Evictions of Guardians from Pagodas

      Hanoi

      The Case of Nun Thich Nu Nam Binh

 Persecution against highest religious personalities and the laity of various non-sanctioned religions and religious groups is common practice. The nuns the State-sponsored Buddhist Church of Vietnam are not an exception, however.  That was the case of Thich Nu Dam Binh, the superior nun at Vy Trach Pagoda, Ung Hoa District, Ha Tay Province in (North Vietnam). Although a member of a sanctioned Church, Thich Nu Nam Binh, who had been the guardian at the pagoda from 1983 to 1993, was forced to leave Vy Trach Pagoda for unclear reasons. At first, the District Fatherland Front announced its decision to take back the pagoda. Later, it sought to dispossess it. The authorities sent hooligans to the pagoda to harass the nun, intending to dispossess the worship place by force. The nun sent a petition to the State Institute of Justice which ordered the People’s Council of Phuong Tu to mediate the situation so that the nun could continue to serve faith at the pagoda. The council nevertheless resisted the order. The nun then sent petitions to the Prime Minister, the State Bureau of Religious Affairs, and the leadership of the Buddhist Church of Vietnam but came to no answer. Still, the District Section of Religious Affairs did not comply with the order of the State Institute of Justice, saying that the people in the area wanted to evict her from the pagoda.

   The Case of Nun Thich Nu Dam Nghiem

The illegal dispossession of land without compensation of the Church of the authorities for various purposes often results in deploranle instances of injustice. Thich Nu Nun Dam Nghiem o Dau Pagoda, Cau Giay Precinct, Hanoi, deplored that the partial dispossession of the pagoda where she served as guardian had been vilely manipulated for road construction by the Section of Management of Investment of Cau Giay Precinct. The procedures were inconsistent with the decisions agreed on by various central State agencies. Worse still, no agency was made responsible for the management of the physical property of the pagoda. The nun became the target of harassment from all sides. Even though she ever tried to manage to keep up the pagoda, but was still under threat from eviction from her pagoda.   

     Haiphong

   

     The Case of the Venerable Man Thien  

In March 2007, The Venerable Man Thien, a member of the State-affiliated Buddhist Church of Vietnam, was expelled from An Lac Pagoda, Vinh Bao District, Haiphong, North Vietnam, where he was the guardian. Built in the 16^th century, An Lac Pagoda became dilapidated and needed to be repaired. The monk made every effort to make the worship in shaape. Upon completion of the work, he met with difficuly for unclear reasons.. A monk from South Vietnam, he was transferred to serve faith in the North on approvals from the Haiphong administration and the State Office of Religious Affairs. The monk complained that this expulsion from the pagoda resulted from discrimination, possibly because of his link to the outlawed Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church.  Many Buddhists came to the security police office of Vinh Bao District and the Haiphong People’s Council to reflect the opinion of the masses on the decision to evict the monk from his worship place, Their demands came to no answer, however.      

      Da Nang

     Harassment

Prior to and during the Buddhist holiday of July 15 of Lunar Calendar (August 15, 2011), Giac Minh Pagoda in Da Nang was targeted with harassment by the local security police and people’s street cell. A large group of security police laid a siege around the pagoda, blocking the followers from entering it to pay tribute to Buddha. Police checkpoints were posited at the two ends of the street in front of the pagoda. The followers were warned with threats, They even maintained that the activities prcoceeded at Giac Minh Pagoda were illegal and thus unlawful.  The main reason was the Pagoda  opposed the State-affiliated Buddhist Family in the city. Any assembly at the pagoda was illegal. Therefore,  the followers were anxious and fearful. The most daring followers could daringly place their offerings to Buddha in front of the pagoda’s gate then ran away.

