Why I don't own a gun

The last time I fired a weapon was almost 40 years ago. My decision to not ever fire a weapon again since has been resolute. A blog post I wrote nearly four years ago explains why. But there's a more fundamental reason for me to not own a gun.

Owning a gun means I have formulated the intention to kill. I may never kill anyone or anything while owning a gun, but the intention would be there, for why else would anyone own a gun?

First, let me clarify something. I do not begrudge people who hunt, nor do I view them with any form of disdain, and nor will I attempt to take their opportunities to hunt away from them. Having said that, hunting involves killing, regardless of the purpose, or, more precisely, the intent. The Buddha teaches that nothing occurs without consequence - "when this is, that is ... when this isn't, that isn't" - and that all actions are preceded by an intention. This is the core of his teaching on kamma.

But while kamma has everything to do with cause and effect, it is not linear; rather, it's more like loops of feedback that occur in our lives because we always have the opportunity to eliminate our kamma with the creation of every new intention and subsequent action. The Buddha's teaching about The Salt Crystal is pertinent here. As the Buddha teaches, if you put a teaspoon of salt into a glass of water, the water will taste salty; but if you put a teaspoon of salt into the Ganges, the water will not taste salty. So a single act within the greater context of your lifetime - or multiple lifetimes - holds negligible consequence because of all the other actions you can take to "dilute" the salt's presence.

That's important to remember, that we can "dilute" our actions, but we can never eliminate what has already happened; the salt does not disappear, it just cannot be tasted.

Hunting, to me, is like the teaspoon of salt in a river, but even that depends on the reasons behind why a person hunts. A person who hunts to provide food for his or her family creates kamma different from the person who hunts for sport.

Killing another person? That's a tablespoon of salt in a glass of water. Even with saying that, however, all homicides are not equal and the kamma created will be as varied as the intention behind the act. The point is, no one is immune from the consequences of killing, regardless of intent.

Which is why I will not own a firearm. Particularly a handgun. There is no other purpose for a handgun other than to kill another human. Even if self-defense, owning a handgun is done with full knowledge that it may be used to kill another person. Anyone who thinks otherwise is deluding him or herself.

And this is why I believe that Michael Dunn is guilty of murder, plain and simple. I have seen some comments on Twitter following the jury's verdict wondering how difficult it will become in the future to prove intent behind premeditated murder when it comes to self-defense. For me it's quite simple. Michael Dunn had formed the intention to kill someone long ago, and I suspect his intention was to specifically kill a black youth. All Dunn was waiting for was the right opportunity.

That is why I will not own a firearm of any kind.

A person unknowing:

the actions performed by him,

born of greed, born of aversion,

& born of delusion,

whether many or few,

are experienced right here:

               no other ground is found.

So a monk, knowing,

               sheds

greed, aversion, & delusion;

giving rise to clear knowledge, he

               sheds

all bad destinations.

Nidana Sutta

Gradients of kamma

The other night at dinner a friend of mine was asking me about kamma, which led to me explaining that kamma was often misrepresented even by those who call him or herself Buddhist. People tend to think of kamma as the result of an action. For example, “Don’t do that, it will bring you bad karma.”

I tend to use the Pali term kamma rather than the Sanskrit term karma because my Buddhist education is grounded in the Thai Forest Tradition. Either term will work, however.

Anyway, I told my friend that kamma isn’t created by the action, but rather the intention behind the action. One creates kamma via his or her intentions. He then asked me about light and dark kamma, and that’s when I had to admit ignorance. I had an idea of how to explain bright and dark kamma, but I didn’t want to misstate something. So I told my friend I would study the matter first.

The best expression of what bright and dark kamma is can be found in the Anguttara Nikaya. The particular passage can be found in Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s Beyond Coping in the section on Heedfulness. And while not dealing specifically with the concepts of bright and dark kamma, the story of Angulimala also provides some excellent insights into the workings of kamma.

In the Anguttara Nikaya, the Buddha lays out four types of kamma: “There is kamma that is dark with dark result; kamma that is bright with bright result; kamma that is dark & bright with dark & bright result; and kamma that is neither dark nor bright with neither dark nor bright result, leading to the ending of kamma.”

