[Buddha-l] NYTimes.com: Let Us Pray for Wealth

[Richard Hayes]

On Tuesday 06 November 2007 11:44, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> Perhaps we should instead follow your model with how you talk about Bush,
> Republicans, etc.?

Yes, that is the model to follow. I praise Bush every time he makes wise and 
enlightened decisions and manifests compassion. When he falls short, I 
manifest my compassion for him and those who support him by setting higher 
standards.

> Muslims have been extirpating Buddhists almost since their inception --
> removing them from Central Asia and India, where Buddhists once roamed
> free.

There have been Muslims who have acted that way. There have also been Muslims 
who have not acted that way at all. What I deplore is a situation in which 
the bad behaviour of some people comes to be used to chracterize the entire 
group. As I recall, the word for that is prejudice.

> They are still blowing up the vestiges of Buddhism (e.g. Bamiyan). 

This is a good example of the kind of statement I find absolutely deplorable. 
The only plausible antecedent is "Muslims." To say that Muslims blew up 
Buddhist statues in Bamiyan is at the very best a partial truth. More 
accurate would be to say that a particular group of Muslims, known for their 
fanaticism and ignorance, carried out this act AND that more tolerant, 
eductaed and urbane Muslims around the world deplored the act as much as 
everyone else did.

> That Buddhists should accurately reflect on past and current dangers is not
> a case of bad speech.

If the form of your claim is that Buddhists are endangered by Muslims, then so 
saying is the very worst possible kind of speech. There is nothing in it that 
even approximates right speech. Right speech would be to say that wisdom and 
compassion are undermined by greed, cruelty, narrow-mindedness, delusion, 
self-interest and prejudice. The wisdom and compassion in Muslims is every 
bit as endangered by the cruelty and stupidity in Buddhists as the wisdom and 
compassion in Buddhists is endangered by the cruelty and stupidity in Muslims 
and every bit as much as the wisdom and compassion in Christians is 
endangered by the cruelty and stupidity in Hindus and Jews. More to the 
point, from a Buddhist point of view, is that the wisdom and compassion in a 
single consciousness continuum is endangered by the partiality and greed in 
that same continuum.

My ad hominem advice to you, Dan, is to be afraid, be very afraid....of your 
own mind. For the mind is cannibalistic and eats away its own nobility to 
feed its own pettiness. 

-- 
Richard P. Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico
http://www.unm.edu/~rhayes