Buddhist Warfare, Chapter 6

Chapter 6 presents another excellent example of really interesting history on how the Chinese Communist Party set out to re-shape Buddhist doctrine to get practicing Buddhists to follow the party line and willingly enlist with the Red Army to help defend Korea from the Americans.

In other words, it’s another example of fine scholarship that contradicts what the editors of this collection assert – that Buddhism rationalizes violent action and warfare – by clearly showing that Buddhists succumbed to the pressures of the prevailing hegemony either through acquiescence or through intentional action to curry political favor.

Buddhists in China at this time didn’t become soldiers because Buddhist doctrine condoned it; rather, the Chinese Communist Party beguiled Chinese Buddhists into believing that by helping the North Koreans defend themselves from American forces, they would be practicing the Bodhisattva path.

This was a clever ruse by the Chinese Communist Party achieved by co-opting Buddhist terms and concepts and re-packaging them in terms that would benefit the party. And in part, it was also a reaction by Buddhists there to secure preservation of their practice under the Communist regime.

For example, the author, Xue Yu, writes: “Many Buddhists believed that, by positively responding to the government’s call and undertaking socialist transformation, they would in return receive sympathy from the government, which would then protect Buddhist institutions.”

But the Party was also much more direct in coercing cooperation from monks and nuns:

“Monks and nuns were advised to closely follow government policies or be considered enemies of the people within the framework of the people’s democratic dictatorship. To a large extent, these campaigns successfully transformed monks and nuns, physically as well as mentally.”

The results of these efforts can still be witnessed in China today as the Party prepares for its 90th anniversary, as evidenced by this article.

Using Orwellian speech tactics, the CCP mounted an aggressive propaganda campaign to malign the intentions of America while portraying Chinese intentions as pure:

“We Buddhists uphold peace, yet America is the deadly enemy of peace. Therefore, we must reject American imperialism in order to safeguard peace… Now, the people of Korea have been severely tortured by the imperialist America; assisting Korea will safeguard not only the nation and the world, but also Buddhism.”

By using the language of the bodhisattva, the pure and good intention of the Chinese and efforts to support the underdog Korea were made palpable to a Buddhist constituency. Never mind that it was the North Koreans who started everything by invading the South and that America only ventured into the fray following the North’s aggression and near occupation of Seoul.

This chapter, “Buddhists in China during the Korean War,” is an excellent read and bit of history. But as an article to support the editors’ thesis that Buddhism in and of itself it “warlike?” Sorry, not a chance.

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Buddhist Warfare, chapter 5

Brian Daizen Victoria provides a refreshing counterpoint to the previous essays in his “Buddhological Critique of ‘Soldier-Zen’ in Wartime Japan,” in that he pulls no punches when he flatly states that nowhere in the basic tenets of the Buddha’s teachings is violence condoned or justified. In fact, he admits that he is attacking the concept that Buddhism is innately violent and that the teachings support violent actions under certain circumstances. His target – Japanese Zen.

“I come to the conclusion that, by virtue of its fervent if not fanatical support of Japanese militarism, the Zen school, both Rinzai and Sōtō, so grievously violated Buddhism’s fundamental tenets that the school was no longer an authentic expression of the Buddhadharma.”

Them’s fighting words coming from a self-identified Zennie himself: Victoria states that he is a Mahāyāna Buddhist in the Sōtō Zen tradition.

Victoria’s basic critique is that the dharma was corrupted by teachings that came to be known as “warrior Zen.” At the root of this is the idea that the warrior must extinguish the self completely and be totally devoted to the emperor. Victoria cites what Yamazaki Ekijū (chief abbot of the Buttsūji branch of the Rinzai Zen sect) wrote at the end of a book by Zen-trained Lt. Col. Sugimoto Gorō.

“Buddhists say that one should have faith in the Buddha, or Mahāvairocana, or Buddha Amita, but such faith is one that has been captured by religion. Japanese Buddhism must be centered on the emperor; for were it not, it would have no place in Japan, it would not be living Buddhism. Even Buddhism must conform to the national structure of Japan. The same holds true for Śākyamuni’s teachings.”

