Korea’s in War – Will it be a War between US & China? Another 2.5 million deaths?

Most of us now know that North Korea bombed South Korea yesterday(23^rd) and it eventually killed 2 South Korean civilians as well as 2 South Korean Marines.

The last time the two Korea’s clashed was in 1953 and it left 2.5 million civilians dead.

Can you imagine what we are looking at?

You may wonder how this has relevance to Sri Lanka, but if the situation aggravates in to a large scale war, we too could be affected.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon called it one of the "gravest incidents" since the Korean War.

The US president has pledged to stand shoulder to shoulder with South Korea.

The attack was condemned by US, Japan, Russia and the European Union.

North Korea continuously continued with its Nuclear programme not listening to what the world has to say, and with the US supporting South Korea this was on the cards.

At the moment I table this article the USS George Washington – One of the Largest Aircraft Carriers of the US Navy is heading towards the Korean Peninsula, and they are probably preparing for an attack.

With this situation aggravating, it is expected that China may support North Korea as it is not in good terms with the US and also with Japan.

Therefore we are looking at US, Japan and South Korea AGAINST North Korea(with nuclear weapons possibly) and China.

Sri Lanka which is a close ally of China mathematically therefore stands against US and South Korea, and alongside China and North Korea.

Destruction of Bamyan statues: and Then Karma Hits Afghanistan

The Afghans destroyed two giant Buddha statues in 2001 amidst humble calls requests and pleas, from Buddhists and many others all over the world.

But it didn’t even take a year for them to start suffering, as the US started launching attacks on terrorists in Afghanistan. I call it Karma! Read this for a better view.

The Buddhas of Bamiyan were two 6th century monumental statues of standing buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley in central Afghanistan. They were built in 507 and in 554.

In March 2001, six months before the September 11th bombing of the World Trade Center in New York, the Taliban destroyed two ancient statues of Lord Buddha.Although Afghanistan was a Buddhist country long time ago, the number of Buddhists diminished and the Muslims gained control.

In 1999 Mullah Mohammad Omar issued a decree which removed the possibility of the statues being worshiped. No matter what religion you belong to, you should be human enough to respect the thoughts and wishes of humans who have faith in another religion.

But they had no hearts!

The statues were destroyed by dynamite over several weeks, starting on March 2nd 2001, carried out in different stages. Initially, the statues were fired at for several days using anti-aircraft guns and artillery. This caused severe damage, but did not obliterate them. Later, the Taliban placed anti-tank mines at the bottom of the niches, so that when fragments of rock broke off from artillery fire, the statues would receive additional destruction from particles that set off the mines. In the end, the Taliban lowered men down the cliff face and placed explosives into holes in the Buddhas.

****************************Karma starts to hit Afghanistan****************************

After 7 months passed by, the US invaded Afghanistan to clear out Taliban elements. (I would speak on the acts of the US in another Article)

Most interestingly in September 2005, Mawlawi Mohammed Islam Mohammadi, Taliban governor of Bamiyan province at the time of the destruction and widely seen as responsible for its occurrence, was elected to the Afghan Parliament. On 26 January 2007, he was assassinated in Kabul.

The Project on Defense Alternatives estimated that in a 3-month period between October 7, 2001 and January 1, 2002, at least 1,000-1,300 civilians were directly killed by the U.S.-led aerial bombing campaign, and that by mid-January 2002, at least 3,200 more Afghans had died of "starvation, exposure, associated illnesses, or injury sustained while in flight from war zones", as a result of the U.S. war and airstrikes.

The civilian death toll in Afghanistan since 2001 stands somewhere around 25,000 today.
Japan offered to take Afghanistan's Bamiyan Buddha statues to prevent the Taliban from destroying them, but the hardline regime instead suggested the Japanese convert to Islam.

So after all this I believe what Afghanistan had to face was a result of the ill deeds they committed by destroying the Bamyan statues, when we all begged them to stop, and even me too when I was just 12 years old.

Buddha’s views on universe proved once again through latest Scientific Revelation

“It is hard to find an end to this Universe” said Lord Buddha, yet the Scientists keep going deeper and deeper to find out the roots of the Universe, but they understand that Buddha’s saying was true.
It is interesting that the Buddha’s explanation of the origin of the universe corresponds very closely to the scientific view.

In the Aganna Sutta, the Buddha described the universe being destroyed and then re-evolving into its present form over a period of countless millions of years.

The first life formed on the surface of the water and again, over countless millions of years, evolved from simple into complex organisms. All these processes are without beginning or end, and are set in motion by natural causes.

