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Ask a Buddhist

Kayness

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I have never heard of any Buddhist killing anyone in the name of Buddhism. It's kind of goes against the ..uhm. point. You know, ahimsa and such.
THOUGH I'm not saying that Buddhists have NOT killed anyone at all...of course they have and still do. Many Buddhist countries have a bloody history, but AFAIK it's never religiously motivated.

Do you have any link? I want to know.
 
W

WALMART

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I have never heard of any Buddhist killing anyone in the name of Buddhism. It's kind of goes against the ..uhm. point. You know, ahimsa and such.
THOUGH I'm not saying that Buddhists have NOT killed anyone at all...of course they have and still do. Many Buddhist countries have a bloody history, but AFAIK it's never religiously motivated.

Do you have any link? I want to know.


It's funny, to think of Christ as a person, then to think of statements like this and relate it to Christian sentiment.
 

Red Herring

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I have never heard of any Buddhist killing anyone in the name of Buddhism. It's kind of goes against the ..uhm. point. You know, ahimsa and such.
THOUGH I'm not saying that Buddhists have NOT killed anyone at all...of course they have and still do. Many Buddhist countries have a bloody history, but AFAIK it's never religiously motivated.

Do you have any link? I want to know.

He is referring to the Sri Lankan Civil War which has precious little to do with buddhism and a lot more with the aftershock of colonialism and how countries consisting of different ethnic groups organized themselves after independence.

It started out as a conflict about how the different ethnic groups shuld be represented in parliament (the 15% Tamil minority originally cemanded a 50-50 representation) and which language(s) should be official, but the roots of the conflict go back to the British favoring certain groups during their reign, creating elites and thus leaving a lot of potential for future conflict once they withdrew. There was both a backlash of accumulated hostility towards the Tamils from the Sinhalese side and a fear of repression and loss of priviledge on the Tamil side.

A classic post-colonial scenario.

[MENTION=6164]Riva[/MENTION], correct me if I got this wrong.
 
R

Riva

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He is referring to the Sri Lankan Civil War which has precious little to do with buddhism and a lot more with the aftershock of colonialism and how countries consisting of different ethnic groups organized themselves after independence.

It started out as a conflict about how the different ethnic groups shuld be represented in parliament (the 15% Tamil minority originally cemanded a 50-50 representation) and which language(s) should be official, but the roots of the conflict go back to the British favoring certain groups during their reign, creating elites and thus leaving a lot of potential for future conflict once they withdrew. There was both a backlash of accumulated hostility towards the Tamils from the Sinhalese side and a fear of repression and loss of priviledge on the Tamil side.

A classic post-colonial scenario.

[MENTION=6164]Riva[/MENTION], correct me if I got this wrong.

+1

Yes it is correct. I'm surprised that you knew all that.

I should add a bit to it -

Initially there were no issues regarding the representation of the Parliament. Yes most authoritative positions were given to the Jaffna-Tamils as a way to control the Sinhalese majority. But these issues didn't come in to surface until the British Governor William Manning brought a policy/act which insisted that different ethnicities represented their own groups in the parliament. This was probably (not sure though) a ruse by the British Governor to create tension between the two ethnic groups.

This is what caused all the issues. The Sinhalese being the majority inherited most of the seats and the Jaffna-Tamils started to realize they were losing their authoritative positions.

Before that policy (act) was brought forward the Sinhalese and the Jaffna-Tamils worked together. Infact the representative of natives was a Jaffna-Tamil named Ponnambalam Arunachalam.

1948 -
Won the independence mostly thanks the Gandhi/India's fight for independence directly influencing Sri Lanka and the combined effort of both Sinhalese and the Jaffna-Tamils.

1950s -
The premier at that time did a mistake of making the official language of Sri Lanka Sinhalese which probably made the Tamils feel like aliens. In his defense even during the 1950s the Jaffna-Tamils still held most of the authoritative positions (except in the Parliament) therefore probably did that to hand over authoritative positions to the Sinhalese. This led Jaffna-Tamils to riot in the north, caused separatist feelings and a few decades later to war.

1980s -
The Indian government started directly backing the Tamil separatist as a way to have the Government of Sri Lanka under its thumb (which was probably to hold economic superiority in the region). They started training, supplying arms to the separatists. Infact in 1987 when the Sri Lankan armed forces laid siege to the terrorist the IndianAirforce actively intervened and provided the terrorist with weapons.