Victoria reveals that this line of reasoning is more than just ethnocentrism, because at the heart of this notion is that one group of living, sentient beings is superior to another group of living, sentient beings.

“To purposely inflict pain and suffering, let alone death, on one segment of beings under the guise of benefiting another part, however defined, can never be a part of a Buddhism rooted in the teachings of its founder.”

An important distinction ought to be noted here. What Victoria exposes is more than just a mere twisting of the Dharma to justify violent acts. The entire concept of warrior Zen, and other similar schools of thought, is a corruption of the Dharma so severe that it justifies identifying entire nations as enemies worthy of slaughter.

Victoria notes that this is based on a flawed interpretation of the Buddhist concept of no-self, which I hear often repeated by many others, to mean that there is no self at all. Victoria quotes scholar-priest Walpola Rahula to explain:

“According to the Buddha’s teaching, it is as wrong to hold the opinion ‘I have no self’ (which is annihilationist theory) as to hold the opinion ‘I have a self.’ Why? What we call ‘I’ or ‘being’ is only a combination of physical and mental aggregates, which are working together independently in a flux of momentary change within the law of cause and effect … there is nothing permanent, everlasting, unchanging and eternal in the whole of existence.”

A simple Buddhist concept – there is no permanent self – is corrupted into there is no self at all, and if there is no self at all, imagine what heinous acts can be justified? Not long, as Victoria reveals with an excerpt from the Rinzai Zen master Takuan addressing a patron, the highly accomplished swordsman Yagyū Tajima no Kami Munenori:

“The uplifted sword has no will of its own, it is all of emptiness. It is like a flash of lightning. The man who is about to be struck down is also of emptiness, and so is the one who wields the sword. None of them are possessed of a mind that has any substantiality. As each of them is of emptiness and has no ‘mind,’ the striking man is not a man, the sword in his hands not a sword, and the ‘I’ who is about to be struck down is like the splitting of the spring breeze in a flash of lightning.”

Gee, seems like a lot of people forgot about the Kalama Sutta, which guides us to test assertions to determine if they are true and comport with the Dharma. And as Victoria points out, it appears that many have forgotten the Buddha’s words in the Dhammapada:

“All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remembering that thou are like unto them, do not strike or slay.


“All men tremble at punishment, all men love life; remembering that thou are like unto them, do not strike or slay.”

But this didn’t happen specifically or uniquely to Japanese warrior Zen; this corruption of the Dharma began much earlier in China with the Ch’an school that preceded Zen, which Liang Su criticized in the eighth century:

“Nowadays, few men have true faith. Those who travel the path of Ch’an go so far as to teach the people that there is neither Buddha nor Dharma, and that neither good nor evil has any significance. When they preach these doctrines to the average man, or men below average, they are believed by all those who live their lives of worldly desires. Such ideas are accepted as great truths that sound so pleasing to the ear. And the people are attracted to them just as moths in the night are drawn to their burning death by the candle light (italics added by Victoria).”

Victoria also flatly denies that a bodhisattva could possibly kill any other living being and have that killing justified. Victoria acknowledges the Mahayana concept of expedient means which seems to create loopholes for “compassionate violence.” To portray this, he cites the Lotus Sutra and the story of the burning house in which a loving father deliberately lies to save his children’s lives. What is interesting about this parable is that instead of it being used to explain how telling a lie may be necessary to save a life, it is used to show that the Buddha was a liar! The “lesser” vehicle really wasn’t true at all, asserts the Lotus Sutra; the Buddha only taught it as an expedient mean to bring believers to the “greater” vehicle.

Victoria concludes this chapter with a dire warning to we Westerners as we adopt Buddhism into our culture.

“As Buddhism continues its spread in an easterly direction (i.e., to the ‘West’), one critically important question is, how much of Buddhism’s historic proclivity to condone warfare as a function of the Buddhadharma will spread with it?”

