Violence is strictly a social phenomena. Its important not to blame buddhism, or any religion for that matter, when it describes the uncomfortable truths of society. No matter the content of ones religion, it will always serve as a moral cohesion. And cohesion is necessary to fulfill militaristic and, otherwise political, aims too. After all, who do you thinks writin’ this shit?

@Joe

The Afghanistan, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand & etc were all so called Hindu states and later partly converted to Buddhism during and after the reign of King Ashoka the Great. Following his gory battle at “Kalinga” (Orrissa state today in India) King Ashoka was so moved that he denounced everything and Lord Buddha was just spreading his gospel. He somehow got attracted to him and thenafter he himself became his disciple and took his shelter to help spread his gospel.
God bless
Dr. O. P. Sudrania

If one has true understanding of emptiness, the test is to see if one’s
compassion towards others, love, and joy increases. If it does not, then the
supposed understanding, experience, or “realization” of emptiness must be
critically examined.

A critical element of emptiness is compassion, the wish and action that others
be free from suffering and the causes of suffering. Emptiness and compassion
are like two wings of a bird. If you only practice emptiness, it can lead to a
nihilistic view that nothing exists. This is not correct understanding.

Karma is not as simple as your physical actions. It is related to your thinking
and intention primarily which in turn leads to your speech and actions. Positive
thinking: renunciation, compassion, faith, love, and wisdom create positive
karma which results in happiness. Negative thinking: anger, jealousy, greed,
pride, and ignorance creates negative karma and leads to suffering. Your
thinking is your cause. All beings’ thinking and karma is condition. This is
interdependence.

If you do not understand the importance of your thinking and karma, there is
no reason to look to emptiness first. If you do not understand the principles of
the Buddha’s teaching, it is easy to misinterpret the words and the meaning.
Therefore, if you are truly interested in learning authentic Dharma, it is critical
to have a qualified Dharma teacher who is well versed in the teachings.
Otherwise, you will read “all phenomena is emptiness” as being nothing, so why
not kill people? However, if you understand thinking, cause and effect,
interdependence, and the precepts, you will not be led on the wrong path.

The key element of Mahayana Buddhism is what is called Bodhicitta. It is
translated as the Intention of Enlightened Wisdom. This is the wish that all
beings be free from all suffering and have true happiness forever. If you have
this wish, you will never engage in acts of violence out of anger.

May you always have happiness and the causes of happiness. May whoever
reads this book be free from all suffering and realize the stainless bliss of
awakening. Namo Buddhaya

All religions have Romanced violence, many different
versions of the same can kill, sunni shiia, catholics
and protestants..etc. as someone once said History is
a nightmare I have yet to wake from..James Joyce  
Sparta and Athens, Samuri of Japan, Kung Fu of
China, Karate, defense vs offense, like night and
day,is violence natural as nature has suggested.
Reaching bind for the dark, I see, that I too have
Romanced violence for 30 years or more. So are we
born in anger or fearfull that turns into anger,
stopped driving to end road rage, stopped eating meat
for non-violence, stopped martial arts, steady
balance of stress, daily exercise, good food but the
violent dreams never seize or seem to have know end,
What is it in Humanity, only the survival instinct,
the warrior tribes beleive in suicide as a way out,
ALL of it feels wrong,even when slapped in the face
with reality of violence.

One can identify oneself with the lightning or the wind if one can be truly empty “like the water that reflects the sky.”  No Buddhists whom I know, and doubtless most whom I don’t, have ever reached that plane of being.  The lightning has no mind to split the tree, nor does the wind to blow it over; they just do it because they are natural forces with no intelligence.  What I’m hearing from these justifications for violence sounds more like simple human arrogance than anything else.  I suspect the Buddha would be appalled.

Vilifying anything you don’t understand is the temperament of the day.  It was only a matter of time
and opportunity before this ignorance was directed
towards Buddhism.

