Buddhism: Neither Theistic nor Atheistic

Yoder777 · Jun 29, 2015

I don't mean to sound controversial, but a loss for right-wing fundamentalist Christians, such as the recent Supreme Court decision, is a victory for the rights of Buddhists. As a religious minority, I look at the gay community as an ally. Though I only recently "came out" as Buddhist, it is due to fear of being judged that I waited as long as I did. All I want is more understanding and compassion all around. As an American, I am thankful for my country, and I want equal rights for all.

http://www.lionsroar.com/being-gay-being-buddhist-george-takei/

Yoder777 · Jun 29, 2015

With over ten million members, Tzu Chi Foundation is the largest Buddhist charity in the world. Its founder, the Buddhist nun Cheng Yen, is a Nobel Peace Prize nominee known as the Mother Theresa of Taiwan. Tzu Chi acts all over the world, including post-earthquake Nepal, to aid the victims of natural disasters and of extreme poverty.

gord44 · Jun 29, 2015

El' LeJeune said:
The apostle James tells us that "faith without works is dead" I recent survey I read stated that over 88% of the charities in the world are Christian founded. 82% of charity volunteers/ financial contributors are self identified Christians.

How do you define God's work? If you define it as putting one's self out in order to help others than the numbers above side with Christians.

Acts of charity I do not see as God's work. While charity is good there is no doubt, in spiritual terms it's a sign of lack when it's a primary focus. Charity is a side effect of humanity's desire to be good, but God's work should be the discovery and then pursuit of your OWN divine will, not the will of an external power structure.

ananda · Jun 29, 2015

El' LeJeune said:
You should re-read my statement. 88% of charities in the world are christian FOUNDED. This means that christians put in the blood, sweat, tears, time, money, and energy into getting the charity off the ground. 82% are christians who actively volunteer their time, energy, and finances into the charity to keep the work going.

Yes, I understood that. Although small fraction of Christians likely founded and run the charities, my point was that the majority of Christians fund these charities instead of doing charity work themselves.

ananda · Jun 29, 2015

Gxg (G²) said:
Even within Buddhism, there has been demonstrations of where human nature has generally tended more so toward evil than goodness...and the principles of peace do not always play out when it comes to things being taken more off-track.

I would suggest that these groups may not be Buddhist at all:

"A monk who has been accepted should not deprive a living being of life, even if it is only a black or white ant. Any monk who purposely deprives a human being of life, even to the extent of causing an abortion, is not a contemplative, not a son of the Sakyan. Just as a solid block of stone broken in two cannot be joined together again, in the same way a monk who has purposely deprived a human being of life is not a contemplative, not a son of the Sakyan. You are not to do this for the rest of your life." Mv I.78.2

"Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the entire world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves." MN 21

Gxg (G²) · Jun 29, 2015

ananda said:
I would suggest that these groups may not be Buddhist at all:

"A monk who has been accepted should not deprive a living being of life, even if it is only a black or white ant. Any monk who purposely deprives a human being of life, even to the extent of causing an abortion, is not a contemplative, not a son of the Sakyan. Just as a solid block of stone broken in two cannot be joined together again, in the same way a monk who has purposely deprived a human being of life is not a contemplative, not a son of the Sakyan. You are not to do this for the rest of your life." Mv I.78.2

"Monks, even if bandits were to carve you up savagely, limb by limb, with a two-handled saw, he among you who let his heart get angered even at that would not be doing my bidding. Even then you should train yourselves: 'Our minds will be unaffected and we will say no evil words. We will remain sympathetic, with a mind of good will, and with no inner hate. We will keep pervading these people with an awareness imbued with good will and, beginning with them, we will keep pervading the entire world with an awareness imbued with good will — abundant, expansive, immeasurable, free from hostility, free from ill will.' That's how you should train yourselves." MN 21

I am definitely aware of where there are teachings within Buddhism that advocate for non-violence. Nonetheless, many other teachings within the camp also made room for violence to occur as well. I am reminded of the Nirvana Sutrana Sutra, a canonical Buddhist text, which narrates a story about one of Buddha’s past lives: in it, he kills some Hindus (Brahmins) because they insulted the Buddhist sutras (scriptures):

The Buddha…said…”When I recall the past, I remember that I was the king of a great state…My name was Senyo, and I loved and venerated the Mahayana sutras…When I heard the Brahmins slandering the vaipulya sutras, I put them to death on the spot. Good men, as a result of that action, I never thereafter fell into hell. O good man! When we accept and defend the Mahayana sutras, we possess innumerable virtues.”