A Coyote Tale - The Wolf

As mentioned on the Facebook page for this blog, I am working on a post about karma and its relevance to being gay. A lot of stuff to read about that first, and life is filled with distractions. But another distraction of sorts that has been on everyone’s minds of late is the use of violence as a means to accomplish a goal, such as ridding the world of someone like Osama bin Laden.

It is ironic that I’ve been reading “Buddhist Warfare” at the time all this discussion arises, at the very time of bin Laden’s assassination, because regardless of your point of view on the matter, I think we must recognize that his death was via assassination. It was an extra-judicial killing, an act that we as Americans have loudly condemned when committed elsewhere in the world by other governmental regimes.

And in reading “Buddhist Warfare,” I get it that Buddhists have over hundreds of years found ways to justify violent acts through what I call suspect interpretations of the Dhamma. Even I, as pacifistic as I believe myself to be, am realizing that total resistance to violence is not always the right path to take.

Kyle, who writes The Reformed Buddhist, left a comment on the Facebook page for My Buddha is Pink that has been oft repeated by many, and that is if we act with true compassion, then a violent act may be committed because the act, in fact, was committed with Right Intention.

That idea just drives me freaking crazy. It bugs the hell out of me because on one level, I see the truth in that assertion; but it also freaks me out because such a statement can be so easily misunderstood and abused. We all suffer from greed, hatred and delusion, and of the three, delusion is the most difficult to deal with because how does a deluded mind understand that it is deluded?

This recalls for me a legend told by many Plains Indians among a canon that is known by American Indians as Coyote Tales. In this case, it is the story about The Wolf, which I shall present as follows.

Old Many Coyote was wandering about the plain when he saw The Wolf up ahead loping about the prairie. Knowing that The Wolf was a difficult character to deal with, Old Man Coyote turned and hastily retreated.

Old Man Coyote next encountered a rabbit. Feeling benevolent, Old Man Coyote warned the rabbit that he should take shelter and hide because The Wolf was near.

“I am not afraid,” replied the rabbit. “I will befriend The Wolf and he will let me be.”

“You are wrong,” said Old Man Coyote. “He is The Wolf, and he is what he is.”

Shortly after Old Man Coyote left the rabbit, The Wolf arrived and pounced upon the rabbit. As The Wolf was about to eat the rabbit, the rabbit began to plead for its life.

“Oh, Mr. Wolf, you are so strong and intelligent, please have mercy upon me and spare me my life,” said the rabbit. “Why eat me? I am such a small morsel. I have never done anything to harm you nor have I ever said anything bad about you.”

The Wolf paused and considered the rabbit’s words. He then replied, “It may be true that you have not said anything bad about me, but it is also true that you have never said anything good about me.”

Just before The Wolf swallowed the rabbit, the rabbit cried out, “Old Man Coyote was right! The Wolf can justify anything with his mind.”

Buddhist Warfare, chapters 2, 3, and 4

I know that I said that I would write a post about each chapter in “Buddhist Warfare”, but as I am reading the collection, I’m realizing that I’ll never get through it if I stick to that. So there will be times, such as this one, when I combine various chapters into one post and others when a post will be devoted to a single chapter.

One of the book’s editors, Michael Jerryson, mentions in the Introduction two key questions critical to how a reader interprets the contents of the book: “How can Buddhist scripture be interpreted for warfare? And how is it interpreted for warfare?”

Chapters 2, 3 and 4 readily follow this line of thought by focusing in rather specific ways. Of course, the danger with such specificity is that the argument gets lost in the larger context: do the examples cited in these chapters represent fairly the core teachings of the Buddha? In my opinion, they most certainly do not.

Chapter 2, by Stephen Jenkins, is titled “Making Merit through Warfare and Torture According to the Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyyavisaya-vikurvana-nirdeśa Sūtra,” which means the conclusions of this chapter are based entirely on this single sutra. It is essentially a sutra filled with rationalizations, but it is worth pointing out the connection this sutra has with earlier writings in the Pali canon.