I'm going too much in to detials here. What I was trying to imply was that with the backing of the Indian government the separatist movement got stronger and in to an armed conflict. But that's a story for some other day.

-----

Here let me also add Victor's interpretation of the matter -

Since Buddha desired his devotees to show their loyalties to him and encouraged them to indicate this by making blood sacrifices the history of Buddhism is plagued with violent wars fought to glorify the name of Buddha.
 

sprinkles

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I have never heard of any Buddhist killing anyone in the name of Buddhism. It's kind of goes against the ..uhm. point. You know, ahimsa and such.
THOUGH I'm not saying that Buddhists have NOT killed anyone at all...of course they have and still do. Many Buddhist countries have a bloody history, but AFAIK it's never religiously motivated.

Do you have any link? I want to know.

Yes and from some perspectives, ahimsa is a principle, and not a rule to begin with. I see it as more about killing causing problems rather than a strictly moral prescription.

It's more about "killing harms you and others so it is best not to do it" and less about "don't kill because it's wrong because I said so" There's also differing views about battle and self defense.
 

Red Herring

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Yes and from some perspectives, ahimsa is a principle, and not a rule to begin with. I see it as more about killing causing problems rather than a strictly moral prescription.

It's more about "killing harms you and others so it is best not to do it" and less about "don't kill because it's wrong because I said so" There's also differing views about battle and self defense.

Also a nice illustration of the general difference between a system of ethics based on divine instruction and a system of ethics based on humanistic/utilitarian considerations, something that tends to come up in debates on atheism.
 

Scott N Denver

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I remember learning in my world history class, before I "became buddhist", that Buddhism was like the most peaceful major religion in existence in the sense that it had started the least number of wars of any major religion.

Over any large group of people there will be different motivations, and people will "abuse" things or find ways to justify their political/military aspirations, but that will always be. There are people in history who have abused buddhism for their own gain, and probably just about every religion in existence for that matter, but what is notaable about Buddhism, as pointed out in that world history class, is how infrequently that occurred relative to any other major religion. King Ashoka is often held up as an example of someone who personifies being buddhist and a ruler but not a warmonger/conqueror.

It's harder to pin down specifically, but generally similar sentiments could be said for Taoism. However, China was never really Taoist as such, Taoist confucian shamanic buddhist pick any two or more, and Taoists generally avoided major positions of power. Jainism and Sikhism could also potentially be viewed in a similar light, though I dont recall details specifically enough to say this definitely atm.
 

Mole

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Buddhists Attacking Australia

Maybe it was/is.

Lolz.

Debunking Buddhism is not the real reason that offended me. Now that you know what offended me I wouldn't be surprised if you start exploiting that. But then again I do have my defenses against that too.

I don't really have to defend Buddhism when it comes to the subject of violence and violent history. But like I said if there is proof of such instances where Buddha encouraged violence ever I'm all ears.

Yes I've seen you exploiting this.

Yes like I said I'm sorry for calling you a troll because you are obviously not one. Again I extend my apologies. Lolz....

Please! Please! The only attack ever made on the Australian mainland was made by Buddhists. They attacked Darwin, Australia, with a larger naval force than the force that attacked Hawaii, and bombed Dawin more times than they bombed Pearl Harbour, then they went on to bomb ports all along the huge northern coastline of Australia.

Then they snuck into Sydney Harbour, sank a few ships and bombarded the suburbs. Naturally we killed them, but then because they were brave military Buddhists, we buried them with full military honours.
 

Mole

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He [Victor] is referring to the Sri Lankan Civil War which has precious little to do with buddhism and a lot more with the aftershock of colonialism and how countries consisting of different ethnic groups organized themselves after independence.

A classic post-colonial scenario.

The Indian Sub-Continent was violently rent in two by one thing and one thing only : religion.

And being part of the Indian Sub-Continent Sri Lanka followed suit.
 

Mole

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I remember learning in my world history class, before I "became buddhist", that Buddhism was like the most peaceful major religion in existence.

As I write, the peace loving Buddhists of Myanmar (formerly Burma) are killing, torturing, burning and driving out of their homes, the muslims of Myanmar.
 

sprinkles

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This will come back around to them, [MENTION=3325]Victor[/MENTION]. It always does.
In the case of Japan, it already did a while ago.
 

Scott N Denver

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As I write, the peace loving Buddhists of Myanmar (formerly Burma) are killing, torturing, burning and driving out of their homes, the muslims of Myanmar.

There is always a variance in people, their goals, and therefore methods. To me it would be unreasonable to expect any sizable religion to not have some group of people somewhere sometime who didn't do bad things, for example killing people. The point here is that Buddhism has had far less of it than any other major religion. And I don't think there have been any wars caused by the motivation of "spreading buddhism." Not many sizable religions can say that. more "peaceful record"
 
S

Sniffles

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Since this thread is about Buddhism, I guess off the top of my head I could mention the Shaolin monks of China and the Yamabushi of Japan; who both were engaged in warfare at various times. Buddhism has been prominent among the Mongols, who weren't exactly the most peace-loving band of brothers. Nor were the Samurai.

Here's some Buddhist monks undergoing military training during WWII.
scofield6-8.jpg


Oh yeah and don't forget that Buddha himself was a member of the Kshatriya warrior caste.
 

Scott N Denver

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Since this thread is about Buddhism, I guess off the top of my head I could mention the Shaolin monks of China and the Yamabushi of Japan; who both were engaged in warfare at various times. Buddhism has been prominent among the Mongols, who weren't exactly the most peace-loving band of brothers. Nor were the Samurai.

Here's some Buddhist monks undergoing military training during WWII.
scofield6-8.jpg


Oh yeah and don't forget that Buddha himself was a member of the Kshatriya warrior caste.

I don't really see the point of all this. Were there, and are there, warrior subgroups of Buddhism? Yes absolutely. Last time I checked the shaolin buddhist monks of china weren't involved in all that many wars, and in fact there location(s?) was often used by people seeking refuge from the government of the time. Can the Knights Templar, for example, somehow claim not to have been involved in many wars? And the wars they were in, those were pretty darn religious motivated right?

Samurai generally werent exactly monks. Some were, but in general most not so much. I am unaware of any instances in which samurai fought "to spread buddhism". I could list plenty of catholic vs protestant, christian vs muslim, or other examples where people were fighting to spread religion or to convert people to a religion by force.

The Buddha was a kshatriya or warrior caste, so what? A number of very religious people come from warrior background, plenty of them maintain warrior backgrounds. If someone goes far in religious/meditation training you could say they "fight their inner demons, fears, etc." That is far removed from fighting or killing other people. Going back to shaolin [or Wudang for that matter] historical China was a rough place and bandits were numerous. Defense against bandits was a major motivation to study martial arts. That's the real world for you. It's not like the Buddha sent people on crusades to convert people to Buddhism or anything. I can name two major western monotheisms for whom that is not the case, and am not sure about the third. I am unfamiliar with anything in any buddhist text that reads like the violence of the old testament, for example [seriously, how much death and killing and "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live is in that thing? answer: a lot]. All three major western monotheisms recognize the old testament and assert its validity.

Overall Buddhism has a much more peaceful history than any major western religion, and possibly any other major religion [Hinduism is hard for me to evaluate in this regard, Taoism arguably isn't a major world religion]. If you want some superpacifistic religion go look at Jainism where they sweep brooms to avoid walking on insects. Thats not a very practical way to live life, and arguably Jainism isn't a major world religion [not major 5 anyway, maybe major 10???]

I'd be pretty shocked if ANY religion could take a country or culture at large and make them ALL peaceful non-warring non-violent people. Given large groups of people and human nature its just not very likely to happen. But, again, Buddhism has a far cleaner record than any other major world religion in this regard. Last time I checked no major Western religion comes even remotely close. THAT is the point I would like to drive home here.
 

Scott N Denver

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I would also like to point out, for the record, that Buddhism does not have a history of executing its mystics. Neither of the two later major monotheisms can say that. Buddhism also doesnt have a history of killing people for not "believing the right things", once again unlike some (all?) the major monotheisms.

There is a reason in history books that Buddhism is often held up as a more "peaceful" world religion, either in a general sense or in the sense thats its started less wars relating to religious beliefs or conversion. and there are reasons that history books talk about wars and conflict between religious groups in the West [and probably beyond] and gives all sorts of examples of religiously-motivated wars and list "differences in religion" as a historical cause of many conflicts. If someone wants to ignore every point that I've personally made, then go argue with the history books and the people that write them. And your gonna need a lot of luck "overlooking" things like the crusades, all sorts of protestant/catholic fighting, spreading of Islam by force, and whatever other examples are out there.
 
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Sniffles

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I don't really see the point of all this.
The basic point is that claiming Buddhists have not engaged in wars cannot really be substantiated on many levels.


