[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist pacifism

[curt]

Korea and Vietnam might be useful places to look at for people who are 
interested in Buddhist views of violence - and, in particular how these 
views pan out in practice. Looking at what Buddhists actually do is more 
important than is ever acknowledged by the people who insist that 
"Buddhism is inherently pacifist". As Richard Hayes pointed out very 
pointedly in a recent post "Nobody regards belief as important but 
Christians. Belief is not at all important in most forms of Hinduism or 
Buddhism." But the "Buddhism is inherently pacifist" argument largely 
consists of quotations intended to convince to us that Buddhists were 
always supposed to "believe" that all violence is wrong (and please pay 
no attention to all those piles of dead bodies over there.) That 
argument, by the way, has the, hopefully unintended, side-effect of 
promoting a view of Buddhists as the most hypocritical people in the 
history of hypocrisy. Even more embarrassingly, it puts its proponents 
in the position of being the ones who are going to explain what Buddhism 
is really supposed to be - to people who have been practicing it for 
2500 years.

Sorry - I really meant to say something more about Nguen Cao Ky's little 
book "Buddha's Child" (after purchasing it for $3 I discovered that it 
was actually a signed copy!!!) as well as something, a little further 
down, about Korean Buddhism. Ky devotes many pages of his book to the 
"Buddhist Struggle Movement", as well as giving a bird's eye view of 
Vietnamese Buddhism in general, and its involvement with politics and 
war in particular. I won't go into great detail, but for anyone whose 
knowledge of Vietnamese Buddhism is limited to Thich Nhat Hanh - well, 
this will provide a somewhat different viewpoint. Ky makes it clear that 
in his view the self-immolations in 1963 were a very effective technique 
for dramatizing the suppression of Buddhist political and social 
movement that was in opposition to the Government of Diem (a Christian). 
According to Ky this movement was led by Thich Tri Quang, who "aspired 
to become a kind of Buddhist pope." The self-immolations were part of an 
broader picture that included massive Buddhist demonstrations, violent 
police repression and a growing militancy among Buddhists. The movement 
was led by monks, and as things heated up "younger more militant monks 
took over the protest movement." Soon it was apparent that "there could 
be no doubt that the monks were trying to bring down the government." 
Eventually the army staged a coup - leaving the Buddhists out in the 
cold because they lacked the organization and power to do much more than 
just create social instability. All of that is pretty early on in the 
book, from pages 85-90.

I think the interesting thing is that this book is written by a 
Vietnamese Buddhist - and Vietnamese Buddhists are obviously a 
significant part of its target audience. If Vietnamese Buddhism ever 
promoted pacifism, you wouldn't know it from reading what Ky has to say. 
He promotes himself as a both a Buddhist and a Nationalist, and one does 
not get the impression that there is anything to be explained or 
"justified". Proponents of "Buddhism is inherently pacifist" like to 
focus on what they call Buddhist "justifications" of violence, and to 
focus their critique on showing how these "justifications" don't hold 
up, and, voila, Buddhism must be inherently pacifist. Maybe they should 
consider the possibility that many Buddhists have never bothered with 
the "justification" of violence approach. It certainly never occurs to 
Nguen Cao Ky that he, as a Buddhist, needs to tell us what his 
"justification" of violence is.

And one can look in vain through the pages of the Jogye Order of Korean 
Buddhism for any "justification" of violence (http://eng.buddhism.or.kr/ 
- if its down you can go to the cached website via google). Nevertheless 
one can easily find the biography of Hyoo Jurng Sunim (aka Sursan 
Daesah, aka Sosan Taesa), which reads, in part:

"He is a central figure in Buddhism in the Joh Surn dynasty due to his 
patriotic contribution to the defence of his native land in his role as 
a leader of the monks' militia during the Japanese invasion of Korea in 
1592."

(It should be noted that Hyoo Jurng is one of only nine "Great Masters" 
featured on the website.) In 1592 Hyoo Jurng was no "young militant" 
monk, like those described by Ky. Nor was he a politically ambitious man 
seeking to become a "Buddhist pope." He was a 72 year old Zen master 
living in seclusion. When he heard the news that Korea had been invaded 
he immediately sent word to the Emperor (a Confucianist) asking 
permission to raise an army of Buddhist monks - which permission was 
granted. He left behind many writings in which he promoted, among other 
things, harmonizing Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism because "all teach 
the truth of mind." But I have found no evidence that he ever bothered 
to present a "justification for violence."

Most western Buddhists have less invested in Korean and Vietnamese 
Buddhism (than in Buddhisms coming from Tibet, Sri Lanka, Japan, etc), 
so there might be a better chance of approaching those countries 
Buddhisms more objectively. There is an overwhelming tendency among 
western Buddhist pacifists to start with the assumption that Buddhism 
must be inherently pacifist, and anytime anything seems to contradict 
that view they want to find out "what went wrong". James Stroble 
articulates this approach quite unabashedly in the opening sentences of 
his talk on Buddhism and War: "There is something rather unsettling when 
one reads of Buddhist justifications of violence. We can not but help 
thinking that the central ethical precepts of Buddhism, ahimsa, karuna, 
and metta (non-harm, compassion and loving-kindness) have somehow been 
lost....We propose here to consider the possibility of Buddhist 
justifications of war, and to investigate not how they came about, for 
that is all too obvious and not specific to Buddhism, but rather why 
they should not have...."

You don't need a Buddhist to tell you what you will find when you 
already know exactly what you are looking for.

- Curt