The very first reason we're told the Buddha put the Brahmins to death was out of pity for them in order to aid the Brahmans in avoiding the punishment they had accrued by committing evil deeds while continuously slandering Buddhism. And that is a theme found throughout Buddhist thought when it comes to “compassionate killing” since killing is normally forbidden because it is done with evil intent (hatred, vengeance, etc.), yet the times when it is done with “compassion” makes it permissible and worth celebrating..

One excellent perspective I came across put things into perspective when it came to noting the ways that experiences in status can cause a shift in one's leanings. For more information, as seen in
Why Are Buddhist Monks Promoting Violence in Sri Lanka - Political Violence @ a Glance.
:

Religious Affairs, K. D. S. Gunawardena, gave a speech in which he proudly declared an end to decades of communal violence. While Gunawardena was speaking in Colombo, a group of Buddhist monks were parading the streets of Kuliyapitiya in northwestern Sri Lanka calling for the deportation of all Muslims. Commentators once optimistic about the future of post-civil war Sri Lanka nowask if Muslim identity is a liability in the island state.

To outsider observers, the Buddhist majority’s sudden targeting of religious minorities may come as quite a shock. For the bulk of its post-independence history, Sri Lanka has been dominated by the conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamils. Though the Sinhalese (74% of the population) are mostly Buddhist and the Tamils (12%) are generally Hindu, the decades long civil war ending in 2009 was largely secular in nature. Conflict began over the question of Sri Lanka’s official language and escalated to issues of territorial control. It was a conflict between religions but it was rarely a conflict about religion.

Since the mid 2000s, however, Sri Lanka has seen hundreds of violent incidents between Buddhists and Christians or Muslims. Generally, one out of three such incidents involves Buddhist monks in some capacity. Moreover, the US State Department cites several incidents in which victims have been threatened for reporting religious violence to the police, suggesting that many more incidents may go unreported.

To find the underlying causes of this violence, one need only look at the changing position of the Buddhist clergy in Sri Lankan society. Over the last several decades, Sri Lanka’s traditional Buddhist leadership, composed of nearly 30,000 monks and known collectively as the sangha, has become more fractured and more political. For centuries, the sangha has been divided into a number of sects and regulated by a high council. The high council was traditionally responsible for dispensing material support from the state and regulating the behavior of the monks in each sect. This hierarchy ensured a degree of doctrinal consistency across the sects by granting senior monks the authority to discipline their subordinates.

This system changed dramatically in the mid-20th century, when the Sri Lankan state withdrew its material support to the sangha. The loss of support made the sangha dependent on lay worshippers while also undermining the power of the high council. Without enforcement from above, the religious hierarchy came to lack authority. As a result, individual monks were granted the autonomy to deviate from their community.

The economist Laurence Iannaccone of Santa Clara University has argued that more radical religious organizations tend to extract the most resources from their adherents. Doctrinally strict religions tend to reduce the number of “on-the-fence” adherents while encouraging ardent believers to become as involved as they can.

In Sri Lanka, the dismantling of the Buddhist hierarchy coupled with a shortage of material resources encouraged many monks to embrace radicalism. Variation in this behavior can even been seen at the local level. Monks from historically wealthy temples tend to support a more traditional interpretation of Buddhism, while monks from historically poor temples tend to embrace a more radical message.

The effect of this resource competition has been a general increase in both the radicalism and political activism advocated by monks. Especially since the 1970s, a growing number of monks have endorsed radical ethnic politics as a means of self-promotion. It was during this period that a series of influential monks began to preach against religious minorities.

Additionally, as mentioned elsewhere on the extent of Buddhist violence (for a brief excerpt):

What’s truly disturbing to many is that groups like the 969 Movement in Myanmar and Bodu Bala Sena in Sri Lanka aren’t just composed of Buddhists, but are led by monks as Buddhist groups, purportedly operating on Buddhist beliefs and under Buddhist doctrine, to promote violence and aggression. Yet while this explicitly Buddhist violence feels incongruent with the faith, there’s actually a long, but often forgotten historical tradition and strong theological basis for violence in (and in the name of) Buddhism.

Although TIME magazine’s coverage of the Southeast Asian surge in Buddhist violence has snapped attention towards the issue, the coverage has colored the history of much of recent history. A Buddhist monk led a major assassination plot, known as the League of Blood Incident in 1932 Japan. In the 1970s Laotian and Thai Buddhists took up arms against communists, declaring that it was not karmically wrong to do so. From 1983 to 2009, Buddhist monks sanctioned aggression against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in the Sri Lankan Civil War. Since 1992, one of the major militias fighting the Myanmar government, the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army, has been led or under the influence of a monk named U Thuzana. In 1995, the Japanese cultic terrorist group Aum Shinrikyojustified their release of Sarin gas on the Japanese subway system by claiming that they were liberating less enlightened beings in accordance with tantric Buddhist teachings. And as recently as 2004 and 2008, respectively, Thai monasteriesbecame militant bases in the conflict between local Muslims and Buddhists and Chinese officials claimed to have found weapons caches in Tibetan temples.