This sutra presents the dialogue between an ascetic named Satyavaca Nirgranthaputra and a king. Satyavaca also appears in the Majjhima Nikaya as the ascetic Saccaka. Jenkins says the two suttas in the Majjhima Nikaya in which Saccaka appears describe him as “a clever and aggressive anti-Buddhist debater.” When he engages the Buddha in debate, Saccaka asserts that his material form is self, perception is self, formations are self, and consciousness is self. The Buddha’s reply to Saccaka shows the connection to the later Mahayana sutra, which is to ask Saccaka if a king has the authority to execute those who ought to be executed; Saccaka replies that a king has this type of authority.

However, the Buddha asking this question doesn’t necessarily mean that the Buddha agrees that a King should exercise that authority. He is merely developing an argument using terms familiar to Saccaka to refute the ascetic’s assertion that body is self, that perception is self, that formations are self, and that consciousness is self. The trick gets Saccaka to agree that a king has such power, but then the Buddha asks Saccaka whether he has such power to control or determine his own form. Saccaka is silent and remains silent despite the Buddha repeating his question three times. The Buddha even warns Saccaka that to refuse to answer results in one’s head being split into seven pieces, whereupon a thunderbolt-wielding spirit shows up with the obvious intent of doing just that if Saccaka fails to reply.

Is this then an example of the Buddha forcing Saccaka “under threat of death,” as Jenkins suggests, to admit that a king has the power of execution? Or was the Buddha seeking to have Saccaka realize that his body is not self because he doesn’t have the authority of a king to demand what form he shall take? That he has no control, like a king, to direct his feelings, etc.? And is not the language used by the author of the sutta, written well after the Buddha’s death, reflective of the imagery associated with rural south Asia at the time? Was there really a thunderbolt-wielding spirit threatening to split Saccaka’s head open? Or was this colorful language added to add drama to the sutta?

Granted, run-of-the-mill people at the time, and to a large degree today still, believed these spirits to be real entities capable of interfering with their lives. To suggest that the presence of such language is evidence of a violent nature within Buddhism is more than a bit of a stretch in my view, however.

Jenkins then goes on to extrapolate from the later Mahayana sutra evidence of how a king is guided in the proper method of war and use of violence. There are some fairly twisted rationalizations here in my view, particularly the concept of “compassionate killing,” which Jenkins notes that the Buddhist scholar Michael Zimmerman writes is “incompatible with basic Buddhist ethics.”


The conclusion of this essay is particularly problematic. It starts with, “General conceptions of a basic Buddhist ethics broadly conceived as unqualified pacifism are problematic. Compassionate violence is at the very heart of the sensibility of this sutra.” (italics mine)

With this paragraph, Jenkins makes a broad statement and backs it up with one sutra, a sutra that in fact is not considered authentic in the Theravada tradition despite the effort Jenkins took at the start of his essay to describe the sutra’s history, influence and importance within Mahayana.

Chapter 3 is filled with some very interesting history about Tibet and Mongolia. In “Sacralized Warfare: The Fifth Dalai Lama and the Discourse of Religious Violence,” Derek F. Maher examines the historical writings of the Fifth Dalai Lama and shows how they were constructed to support the violent war mongering of Gushri Khan. I don’t doubt for a minute the historical accuracy of the essay. What I doubt is its suitability as evidence of an innate violent nature to Buddhism.

This chapter details quite excellently what happens when politics is mixed up with religion - you get a holy mess. Because that’s what you have with Tibetan Buddhism for the most part: religious leaders who are also political leaders. And the fact that certain Tibetan schools fought wars against other Tibetan schools only demonstrates how rampant religious chauvinism was in Tibet; it by no means offers credible support that the Buddha’s teachings allows for such militaristic behavior.

In fact, the Buddha was quite clear just before his death when Ananda asks him who will lead the sangha after his passing. The Buddha said he would name no leader because there was nothing to lead. Buddhism is all about examining and knowing oneself, controlling oneself, of being harmless so that one can attain release. It's about being a better person so other living beings can be at ease. It was never about becoming the top dog school or sect and waging war against contrary opinions. But people are people and humans have a penchant for violence.