As the Buddha explains each of these four types of kamma, it’s important to note the language used. “And what is kamma that is dark with dark result? There is the case where a certain person fabricates an injurious bodily fabrication...” The Buddha uses the phrase, “a certain person fabricates…” The concept of fabrications is pretty important in Buddhism; trouble is most people have the wrong idea of what it means.

Many people think that when something is a “fabrication,” it means that object or construct is not real, that it doesn’t exist at all. In my view, that’s not at all what the Buddha means when he talks about fabrications. On one level, fabrications are not real in and of themselves, but the object or event to which we attach the fabrication is real. In the Buddhist sense, a fabrication is merely a mental construct created by our mind to give some object or event a characteristic that we wrongly view as permanent. Think of it like the line Juliet speaks when thinking of Romeo's family name: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

A rose is a rose no matter what we call it. As a collection of matter, a rose simply is. The name “rose” is the mental fabrication we create to ascribe to a plant that has certain physical characteristics. Go to a different country where a different language is spoken and the mental construct has a different pronunciation, but the rose is still a rose.

When the Buddha describes kamma, it is associated with the mental fabrication associated with the intent to commit an act of either speech, body, or mind. So in the case of dark kamma, that fabrication begins with wrong intent, with an intent to cause harm. The consequences that manifest after an intention of dark kamma are the results of kamma, the fruits of kamma, not the kamma itself. Bright kamma, hence, begins with a fabrication that causes no harm. Hence, the fruits of bright kamma are pleasant.

We often get confused when we seem to get mixed results from our actions because we think we have a good intention. This is what the Buddha refers to as kamma that is both bright and dark. As Thanissaro Bhikkhu explains here, we may think we have good intentions, but if we really examine our intentions, they are often unclear and confused; hence the outcomes of our actions bring us confusing or mixed results. This happens a lot in interpersonal relationships, particularly among we moes.

Remember the film “The Broken Hearts Club” and how Dennis befriended the cute newby Kevin (oh god, Kevin was such a darling!)? Dennis clearly had the hots for Kevin, but he wanted to appear more virtuous than the callous Cole, so Dennis concocts this idea that Kevin needs a true friend when Dennis’ real intention is to get Kevin in bed. All of Dennis’ friends see this for how it really is, but Dennis chooses to believe in his false intention. While the outcome is not completely messed up, the results definitely are mixed.

Most of our lives are filled with this combination of bright and dark kamma because for most of us, we really don’t understand our real intentions, either intentionally or because we just never really took a close look at our actions and the motivations behind them.

This is why we meditate. To stop the chatter in our minds so that we can see the truth behind all our thoughts, words and deeds.

Angulimala ran into this problem even after the Buddha accepted him into the sangha. At first, Angulimala couldn’t get anyone to offer him food during his alms rounds because he remained feared and despised for all of his past murderous actions. Even after the Buddha set up an act of truth to show others Angulimala’s new noble birth and he became accepted by more villagers, there remained a group who refused to believe that Angulimala was nothing more than a murderous monster. Whenever he went for alms, these holdouts threw rocks and sticks at him. One time he comes to the Buddha, his head bleeding, to show the Buddha what had happened. The Buddha tells Angulimala to buck up and endure this because he is lucky to be suffering this torment now as the continuing fruits of his past actions rather than to suffer those consequences by spending eons in a hell realm.

The final type of kamma is what the Buddha describes as being neither dark nor bright. This is when we abandon all kamma and we are free of any other intention other than to liberate ourselves from the cycle of birth and death. I haven’t a clue as to what that must be like. My days are still mixed with brightness and darkness, a muddle of intentions that I am barely able to discern.

Ten things

"There are these ten things that a person gone-forth should reflect on often. Which ten?

"'I have become casteless': a person gone forth should often reflect on this.

"'My life is dependent on others'...

"'My behavior should be different [from that of householders]'...

"'Can I fault myself with regard to my virtue?'...

"'Can my knowledgeable fellows in the holy life, on close examination, fault me with regard to my virtue?'...

"'I will grow different, separate from all that is dear & appealing to me'...

"'I am the owner of my actions (kamma), heir to my actions, born of my actions, related through my actions, and have my actions as my arbitrator. Whatever I do, for good or for evil, to that will I fall heir'...

"'What am I becoming as the days & nights fly past?'...

"'Do I delight in an empty dwelling?'...