And that’s just the last century. Entire books have been written on the history and theology of Buddhist violence. Many violent Buddhist leaders or sects have drawn upon variations of the Mahaparinirvana and Upayakaushalya Sutras, theKalachakra Tantra and other Buddhist writings in a wide and ever-evolving non-static canon to justify their actions. These scriptures explicitly enjoin believers, under certain conditions, to kill or maim in defense of the Buddhist faith, to spread Buddhist beliefs and values, or to prevent the death of others. Most troublingly for the casual observer, one of the fundamental stories of the past lives of the Buddha tells of a time when he was a ship’s captain who learned of a passenger’s intent to kill 500 people on the boat. The Buddha resolved to kill the killer, and considered it not a sin, but an act of compassion with (depending on interpretations) little to no negative karmic repercussions, as he’d the man from accumulating bad karma and saved everyone else as well.

These beliefs were at play in the foundation of the wushu martial arts, the granddaddy of karate, kung fu, and tarkwondo, amongst the Shaolin Buddhist monks of China as far back as 1,500 years ago; contrary to some stories, their martial arts weren’t entirely defensive as they sent a cadre of monks to help the Chinese Tang dynasty conquer and establish a peaceful realm for Buddhism to thrive and prosper. They also factor into the Tibetan legend of the 841 assassination of King Langdarma, a supporter of the pre-Buddhist Bon religion who dismantled Tibetan state support for monasteries; the Buddhist monk and former warrior Lhalung Pelgyi Dorje determined that he could save both the king and the faith, and thus commit an act of karmic good, by assassinating the king and escaping to resume his monastic practice.

Even modern proponents of the happy, peaceful vision of Buddhism, like the 14thDalai Lama, admit that their nonviolent ideals exist in a violent world, and allow some leeway. The Dalai Lama, whose predecessor actually tried to develop and modernize a centralized Tibetan army, notoriously endorsed the killing of Osama bin Laden and in 2009 described how physical violence could be construed as nonviolence if done with compassion in mind.

Other modern monks differ with the Dalai Lama, the violent Buddhist groups, and the veracity, validity, or relevance of certain ancient scriptures. But no matter how much they protest, the scriptures leave room for Buddhist violence as a holy justification

Moreover, as another wisely noted best on the matter at Killing in the Name Of | Tricycle:

In the 20th century, Tibetan monks took up arms and fought bravely against the Chinese troops of the People’s Liberation Army. Earlier in the century, they had fought against British invaders; troops of the Younghusband expedition took protective amulets, pierced by bullets, off the bodies of the Tibetan dead.

In Japan, during the Second World War, Buddhist monks, especially those of the Soto Zen sect, supported the aggression of Japanese troops in China and Korea. In previous centuries, many Japanese monasteries had their own armies, called sohei, made up of professional soldiers who wore monks’ robes but were not ordained, changing into their armor when it was time to fight, often against rival Buddhist armies.

Buddhism, like other world religions, has its own justifications for violence. The great chronicle of Sri Lanka, the Mahavamsa, tells the story of King Dutthagamani, who led his troops into battle against the Hindu Tamils who occupied the island. Dutthagamani himself killed the Tamil king in battle using a spear adorned with a relic of the Buddha. He then plunged the spear into the ground and ordered that a stupa be built over it. As a Buddhist, Dutthagamani was troubled by the carnage he had wrought, with tens of thousands of the enemy lying dead on the battlefield. He called in a group of arhats (enlightened monks) to calculate the negative karma he had accrued by so many acts of murder. They explained that he was guilty of killing only one-and-a-half people. Among the enemy dead was one person who had taken refuge in the three jewels of the Buddha, dharma, and sangha and had taken the five precepts of a Buddhist lay disciple (upasaka). He counted as one person. Another of the dead had only taken the refuges but not the precepts, and so counted as half a person. The rest were not people, so the king accrued no negative karma for their deaths.

Buddhism has been supported by all manner of kings and emperors over its long history. One of their motivations for doing so was to protect their lands from invaders. Huguo Fojiao, or “state protection Buddhism”—the idea that by supporting the community of monks and nuns, a kind of religious force field would guard the kingdom from harm—is a central theme of East Asian Buddhism. The first Zen text written in Japan, by the monk Myoan Eisai, was entitled “Promoting Zen in Defense of the State” (Kozen gokokuron). And perhaps the most famous of the Chinese Buddhist apocrypha (texts written in China that purport to be of Indian origin), the Renwang Jing(“Scripture for Humane Kings”), is devoted in part to the theme of state protection.