Here is the Latest article relating to the Universe by scientists dated 21st Oct 2011.
Astronomers find oldest galaxy so far
-Source AP-

Astronomers believe they've found the oldest thing they've ever seen in the universe so far: It's a galaxy far, far away from a time long, long ago. Hidden in a Hubble Space Telescope photo released earlier this year is a small smudge of light that European astronomers now calculate is a galaxy from 13.1 billion years ago.

"We're looking at the universe when it was a 20th of its current age," said California Institute of Technology astronomy professor Richard Ellis, who wasn't part of the discovery team. "In human terms, we're looking at a 4-year-old boy in the life span of an adult."

Scientists make use of the Big Bang Theory of Lord Buddha – “Maha Pipirumwadaya”

Earlier this year, astronomers had made a general estimate of 600 to 800 million years after the Big Bang for the most distant fuzzy points of light in the Hubble photograph, which was presented at an astronomy meeting back in January.

In the new study, researchers focused on a single galaxy in their analysis of hydrogen's light signature, further pinpointing the age. Garth Illingworth of the University of California, Santa Cruz, who was the scientist behind the Hubble image, said it provides confirmation for the age using a different method, something he called amazing "for such faint objects."

"We're looking almost to the edge, almost within 100 million years of seeing the very first objects," Ellis said. "One hundred million years to a human seems an awful long time, but in astronomical time periods, that's nothing compared to the life of the stars."

Albert Einstein on Buddhism

The religion of the future will be a cosmic religion. It should transcend personal God and avoid dogma and theology. Covering both the natural and the spiritual, it should be based on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things natural and spiritual as a meaningful unity. Buddhism answers this description. If there is any religion that could cope with modern scientific needs it would be Buddhism.
(Albert Einstein)

I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our
science can reveal it.
(Albert Einstein, 1954) From Albert Einstein:
The Human Side, edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffman,
Princeton University Press

Scientific research is based on the idea that everything that takes place is determined by laws of nature, and therefore this holds for the action of people. For this reason, a research scientist will hardly be inclined to believe that events could be influenced by a prayer, i.e. by a
wish addressed to a Supernatural Being.
(Albert Einstein, 1936)
Source: Albert Einstein: The Human Side, Edited by Helen Dukas and Banesh
Hoffmann

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy,
education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary.
Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear
of punishment and hope of reward after death.
(Albert Einstein)
"Religion and Science", New York Times Magazine, 9 November 1930

Karma : You can run but you can’t Hide

“Countless rebirths lie ahead, both good and bad. The effects of karma (actions) are inevitable, and in previous lifetimes we have accumulated negative karma which will inevitably have its fruition in this or future lives. Just as someone witnessed by police in a criminal act will eventually be caught and punished, so we too must face the consequences of faulty actions we have committed in the past, there is no way to be at ease; we must eventually undergo their effects."
-His Holiness the Dalai Lama-

The Sanskrit word Karma literally means action. In Buddhism however, karma mainly refers to one's intention or motivation while doing an action.

The shortest possible explanation of karma is that what goes around comes around someday, somewhere, so whatever you so do intentionally to others, will definitely come back to you, not necessarily in this birth but in some future birth.

Even science has proven this primary teaching of Buddhism.

Isaac Newtons 3rd Law – “Every action has a Reaction”, this point was the basic teaching in Buddhism as karma which scientists took thousands of years to understand.

The 're-actions' or results of our actions show up with a time delay, and it becomes extremely hard to tell which action caused which result.

I even got to know through the website “viewonbuddhism.org” that the bible has also extracted teachings from Buddhism.

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A person reaps what he sows.
(Gal. 6:7)
All things whatsoever you would that men should do to you,
do even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
(Matthew 7:12)

Remember, your future is within your own hands. Since action is a phenomenon that is committed by a person, it is within your own hands whether or not you engage in action.

When we meet with big problems; disease, loss of family or friends, getting trapped in a war or natural disaster. At those times, we suddenly wonder: "Why me?" The law of karma does not look for a reason outside ourselves for our good or bad fortune, it simply explains our own suffering as a result of our negative deeds that we have done towards others, and also our happiness as a result of our actions to help others.

As the Buddha taught:
"Do not think a small sin will not return in your future lives.
Just as falling drops of water will fill a large container,
The little sins that steadfast accumulate will completely overwhelm you”

Life After Death

All About Buddhism: Life After Death

Courtesy – Thripitaka.blogspot.com

We buddhists believe a living being ( layman ) is connected to a chain of lives. When we pass away from one life, we just stick to another life.