     Lam Dong

     Repression at Bat Nha Monastery

Bat Nha Monastery in Lam Dong Province, Central Highlands, was founded by the Venerable Thich Duc Nghi  in 1995  In 2007, based on the agreement between Monk Duc Nghi and Zen Master Nhat Hanh and the monks from Mai Village in Paris, France, the monastery became a center for Buddhist studies and retreats and religious practices. The monastery sheltered approximately 400 monks, nuns, and student monks. Controversy nevertheless complicated the situation. By June 2009, electricity and water in the monastery were all of a sudden cut after the Venerable Duc Nghi  stopped to sponsor the monks from Mai Village and student monks to reside at the monastery to pursue their studies and perform religious practices. Unidentified outsiders came to the monastery and interfered in the religious practices of the monks, nuns, and students who had been granted residency. They took away food and utensils.  In September, a clash occurred when a crowd of hooligans and plainclothes security police agents stormed the worship place and destroyed the furniture. They beat the student-monks and chased them away. The security police arrested two monks, the Venerable Phap Si and the Venerable Phap Hoi who were then abducted to unknown whereabouts. On Sptember 27, more than 200 student-monks, half of whom are female, had to flee from the monastery and took refuge in Phuoc Hue Monastery which is located in a nearby commune. About 50 of them returned to the monastery after that, hoping to get permission to stay inside the monastery, Thirty of them got inside the monastery gate, but were surrounded by the police.

Authorities blamed the Buddhist congregation from Mai Village for having ignored the rules and regulations as requested by Monk Duc Nghi' s abbey. The stand off, according to sources, resulted from an internal contradiction. The abbot was a member of the Buddhist Church of Vietnam, who himself voluntarily had asked Zen Master Mhat Hanh' s followers to come to the monastery to practice faith, but later changed his mind. Monk Thich Thnh Tan, who is also a dignitary of Buddhist Church of Vietnam in Lam Dong, maintained that there was something unusual and that Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh’s followers had done nothing wrong.

     

 On October 8, the spokeswoman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Vietnam Nguyen Phuong Nga affirmed in a press conference that there was no such thing as repression of 400 Buddhist students of the Mai Village and a clash between the police and the monks and nuns at Bat Nha Monastery. The State official also stressed that the studies courses organized by the Buddhist sect of  Mai Village at Bat Nha were performed without authorization from the official Buddhist Church of Vietnam. The participants had not registered for temporary residence status as required by the law, and were thus in violation of the rules and regulations of Vietnam and the constitution of the official Buddhist Church as well.

During December 9, 10, and 11, the Venerable Thich Thai Thuan, the guardian monk of Phuoc Hue Monastery, had to sign under pressure a report in which he affirmed he himself had not allowed student monks to stay at his monastery, and they had to leave the worship place by the end of the month. On December 29, almost all student monks, one by one, left Phuoc Hue Monastery ahead of the deadline. Some sought to come back home; others took refuge in a pagoda of their acquaintances. Without means and money, they were truly miserable in face of unforeseen difficulties.

       

International Amnesty called for urgent protection for the victims of repression at Bat Nha. Human Rights Watch appealed to the Hanoi administration to stop repression. The Venerable Thich Trung Hai, a resident monk at Mai Village in France,  presented the case beside E U Parliament and besought the international organ for help. Two hundred student-monks and nuns sought  political asylum in France for fear that they would no longer be safe if they continued to live in Vietnam. The spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of France Bernard Valero, on December 29, said that France and the Europen Union were deeply concerned with the  case and took it into consideration.  

    

Sources said that one of the causes that triggered the repression might originate from the 10-point proposal to the Chairman of State Nguyen Minh Triet by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh during his visit to Vietnam in 2007. The main point of the proposal called for the abolition of the State of Religious Affairs Office and respect for freedom of religion, which provision the Communist State would never accept. Zen Master Nhat Hanh, in his letter to his followers in late December, mentioned among other things that "The Buddhist Church is helpless, uaable to protect its own children. Everyone can see this truth clearly. In the case of Bat Nha and Phuoc Hue, the authorities hired thugs and worked together with them."  Repression was then self-evident.

