Recently Ichiro Ozawa, secretary general of the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, made a speech that, translated into English, seemed to insult Christians by calling them "self-righteous," contrasted with the more "magnanimous" nature of Buddhism. The speech was delivered on Mount Koya, birthplace of the Japanese Buddhist school of Shingon.

At Japan Times, Roger Pulvers explains that many nuances of Japanese were lost in translation into English that made the speech seem harsher than it really was (although the speech was still mostly a pile of "shallow generalities," Pulvers says).  From there, Pulvers discusses the roles that religions have played in Japan since the 1930s. In the case of Buddhism, that role was not always beneficial. Some of you might find Pulvers's commentary as interesting as I did.

Another news tidbit from Japan -- the Ryohoji temple of Tokyo has launched a promotion featuring manga to draw more visitors to the temple. This weekend the temple set up tents and opened a temporary cafe, staffed by young women in popular manga role-playing costumes. The temple is also selling 500 yen ($5) cards with cartoon characters that allow one to download a video to a mobile phone of the Ryohoji chief monk chanting prayers.

I finally worked up the nerve to write an introduction to the Heart Sutra -- a very brief, beginner-level introduction. I recall that I had committed the sutra to memory before anyone explained any part of it to me. I hate to think how long it took for me to figure out who that guy "Shariputra" was.

The Heart Sutra is part of the much larger Prajnaparamita (perfection of wisdom) Sutra, which is a collection of about 40 sutras. Various legends claim these sutras were spoken by the historical Buddha and lost to mankind for centuries. According to one story I've heard, the sutras were guarded by nagas in an undersea cave and then entrusted to the sage Nagarjuna.

However, historians say the prajna sutras were composed by several authors between 100 BCE and 500 CE, as were most of the Mahayana sutras. Reference books don't all agree, but generally historians seem to think the Lotus and  Vimalakirti sutras were composed around 200 CE, and the Diamond Sutra about 400 CE. The vast Flower Garland (Avatamsaka) probably took at least a couple of centuries to write, beginning no earlier than the 1st century CE. And so on.

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A few days ago some photos popped up on the Web that allegedly shows Buddhist monks in Sri Lanka attacking a Christian church. I can't tell what they're doing from the photos, but eyewitness accounts say that protesters threw stones and petroleum bombs at the church after two women died at an evangelical faith healing service.

No one was hurt, and the local Buddhist temple denies any involvement. But this episode points to an increase in violence against Christian churches in Asia. The National Christian Evangelical Alliance of Sri Lanka complained in 2004 that more than 140 churches had been forced to close because of attacks, intimidation and threats.

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At Tricycle, Zenshin Michael Haederle writes about online bickering among Buddhists. In particular, there have been a few online flame wars that involved Buddhist teachers. For example, a couple of Zen teachers used their blogs to challenge each others' teaching credentials. Sad.

[Update: See Jaime McLeod's comment that Haederle misrepresented this specific situation.]

Anyone who has ever participated in online discussions has seen them melt down into nasty personal attacks. Buddhist online discussions seem about as likely to do this as any other, unfortunately. Online culture can be so nasty I think some people throw in insults because they think it's expected.

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