NEWS: Brad Warner's Hardcore Zen: Buddhism Through Violence

Of course everybody dies. Im just saying that if someone is trying to help facilitate your death, you shouldn't aid them.

I'm not a buddhist and I never claimed to be a buddhist. I've read extensively, and I do sit Zazen, but in no way claim to be an expert on the subject. What I am saying is that my experinces have told me that defending your life and buddhist teachings are not in direct opposition. You seem to think they are. Again, its incredibly easy to say what you would and wouldn't do when you've never been in any of these situations. But many buddhists who came before you have, and guess what, they defended themselves, and sometimes that defense of self includes hurting your attacker. Without pleasure, wihtout ego, they did what needed to be done. You seem to think this is unforgivable. I tend to not see the world in such absolute tones.

Oh, and as for my Mom, like that would ever happen. Besides, I could totally take her.

Oh, I don't know, moms can be crafty. Especially when armed.

When did I ever say anything was unforgivable? What Brad said wasn't unforgivable. It was just wrong. Tibetan Buddhism persists despite the Chinese killing 50k monks and destroying virtually every monastery in Tibet. As with the Tibetan diaspora, around the turn of the tenth millenium there was a Buddhist diaspora from India when the Moguls trashed Nalenda monastery and killed most of the monks there. I don't really know the history of the Pali Canon, but I bet there are similar stories.

Buddhists have been massacred many times. You could say it comes with the territory. Being a pacifist isn't some pansy-ass thing where you just calmly submit to being murdered. You run. You slap the knife out of your attacker's hand. Whatever you can.

But if you have refuge, you don't kill your attacker, because you know that that can't be the cause of you living or dying in the moment, but that it will definitely be the cause of you dying in some future moment. That's all. I'm not asking you to accept that this is true; all I'm saying is that this is the basis for the Buddhist practice of not harming others. We don't do it because we're "nice." We do it out of self-interest.

And harming others definitely isn't why Buddhism persists to this day, because if that were so, the moguls wouldn't have massacred the Indian monks, and the Chinese wouldn't have massacred the Tibetan monks.

Lama Zopa told me once that he absolutely would not kill someone who was trying to take his life because he cannot judge which of the two have more of a right to live. I guess that's the Tibetan take on it, although I know that past Dalai Lamas have had armed guards protecting His Holiness and the temple. My Zen teacher would have put it more as a dilemma rather than an absolute.

The armed guards are willing to die to protect His Holiness. Lama Zopa's answer is a nice, skillful answer, but it's probably not what he'd tell a monk. I think expressing it as a dilemma is good, because it puts your mind on the heart of the issue, but it's still a little too easy.

The fact is that unless we're bodyguards to the Dalai Lama, the question has little meaning for us in practice. So when we mentally masturbate on the question, it's probably good to realize that because it's not a visceral issue for us, living under fairly effective rule of law, we aren't likely to come up with an honest answer anyway.

This is why I mentioned Satyagraha. Just look at what Gandhi did when he was in South Africa. *That* is pacifism. That is honest. There's no powerlessness in Satyagraha.

Thank you for the article-- there can be a tremendous amount of skill and transcendance in violence. I don't believe compassion and non-violence are always at odds. Sometimes, the correct act of compassion is being the consequence for another.

The only way to truly become detached from the fear of violence is to have enough exposure and experience within it to overcome the lizard-brain.

Exactly. I think the early Shaolin Monks, Muay Thai Kru's, and Samurai had this concept down pat. It's funny, I can watch a full contact match and have no reaction, in spite of blood, knock outs, choke outs, or anything of that sort. But I can't stand watching two people yell at each other.

Like most things in life, there's no set answer either way. But to me, what Brad is talking about is no more wrong than early Buddhists designing systems of Martial Arts that contain fatal techniques.

Of course their is strength in pacifism. That should be the first weapon deployed in any scenario. But I dont believe that we can unilaterally say that violence in te name of self preservation is bad under any circumstance.

Why would you want to say anything at all about what Buddhism teaches, when you're not a Buddhist?

If you're not a Buddhist, it's perfectly reasonable to follow a philosophy that's partly Buddhism, and partly of your own invention, or not at all Buddhism, or whatever. As a Buddhist practitioner, I might even learn something from you from listening to your reasoning.

But there's no ambiguity at all about killing in the sutras. So for a Buddhist practitioner who thinks that the sutras are a method, and not just a philosophy, we don't have to state anything unilaterally. We're just following the recipe.

