Vietnamese authorities have ordered monks at a popular Buddhist pagoda to stop “soul summoning” and “bad karma eviction” ceremonies after an investigation found the rituals were a scam.
Tens of thousands of worshipers have been paying the 18th century Ba Vang pagoda in northern Quang Ninh Province between 1 million dong (US$43.19) and several hundred million dong to have their bad karma vanquished, according to the state-run Lao Dong newspaper.
The Vietnamese Government Committee for Religious Affairs issued a statement on its Web site on Friday saying: “The ritual goes against Buddhist philosophy and violates Vietnam’s law on religion and folk beliefs.”
“It has a negative impact on social order and security,” it added.
Calls to the pagoda were not answered on Friday.
Monks at the pagoda teach that all illnesses and misfortune result from bad deeds in previous lives.
Three times a month, they hold a two-day ceremony to “summon wandering souls” and “remove bad karma,” demanding donations, supposedly representing good deeds, to help cure bad karma and make up for supposed bad deeds in previous lives.
Such rituals have been going on for years, but the practice has drawn unfavorable attention as the amounts demanded by the monks soared to the point where they began taking payments by bank transfers and installments.
Public outrage flared when an inspirational speaker associated with the pagoda blamed a victim for being gang raped, saying she had committed evil acts in a past life in comments posted on the pagoda’s Web site and on social media.
The 20-year-old college student was taken hostage and raped by five men for two days before she was killed on the eve of the Feb. 5 Lunar New Year.
“The teaching was hurtful and disrespectful to the soul of my daughter,” Tuoi Tre, another official newspaper, quoted the woman’s mother as saying.
The monks also teach that homosexuality comes from bad karma and should be “cured” by having people of the opposite sex spend time together.
“Vindictive wandering souls follow people. They bring you illness, marriage problems and make your children unwell. We have the power to summon the souls and evict them,” the abbot of the pagoda, Thich Truc Thai Minh, told followers during a gathering that was live streamed on social media on Thursday.
A reporter for Lao Dong filmed a video at the pagoda showing a monk telling another woman, who was distraught over losing her only child: “It’s your karma. In a previous life, you were a witch.”
“The wandering soul says it will take your life, too. Not just your child,” the monk said.
Ba Vang pagoda was built on a mountain slope in Uong Bi District of Quang Ninh Province. It was recently renovated and expanded to become one of Vietnam’s largest pagoda complexes.
Only a minority of Vietnam’s 95 million people follow Buddhism, but many non-Buddhists go to pagodas and temples and practice a form of folk religion that includes some Buddhist practices.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS