Myanmar

There's a podcast with Bhikkhu Bodhi on the Crisis in Myanmar.

After the Dalai Lama, Bhikkhu Bodhi is perhaps one of the most respected spiritual leaders of Buddhism. He was born in Brooklyn and he's not some nationalist guy but he's raised in Brooklyn by Jewish parents, and he's a prominent American Buddhist, maybe the most prominent American Buddhist. He is the English translator to many volumes of the Pali Canon, which are the foundation of Buddhism. One of the things I like about the Theravadan monastics is that they make their teachings free. They are deeply rooted in the earliest writings about what the Buddha really said and taught. In addition the sangha, the monks community is a strong link back to the Buddha. I've downloaded his book of essays, I hope to follow through and read them.

Myanmar had a military junta overthrow a democratically elected government. 

BB talks in the podcast about the tradition of not getting to involved in worldly affairs. The other hand is that perhaps there can be good done by applying a Dharmic position to worldly affairs for the good of all beings.

The podcaster suggests that maybe there is a middle way between political apathy and full engagements in the political life.

The threats to the world in terms of climate change, and other obvious harms seem at least something that can be commented on. BB is reluctant to say specific things, but encourages peace and democracy. 

Ethical concerns

Kamala Harris points out that when we wake up in the night worried about things, it's not as a democrat or a republican.

Cory Booker talks about love as motivation in politics.

Here are things I'm worried about:

1. Your phone tainted by the misery of the 35,000 children in Congo's mines

2. The oceans are warming faster than we thought they were.

3. Myanmar has jailed 2 journalists who help expose the genocide going down there.

More on violence and buddhism

NY Times had an interesting article, with an interesting quote: "There is a philosophically problematic presupposition that also figures into widespread surprise at the very idea of violence perpetrated by Buddhists -- that there is a straightforward relationship between beliefs people hold and the likelihood that they will behave in a corresponding way."

I'm guilty of violating my core beliefs, spectacularly so, but I do think there is a "straightforward relationship between beliefs people hold and the likelihood that they will behave in a corresponding way." It's called integrity. Unless you're on Arrested Development and part of the Bluth family, there is an expectation between words and actions. Maybe not if you're the president of the USA, and his staff, but for everyone else. (I never realized how much I expect from the president of the USA until a president seems so unpresidential--I often realize my beliefs after I have violated them. I need to be more proactive.)

The writers goes on to say that we are not transparent, we are opaque, and we never really know what we're going to do or for why.

The writers are Dan Arnold and Alicia Turner, and they go on to suggest that what ever people believe, the same wide range of human failings will always be present. A sort of conservation of failings belief? In dumping the metaphysic that people might be influenced by their beliefs, they seem wise and savvy, but do they create another unbelievable metaphysic?

I feel like the second I stepped into Buddhism, it was all about exemplifying and inhabiting a belief in doing well for others, and not just saying it. That's the whole point. Now, we're all in process and we're unlikely to be enlightened so there will be a gap between our aspirations and our behavior. I'd say "hate the sin but not the sinner", but we are what we do, so the sin is the sinner. We can see people for what they hope to be. The point is to be realistic that there will be a gap, but also not make that an "alli alli in come free".

I did like it that the article pointed out that the colonizers, the British, started splitting the country's groups by saying the Buddhists were peaceful, and that the Muslim and Hindu were not. There are peaceful strains in both those religions, they could have worked to unite, but as colonizers they were more about exploiting. So the idea that Buddhists are non-violent may have a history in colonialism.

But I still think we should be able to follow belief to action. I'm not willing to give that up.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar, and the Rohingya

I've found a few links to explain, from a perspective of course, what is going on in Myanmar. I am not sure how accurate these things are but they help uncloud the sentiment "how can a nobel peace prize winner not speak out."

I almost hesitate because I know so little. Mostly I just see the article in the Times. Wikipedia focuses on the persecution. If there has been a systematic Muslim plot of aggression, then it seems less one sided. If there is a reason to "fight back", as I'm sure there is, then there must be more to understand. I honestly don't know how accurate these posts are, except the last one the Washington Post is a reputable newspaper, so that one I would stand by their accuracy more.

I will note that Nalanda, the great Buddhist university of ancient times was burned by a king who was Muslim. An expansionist group who picks on peace loving people isn't cool. Think about how terrible the settlers of America were to the peaceful Native American tribes. I wish aliens came down and found them before Columbus, and worked with them. There's a funny bit in Futurama where the centaurs are peaceful, and when someone starts to take over their land, they remember that they won't fight. Absolute pacifism does not seem tenable. Fighting Hitler was a justified war if there ever was one. Not that America carried it out the most gracefully or generously. My first wife roared once that GB was still paying off what they borrowed. I don't know if that's true or not, but she was a history student.

Anyway, information or not, I post these so I can read them through, they look interesting.

