islamic Headscarf (Hijab), the Media and Muslims' Integration in France." Citizenship Studies 6 (2002): 293-308. Google Scholar. 03 Apr. 2008.

Killian, Caitlin. North African Women in France: Gender, Culture, and Identity. Standford UP, 2006.

Silverstein, Paul. "Headscarfs and the French Tricolor." Middle East Report Online. 30 Jan. 2004 <http://merip.org/mero/mero013004.htm>.

Music in Tibet

Music in Tibet

Music and theatre are included in a subsection of sGra, which is one of the five inclusive sciences, which all things are said to include all types of study.¹ Music has played a central role in the lives of Tibetans and continues to console Tibetans in exile. Tibetan music has many venues: chants, Tibetan opera, special troupes of performers, folk songs, and even newer venues like rock concerts and traveling all-female stage productions.

-Rakra Tethong says that Tibetan music can almost be thought of as a mixture of many different kinds of music.² Tibetan music has had influences from Mongolia, Afghanistan, China, and India.³ And perhaps from places as far away as Syria and Greece, but Tethong argues that the majority of outside influences on Tibetan music came from India, especially when talking about the development of music inside the Buddhist monasteries.⁴ Tethong claims that typically new musical forms arrive first in Western Tibet, then they make their way to central Tibet where they’re learned by nomads that then bring the songs to Eastern Tibet.⁵ There was a special troupe of singers and dancers called the gar pa in Lhasa that received many of their influences from India as well as Mongolia, and they also came up with many of their own styles and customs.⁶

The gar pa represent a unique institution in Tibetan history that lasted for several centuries. The gar pa had many unique traditions and instruments and while some of them have been incorporated into other Tibetan musical venues, others have been lost.⁷ Tethong recalls how the special drums the gar pa used were, while the looked simple, were in fact very complicated and had the ability to be heard miles away and not be disturbing to somebody in the same room.⁸

-Another interesting institution related to Tibetan music is Tibetan Opera. Called lha mo, Tibetan Opera is said to have been founded by the legendary figure of Grub chen Tang stong Rgyal po.⁹ Tang stong Rgyal is honored similarly to other great Tibetan saints and transcripts of his plays were keep on alters to him and offerings to him were made before and after the study of or performance of a play.¹⁰ It is said that Tang stong Rgyal felt that people needed to be exposed to religious ideas but that some people are not susceptible to being preached to, so instead plays and music with religious themes could expose people to religious ideas that they would otherwise not be able or willing to accept.¹¹

After the time of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama lha mo saw increased popularity, which was probably somehow related to the Fifth Dalai Lama having a dream about the lha mo which included new mask for them to wear.¹² Some modern lha mo troupes still use the mask designed by the Fifth Dalai Lama.

An important event in the lha mo calendar is the drama festival or yogurt party at Drepung monistary.¹³ The legend goes that the monks at Drepung were too well behaved, so behaved were they that the local demon-god-mountain-being became upset with them and was causing trouble for them. To appease the being, the monks held a large festival and when the being saw them having a big festival he became appeased that they weren’t too well behaved any more and let them alone.¹⁴

The Buddhist Monastery is where some of the most complex and actualized Tibetan music comes from according to Tethong, and one of the major influences on Tibetan Monastic music was Indian music.¹⁵ However, that’s not to say that Tibetans Buddhist didn’t borrow from other sources or neglected their own indigenous Tibetan traditions. An example of a Bon instrument that crossed over into monastic life in Tibet is the rnga, which is a small kind of drum with a handle on it.¹⁶

While Tibetan Buddhism is among the most lenient of all Buddhist sects towards music, stringed instruments were the least popular in the monastery and were even banned in some, because of all the kinds of instruments they are the hardest to meditate to.¹⁷ However even though they are not played, stringed instruments are offered as offerings to Bodhisattvas in some ceremonies.¹⁸ Each of the four main sects of Tibetan Buddhism, Nymingma, Sakya, Kargyud, and Gelug, each has their own musical tradition. Tethong argues that the Sakya tradition’s music is closest to the Indian tradition in Tibet and that the Gelug tradition is the most conservative of all the movements in regards to music.¹⁹ These distinctions are useful but limited because it is also said that every single monastery has its own musical tradition, and sometimes a monasteries tradition will be contrary to the trend of its sect.²⁰ Not only do monasteries have their own views on music, sometimes different parts of the same monastery will have different musical traditions and views.²¹