Protest against Ill-intentioned Literature

The official daily Saigon Giai Phong (Saigon Liberated), on October 30, 1994, reported that a leader of the State-sponsored Buddhist Church of Vietnam, the Venerable Thich Tri Quang, informed of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City the ill-intention of the propaganda machinery of the State, particularly expressing indignation over the publication of the  “Thay Duong Tang (Monk Tang) by Truong Quoc Dung. The story is an inspiration from the Chinese ancient fiction “Pilgrimage to the West” (Si-yeou Ki). The story was published in a collection of works of fiction. The author received the first place prize-award by the Association of Writers. However, judged from the interpretations and use twists of words of the writer, the book  appeared to the Church an ill-intentioned literature, an insult with blasphemy to Buddhism with regard to religious convictions.

The letter specifically blamed the book for being bereaved, cartooning the personality of the venerable monk of the sixth century Huyen Trang (Hiuan Tsang (595-664), who is venerated by Chinese and Vietnamese Buddhism. It accused the author of having seriously deformed reality. The book portrayed Buddha as a person who kept aloof from humanity and was wanting in affection and adoration. Worse still, “nirvana” is described as hell peopled by devils. The Venerable Thich Tri Quang, in particular, requested the authorities to exclude the story from the collection and to forbid any ulterior publication of the story.

 The Normalization of Buddhist Churches

       Strict Measures

Although being a State-created organization, the Buddhist Church of Vietnam remained under suspicion of the authorities. During the annual congress of November 22-23, 1997 in Hanoi, the Church’s objectives were carefully scrutinized. The leadership was readjusted, and a new 5-year program of actions was adopted to carry out the State’s new policy. A report sent to France by the Association for the Protection of the Dharma said that this congress probed into a series of in-depth inquiries as far as religious activities were concerned. Criticisms from the administration particularly focused on directional deviations from State policy of various congregations, associations, and religious groups operating alongside the Sangha. The atmosphere was suffocating. Before the congress, the police launched raids to intimidate in the monks in residence at pagodas and residences of condregation leaders and prominent lay hermits “cu si, and ” ardent members of the Buddhist Family and the Buddhist Scouts Associations. They were all suspected of having refused to pledge allegiance with the State Bureau of Religious Affairs and  furtively worked in alliance with the Vietnam Unified Buddhist  Church against the State-created Buddhist Church of Vietnam. They were still loyal to and sided with the Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam.

    

The report from the Shanga and believers of independent Buddhist organizations, on the other side, blamed the Buddhist Church of Vietnam for having failed to comply with the basic tenets of Buddhism, deviating from the lines of organization of Buddhism adopted by the constitution of the Buddhist Church of Vietnam in 1981, It dissolved under State pressure the congregationtion “cu si.” Signatoties to the report claimed that “the Buddhist Church is collerationvely diversified and universally unified, embracing diverse Buddhist sects of Vietnam, Buddhist congregations or communities, including the “cu si” -- individuals practicing a religious life at home. For years, the latter component served as a pillar consolidating the religious life. It played no role in the religious performances, and, consequently, they had no a place in the direction of the religious life of the Church. Nevertheless it contributed to the obsevace of Buddhist tenets and  preservation of national cultural values. The elimination of the congregation of “cu si” along with the disintegration of the Buddhist Family truly decimated the backbone of the Buddhist Church, making it “a chair with only two legs.”

The scheme for eliminating the congregation “cu si,” in reality, was not accidental. It was carried out subsequent to a preconceived plan as unveiled in 1995 by a memoir by a high-ranking cadre, Do Trung Hieu. The scheme, in fact, considers transforming the Buddhist Church of Vietnam into an instrument in the hands of the State, forging it into a sattelite organization revolving within the orbit of the Fatherland Front. Religious services and activities of this State-created organization are restricted  just to recitals of “sultras” or saying prayers. The congregation of “su si,” it is noted, developed into a movement after resilent efforts of most fervent Buddhists, most of whom were veteran officials and scholars who cherished self cultivation of religios virtues in the light of Buddhist tenets following the rise of restoration and renovation of Buddhism in largest cities under the control of the Bao Dai government, beginning in in the 1950’s.