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/09/the-rohingya-of-myanmar-pawns-in-an-anglo-chinese-proxy-war-fought-by-saudi-jihadists.html#more

https://www.facebook.com/notes/htet-nay-lin-oo/sensemaking-on-certain-controversies-surrounding-rohingyas-personal-perspectives/10154172650815098/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/worldviews/wp/2017/09/06/the-shameful-silence-of-aung-san-suu-kyi/

Violence and Buddhism

One of the Buddhist precepts is: abstention from killing of living beings. Another is: abstention from taking the non-given. Another is: abstention from covetousness. Another is: abstention from hatred.

Now these precepts are suggestions from the enlightened one, as handed down by the tradition, on how to move towards enlightenment. Can you be a Buddhist if you're not trying to move towards enlightenment? Perhaps you just want to make merit by supporting the monks. In America, the lay/monk split doesn't play as well, and seeing merit literally seems wrong. But perhaps you can be a Buddhist if you try to be kind to people, and try to be mindful, even if you don't have the confidence or resources to actually try for enlightenment. In the TBC going to refuge to the Buddha, Dharma and Sangha is seen as the defining act of Buddhism. Now there are levels of going for refuge, which I don't want to go into. But someone can see themselves as a cultural Buddhist or a nominal Buddhist because the just adopt the local culture, which is Buddhist.

I thought Genghis Kahn was a Buddhist, but it seems he was more of a waring and political beast, who consulted with many religions, and grew up in a Buddhist Mongolia, though it's by no means a monolithic culture. That was when I first got involved and saw anyone who might be labeled a Buddhist as really being Buddhist. Also I didn't know that much about Genghis Kahn, who it turns out, after his death, had begun what would be the largest empire on earth. Did you know that? But I digress.

So what does a Buddhist do with a history of violence by Buddhists? I have not read Buddhist Warfare. Nor have I read Buddhism and Violence (Publications of the Lumbini International Research Institute, Nepal). The first one is new and in print, but these books don't seem to be about spirituality, more about history and culture.

I don't know if reading about Buddhist culture moves you on the path towards enlightenment, but I think an understanding of causes and conditions is never wrongheaded. If I was enlightened, I think this blog would be different, but since I'm not, I do write about culture. A way of keeping me in the game sometimes is to just do anything buddhisty, even if it's tangental.

Obama was in Myanmar and said recently, "What we’ve learned in the United States is that there are certain principles that are universal, apply to everybody no matter what you look like, no matter where you come from, no matter what religion you practice.” In Myanmar they have pushed out ethnic Muslims for fear of Islamization. This has been going on for a while. This seems to go against the Buddhist precepts listed in the first paragraph. I believe in religious freedom and tolerance.

A state or culture can't prescribe one's spirituality. And yet what do you do when someone says their child can't have a simple operation because it's against the family's spiritual belief? There are limits. I would force the family to accept an operation that saves a child's life even if it goes against a religion, though I wouldn't do it lightly or easily, and there might be some rather negative consequences to that course of action. There are many complicated issues here.

But what would I do if someone told me I couldn't be a Buddhist? What if the price to be a Buddhist was too high? There's lots of books about that kind of situation, horrifying novels, history and memoirs. There is also subtle ways of prejudice and are just as unacceptable to me, and yet I've said negative things about other religions. I confess to hatred and false views (ie lack of tolerance). I hereby wish to move forward with religious tolerance.

You can read about violence done by nominal cultural Buddhists, and you don't want to tell someone what their designation is, but then again you can be wrong about what you think you are. It's possible you think you believe in creationism and evolution, but if you understand them both, it's impossible to believe in both (DARWIN'S DANGEROUS IDEA: EVOLUTION AND THE MEANINGS OF LIFE). And yet when I took an informal survey at the school I worked at, the majority of the people claimed to believe both. So what do you do with a group who sees themselves as Buddhists, but doesn't really follow the teachings of the Buddha? Do we say they are not Buddhist by virtue of the violence?

My solution is that a nominal or cultural Buddhist can commit violence, but that anyone moving past a superficial level of Buddhism can not engage in violence. And a self proclaimed Buddhist did some violence, the would see in meditation, reflection and discussion, that it wasn't the way towards enlightenment. I have agonized over my own personal mistakes, confessed them, done pujas to them, and in general work to evolve past them, with admittedly mixed results at times. Violence is not a way to become enlightened. Now you can concoct some weird scenario where you have to kill one person to save millions and billions (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine nailed that.). Even then it's not a slam dunk, that it's obvious.

The dean in the school I once worked in said he thought there would always be war. And I think that it's pretty much evident that war is constantly happening on this earth, and to say it's not happening is a weird kind of digging your head into the sands. But the idea that we can't, as a species, evolve past it, is a kind of pessimism. Maybe you'll see aggression in the playground of children, but there's always adults there to break it up. We have violence inside us, maybe that will always be there till we get into the higher evolution. I hope we can evolve past state violence, at least, even if, like Spock, it takes a while to master our turbulent emotions. Even if you're not a Buddhist, a world without state violence is an appealing idea.