Samurai generally werent exactly monks. Some were, but in general most not so much.
They weren't monks, no, but they still adhered to Zen Buddhism. If we want to get into examples of warrior monks in Japan, the Yamabushi and Sohei would be the place to look. Samurais weren't the only people to use arms, almost every class of feudal japan had its own military traditions.

I am unaware of any instances in which samurai fought "to spread buddhism".
Zen Buddhism was part of their mentality, and Zen Buddhism supposedly played a role in the later development of Japanese militarism.

I could list plenty of catholic vs protestant, christian vs muslim, or other examples where people were fighting to spread religion or to convert people to a religion by force.
And I could also point to the numerous nuances involved here, particularly how political factors were often the larger force in play. This was particularly true during the many "Wars of Religion" in Europe; which largely was as much about the conflict between the Holy Roman Emperors and the nobility seeking to build their own power bases. The nobility more than a few times sought to exploit theological disputes for their own gain.



The Buddha was a kshatriya or warrior caste, so what?
The point basically being he wasn't a peace-loving hippie many try to present him. I don't find anything wrong with him being a member of the warrior caste.

A number of very religious people come from warrior background, plenty of them maintain warrior backgrounds. If someone goes far in religious/meditation training you could say they "fight their inner demons, fears, etc."
Of course you could say that, since spiritual warfare always has precedence over physical warfare. That concept is pretty consistent in traditions both East and West. St. Paul talks of donning the "armour of faith", St. Benedict talked of engaging in spiritual battles, and St. Ignatius of course wrote about spiritual exercises along these lines as well.

That is far removed from fighting or killing other people.
Yes and no. Spiritual warfare maybe higher than physical warfare, but it can't always be seperated.

Going back to shaolin [or Wudang for that matter] historical China was a rough place and bandits were numerous. Defense against bandits was a major motivation to study martial arts. That's the real world for you.
Yes I'm well aware of what China was like at the time. My point is not that the Shaolin monks were wrong to study martial arts. The Templar Knights were created to protect pilgrims from harassment, to give a comparison.

It's not like the Buddha sent people on crusades to convert people to Buddhism or anything. I can name two major western monotheisms for whom that is not the case, and am not sure about the third.
I have my doubts whether you could argue that Asia was far more peaceful than Europe and the Middle East during a general period of 500-1500 AD.

I am unfamiliar with anything in any buddhist text that reads like the violence of the old testament, for example [seriously, how much death and killing and "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live is in that thing? answer: a lot]. All three major western monotheisms recognize the old testament and assert its validity.
Yes they do assert its validity, but much of the violence in the text is seen in symbolic terms, which in some ways gets back to the point you yourself brought up just above about "fighting demons". Even if these traditions did assert such texts on a literalist basis, it would be irrelevant since the archeological evidence AFAIK does not support the contention that such massacres actually occurred.

Overall Buddhism has a much more peaceful history than any major western religion, and possibly any other major religion [Hinduism is hard for me to evaluate in this regard, Taoism arguably isn't a major world religion].
Again, if we did a comparative study of the military histories of Europe, the Middle East, and Asia - I sincerely doubt such an assertion could possibly be made. Buddhism has its own versions of warrior monks, just as existed in the West with the Templars, Knights Hospitaller, etc. They certainly operated in relation to their particular circumstances, but there they are. To try to claim one religion is more peaceful than the other, without regard for the innumerable cultural and historical nuances involved, is largely a silly proposition in my view. It's nothing more than a piss contest.

If you want some superpacifistic religion go look at Jainism where they sweep brooms to avoid walking on insects. Thats not a very practical way to live life, and arguably Jainism isn't a major world religion [not major 5 anyway, maybe major 10???]
I'm not arguing in favor of a superpacifistic religion, nor am I even arguing Christianity is more peaceful than Buddhism or whatever.

But, again, Buddhism has a far cleaner record than any other major world religion in this regard. Last time I checked no major Western religion comes even remotely close. THAT is the point I would like to drive home here.
And the point I would like to drive home here is that this point falls apart the more one investigates. I would also like to add I have nothing against Buddhism. You seem to have plenty against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam.
 

Mole

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The problem is that an idealised form of Buddhism has become part of the New Age in the West.

And of course the New Agers want to believe in Buddhism and they want us to believe in Buddhism, and they are intent in sacrificing historical accuracy in the interests of making converts.

Let's face it - Buddhism is cool in the West, and all we have to do is close our eyes to history and sacrifice our intellectual integrity.

So close your eyes and think of Buddha.
 
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