After the Chinese took control of Tibet, many lha mo troupe leaders were sent to China to be re-educated in music and to make lha mo performances conform more to their “Chinese origins”.²² In 1959, after a popular uprising, many Tibetans fled the country, following the example of the Dalai Lama. At least two lha mo troupes were set up in exile.²³ One troupe toured the United States in 1975.²⁴

One of the first institutions founded by the Dalai Lama in Dharmsala was the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts (TIPA).²⁵ TIPA’s symbol is the iconic mask of the hunter that introduces all Tibetan Operas and the skeleton dancer mask.²⁶

An important issue to Tibetans in exile is coming to terms with what it means to be Tibetan in the first place. Tibetans in exile live in communities with other Tibetans from all over the region and for the Tibetans in exile this has really widened their sense of who is and who is not a Tibetan.²⁷ Another issue is that of preserving Tibetan culture. What happens when notions of preserving Tibetan culture clash with efforts to stop sectarianism in the Tibetan Diaspora?

One such incident happened in 1981 when a deputy in the Tibetan National Assembly, who also happened to be Kargyupa monks, complained that the TIPA would be performing a play the next day for the Dalai Lama that included an immoral clown-type character that at one point chants Kargyupa prayer.²⁸ The deputy argued that things like this were fueling sectarianism and that he was offended by it and it should be removed.²⁹

No official stance was made one way or the other but what happened was immensely interesting. The lha mo went on, as schedule but the Dalai Lama did not attend; the reason for his absence isn’t made clear nor is it ever claimed to be as a result of the controversy.³⁰ When it came time for the character to repeat the Kargyupa prayer he instead stopped and discussed with a God how he did not want to perform that part of the performance because of the controversy and he would instead perform a song from a popular Hindi musical.³¹ Another alteration that was made to the performance is that when the characaters were suppose to make a bread offering to a demon in an exorcism ritual instead of the using dough and bread they used an effigy of a skeleton dance, which is a symbol of the TIPA, and threw it at duputy-members of the Tibetan National Assembly.³² The implication of this action was to imply that the Tibetan National Assemblies were like demons attacking the TIPA.³³ These actions caused the deputies to leave in protest; Marcia Calkowski argues that the argument against the TIPA wasn’t genuinely an argument against sectarianism but a blatant sectarian act in and of itself by the Kargyupa monk for the Kargyupa.³⁴ The act of relating criticisms of an lha mo with an exorcism also have further symbolic meaning in regards to Tang stong Rgyal because legends tell of how the first lha ma was performed to appease a demon that was tormenting a town.³⁵

Another instance where tradition and sectarianism have clashed with each other as well as with modern Western ideas is in regards to how women should be treated and what roles they can perform. The nuns of the Khache Ghankyil Ling nunnery, a nunnery for Tibets in exile in Nepal, study Buddhism on par with their male counterparts and have also study traditional Tibetan songs, dances, and other performance arts.³⁶ Many of the performance arts the nuns learn are learned only for the purpose of raising money in performances in the west.³⁷

-Tibetans, like everybody else, have not been immune to modern or Western influences. While researching the modern state of Music in Tibet ethnomusicographologist Keila Diehl recalls in her book “Echoes from Dharmsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community” how she found many modern musical elements in young Tibetans’ music. She asks the question of whether this is a sign of Tibetans that are proud of their own heritage trying reach out and form complex relationships with other cultures and traditions or is this a sign that young Tibetans, many of which have never been to Tibet or outside of India, are losing their own sense of cultural identity and are just plugging into what’s most easily accessible to them.³⁸ She tells how one contemporary Tibetan band around the area of Dharmsala that call themselves the “Yak Band” plays rock and roll, blues, and incorporates an amplified version of a dranyen (a six-stringed Tibetan lute) into their songs as well as their attempts to turn traditional Tibetan chants and folk songs into dance songs.³⁹