In some cases, the protection does not work, leading to dreams of revenge. The Kalacakra Tantrapredicts that in the future, a great Buddhist army will sweep down from the Himalayas to defeat the barbarians who had driven the dharma from India long ago. These barbarians are followers of someone called Madhumati, an Indian attempt to render into Sanskrit the name Muhammad.

Violence in Buddhism is not always committed by physical means. In tantric Buddhism, so-called “liberation” rites are performed to liberate (that is, kill) one’s enemies. The great Tibetan translator Ra Lotsawa used such rites to murder the son of Marpa, the teacher of Milarepa. Farther east, when Korea was facing an invasion from Tang China in 670, the Korean thaumaturge Myongnang used powerful spells (mantra) he received from the undersea Dragon King protector of Buddhism to generate a typhoon that would sink the Chinese flotilla. (It worked.) When the Japanese invaded China in what would become the Second World War, the Chinese invited the Panchen Lama to come to China and perform tantric rituals in order to repel the invaders. (It didn’t work.)

To be clear, I am in no way advocating for the idea that Buddhist have no right to defend themselves - or protect themselves if their rights are being violated. This is something that has always been a big deal within Christianity and often caused battles in groups saying Christians couldn't do self-defense or that Christians protecting themselves were automatically equal to those promoting mass violence in the abuse of the Tanak/Scriptures (more shared in Obama Equates ISIS to Crusades and here and here /here in Monks/Monastics vs Military Might: Is Self-Defense against Perversion Right? and but.. are they Christian?).

And of course, as said earlier, there are many peaceful ideals within Buddhism which Christians have echoed in the past (just as Buddhist have echoed them) - as discussed earlier here and here. And as said earlier, even the ideals of Buddha were taken to mean completely different things than what others say were intended - as we can see in regards to what Buddhists/scholars have said when it comes to Buddhist being exceptionally violent in the name of achieving Buddhahood and having their actions based in Buddhism through Asian history (as Dr. Stephen Turnbull and others have noted best here or here with the Japanese Warrior Monks AD 949-1603 and many others in history, from Sri Lanka's Violent Buddhists and
Myanmar's Buddhist or Col. Sugimoto Gorō and other instances which Buddhists have pointed out for accuracy...more in
"Buddhist Warfare": Is Buddhism A Religion of Peace?"
).

ananda · Jun 29, 2015

Gxg (G²) said:
I am definitely aware of where there are teachings within Buddhism that advocate for non-violence. Nonetheless, many other teachings within the camp also made room for violence to occur as well. I am reminded of the Nirvana Sutrana Sutra ... Sri Lanka’s traditional Buddhist leadership, composed of nearly 30,000 monks and known collectively as the sangha, has become more fractured and more political. For centuries, the sangha has been divided into a number of sects and regulated by a high council. The high council was traditionally responsible for dispensing material support from the state and regulating the behavior of the monks in each sect. This hierarchy ensured a degree of doctrinal consistency across the sects by granting senior monks the authority to discipline their subordinates. ... Many violent Buddhist leaders or sects have drawn upon variations of the Mahaparinirvana and Upayakaushalya Sutras, the Kalachakra Tantra and other Buddhist writings in a wide and ever-evolving non-static canon to justify their actions. These scriptures explicitly enjoin believers, under certain conditions, to kill or maim in defense of the Buddhist faith, to spread Buddhist beliefs and values, or to prevent the death of other... the 14th Dalai Lama, admit that their nonviolent ideals exist in a violent world, and allow some leeway. The Dalai Lama, whose predecessor actually tried to develop and modernize a centralized Tibetan army, notoriously endorsed the killing of Osama bin Laden and in 2009 described how physical violence could be construed as nonviolence if done with compassion ... In the 20th century, Tibetan monks took up arms and fought bravely against the Chinese troops of the People’s Liberation Army. Earlier in the century, they had fought against British invaders; troops of the Younghusband expedition took protective amulets, pierced by bullets, off the bodies of the Tibetan dead ... In Japan, during the Second World War, Buddhist monks, especially those of the Soto Zen ... The Kalacakra Tantra predicts that in the future, a great Buddhist army will sweep down from the Himalayas to defeat the barbarians who had driven the dharma from India long ago.... In tantric Buddhism, so-called “liberation” rites are performed to liberate (that is, kill) one’s enemies. The great Tibetan translator Ra Lotsawa used such rites to murder the son of Marpa, the teacher of Milarepa. Farther east, when Korea was facing an invasion from Tang China in 670, the Korean thaumaturge Myongnang used powerful spells (mantra) he received from the undersea Dragon King protector of Buddhism to generate a typhoon that would sink the Chinese flotilla. (It worked.) When the Japanese invaded China in what would become the Second World War, the Chinese invited the Panchen Lama to come to China and perform tantric rituals in order to repel the invaders. (It didn’t work.)

