An interesting piece at BeliefNet on Buddhism and the morality of fighting against terrorism.
“You are entering the koan of ‘Stop Harm’,” observes Myotai Treace Sensei, abbot of the Zen Center of New York, referring to the insoluble meditation riddles Zen masters give their students. “‘Don’t do harm, but stop harm.”
Zen Samurai. Dharma warriors of Tibet. Wrathful Buddhas. These represent powerful Buddhist traditions that acknowledge violence as a tool of the Dharma. Followers of these paths take a series of bodhisattva vows, voluntary oaths to relieve the suffering of all beings. “One of those vows is that, basically, you have to kill if it will be of benefit to others,” explains Nicholas Ribush, a former monk who heads the Lama Yeshe Archive. “If you don’t, you are breaking your vows.”
But to be justified, the teachers agree, the violence must be highly targeted and taken to prevent further violence, not to exact revenge. “When necessary, kill, but only out of wisdom and compassion,” counsels John Daido Loori Roshi, Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery. “We need to see each situation in terms of time, place and position of the individual. What’s okay at one place may not be acceptable in another.”
[…] Scholar Andrew Olendzki, Ph.D., of the Barre Center for Buddhist studies cites numerous stories to illustrate the point. In one past life, the Buddha is said to have killed a man who was about to murder 500 others. In another, the Buddha said that if, in order to save a choking boy, he had to cause injury he would do so. “My sense is the Buddha accepted that a certain amount of violence is built into the world situations,” Olendzki says.
Seems like an even-handed way of looking at the problem. It lends itself to abuse, of course, since it relies in enlightenment and self-judgment … but that’s much of what Buddhism is about, and that’s not a bad thing.
(Via Andrew Sullivan)