5 comments

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  yewtree

  2 years ago

  Interesting. Here in the UK, it's just not part of the culture for people to routinely have guns around the place. As a kid, my brother had a rifle that he used to shoot at tin cans with, but we never used it for hunting or anything. I wouldn't dream of having a gun in the house - it's probably not even legal. But then burglars and the like are more likely to have a knife than a gun.
  
  I'm not criticising, just pointing out the cultural difference.
  
  I like the Chinese proverb (I think it's a Chinese proverb): "Hurt rather than maim; maim rather than kill; and kill rather than destroy utterly." In other words, sometimes you have to do something bad to prevent a worse harm - like the bodhisattva that is supposed to have killed a rampaging murderer on a ship to prevent him killing more of the passengers. I try to live by "If it harms no-one, do what you will", but mindful that this is actually a paradoxical statement pointing out that you cannot exist without harming someone.
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  tysgodhi

  2 years ago

  How are vows and conduct viewed in your tradition? For me, the Dzogchen view of flexible conduct in accord with the circumstances but from a nondualistic standpoint is about the any formulation of ethics/morality I've ever been comfortable with. You've probably heard the story of the Buddha in an earlier incarnation chucking the guy who was planning to murder everyone on a ship over the side, to save him from the bad karma. So at least potentially, things like that aren't entirely absolute in Buddhism. In the U.S., anyway, guns tend to involve people in a lot of silly and immature emotions and concepts that can take the place of seeing a situation clearly and acting with judgment and compassion, but if one can remain free of those, then it _can_ be compassionate to use a gun to protect people, including yourself, from harm from people acting at the mercy of destructive and aggressive impulses. How that shakes out with your vow is another matter, but as I said, at least some Buddhism does not regard such vows as absolute.
  
  W.B.
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  Al Billings

  2 years ago

  Shooting to maim will get you prison. If you need to shoot someone, legally, then you are in a lethal situation. If you have the luxury of shooting to maim or to simply harm but not kill, you are in a situation where you do not have to shoot someone (you aren't protecting your life or that of another). Therefore, shooting to simply wound is evidence that you shouldn't have shot in the first place.
  
  Guns are like swords in a traditional sense. When they come out, it is to kill. That is part of the problem.
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  from_alamut

  2 years ago

  There is a long history of Buddhist military traditions especially amongst the Tibetans and the Japanese to consider in asking oneself about the question of violens and buddhism. Most of these warriors took similar vows. Monastaries in Japan raised private armies and battled one another. Japanese peasants using Jodo Shinshe as an ideology defeated the SAmari and the armed monks during the Ikko rebellions.
  
  I think intent is the real parft of the vows. One does not intend to kill when one vows, but sometimes due to past negative karma/wyrd (yours or your attackers) it is unaviodable.
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  tysgodhi

  2 years ago

  Hi from_alamut,
  
  Could you elaborate a little on the Tibetan Buddhist military traditions? I know about that kind of thing in Japan, but not in Tibet--which isn't saying anything, because I don't know that much Tibetan history. The Gesar legend is popular, but I'd thought that he was pre-Buddhist, and what Trungpa and Shambhala did with him is, well, pretty creative! I mean, I know that Tibetans continued to be sort of militant after Buddhism was introduced there, as evidenced by the unceremonious offing of the king of ShangShung, but I don't know of a specifically Buddhist identification of Dharma with a calling as a warrior, as there was to some extent in Japan. Thanks!!
  
  W.B.
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