With all due respect, these are all newer developments (e.g. Mahayana, Vajrayana) which came hundreds of years after the historical Buddha. IMO these late doctrines and texts are not in harmony with the teachings of the earliest Buddhist texts.

Gxg (G²) · Jun 29, 2015

ananda said:
With all due respect, these are all newer developments (e.g. Mahayana, Vajrayana) which came hundreds of years after the historical Buddha. IMO these late doctrines and texts are not in harmony with the teachings of the earliest Buddhist texts.

Respectfully.....

We still have to address what Buddha himself noted in the texts that he did, as occurred when Buddha shared on how, in a former life, he put to death Hindu Brahmans for teaching doctrine contradictory to his.

When I heard the Brahmans slandering these correct and equal sutras, I put them to death on the spot. Good men, as a result of that action, I never thereafter fell into hell.

We really cannot avoid that the reason why Buddha says here that he never went to hell, is because in Buddhist thought killing an enemy of Buddhism is not murder, meaning it is not worthy of eternal punishment.

Buddha with his armed and violent follower, Vajrapani

As it concerns newer schools of thought contrasted with the earliest Buddhist texts, that is very much in line with what has occurred with Pure Land Buddhism - although with the Buddhist who do advocate violence, others have noted that the schools of thought for violence are in line with the historical Buddha at many points when considering the other schools that developed from it. Theravada Buddhism, in regards to the Jatakas, comes to mind....as it concerns the stories of the past lives of the Buddha, in which Bodhisattva (a previous incarnation of the Buddha) actually killed someone to save another person's life, though because of this action, he was no longer able to achieve enlightenment in that particular life....but the life he saved was seen as worth it. As noted in Compassionate Violence? - The Vajrayana Research ... Buddhist scholar David Gray noted the following:

The virtue of compassion was given a central role in Mah›y›na Buddhist soteriology, as an indispensable aid to the achievement of Buddhahood. On the popular level, the virtues of compassion and generosity were highlighted in narratives such as the J›taka tales, which relate the Buddha’s past lives. These themes are dramatically illustrated in stories such as the bodhisattva’s self-sacrifice to feed a hungry tiger family, or in the stories of King ⁄ibi, who sacrificed his own eyes at the request of a beggar, as well as his own flesh to save the life of a pigeon. The importance of these stories are such that they stand at the beginning of firya ⁄Òra’s J›taka collection, and they were also illustrated on a number of Buddhist monuments.

And I think it was wise what another noted when pointing out the following (from Compassionate Violence in Buddhism - Meta Reader ):

The Upayakausalya Sutra tells the story of one of the Buddha’s former lives, where he is captaining a ship carrying five hundred merchants. One night, ocean deities come to him in a dream and identify one of the passengers as a bandit who is planning on killing the merchants. Buddha evaluates three possible actions: do nothing and allow the bandit to kill everyone; inform the merchants, who would kill the bandit and incur evil karma for murder; or kill the bandit himself.

The Buddha dwells on this ethical dilemma for seven days, trying to decide who should be murdered—apparently just locking up the bandit was not an option—and eventually decides to murder the bandit himself. In keeping with the principle of compassion, this is framed not as retribution for evil, but as compassionately sparing the bandit the horrible karmic consequences of mass murder, and allowing him to be subsequently reborn in paradise.

Even more troubling is the way this sutra distinguishes between allowing the merchants to kill the bandit in anger, and the Buddha’s murder with “great compassion” and “skillful means.” The explicit lesson here is that a truly enlightened bodhisattva is willing to do something evil in the name of a good that only he knows, but we shouldn’t be confused by this! The very fact that it is evil is a sign of his great compassion—the Buddha is generous enough to murder the bandit and endure the karmic consequences of an additional one hundred thousand aeons2 before he can become fully awakened, sparing the bandits and the merchants from evil karma.

This is not some dusty, long-forgotten sutra of little relevance to modern Buddhism. By now, many are familiar with the books Zen at War and Zen War Stories by the historian, Zen priest and former anti-war activist Brian Victoria who chronicles the Japanese Buddhist establishment’s complicity with the militaristic ambitions of imperial Japan from the mid-1800s to the end of WWII, providing religious support and justification for Japanese nationalism, war, domination of neighboring countries and total submission to the emperor.