Buddhism, however, does not.

Chapter 4, “Legalized Violence: Punitive Measures of Buddhist Khans in Mongolia,” provides more evidence of the politicization of the dhamma. As Vesna A. Wallace clearly states in this essay: “By legislating social and ritual practices that were in accordance with Buddhist teachings and monastic rules and by introducing penal measures for the infractions of both monks and laypeople, Mongolian legislators converted Buddhist teachings and practices into state law.”

This isn’t evidence of a violent nature to Buddhism; rather, its evidence of how a theocracy was established in Mongolia around Buddhism. Wallace also provides examples of class division within Mongolian culture.

“The Russian ethnographer Pozdneyev, who visited Mongolia in the late nineteenth century, mentions a case in which a Mongol noble punished one of his serf’s sons for not making adequate progress in his studies as a Buddhist novice by tying him naked outside the tent during a winter night. When the boy died as a consequence, the nobleman was merely fined eighteen animals.”

Mahayana writings such as the Golden Light Sutra were seized upon by rulers because they provided an excuse for ruthless rule. “The Golden Light Sutra is perhaps the most adamant about the king’s duty to destroy evil deeds and inflict penalties on the evildoers in conformity with their crimes. If a king were to ignore any evil deed and neglect his royal duty, lawlessness and wickedness would increase, unfavorable asterisms and planets would rule, meteor showers would fall, evil demons would arise, and natural disasters, diseases, and foreign armies would ruin his kingdom.”

Now, if I were and king and that was my spiritual guidance, of course I would do what I thought would prevent evil demons from arising and foreign armies ruining my domain! And I, as such a king, would also like the ambiguity of the Golden Light Sutra, as it would allow me wide interpretation.

“(I)t leaves room for multiple interpretations concerning the degrees of punishments the ruler may implement in his task of upholding the law. It indirectly suggests that punishment enforces not only the law of a given society but also the laws of nature. For these reasons, the Inner Mongolian author Rashipuntsag referred to the Golden Light Sutra in his work ‘Crystal Rosary,’ declaring that Dharma laws do not prevent one from punishing criminals. He argued against Confucians who claimed that the state could be ruled only by means of secular laws because the law of Dharma was too weak to punish criminals, because it advocates compassion.” (Italics mine)

I’m looking forward to writing about the next chapter, because in that one, the author flatly states that any sect of Buddhism that justifies violence in any way is a false teaching and a corruption of the Buddha’s words.

Buddhist Warfare, Chapter 1

In the song, “With God on Our Side,” Bob Dylan sings of how peoples and nations rationalize war against each other, that their aggression is necessary and justifiable because they have God on their side. This notion of having God on your side is an important concept when looking at the first essay in “Buddhist Warfare,” a piece written by Paul Demiéville titled “Buddhism and War.”

Demiéville correctly points out how the Dhamma has been rationalized throughout the centuries following the Buddha’s death. One of the simplest rationalizations, he notes, is that life is suffering and if killing ends life, then it also ends suffering. This rationalization, Demiéville shows us, is at the heart of many Mahayana traditions that largely developed in China where a militaristic culture already existed and which was ready to co-opt Buddhist doctrine to lend legitimacy to its politics (kind of sounds like the Republican Party in the U.S.).

The author points out how China, Japan, Korea and other parts of East Asia already had well-established warrior cultures that were largely supported by Confucian thought. The rulers and warlords adopted Buddhism to gain a military advantage, rationalizing and altering the teachings to show that their actions were right and good and their enemy’s actions were wrong and evil. At the same time, Buddhist monks were looking for political favoritism and weren’t shy about re-interpreting the Dharma to please their kings. Even the Buddha walked a delicate line regarding this issue (which is covered a bit more in the next article in the book).

