I believe in letting an invader in and then setting a good example. That is the reply Benjamin Britten gave to a tribunal for the registration of conscientious objectors in 1942 when asked "What would you do if Britain was invaded?" I was reminded of it when researching my recent article on Marco Pallis , who was an authority on both Tibetan Buddhism and early music, and, together with Britten, a champion of Purcell . In his best-selling book Peaks and Lamas , which was written in 1939, Pallis tells this story about the Sakyas , the ethnic group of which Gautama Buddha was a member which inhabited the foothills of the Himalayas. News was brought to them of an impending attack by a hostile tribe and it was debated anxiously whether resistance should be offered or not. Eventually they decided that, as followers of [Buddhist] Doctrine, they were debarred from offering armed resistance, but must welcome the invaders as friends, so they threw down their arms... The Tibetans, how...
Comments
From : RJ
Sent : 08 January 2007 06:01:16
To : overgrownpath@hotmail.co.uk
Subject : Hello from Randy Jones, Original Village People Cowboy
Hello,
Thanks for your mention in your blog, "The Overgrown Path"...I enjoyed reading it.
Happy 2007.
Randy Jones
www.cdbaby.com/jonesrandy
www.RandyJonesWorld.com
www.myspace.com/randyjonesworld