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Last week I met an interesting guy name Ning. He told me about Sasak Buddhist tribe in Lombok. There are around 30.000 people scatters among the villages. Despite of their inadequate praying places, they are very faithful ( look at the pictures ). Ning wishes that it will be wonderful if donations go to small villages which the society is quite big such as villages in Lombok rather than big cities. In that point I do agree with him to help those in need. Hopefully this blog help you about information on Sasak Buddhist tribe. |
-- This information given by Ning -- | |  | The Sasak People is the indigenous tribe of Lombok Island in Indonesia - a mid-size island to the east of Bali. Uninformed and therefore unknown to many, there are several groups within The Sasak Tribe whom are called the Sasak Buddha. These peaceful, hardworking and down-to-earth men and women live mostly in the fertile and beautiful hilly and mountainous area along the northerly coast of Lombok as far west as Sekotong and as far east as Bayan. Most of them are skilled farmers, some bamboo and ketak (runner of twinning ferns) weavers, master carpenters, craftsmen , artists and interestingly school teachers. Hardly any traders and active ‘politicians’ among the Sasak Buddha. | | They live a very simple life and most always covered with poverty; none the less, crimes among the Sasak Buddha are unheard of. These people are the remaining few and scattered indigenous people of the Indonesian archipelago who have been preserving the Buddha Dhamma for nearly two millennia. |
 | Unique to Indonesian history, Hinayana Buddhism was the first to arrive in both Bali and Lombok far before the Majapahit Kingdom of East Java sent her Çiwa-Budha missionaries. Soon after, the Lombok Buddhist Kingdoms and Princedoms were one by one conquered successively by Majapahit, by Javanese Islamic missionaries after the collapsed of Majapahit, and finally by Karangasem Kingdom from Bali. Histories - then - gave birth to what is now known | | Wetu Telu means ‘One that came out of the Three’, i.e. a syncretism of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islamism along with native form of ancestral worships. Through hardship and perseverance – however – the Sasak Buddha keeps their faith and maintains their existence in the remote seclusion of the dense forest of the mountainous island. |
 | During and after the communist uprising in the 1965, the followers of Wetu Telu and the Sasak Buddha were also fallen victims to the anti communism policy, systematically and institutionally persecuted; given the choice to either convert to one form of “true” religion which happened to be the majority in the area, or to suffer from the lost of their lives and the lost of their family livelihood as a condemned communist. Those are historical facts, and life goes on; wounds healed but scars remained. Everyone had accepted the bitter facts and forgiven the painful past. |
 | Since 1962 with the initiatives of the late H.H. Bhikku Girirakitho Mahathera (then Samanera Giri) and again in 1968 along with the late Bhikku Ashin Jinarakitha and Bhikku Jinapia (now Tithaketuko Thera) of the School of Theravada Buddhism, the Sasak Buddha once again rekindled and refreshed to the teaching of Gautama Buddha. Since then there were again ordained monks from the children of the Sasak Buddha. Today there are no less than 40 Vihara and Cetiya serving well over 20,000 men, women and children, and most of the Vihara and Cetiya are ill equipped and in very sorry state needing immediate attention from us all. |
| | The time comes when we must sustain Buddha Dhamma blossoming and setting fruit in the Island of Lombok. As fellow Buddhists we are obliged to help and to support our brothers and sisters of the Sasak Buddha to once again rise proudly among others from all over the world preserving and propagating Buddha Dhamma. We, too, have a lot to learn from them; with perseverance through hardship and threats of lost of lives and yet non-violence acts and compassion keeping clear mind and walking within the Path of The Buddha. The best gift of all is the Gift of Dhamma. |  | |
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