Rock concerts can be understood in terms of Victor Turner’s communitas and Deihl says that is also true when looking at modern Tibetan music in the Tibetan Diaspora.⁴⁰ However communitas does not fully explain the tensions that exist between Tibetans that are resistant to these new forms of music, even when you try to argue that there is a subculture of young Tibetans that are looking outside their own traditional for inspiration.⁴¹ For those Tibetans that are resistant to new musical forms Diehl argues that it might not be the music itself they have a problem with but the tension they feel with trying to maintain their own cultural identity while being exiles.⁴² Despite the hardships that go along with being a people in exile, Diehl explains that in her experience that even though it is difficult many Tibetans hold onto what it means to be Tibetan, even those that are reaching out and looking for something else or new, such as rock and roll, still have a sense of being Tibetan.⁴³ Diehl argues that even though Tibetan refugees can be described in terms of hybridity and pastiche, that many refugees regard these things as sources of failure and an unfortunate consequences of the life of a refugee.⁴⁴

A lot of cultural transmittion takes place in the home, as it does in most cultures around the world. However because of their status as exiles, there is a great importance placed on how the culture is presented and preserved in the public sphere.⁴⁵ It is because of this that public performances of become ever so important to the Tibetan diaspora as the gap between living memory and Tibetan identity widens, Tibetans cling to what makes them Tibetan and try to avoid displacement and assimilation.⁴⁶ However Marcia points out that there is more more emphasis on preserving Tibetan culture in the face of Chinese culture and an over-arching globalzied world culture, but few Tibetans seem bothered or notice the influences of Hindi culture on their own.⁴⁷

1 Jeanette Snyder, “Preliminary Study of Lha Mo”, Asian Music, 10, no 2 Tibetan Issue (1979): 35-38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org

2 Rakra Tethong, “Conversations on Tibetan Musical Traditions,” Asian Music, 10, no. 2 Tibetan Issue (1979): 5. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.

3 Tethong, 5.

4 Tethong, 5-8.

5 Tethong, 7.

6 Tethong, 6-7.

7 Tethong, 6.

8 Tethong, 7.

9 Snyder, 24.

10 Snyder, 24.

11 Snyder, 26.

12 Snyder, 28.

13 Snyder, 29.

14 Snyder, 29-30.

15 Tethong, 9.

16 Tethong, 9.

17 Tethong, 10.

18 Tethong, 10.

19 Tethong, 11-13.

20 Tethong, 10, 12.

21 Tethong, 11-12. Tethong describes how different grwa tshang or “colleges” in his own monastery of Drepung, forbid certain monks from learning instruments because their section of the monastery focused on logical, philosophy, or metaphysics, but required other monks in different colleges to learn to play instruments because their focus was on Tantric rituals.

22 Snyder, 29.

23 Snyder, 29.

24 Snyder, 29.

25 Marcia Calkowski, “A Day at the Tibetan Opera: Actualized Performances and Spectaular Discourse,” American Ethnologist 18, no. 4 (1991): 645. JSTOR, www.jstor.org.

26 Calkowski, 645.

27 Calkowski, 645.

28 Calkowski, 648.

29 Calkowski, 648-49.

30 Calkowski, 648-50.

31 Calkowski, 650.

32 Calkowski, 650.

33 Calkowski, 651.

34 Calkowski, 651-52.

35 Calkowski, 653. Snyder, 29.

36 Claudia Orenstein, “A Taste of Tibet: The Nuns of the Khache Ghankyil Ling Nunnery and the Theatre du Soleil,” Asian Theatre Journal 19, no. 1 (2002): 213-15. Google Scholar, www.scholar.google.com.

37 Orenstein, 214. That’s not to suggest that the nuns are greedy or not living up to their goals by taking money.

38 Kelia Diehl, Echoes of Dharamsala: Music in the Life of a Tibetan Refugee Community (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002), xx.

39 Diehl, xx-xxiii.

40 Diehl, 2.

41 Diehl, 2-7.

42 Diehl, 3.

43 Diehl, 4.

44 Diehl, 5.

45 Diehl, 66.

46 Diehl, 66.

47 Calkowski, 654. Calkowski points to how nobody seemed to have any problem or qualms about a popular Hindi movie song being used in what is considered the quintessential lha mo.