I am repeating this post I made earlier not just because I want to underscore its importance but also because it changes the snailmail address to which donations can be made and adds an Internet PayPal option for those who prefer to donate online.
I don't generally ask others to give to causes I think of as worthy,
but I am willing to break with tradition on behalf of the Buddhist monk,
Weera "Tony" Chulsuwan, a 66-year-old from Spencer, Oklahoma, who
stepped out of his front door a week ago Friday and was beaten, literally, within an inch of his life by two boys, 14 and 15 -- kids whom Chulsuwan had known until that moment as neighbors.
The
teenagers had come to rob Chulsuwan, a man who makes $350 a month and
spends his time and energy taking care of animals that others can't or
won't take care of themselves. The Oklahoma press rounded up an almost
universal opinion that "Tony the Monk" was a good guy -- a guy who would
give you the shirt off his back unasked.
The teenagers
beat him with a steel pipe and a logging chain (apparently taunting him
as they did so), stole various items from the house and then fled.
Chulsuwan lay on the porch for 24 hours before he gained enough
consciousness and energy to crawl to the telephone and call 911.
I
will leave the sputtering adjectives that course through my mind for
others to apply. All I hope is that each of us will take a few minutes,
forgo a couple of containers of bottled water, empty a casually- filled
penny jar, buy a stamp and address an envelope to:
Mr. Weera "Tony" Chulsuwan
c/o The Engaged Zen Foundation
P.O. Box 213
Sedgwick, Maine 04676
A PayPal donation site is also up and running.
My sense is that this guy was living on a shoestring even before the incident and now he has medical bills into the bargain.
Dear Big G,
ReplyDeleteI refuse to give to him the Buddhist monk in mention, to add on to that, I refuse to even pray on his behalf. I take the incident rather seriously as one of social turbulences, it's likened to the other day when my father came over and tried to strangle me, I put the incident to the authorities as an informal show of domestic violence. A father assaulting a son, or a bunch of teens trying to assault an old monk. Who provoked who first? That is a koan in itself that I never managed to answer the past few days. You are a father of several, you probably encounter the household dilemmas on a regular basis. One of your sons in the military, you told us that yourself. Should I donate to your son as well whose duty is to defend his own parents and his own land? I defend my own country, so does your boy. I love that good man from his photos. I will pray for him when his job is to hold a rifle, yet I refuse to pray for that monk who got injured. I was a conscript before at $380 monthly. I only have got a couple of square kilometers to guard on an island state unlike your boys. The size of my island country is like Tarawa or Iwo Jima. I ain't right to make an analogy, you get the idea though. The Buddha himself tried during his lifetime to save his own race from annihilation. What happened was a story on karma, his own Shakyamuni race had brought up a young prince who was the son of a slave. There was a caste system in place, and while all princes were equal, some princes were less equal than others. That prince grew up with a vengence, and when he became king of his kingdom, he savagely committed military genocide on the land that Shakyamuni would have reigned as a king had He stayed on as a heir to the throne. In a nutshell, Shakyamuni asked thrice that the war be stopped, it was a bad feud that even a Buddha could barely stop.
It's like the other day when my father tried to strangle me. I could tell myself to refrain from killing, i.e. like you always advised "It aint' what the world does or do not do that is the problem, it is what I do and do not do that is my problem". Yet I couldn't refrain from hatred. Somebody tries to assault you, an old man can assault a young man like my dad did, and vice versa.
The point is, refrain from killing. Don't kill. Then again people do get harmed/hurt. We try our best.
^_^b The first reaction I had when I saw that old monk's face above, heck, the boys let him live. How fortunate. You see it's the way how the same incident portrays itself to various parties involved or observing.
I don't want to judge who ought to receive danas. I won't wish to advise who ought to donate more. I had been trying myself to donate to your Wepay via your Donation button and every time strangely only $1.88 can get through, any more than $1.88 I always get issues with either:
1. my browser giving me problems
2. my credit cards giving me problems
3. my family giving me problems
4. my computer giving me problems
5. my banks giving me problems
6. my telcos giving me problems.
The irony being whenever I try to post messages instead of donating it works perfect try explaining this..
Lionel
Lionel -- I am sorry for your problems with your father. If they are extreme, seek outside help, as, for example, the cops.
ReplyDeleteAs to the donation button ... I have no answers. Others seem to be able, now and then, to use it. I simply can't keep up with Internet complications.
For people having trouble with PayPal... Please enable cookies in your browser, that should clear thing up.
ReplyDelete