During the first thousand years CE in China, for example, we see may Buddhist cults arise each with militaristic behaviors and practices led by charismatic monks who professed to have supernatural powers. This made these monks very attractive to the rulers and warlords who saw befriending and supporting such monks and their followers as politically astute.

However true this may be, I am troubled by the way Demiéville portrays these histories as being “Buddhist,” laying the groundwork for the assertion that Buddhism itself is at fault for the arising of these warlike doctrines. These histories are no more “Buddhist” than Cromwell’s attacks were “Puritan” or even “Christian,” despite the fact that religious beliefs and doctrines played a key role in Cromwell’s war mongering. Demiéville’s citing the rise of the Shaolin and other warrior monks is not evidence of “Buddhist violence,” but rather evidence of people who identify as Buddhist being violent.

Demiéville also makes a few really weak assertions by drawing connections so vague as to be rightly ridiculed with uncontrolled laughter. For example he writes: “We know that the Boxers who rose up against foreigners at the end of the nineteenth century, and besieged the Peking delegation in 1900, were part of a secret society with more or less Buddhist origins.” Italics are mine. When I read that, I was like, WTF?

What I really found interesting was Demiéville’s mentioning of Yi-hiuan, a ninth-Century Chinese monk who is credited with the ubiquitous phrase, “Kill the Buddha.” It was revealing enough that he would cite the founder of the Lin-tsi sect to lend credence to the concept that Buddhism inherently lends itself to the arising of violent doctrines; but what really caught my eye was all the attention this part of the book garnered on the Internet. When you Google “Yi-hiuan” the results are dominated by a review of “Buddhist Warfare” by Katherine Wharton. Her referencing this particular item in Demiéville’s article was in turned referenced multiple times by many others, including an article by Marin E. Marty in The Christian Post, whose comments also get reprinted all over the Web. Kyle at The Reformed Buddhist had plenty to say about Wharton’s review, thanking Barbara O’Brien for her dissection of Wharton’s review and sophomoric conclusions.

I found this discussion interesting because of how it reflects something the Buddha warned Ananda about just before his death. Ananda asks the Buddha who will lead the Sangha after the Buddha dies, to which the Buddha replies that there will be no successor because there is no position to be succeeded. He directs Ananda and the others to be “islands unto yourselves, refuges unto yourselves, seeking no external refuge…”

It is worth pointing out that transmission of the Buddha’s Dhamma was initially oral. The Buddha knew that writing down the Dhamma would present problems and he cautioned against those that would come in the future and change his teachings. And when things get written down, they can suddenly take on an undeserved credibility.

This seems to be what happened with Katherine Wharton’s review, which if you read it closely seems to suggest that the only part of “Buddhist Warfare” that she read was the chapter penned by Demiéville. Her words get picked up by others, such as Marty, and are spread about the Web and get read widely despite the suspect nature of her conclusions.

Even Demiéville shows how this happened with the development of Zen in Japan, which began as a very well-cultured and educated school of Buddhism that required strict discipline in the practice. These very traits were used by militaristic individuals, including Zen priests, to train soldiers in the correct use of weapons. This is cited as another example of the alleged warlike nature of Buddhist doctrine. These elements of Zen were in turn bifurcated into other schools and doctrines. Ryogen encouraged the preservation of the “real law,” or Mahayana, against the lesser counterfeit laws of the Lesser Vehicle, or Hinayana, that of the pratyeka-buddha, which he likened to be weed-like akin to underbrush that cannot rid itself. Nichiren advocated ignoring the precepts because if an action is protected by the Greater Vehicle, it was justified. Ergo, we see the development of the line of thought that killing and war can be justified as means to reach a higher, nobler end.

In the end, what Demiéville demonstrates are numerous fine examples of how individuals twisted the Dhamma to create their own lineage and to justify the elimination of enemies. These efforts were rewarded and protected by the rulers and the powerful of the times. But to use these examples to support the assertion that Buddhism condones violence, that it rationalizes violence, is in my opinion just plain wrong. Yes, there are “teachers” and those who founded new schools of Buddhism long after the Buddha’s death that advocate, condone and rationalize violent behavior, but to suggest that these new lineages are correctly interpreting the Buddha’s guidance on such matters is weak.