Prominent Zen leaders claimed that Japan was fighting a war of compassion, its soldiers were bodhisattvas who were defeating the enemies of Buddha, and blind obedience to the emperor was a practice of selflessness. In the words of a renowned Soto Zen patriarch: “Whether one kills or does not kill, the precept forbidding killing [is preserved]. It is the precept forbidding killing that wields the sword. It is the precept that throws the bomb.”

To their credit, many American Zen priests have embraced these books, often by characterizing Zen’s involvement in militarism as a distortion or perversion of the authentic dharma teachings. This is undoubtably true, and the Zen community which resisted the Japanese war effort attests to it. But these distortions weren’t simply a local Japanese corruption of the original pure teachings. We can find the spiritual justification for compassionate killing already in the Upayakausalya Sutra, one of the early Mahayana sutras dating to the 1st century BCE.

When American Buddhists hear of the Japanese Zen establishment’s vigorous promotion of war, they often dismiss it as phony Buddhism. Of course it’s trivial to point to the first of the Buddhist precepts, which enjoins killing of any living creature including even insects much less human beings, to prove that advocating violence of any kind goes against the fundamental teachings. The problem is that many Buddhists are unaware that these precepts aren’t necessarily absolute. Major Mahayana and Tantric schools have taught that bodhisattvas may break precepts if they have compassionate intentions, including the precept against killing, and this is justified under the concept of upaya, a word that is translated as “expedience”.......What’s surprising is the way some Buddhists want to have their cake and eat it. When confronted with the evidence of a Zen holy war, they say that this must be a distortion of Buddhism because of the precept against killing. In other words, true Buddhist adheres dogmatically to this principle. At the same time, Buddhism is widely advertised in the West as non-dogmatic, non-judgmental and morally flexible. But the same principles that support the claim that Buddhism transcends dogmatic, dualistic concepts of good and evil also supports the principle of compassionate killing by bodhisattvas.

Making Merit through Warfare and Torture According to the Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyaviṣaya-vikurvaṇa-nirdeśa Sūtra

IMHO, we cannot really address Buddha for what he is without actually seeing the texts that explain him and the early Buddhist texts closest to the timeframe he lived in that were able to be interpreted for violence.

From a perspective of Buddhism in regards to theism, when it comes to anger/wrath, it is not as if Buddhism has not already advocated positive aspects of these things. We see, for example, Hindu-Buddhist deities who express wrath, rage, horror, and anger....the benevolent gods in Buddhist thought who symbolize the tremendous effort it takes to vanquish evil, the violence that is a fundamental reality of the cosmos ..

Videos: 100 'Peaceful and Wrathful' Deities

And we know that the dharampalas, or defenders of Buddhism, are divinities with the rank of Bodhisattva waging war without any mercy against the demons and all enemies of Buddhism - with there being eight wrathful deities, which can be worshipped as a group of "Eight Terrible Ones" or individually:

As another noted best on the issue:

I am drawn to the Hindu-Buddhist deities who express wrath, rage, horror, and anger—as tools for enlightenment. That is the essence of Tantra: the harnessing of the powerful, negative, corrosive emotions as fuel for liberation and release. The wrathful deities are fearsome and frightening, yet their purpose is to guide you towards enlightenment. Perhaps it is because as a young boy I was raised in southern India, surrounded by Hindu temples, gods, and minor deities. Perhaps it's because I perceive a truth and reality in Tibetan Buddhist (Tantric) psychology that is insightful and logical; the logic of the collective unconscious mind, even the soul, which carries forward from the basement floors of our selves into everyday life.

The wrathful deities are aspects of the peaceful deities—you could think of them as the "tough love" deities of enlightenment, who shock you awake if the meditative quiet of the peaceful deities hasn't done so. What does it take to wake you: a quiet tap on the shoulder, or a head slap? I admit I'm prone to needing a head slap. Life can distract me all too easily, and I lose focus.

The wrathful deities are also protectors. In Japanese Buddhist lore, there are wrathful-seeming temple guardians at the gates of every major temple. These are the fudo, protectors, whose angry and violent ways were won over by the Buddha's teachings. Now they turn their scary visages outwards, ensuring the peace and sanctity of what lies within. They keep the demons out. In Balinese Hindu-Buddhism, there is a belief that demons can only travel in straight lines; so the entrance to the temple always has a blocking wall, or a maze, which humans can dance around, but which prevents demons entry. And the demons who have been converted to the side of the light stand on either side of the deflecting walls, further keeping the sacred precincts safe and whole.

ananda · Jun 29, 2015

Gxg (G²) said:
Respectfully..The same dynamic, of course, with newer developments, has occurred with Pure Land Buddhism - although with the Buddhist who do advocate violence, others have noted that the schools of thought for violence are in line with the historical Buddha at many points when considering the other schools that developed from it. Theravada Buddhism, in regards to the Jatakas, comes to mind....as it concerns the stories of the past lives of the Buddha, in which Bodhisattva (a previous incarnation of the Buddha) actually killed someone to save another person's life, though because of this action, he was no longer able to achieve enlightenment in that particular life....but the life he saved was seen as worth it ... The Upayakausalya Sutra ... the books Zen at War and Zen War Stories .. Making Merit through Warfare and Torture According to the Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyaviṣaya-vikurvaṇa-nirdeśa Sūtra ...