"'Have I attained a superior human attainment, a truly noble distinction of knowledge & vision, such that — when my fellows in the holy life question me in the last days of my life — I won't feel abashed?': a person gone forth should often reflect on this.

"These are the ten things that a person gone-forth should reflect on often."

From the Dasadhamma Sutta: Ten Things (AN 10.48)

Appamadavagga: Heedfulness

Things were pretty simple and straight-forward in the verses found within “The Pairs,” the first chapter of the Dhammapada. The idea that we own our outcomes is laid out pretty clearly, and with language that allows lay people to immediately grasp the lesson.

But chapter 2 of the Dhammapada – Appamadavagga: Heedfulness – comes off as a bit more esoteric. The message appears to be more directed toward the monastic community, with less overt applicability for lay people. And it’s structured around a pair of terms that may appear easy enough to understand, but which nonetheless retain some ambiguity: heedfulness and heedlessness.

The Buddha made a big deal out of “heedfulness.” In fact, I think it is safe for me to presume that no one, lay person or monastic, can progress along the path without being heedful. In the Anguttara Nikaya Book of Tens, there is the Appamada Sutta where the Buddha outlines ten examples of the importance of heedfulness. Each of these examples concludes with: “In the same way, all skillful qualities are rooted in heedfulness, converge in heedfulness, and heedfulness is reckoned the foremost among them.”

What’s nice about the Appamada Sutta is that the examples the Buddha outlines to emphasize the supremacy of heedfulness come from facets of everyday life; it is a lesson for lay people using real life language lay people can understand.

But if that isn’t clear enough for you, take a look at the Upajjhatthana Sutta, which starts off with this: “There are these five facts that one should reflect on often, whether one is a woman or a man, lay or ordained. Which five?” The five facts the Buddha outlines are the Five Recollections, also known as the Five Remembrances. These five facts the Buddha presents are central to anyone’s practice – lay person, monastic, rich or poor. And through contemplation of these five facts, we develop a keener awareness of the results of our actions through a deeper understanding of these five basic facts of our existence. Out of this practice, out of this contemplation, arises this quality the Buddha called heedfulness. Hence, being heedful of something is more than just paying attention to it, more than just noticing it or acknowledging it: Heedfulness means you are aware of it, and upon awareness you pay attention to it, and from paying attention to it, you allow it to motivate you into skillful action.

I can be aware of all the traffic in the street, but I am only heedful of that traffic when I use that awareness to wait for a pause in traffic that will allow me to cross the street without being struck by a car.

There is something very powerful in the first verse of the Appamadavagga, and that is the notion that people who pay no heed to what is occurring around them, let alone what they do, are like the walking dead.

“Heedfulness: the path to the Deathless.
Heedlessness: the path to death.
The heedful do not die.
The heedless are as if
already dead.”

That verse alone is worth repeating to yourself everyday before and after you meditate. And not inside your head; say it out loud.

Verse 25 acknowledges that this takes effort, but the effort is rewarded.

“Through initiative, heedfulness,
restraint, & self-control,
the wise would make
an island
no flood
can submerge.”

Through initiative and being heedful, we can develop the skills to keep ourselves from being distracted and distraught by all the crap that goes on around us. We are, then, like an island that will not be flooded over by this wave of chaos called the world around us. But some may read into verse 28 a sense of condescension, and perhaps even indifference:

“When the wise person drives out
heedlessness
with heedfulness,
having climbed the high tower
of discernment,
sorrow-free,
he observes the sorrowing crowd —
as the enlightened man,
having scaled
a summit,
the fools on the ground below.”

There are people may read this to exemplify what some already think about those of us who follow the Theravada vehicle, and that is we are selfish and self-centered, that we would prefer to retreat from the world rather than engage within it. But this notion, to me, is another example of, as the rock band Aerosmith put it, “talk with yourself and you'll hear what you wanna know.” Let’s not forget that the next line in the song is, “gotta rise above cause below it’s only getting’ worse.”

The metaphor of the lotus flower rising out of the pits of a cesspool or swamp is instructive here, because the beauty of the lotus flower contrasted against the filth around it is what brings our attention to it. And when I encounter someone who seems to be unflustered by the world around them, someone who can move with ease within it, he or she will attract my attention. And who knows? Perhaps it will embolden me to ask, “How are you able to do that?”