Buddhist Warfare, the Introduction

A little more than a year ago I shared my knee-jerk outrage over a book of articles collectively titled “Buddhist Warfare.” My first blog post on the subject was prompted by the cover image on the soft-cover edition of the book, which I have scanned and provided with this post. I followed up with a second post further explaining my reaction to the book while at the same time admitting that I had not read the collection: rather, I had only read blurbs about the book as well as a description written by one of the editors.

I wrote the following in my first post: “The author (Michael K. Jerryson) states that the West has a faulty perspective of who Buddhists are in Asia and the daily struggles they face, and in response to these struggles, sometimes violence is employed by even the most meek.”

How interesting that a Westerner points out that the West has a “faulty perspective” about Buddhism in Asia, and that he and other Westerners are setting out to correct this “faulty perspective,” because by gosh, they know what they’re talking about. While one cannot be absolutely positive of one’s ethnicity based upon one’s surname, of the 11 writers contained in this anthology only one appears to be Asian. So what we have in this book is what is so common with European Anglo scholarship – white folk telling us how to understand the yellow folk’s culture and religion, all from a white folk perspective.

I accepted the not-always-so-subtle suggestions by some that perhaps I ought to read the collection before lambasting it and I vowed that I would. And I am. My intention was to write one post as a follow-up, but it’s become clear that, in my view, the content of this publication is much more complex than I originally surmised, so I’ve opted to write a post on each chapter. Having said that, I remain deeply troubled by the packaging and the presentation of this volume, a feeling reinforced when I saw the quote at the top of the first page of the introduction.

That’s right: I couldn’t even get past the first page of the introduction without heaving a great sigh of frustration.

In reading the first article in this book I realize that there is some extraordinary history that I am quite certain most Buddhists – whether Western, Asian, white or whatever – are simply unaware of. There’s good stuff here. But it’s beguiling because packaged together like this, one might reach the very unskillful conclusion that what passes as Buddhist doctrine today – or even hundreds of years ago during post-Buddha periods – is a bunch of hooey. And frankly, a lot of what does pass as Buddhist doctrine today is complete bullshit. Maybe that’s why I prefer to follow the so-called “lesser vehicle” because it is often the purveyors of the alleged “greater vehicle” who are handing out the most bullshit.(Don't misunderstand my bitch here. There's plenty of bullshit to go around)

I Tweeted recently that “I went seeking bullshit and I found bullshit, but the bullshit I found was not the bullshit I sought.” So it is with many things.

I frankly admit that headed into this venture I had a bias just as profound as what I accuse the authors’ of having. And I readily admit that these erudite ladies and gentlemen have spent a great deal more time in scholarly study of Buddhist texts and Buddhism, as well as Asian culture, than I have. Compared to their academic stature, I am a nobody. But one does not become a Buddhist merely by reading about or studying Buddhism, just as one does not become a surgeon by reading books about surgery. One is a Buddhist by practicing the Buddha’s teachings, and warfare is not among the Buddha’s Four Noble Truths, nor the Noble Eightfold Path. It’s simply not part of the practice. And yet, that does not protect the Dhamma from the Wrong View of others. So here goes.

Title and cover image

My first issue is with the title, “Buddhist Warfare.” Titles to any composition are important; they should reflect what the content is about. In this case, “Buddhist” is an adjective. By placing “Buddhist” ahead of “warfare,” it becomes the modifier of “warfare.” In other words, this isn’t about any type of warfare, but specifically about “Buddhist warfare.” This implies that “Buddhist warfare” is different from other forms of warfare in the same way that nuclear warfare is different from conventional warfare, that there is something about this type of warfare that makes it Buddhist. But when you read the contents of the book, you realize that is not what the book is about; rather it’s about Buddhists engaging in warlike activities, and how Buddhism has been corrupted to justify acts of violence. That makes the title inappropriate. “Buddhists At War,” or “The Violating of Buddha,” would have been much more appropriate, because such titles would also be connected to the general thesis of the works within the book, and that is to dispel the misconception that all Buddhists are pacifist; that a variety of Buddhists have twisted the Buddha’s teachings to justify violence and war, or merely to glorify their own knob.