If you truly believe that, why are you still here? You cannot live but through the death of sentient beings.

This article on the whole I found pretty UN-En-lightend. Seems to prance around and hint that what has gone on in the middle east since 9/11 (a F*** of a lot of suffering) is neccicary to protect our freedom "so we can practice buddhism", without actually having the balls to come out and say it straight. After all, those black hat muslims, all of them, want to take our freedom to do zazen and put all our women in burqa's straight up, they are licking their lips right now, writeing down plans. Does this have ANY chance of happening even if the states had no real army?

The bubbleheaded peaceniks may be making their ego's purr by standing against war, but what about the whole idea of being a 'buddhist' that needs to practice but must first be protected from a vague alien enemy? What about letting go into the unknown and the feeling of the need to be protected, seems a little free-er to me. Isn't this kind of interplay of Bullshit what makes up an ego in the first place?

Also Buddhists are not jews, just cause the islamic empire invaded india an age ago and screwed over the 'buddhists' at the time does not give modern 'buddhists' an axe to grind. A Buddha is an Awake person right now, not a cultural identity unless it is taken as such, which is fine too but not 'harcore zen' *cough* dealing with reality.

Anyway, sorry to be rude just strongly disagree.

I have been re-reading Mr. Warner's article along with the following commentaries off and on since it has been posted. What is interesting is that it seems quite obvious that there are some people who "get" the article and some that don't "get it" at all (see above comment).

I think anybody who thinks that this article is about war in the middle east needs to seriously consider taking a class on critical thinking. I believe the point that Brad may be attempting to make (and maybe I am totally wrong, it's been known to happen more often than not) isn't really that violence is necessary to have freedoms, but rather there are fundamental problems with all of us everywhere and it is those fundamental problems that are causing the real grief and suffering. Violence (either to hurt us or protect us) and war are manifestations of those problems.

Unfortunately because of these endemic problems in societies across the world, we realistically may require violence to ensure freedoms (as per Brad's examples). However the solution to suffering isn't merely to be all pacifist and dance around with daisies, but it is to find an end to the suffering that plagues the world. Once that suffering ceases, then violence - and need of it - will cease.

As Brad stated, "We need to find a way to completely step out of our habitual modes of reaction in order to find the real solution to our very pressing problems."
Shooting people in the Middle East is not a real solution, likewise camping out in a tent in Texas bitching about shooting people in the Middle East is not a real solution either.

Chemzen - I wouldn't say it was just about the middle east but that situation was mentioned directly and indirectly several times.

I wouldn't deny that having an efficient military for protection isn't wise to have, the notion that having 'a bully on our side' is a good thing and the idea that violence is needed secure my personal space. I think it has more to do with getting wrapped up with drama of the state.

Actually the Middle East was never mentioned the article (neither was Iraq for that matter) but there have been plenty of other references to it by other people. That being said he did mention the President's policies, which I guess can be a non-stated inference but again that should hardly count as "several times." It is just simply a way-beyond-obvious example of bad shit going down someplace.

Anyhow . . . it doesn't matter. I feel that you may still not be thinking this all of the way through to the core but are rather caught up with the current wars, military actions, or whatever you want to call them. Rather the point is why do we have those wars and violence in the first place? And, the answer is in no way at all about oil, money, or 19 insane dimwits flying planes into buildings. The real problem is entirely more fundamental than that, which is then expressed as war, violence, hatred, and so forth. How to identify the fundamental problems and fix those - well that is entirely a different matter altogether. I suppose a baby step would be for everybody to shut up and sit down.

The bit about having "a bully on our side" makes sense in light of how the world works (i.e. it is a realistic, albeit unfortunate, necessity). Though the question really should be, "Why do you have to have that bully on your side to secure your personal space?" I think that, in fact, it is completely the oppose of "getting wrapped up with the drama of the state" but rather a question of getting down to what is really truly the problem with all of us. Once we figure that out (if ever) then we won't need a bully to protect our personal spaces and our ability to stare at a wall.

I actually picked up Brad's first book and read half of it last night which I am liking alot. Anyway, I get the impression that parts of the article were written kind of flippantly and probably I read it kind of flippantly.

I still think that the example of returning love and service for hate is one of spirituality's and humanities highest teachings and one of the absolute hardest and most heroic to follow properly.

Good article. I think of these things every time some li´l punk spraypaints fuck the police on a wall.
Not that there´s anything wrong with that.