“Once you reach enlightenment, you’ll realize you did
not need it.”

the buffalo is in the rice paddy
the jumpy has flowers, sweet
my friends husband has died
today was so hot
the burning is tomorrow

Zen Buddhists say:
If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him!
This does not refer to physical violence.  It means if you find the buddha anywhere other than inside yourself, you are still living in duality, and it is the ego-center that must be slain. One of the CENTRAL tennants of Buddhiosm is ahimsa, or non-violence. The two most important aspects of Buddhism are the development of equanimity and compassion. In fact, the very development of buddhism was an act of compassion, since the Buddha saw so much suffering in the world, and wanted to do something about it. Buddhism as it passed through various cultures was influenced by those cultures, which took away from the original purity.  But anyone who advocates violence IS NOT A TRUE BUDDHIST, for he is violating the core principles of Buddhism.

There are those who think that the world exists and that the world is real. There are others who think that the world does not exist and that the world is not real. Rare indeed is that blessed one who does not think, but who is ever calm, abiding in the absolute.

By Sage Astavakra on the science of “Self Realisation” as taught to King Janaka.

God bless

Dr. O. P. Sudrania

Buddhism is not a religion per se, since it doesn’t promote worship of a deity. It is a mystical path - non-rational - as soon as it becomes institutional and religious - it goes toxic -as do all the world religions, none of which have a clean record on violence - certainly not the Judao-Christian

The only true “Buddhist” is a Buddhist Fundamentalist, i.e., what Buddha or any one of us grasps at the moment of enlightenment.  The stuff that comes afterwards, 4-fold paths and 8-fold truths (or vice versa, whatever) is added BS.  There is no absolute morality, no good nor evil.  As light can only be known because it contrasts with darkness, so existence can only be known by its contrast with non-existence.  But since we can’t contemplate “non-existence,” and existence depends on it, the “emptiness” (non-existence) that is referred to is the fleeting Now.  So the Dalai Lama says, “We have no absolutes in Buddhism, except compassion.”  That’s fine, except he was APPOINTED as THE Buddhist.  He might not truly know what some of us “true” Buddhists know.  There is no dogma.  Words aren’t truth—they’re distractions, but I think the closest that words can bring you to the ultimate reality are the words that title Alan Watts’ essay-collection:  This Is It

Are we supposed to be surprised by this?  Any philosophy or doctrine can be perverted.

First, I practice the buddha-dhammain the Theravada tradition, and though familiar with aspects of Mahayana, I tend to think the author is making sweeping generalizations about it.
Second, I don’t purport to be a great example of one on the Buddhist path, but I do my best.
Third, I am not unaware that Buddhists have killed and engaged in acts contrary to the teachings of the Buddha (one only need look at how the Tamils have been handled by some who claim to be Buddhist.

Having qualified my subsequent comments, let me say, the author of this article is dealing with some difficult subjects.  Knowledge of emptiness is not an intellectual exercise, though this author seems to take that tact. It is experiental. Kamma too is not just if you do good, good will come, if you do bad, bad will come. The Buddha was not an idiot, and he chastizes more than one follower for either getting it wrong or for making it seem simple. This too is something seen in practice and is not an intellectual exercise.

Also, just as in all the major religions, there are teachings and there are the cultural developments, accretions, and institutionalizing so that what is called Christianity or Buddhism, etc, would probably shock Jesus or the Buddha if either was here to proved a corrective.  In short, the sins of the sons don’t fall on the fathers.

I don know that as in any tradition handed down from one generation to the next, and also carried to new lands, that each culture makes with it what it wants.  Though in Buddhism, the basic tenets seem to have stayed pretty uniform, even if the outward observances changed drastically from place to place.
My recollection of Manjushri carries a sword to cut through delusion, not to kill the Buddha.

Thus, I am not offering apologies, nor am I defending what I recognize as the shortcomings of anyone associated with a religion and not necessarily being the best example of that religion. What I am saying is that the author of this article, and not having read the book I cannot speak about its author, makes a bunch of spurious declamationa about subjects I feel she knows little about. The organization of the article too shows a kind of cafeteria approach to the subject without much substance.

Do some Buddhists kill?  Yes, of course. Do some misinterpret the teachings and develop crazy sects?  Of course, as in all religions.

