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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (July 25, 1963)
8 -C Religion in America THURSDAY. JULY 25, 1963 MEDFORD MAIL TRIBUNE. MEDFORD, OREGON Variety of Buddhism Attracts Following Among Westerners Bellon Cautions Committee About Referral Movement By LOUIS CASSELS UPI Correipondeni By burning himself to death, a Buddhist monk in Viet Nam has drawn world wide attention to a revival of fervor in one of the ancient religions of Asia. Buddhism, which comes in almost as many varieties as Christianity, now has about 150 million followers in Ja pan, Korea, China, Mongolia Tibet. Ceylon, Burma, That land. Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam. One of its varieties, called Zen, has attracted a small but articulate following a m o n western intellectuals. Twenty years ago, students of world Teligions were can- ing Buddhism a moribund faith. But as a traditional re- legion of the East, it has re ceived a powerful stimulant from the wave of nationalist feeling that has swept over Asian countries since World War II. Its come-back popular religion is dramatized by the current controversy in Viet Nam, where Buddhists are bitterly protesting against alleged persecution by the government of President Ngo Dinh Diem, a Roman Catholic. Buddhism is sometimes called "Hindu Protestantism. It originated in India 2,500 years ago as a protest or re form movement within Hindu ism. Its founder was an cnor Credit Union Popularity Shown By Rapid Growth ." New York (UPI) - Ameri cans long have been known as Joiners and a type of organi zation which has proved at tractive to roughly one in ev ery 14 persons in the nation is the credit union. Membership in these grew by a little over 7 per cent last year from the previous year to $3,705,906, according to the International Credit Union Yearbook. Other figures serving as a measure of the popularity of these groups also showed growth in the past year. The number of credit unions grew by only 2 per cent, to 21,032; but savings Jumped 11.7 per - cent, to $6,203,843,913; loans outstanding expanded 12.6 per cent to $5,426,379,462; re serves swelled 15.7 per cent, to $375,933,533: total assets went up 11.5 per cent to $7 114,091,426, a figure higher than the total annual budget of some of the overseas na tions where the credit union movement also has grown. A Group of Peopl "A credit union," explain ed the yearbook, "is a goup of people, united by a com mon bond, who save their money together and make loans to oae!i other for good purposes at low interest. Each credit union Is an Independ ent, nonprofit corporation, chartered and supervised by the government, which is run by members exclusively for the benefit of members." Large as the total credit union savings may seem, they are dwarfed by those in com mercial banks, which at the end of 1962 had personal sav ings of about $90 billion, fol lowed by savings and loan as sociations with $80.4 billion, and mutual savings banks with $41.3 billion. mously wealthy Indian prince Sidhartha Guatama, who was born about 560 B.C. in a northern province about 100 miles from Bernares. Legend says that Guatama had three palaces and 40,000 dancing girls to keep him amused. But he learned early in life that luxury did not lead to happiness. When he was about 29 years old, he aban doned his sumptuous life as a prince and went into the forest, dressed in rags, to seek enlightment in the soli tary life of a Hindu ascetic. No one ever practiced mortification of the flesh with greater dedication than Gua tama. He fasted (eating one bean a day) until his spine could be seen through his shrunken stomach. But he found no answer to his que tions about life, and conclud ed that extreme asceticism was no better than luxury as a pathway to happiness, After six years of futile searching, Guatama seated himself one evening beneath the shade of a fig tree near the village of Gaya in north- cast India. He vowed that he would sit right there until he saw the light According to Buddhist scriptures, he remained there for 49 days. He emerged Irom this experience as the Buddha, or "the enlightened one." for the next 45 years, he walked from one Indian village to an other, sharing his new In sights with all who would listen, and founding an order of monks to practice his pre cepts and pass on his message. Compris a Philosophy Buddha's original teachings constitute a philosophy of life rather than a religion. He taught that human life is characterized by suffering, and the basic cause of suffer ing is "tanha," a word which is often translated as "desire" but which actually connotes selfish craving, the tendency in every person to seek his own private happiness. To break free from slavery to "tanha," Budha said men must follow "the eightfold path" of right knowledge, right aspiration, right speecn, right behavior, right occupa tion, Tight effort, right think ing and right absorption. - Under each of these eight headings, he laid down rules for rigorous s e 1 f discipline. Buddhists were forbidden to lie, steal or kill any living Use Koch Said Stiff in Prison Augsburg, Germany - OJPD - A spokesman at the Alchach Prison today denied reports published abroad that Use Koch, the infamous "bitch of Buchenwald," had been freed. The wife of the Buchen wald concentration camp's S. Commander Karl Koch, she was sentenced by a court In Augsburg in 1951 to life imprisonment in a war atro city trial. The spokesman noted that Mrs. Koch must serve at least 15 years before she can even apply for parole. MAKES RARE TRIP London - IUPD - London's 635th lord mayor, 58-ycar-old Sir Ralph Pcrring, said today he will arrive In Canada Aug. 12 on the first state visit to the Dominion by a lord may or of London since 1936. -JZ Iks. 7 " i ! X- jTM x PICTURE AMONG PICTURES - Karen Kopseng, 18, ' Miss Rocky Mountain Professional Photographer," makes a picture among pictures as she poses amid prints on exhibition at the 72nd International Exposition of Professional Photography at Dallas, Tex. Miss Kopseng, a Bismarck, N. D beauty 1 Mudpin U be a modcL (UPI) creature, Including animals and insects. They were al lowed to eat only what they could beg, and then just enough to keep the body alive and functioning. Alcoholic beverages and sex relations were strictly forbidden. Ruddha said this monastic way of life, if earnestly prac ticed, would eventually lead to "nirvana." Exactly what he meant by this much-abused term is hard to determine from his authenticated say ings. At times, he seems to think of nirvana as a state of nothingness, a final blotting out of human individuality and hence of the selfish crav ings which cause suffering. At other points, he speaks of nirvana in terms comparable to those which a Christian mystic might use to describe ecstatic union with God. Preserved By Monks Today the austere philos ophy of Buddha is preserved primarily by the so-called "Theravada" monks of Bur ma, Ceylon, Thailand and Cambodia. The popular Budd hism of other countries wor ships Guatama as a divine savior, and admits a whole pantheon of other gods Like Christianity, popular or "M a h a y a n a" Buddhism places great emphasis on compassion and human broth erhood. Room has been made for prayer and ritual, and salvation is something man receives by divine grace, rath er than something he must earn by rigorous self-denial. Laymen as well as monks can hope to reach nirvana, which in Mahayana Buddhism sounds rather like a primitive Chris tian version of Heaven. Zen is a special' case. It developed in China in the 6th Century A.D., and by the 12th Century had reached Japan, where it took root and still flowers. The heart of Zen is the conviction that real truth can never be expressed or understood in verbal formu lae, but can only be directly experienced through a flash of intuition or enlightment called "satori." To drive home the futility of reason as a road to truth, Zen masters require their disciples to spend end less hours working on "kqans" or nonsense problems to which there is no rational solution. Howard Belton, state treas urer, appeared at the Wednes day breakfast meeting of the Governmental Operations committee of the Medford Chamber of Commerce as guest of Representative Ed Branchfield and discussed Oregon's legislative picture. The committee is consider ing the move now under way to refer the present tax pro gram of the legislature to the people. Belton contended that many of the problems faced by the 1963 legislature had been passed on by the 1961 legis lature which had a surplus of $30 million. Even, at that, he maintained, stringent econ- haH to be effected dur ing the last biennium to keep in balance. Now, Belton said, the men- MONORAIL SYSTEM New York -IUPD- Construc tion has begun on the Orient's longest nonorail system which will link downtown Tokyo with Tokyo Interna tional Airport, says the Japan National Tourist Association. Scheduled for completion by Sept. 1, 1964, in time for the Olympics, the system will transport about 138,000 pas sengers daily along the eight mile route at speeds of more than 40 miles per hour. (ai hntnifal is short five doc tors. There are 1,600 inmates in the state penitentiary and the state has a crime rate in crease five times that of the population increase. Belton suggested that the real tax burden begins at the local level, where new serv ices are constantly demanded. Branchfield agreed with this summary of the tax sit uation and added that he re ceived "Not one letter request ing that services be cut." He urged the committee to con sider very carefully any move for referral of the tax pro gram which could put the state in serious financial dif ficulties. , BISCUITS BETTY CROCKER Sweet or Buttermilk Tubes 29 GREEN BEANS Rose Valley Cut No. 303 TIN TOMATO SAUQ MARGARINE PEPSI go LA FL0UH Argo COTTAGE New 16-oz. Size 6-Palc Carton Hacienda Bleached All-Purpose . . 8-oz. .... 45 Jl- 10 ft in SALAD OIL Western Chef 24-oz. PES TOILET TISSUE French mm mmmi .juice Roe mm 9-Inch Cherry, Berry, Apple, Peach Johnston Full 36 Ounces .... M-D 2-Roll Pak.. 'Ours Fresher Loaf GOLDEN GOBLET Frozen Product 6-ounce tins Bonnie Tall Tins CHEESE LOAF CHEF'S DELIGHT 2 LB. LOAF BISKIT MIX FISHER'S 40-ox. 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