PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - With the threat of terrorism and war in Iraq looming over the world, Buddhist leaders on Thursday called for tolerance and compassion as a means to promote world peace.
The Buddhist leaders, speaking at the opening of the three-day World Buddhist Conference, also condemned religious fanaticism, blaming it for causing fear and destruction across the globe.
The conference has attracted some 2,000 participants from more than a dozen countries.
"The world faces constant threat and violence unknown to the humankind," said Ven. Kushok Bakula Rinpoche, head lama of the Himalayan region of Ladakh in India.
"It is the responsibility of every one of us irrespective of our religious belief to make efforts to ... save this world from further destruction" through the teaching of tolerance and compassion, he said in a speech.
Speakers said that the Middle East and South Asia, where religious tensions are largely blamed for much of the conflicts, were major areas of concerns.
"The more the crisis drags on, the more the hatred is increased," said Ven. Ashin Nyannissara, president of Sitagu International Buddhist Academy in Myanmar.
Organizers had said earlier that the conference would send a message to world leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, to remind them about the role of Buddhist teaching in solving global problems.
Ven. Tep Vong, a Cambodian supreme patriarch of Mahanikaya Order of Buddhism, said "extremist and fundamentalist religious groups are roaming around us ... with the purpose to proselytize the poverty-stricken people."
The former Taliban rule in Afghanistan was singled out as an example of religious fanaticism and inhuman intolerance.
Tep Vong described the Taliban's destruction in 2001 of the World Heritage-listed Bamian Buddha statues in Afghanistan as an act of "insatiable and rapacious religious extremism."
The conference, the third since 1998, is one of the religion's most important events, unique for bringing together leaders from different backgrounds and sects.
The conference was opened by Cambodia's King Norodom Sihanouk in the Royal Palace's Throne Hall where he usually holds official functions.