Yes, most of these are later developments. There is evidence that the Jatakas also were stories circulating at the time of the Buddha, and adapted to Buddhism, but were not actually taught by the historical Buddha.

IMHO, we cannot really address Buddha for what he is without actually seeing the texts that explain him and the early Buddhist texts closest to the timeframe he lived in that were able to be interpreted for violence

I find the arguments in this treatise on the subject compelling.

Gxg (G²) · Jun 29, 2015

ananda said:
Yes, most of these are later developments. There is evidence that the Jatakas also were stories circulating at the time of the Buddha, and adapted to Buddhism, but were not actually taught by the historical Buddha.

Most of the developments, nonetheless, are from the schools that were closest to Buddha in his time frame - and as no one met Buddha, closeness to the era tends to bring more room for basis. With the Jatakas circulated at the time of Buddha and Buddha never speaking against it when it was adapted to him, it wouldn't be any real argument for the historical Buddha to have taught on it. Moreover, there are many things attributed to the historical Buddha in saying "Well he never said that" when much of what he wrote easily could be interpreted depending on who was there, as is the case with violence when others see that murdering someone out of hate or anger is never good - but taking life without any of those motives/negative feelings is a different matter. The later developments were consistently based at many points on Early Buddhist texts and we cannot dismiss the entire camps made in them who go to the texts as well.

I find the arguments in this treatise on the subject compelling.

Which ones in specific? There are great points, of course, although I do like the other side of things. This specific treatise always comes to my mind when seeing the practicality behind what Buddha said in the early texts rather than an absolute on all dynamics of violence and seeing how to restrain it. For without necessarily justifying defensive violence, it is pointed out that aggression often leads to defensive counter-violence, which can be seen as a karmic result for the aggressor. Such a response happens, whether or not it is justified. Thus aggression is discouraged.

The World's Religions After September 11: Buddhism
Violence and Disruption in Society: A Study of the Early Buddhist Text

As Elizabeth Harris noted wisely:

“That lay people should never initiate violence where there is harmony or use it against the innocent is very clear. That they should not attempt to protect those under their care if the only way of doing so is to use defensive violence is not so clear... The person who feels violence is justified to protect the lives of others has indeed to take the consequences into account. He has to remember that he is risking grave [karmic] consequences for himself in that his action will inevitably bear fruit... Such a person needs to evaluate motives... Yet that person might still judge that the risks are worth facing to prevent a greater evil...If violence is then used, it is something that Buddhism may understand but not approve of.
”

ananda · Jun 29, 2015

Gxg (G²) said:
Most of the developments, nonetheless, are from the schools that were closest to Buddha in his time frame - and as no one met Buddha, closeness to the era tends to bring more room for basis. With the Jatakas circulated at the time of Buddha and Buddha never speaking against it when it was adapted to him, it wouldn't be any real argument for the historical Buddha to have taught on it. Moreover, there are many things attributed to the historical Buddha in saying "Well he never said that" when much of what he wrote easily could be interpreted depending on who was there, as is the case with violence when others see that murdering someone out of hate or anger is never good - but taking life without any of those motives/negative feelings is a different matter.

Which ones in specific...

The booklet is an argument in support of mainly the four earliest Pali Nikayas.

MehGuy · Jun 29, 2015

smaneck said:
Just don't tell MehGuy about it. He'll enjoy it too much.

Hey..

I like my suffering more romantic and poetic. My love of suffering isn't an obsession with blunt brutality, lol.

Still, cool picture. Lol. I have always loved ancient descriptions and painting of hell. Some of these long forgotten people had bizarre and strange imaginations, lol.

