With this issue Contemporary Buddhism has reached its 18th year. The founding editors, Michael McGhee and John Peacock, passed over the editorship to Kate Crosby and myself in mid-2010, although the first issue we worked on exclusively was the second of 2011. Apart from a couple that were guest edited, Kate and I have worked together on issues since that time. Regrettably Kate had for some time come to feel that the job was incompatible with her other duties and following the last issue (17.2) resigned after six years as co-editor. She joins her predecessors on the editorial advisory committee wherefrom I am sure she will continue to contribute to the success of the journal. For the meantime I thank her for her work on the journal without which it would have been so much less than it has. I am pleased to have been able to include in this issue a major article co-authored by her and Dr. Janaka Ashin on the State Sanghamahanayaka Committee of Myanmar, the agency through which the Burmese Sangha and state have exercised control over the monastic community through the last forty years, and thus is a significant if neglected aspect of contemporary Buddhism. Implemented not so much to change the religion as to prevent its change, the very act of prevention involves change; and contrary to the expectations of some nurtured with the values of western liberalism the system has overall popular support in Burma. I am doubly glad in that this article also continues our role in publishing articles that reflect Asian Buddhist scholarship. Looking to the future I remain committed to supporting the publication of articles that contribute to the documentation and crossfertilisation of the practice, thought and influences of and from the making of Buddhism across the contemporary world, East and West. Contemporary Buddhism as a phenomenon is not just a product of the modern West but manifests equally, and affects a far greater number of people thereby, in Asia. Contemporary Buddhism, the journal, needs to reflect that fact.
King’s College London
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