     The Formation of Monks

As early as 1990, approximately 80 percent of pagodas throughout the country were coercively placed under the control of the administration. They were incorporated in the Fatherland Front and supervised by the State Office of Religious Affairs. The authority over religious education, especially the formation of monks, which normally rests with the Church, resided with the cadres, State-affiliated monks, or lay teams working at  religious affairs offices at all levels. The Party became the decision-maker in all matters, from personnel administratio to formation of  monks. The main purpose was to create a new contigent of clergy  that would replace the old clerical body, especially those monks suspected as allies to the Vietnam Unified Buddhist Church. It was not an easy task, however.  It was not until June 25, 1997 that a new institute for formation of monks at the university level was open in Hue, Central Vietnam. The institution was officially called “Higher School of Buddhist Studies.”  Student monks were trained in the Marxist-Lenininist oxthodoxy, This was the third educational institution of this type created in Vietnam with the authorization of the Communist administration. The first one was established in Hanoi in 1981, immediately after the holding of the congress which, under the sponsorship of the State, integrated seven sects of Buddhism into a unique Buddhist organization called the Buddhist Church of Vietnam. Another institute began to function in Saigon in 1985. They were all State-sponsored institutions and operated under the administration of the State. Candidates to the priesthood must meet such requirements as a good social political background and approval from the local authorities. Priority is given to members of the “revolutionary family” category. The term of study at the institution is limited to 4 years.

The curricula focused on thetask of the clergy in the socialist society. The study of Marxism-Leninism was  mandatory.

The normalization of the Buddhist Churches achieved great success. On June 2, 1998, being asked about religious tolerance in Vietnam, the spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Ministry declared that there existd one hundred thousand (1000,000) pagodas, thirty thousand (930,000) Buddhist monks and ten training schools for monks throughout the country. Ten schools for Buddhist studies would provide enough bonzes for a hundred thousand pagodas in the country. Nevertheless. To most observers, deficiencies in the expertise of the teaching staffsin and the career profession in management of the administrative staffs were self-evident, Additionally, availability for religious education facilities was limited . All expenditures were dependent on the State for support, which condition created more conditions for the State to  proceed with  programs of normalization of the Buddhist Churches as planned .

      Criticisms

The independent Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, over the years, had voiced criticsms against the dogmatic directional principles and the ill-conceived objectives of educational programs of the MarxistLeninist type of religious formation of the administration. In November 1994, the Sangha of Thua Thien- Hue protested against the leaders of the Buddhist Church of Vietnam for dogmatic training at Higher Schools of Buddhist Studies. A Buddhist bulletin published in Hue on November 14, 1994 criticized the admistrative system for poor quality of religious education.. These institutions were only provided with unqualified administrative staffs and  teaching staffs without competence. 

In a document published on August 15, 1997, the Venerable Thich Thien Khai, in the name of the monastic Association for the Protection of the Dharma, accused the Communist administration of disrespect to cultural values of Vietnamese Buddhism, in particular by forbidding the Buddhist clergy and the laity to receive traditional religious education and live to the legitimate Buddhist norms and ways of life. The document said that, for many years,  “the  people have lost the right to religious education and  the Buddhist clergy and laity do not have the liberty to study the Dharma and to observe the cultural religious traditions of Buddhism. Neither do they have chance to develop faith spiritually and culturaally.  Religious education at university level was inadequate and inferior to that before 1975, Buddhism had had the Van Hanh University in Saigon with five thousand students, twenty-five institutes of Buddhist Studies, two hundred secondary schools with one hundred thousand (100,000) students, and two thousand primary schools with hundres of thousand students. Van Hanh University was well-known worldwide with highly respected teaching staffs and professional administrative staffs. The contribution to national education of the university was phenomenal and was undeniablya great success as a religious institution.