Yoder777 · Jun 29, 2015

It's ironic that, since 9/11, all Muslims are labeled as terrorists, given that, after Pearl Harbor, all Buddhists were considered terrorists as well. If you're going to burn the Koran, then you might as well burn the Dhammapada as well. Never mind the fact that, according to the Department of Homeland Security and the Southern Poverty Law Center, right-wing Christians have been responsible for more terrorism-related deaths on our soil since 9/11 than Muslims. Japanese-Americans fought bravely in World War II, just as Arabs and Muslims proudly serve our military today.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/04/us/buddhism-us-enemy/

Yoder777 · Jun 30, 2015

Why are some schools of Buddhism based on self-power while others are based on Other-Power, and how can they all be legitimate forms of Buddhism? It's important to note that each Buddhist school is based on the same essential concepts of the Buddha, yet taught with a different emphasis for the sake of the individual personalities of the hearer. Even Theravada, which is a radical form of self-power, takes refuge in the Buddha, and even Jodo Shinshu, which is a radical form of Other-Power, seeks to live the dharma out of gratitude for the Buddha. It is from the compassion of the Buddha for all beings that there are different schools of faith and practice.
https://greatmiddleway.wordpress.com/2012/10/18/skillful-means-3/

sparow · Jun 30, 2015

Yoder777 said:
What if I told you that the universe has always existed in some form, so there's no need for a Creator, and that there's a natural law of cause and effect, so there's no need for a Judge who rewards and punishes?

What if I then told you that, instead of a God as we understand the term, there is a compassionate essence to the universe that is within each and every human being, and It is our true nature waiting to be born?

Buddhists pray to and take refuge in various Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, but they are understood to be awakened human beings, and that, by taking refuge in them, we will also be led to our own awakening.

It's a common misconception that all Buddhists are atheists, which seems to be perpetuated by Western secularists who insist on projecting their understanding of Buddhism onto all Buddhists and by Theravada Buddhists who insist that their way is the only legitimate way to live the Dharma.

If you called a Mahayana Buddhist who's taken a Bodhisattva Vow, believes the Dalai Lama to be the 14th incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, and who prays to Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light and Life, an atheist, would that really make sense in the way someone like Richard Dawkins would use the term?

If you told me that I would say you are a Buddhist and I am not. I am happy to accept that the creation story is a parable; to take it literally doesn’t compute for me. So what learn from the parable is that the God of Israel is the ultimate authority and has power over life and death. I would not merely believe a story but I believe this because of a conviction and faith that I cannot exactly account for.

Buddhism is an alternate form of righteousness and as such is an antithesis of the Judeo/Christian covenant. The God of Israel has a way; remember the gospel, “The kingdom of God is near, make straight the way”. The way of God is a key and without making the way straight one does not have the key to enter the kingdom.

Whether the universe has always existed or not is incomprehensible for the human brain.

Eudaimonist · Jun 30, 2015

sparow said:
Buddhism is an alternate form of righteousness and as such is an antithesis of the Judeo/Christian covenant.

It is an alternative, and possibly a mutually exclusive one, but that doesn't make something an antithesis.

eudaimonia,

Mark

Jane_the_Bane · Jun 30, 2015

I'd say that in original Buddhism, there is not (and in fact cannot be) any differentiation between "self-power" and "Other-power", because one of the core ideas is clearly that there is no self.

The fundamental insight that breaks all vicious circles of suffering is to realize that the "I that speaks" is a malleable, finite construct, and not an eternal "essence". There is no permanence in anything we consider "self".

Jane_the_Bane · Jun 30, 2015

I understand the concept of teachers, role models, or sage advisors.
But I cannot relate to the idea of venerated intercessors, neither in a Christian nor in a Buddhist context. What insight is there to be gained by pointing to another person and saying: "He did it for me."

There's something incredibly regressive about the whole concept, just as with the angry judge/kindly father-deities we find in other religions.

I am very, very averse to the practice of "dumbing down", or - to describe it in more generous terms, "rendering things more accessible to the masses". So much is irretrievably lost in the process, so much oversimplification, misunderstanding and downright stupidity enters the picture.

Yoder777 · Jun 30, 2015

sparow said:
The way of God is a key and without making the way straight one does not have the key to enter the kingdom.

The way of the Buddha is a key and without it one does not enter the Pure Land. The good thing about Buddha is that he doesn't threaten you with eternal conscious torment in hell simply for not believing in him.

Gxg (G²) · Jun 30, 2015

sparow said:
Buddhism is an alternate form of righteousness and as such is an antithesis of the Judeo/Christian covenant. The God of Israel has a way; remember the gospel, “The kingdom of God is near, make straight the way”. The way of God is a key and without making the way straight one does not have the key to enter the kingdom.

Whether the universe has always existed or not is incomprehensible for the human brain.

True....although Buddhism in many respects did have what can be considered as previews for things to come. Orthodox monk, Dr. Hieromonk Damascene (who was a Buddhist previously before coming to Christ) noted this extensively in his work "Christ the Eternal Tao"

Christ the Eternal Tao - Ecumenical Buddhism, Daoism

Buddhism: Neither Theistic nor Atheistic

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