Is Buddhism a religion?  The jury is out on that one, and a definitive verdict will never be given.

Thank you Katherine,

Historical being, is it then?,, no such animal,

No, never that, only this now.

Human nature could be described in a lyric by Dave
Mathews, “between the lines I’ll pack more lines”.

History is fun, philosophical history even more fun,
and many forms of history can be a useful convention
as long it does not take a form that is mistaken for
the present, and certainly not a form which is relied
on to predict a future present. 

History,,, philosophical, religious or otherwise
must not be simply an exercise in the worship of
linear time,, the evangelization of linear time
really, as is so often the case.

I think I will name my next dog, Buddha, so I can say
often, especially when Buddha is a puppy, “bad
Buddha, bad”.

Yipes,

Rhuen Phreed
11 Marlborough Street, #22
Boston, MA 02116

Buddhism is not Buddhist doctrine.  Doctrine can never be absolute; words can always be twisted.  Some doctrines unambiguously say ‘kill the infidel’ - I have never read any such thing in Buddhism. 

Buddhism, like a mature adult, acknowledges that there is a time to kill.  There is a time to kill.  Can one say otherwise?  I believe it requires distorted interpretation to conclude that Suzuki and Soho were saying that a Zen-man may kill freely unconstrained by morality.  The thinking is that the Zen-man will naturally know when killing IS moral and when it is not.  Zen ‘morality’ is not clunking and doctrinaire but it is absolutely moral nevertheless.

No more can be said.  No more need be said.  Too much has already been said.  The problem is words themselves, as opposed to no words, or non-words, or silent realization of “the ineffable”, the “unbear-able lightness of being” ... etc. As the wind says when it talks to the trees:  Shhhhhhhh!

Those who seek to do evil always attempt to clothe themselves in the highest moral, philosophical, or religious ideals. By doing so they do not besmirch the truth in the slightest. The truth remains unstained by the vulgar abuse of the unenlightened. Buddhism is by no means unique in having been ill used by unworthy persons. There is no way to prevent lies being told. One can only hold strongly to the truth, and try to make it known.

Seems like all major religions follow a similar path.

They begin with wisdom from a visionary.

But, at some point the religion becomes an institution. And even worse, at some point the religion becomes associated with the state.

Once you have Buddhist nations, or Christian nations, then you are forced to have religious backings for the wars of these nations.  Unless the rulers of the nation were to listen to any of the original wisdom of the teacher and realize that perhaps a true Buddhist nation or a true Christian nation would be the nation to avoid warfare unless absolutely forced to defend itself.  Like that’s ever going to happen.  If Buddha had wanted to be a king, he would have never have left the palace.

Christianity has much the same.  A history of Christian warfare in the name of the man who taught us to love our enemies like our brothers. And a history of religious thought and writings that somehow twist the notion of the man who taught peace on earth into justifications for the crusades and a millennium of Christian warfare since.

When Buddhism became an institution, when Buddhism became a part of the state, this concept of Buddhist warfare was certain to follow.

There seems to be a catch-22 here.  If you are not the religion of the state, then you are at the mercy of other zealots who regard you as a heretic and thereby subject you to everything from the Inquisition to congressional hearings to burning at the stake.

But, if you are the religion of the state, then you become complicit in the crimes of the state.  And suddenly, we are talking about warfare and brutal governments in the name of the enlightened one or in the name of the prince of peace.

Neither path seems to lead to a peaceful life.  At least not on this earth. 

Seems like the best this world seems to offer is to live in peace and to try to teach peace, but then just peacefully suffer the beatings and the murders and the thefts that occur when the popular mob that follows a different religion turns on you.

Or, are you willing to fight to defend your peaceful life?  But is your life peaceful then?  And the mob only seems to listen to violence and loot, so only violence can force the mob to adopt your ways.  Which defeats the purpose of your peaceful ways if you are constantly forced to use violence to impose them on others.

At least not until the mob can be taught to be peaceful, which doesn’t seem to be happening in my lifetime.

To kindly remember Mr. Vonnegut ...... and so it goes.