My next issue is with the image on the soft cover edition. It depicts a novice holding a pistol. To me this is an obviously staged photo. The novice isn’t even holding the pistol properly. One could interpret from the image that the novice is in fact uncomfortable holding the weapon. But the photographer, one can easily presume, more than likely asked the novice to hold the gun for a photo. With the photo in hand, the publishers now have a “shocking” image to place on the book’s cover. I find such a scenario completely reprehensible. If I am incorrect in my conclusion, I would hope the photographer Brenda Turnnidge would clarify.

Introduction

The introduction opens with a quote from 1891 attributed to Dutch Sinologist J.J.M. de Groot (A couple of brief bios about him can be found here and here). The problem with this quote is twofold. First, de Groot, like many 19th century European Christian ethnographers writing about Eastern religions, uses the Christian vernacular to describe Buddhism referring to the First Precept as a “commandment,” the violation of which constitutes a sin.

The second problem is with the quote’s context. De Groot comes off speaking as if he is revealing a dastardly lie of Buddhism in that despite the First Precept, there are Chinese texts that speak about monks who engage in warfare and killing, “leaving no room for doubt that warfare was an integrate part of their religious profession for centuries.”

It is reasonable for a reader to view these opening quotes as providing a sort of synopsis or insight regarding the theme of the chapter – what the point is. So it is reasonable to presume that with the introduction, the writer (in this case one of the editors) is laying the groundwork to show that Buddhist teachings make room for violence and condone it. This is evidenced by the two questions the writer establishes as critical to how a reader interprets the contents of the book: “How can Buddhist scripture be interpreted for warfare? And how is it interpreted for warfare?”

This, in my view, qualifies as a set of unskillful questions, questions that the Buddha would refuse to answer because attention to them diverts one from understanding the truth. It’s akin to describing one of those Texas or Louisiana Baptist snake cults and calling them representative of Christianity.

The writer I think astutely begins to speak of “Buddhisms,” recognizing that Buddhist traditions are quite varied and often incorporate rites and rituals indigenous to whatever region a particular variety of the “Buddhisms” arises. Understanding this regional variety is important, but what the author fails to impress upon the reader is that these various rites and rituals found in different geographic locations and which vary according to ethnicity of the practitioners isn’t Buddhism. In fact, the Buddha mostly ridiculed rites and rituals, approving of them only as a means to maintain social order and to develop mindfulness. On their own, rites and rituals are superfluous to following the path.

The author next brings up examples of how “Buddhisms” are involved in creating and fighting wars. But what is really being described here is Buddhists at war, not Buddhism causing or creating war. While there are many examples in Asian history of Buddhists fighting wars, most of these wars reflect ethnic and religious chauvinism, a state of mind that existed in those who wage the war, not a quality found within the religious system itself. (The obfuscation of what is really going on in Bangladesh recently is an excellent example of how religion is incorrectly identified as a causal factor for the current strife) If it is, it was added later by the particular group and does not represent the Buddha’s teaching. As the Buddha warned, unenlightened minds would corrupt his teachings. Just because an unenlightened Buddhist rationalizes an unskillful act doesn’t mean Buddhism justifies the act.

The example used by the author of how Aum Shinrikyo found inspiration in the Lotus Sutra to release poison gas in a Tokyo subway, killing many people, is suspect as well. Such a perspective would divert personal responsibility away from the actors and place it on the scripture; it would be like blaming the Beatles for Sharron Tate’s murder.

Despite this introduction and the apparent overall premise of the book, the individual articles are really interesting. However, they contain what I consider significant flaws as well. Which is why I will periodically address each chapter individually.

If you’ve read this book, I would welcome your comments, but please stick to the specific chapter I am writing about.