There may or may not be a transition period which is bit controversial, but for a person who hasn't attain nirvana ( "Nibbana" -The ultimate goal in buddhism ) will have new life after the current one.

In the new life , we can be a human, an animal or maybe a single celled being like amiba. The activities we perform in our current life and in past lives plays the major role in success of the new life after death. According to buddhism, it is not god's wish to make someone poor and some other person wish, it is our past life actions which determine the future life. Therefore Buddhists are not dependent upon a "highly powered, uncontrollable source".

Are we going our journey with a single "atman" like in Hindu? Of course not. The next life is like a mirror image of yours. If the mirror image is you , then there should be a duplicate of you in the world which is not true, but you can't argue that the mirror image doesn't represent you. Think about it. In the next life, you are not the same person as you are now, again you are not a different person into some extent. Simply, if we do good things, we gather good karma and you have the highest possibility to have a better life after death. So, why should we think of breaking the chain?. Lets take an example. Suppose you are the richest person in the world. Do you think that you would be free from all the problems in the world. No. You might have the risk of loosing your property. You maybe afraid that someone would break your record. That is life, we don't satisfy ourselves. We make our own goals and try to achieve and suffer. We need to get rid of continuous suffering.

The Truth - For those who wish to Find Out

Mystery about Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero’s death
-Courtesy Asian Tribune



By Ven. Maharagama Dhammasiri Thero - Washington Viharadipathi Director/ Dharmayatanaya, Maharagama

The demise of the late Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero occurred in December 2003, in Russia in a mysterious manner. It is still a mystery to the people of Sri Lanka, especially to those who associated him very closely.



The purpose of writing this is to let our readers know that we may forgive but will never forget this crime against the Buddha Sasana.

7 years have passed since this tragedy, and we continue to see those evil forces responsible for this tragedy, active again.

The special Presidential Commission appointed to inquire and investigate into this tragedy concluded in their report the following main points;
• that, Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero was duped into visiting Russia at the invitation of one Reverend S.P.J., Professor of a bogus International University of Fundamental Studies to award a Doctorate offered by Christian Fundamentalists to subsequently damage Soma Thero’s reputation and to ridicule him,

• that, Ven. Soma Thero on his way to Moscow on October 11th 2003 suffered a heart attack, and the Rev. S.P.J. who met Soma Thero at Moscow Airport took him on a further 5 hour flight to St. Petersburg, another 700 miles away without any medical attention despite Soma Thero complaining of severe chest pain, and pleading for help. The Commission also concluded that the perpetrators plotted over and above the above mentioned coup to craftily and systematically avoid administering proper medical care and treatment, to let Ven. Soma Thero face death; describing it as “Criminal Negligence” on the part of the perpetrators.

The purpose of Ven. Gangodawila Soma Thero’s visit to Russia was to receive a Doctorate and Professorship from the International University of Fundamental Studies (The commission investigated and concluded there was no such recognized, legal University) in Saint Petersburg, Russia on the invitation of the Founder and rector Rev. S.P.J. We understand that Soma Thero had also been promised assistance for a health project amounting to millions of Rupees to be arranged from the USA to build a hospital in Sri Lanka.

It is quite evident that Ven. Soma Thero, a dedicated fighter against “immoral and illegal conversions of Buddhists”, a fearless critic against alcohol consumption and smoking etc. had been carefully tricked with an invitation to Russia by these two brothers (Rev. S.P.J. & S.J. having carefully concealed their background), to confer a Doctorate in Russia on a book written in Sinhala, on the initiative of Reverend’s own International University of Fundamental Studies, which they had indicated to be affiliated to the Oxford University in UK.

However after several months since his demise we received a photo copy of a “Last Will” said to have been written by Soma Thero. It had been proved to be a faked Last Will.

The other funny thing about this Last Will, before Soma Thero’s signature, “Poojaya” is denoted. No Buddhist Monk uses Poojay before signing his name. Soma Thero too never used “Poojya” when he signed a document. The normal practice is to just sign one’s name. A stupid lapse on the part of the culprits.

21st Birthday - Setting an Example

Some believe that the 21st birthday is all about throwing a Big Party.

But I think otherwise, because I believe that it is a day that You Should Give a Positive Kickstart to your life..

And so on, I'm trying to set an EXAMPLE..

From the Mullaitivu Battlefront, to the Company of Bollywood Superstars..

Entering Brand new frontiers, to set the tone for others..

IIFA 2010

IIFA 2010

A Great Experience for Sri Lanka and also for me..