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

[Dan Lusthaus]

Richard,

> > 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.

My email server must have censored those posts. I never received them.

> > 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.

No, it's not. As long as we are going to play these word games, let's play.
The distinction I drew while discussing the missionaries in Japan is
applicable here too. The missionaries arming their allies was a *Christian*
act because those doing so engaged in it precisely from their sense of what
the strongest and most urgent action to further Christian goals called upon
them to do. The response from the Japanese leaders to bar such dangerous
insurrectional elements was NOT a Buddhist (or Shingon or religious) act,
since the issue was what someone who identifies themselves as a Christian
does, not Christianity per se (hence the Dutch were allowed to continue
trading, despite themselves being Christian).

It is certainly true that the Taliban do not represent all Muslims -- and
even that certain Muslim nations, including conservative Saudi Arabia,
condemned those actions (whether for international PR reasons or out of a
deep sense of disapproval I leave for others to quibble over). Nonetheless
the REASON the Taliban devoted considerable time, energy and resources to
blowing up Buddhist statues -- remnants of communities that hadn't existed
on Afghani soil for a millennium -- is for no other reason than as an
expression of religious piety: the offense of infidel images on Muslim soil.
Idolatry is the cardinal sin in Islam par excellence.

If you've read the accounts of the concerted and lengthy engineering effort
that was put into blowing up those statues -- it was not a spur of the
moment action -- then its deliberate and premeditated nature is obvious.

In acting this way, the Taliban were not expressing some deviant, unusual
misunderstanding of Islam, but rather participating in a long history of
such actions, albeit it with new "tools."

In Iran today the Western art in the Teheran Museum is being preserved from
destruction by being stored in the basement, out of sight (hence
"nonoffensive"). Journalists, etc., got a recent peek, and some of it was
just put on temporary display.

http://arts.guardian.co.uk/art/news/story/0,,2201065,00.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2005/09/02/1452063.htm
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/31/arts/31arts-IRANHIDESWES_BRF.html

Obviously, here as well, there is a tension between more open-minded Muslims
and the dominant powers which display various degrees of intolerance.

Are all Muslims (or all anything) only and exclusively of one view on
anything? Of course not. But there are DOMINANT and TRADITIONAL views,
against which those who hold alternate views -- unless they happen to be
fortunate and live in the US -- are not free to express themselves with
impunity.

Most "all" statements (All P are Q) fail in the real world, which is messy.
But that doesn't invalidate "Most P are Q" or "The most dominant P are Q"
from being true in that same messy world. Those who state "The most dominant
P are Q" in accordance with the facts on the ground are not speaking from
prejudice, but merely stating facts.


> If the form of your claim is that Buddhists are endangered by Muslims,
then so
> saying is the very worst possible kind of speech. [...]  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 here we see how the messy world has disappeared in lieu of the verbal
algebra that satisfies itself with its insular reasoning, while obliterating
the real world in the name of saving the real world. The absurdity of the
false parity in the light of history and the present is self-evident to
anyone not locked within that insularity.

> 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.

I prefer to read the Sutra on Fearless Nirvana. And not fiddle while Rome
burns, in the name of a illusory nobility. Alleviating the suffering of
sentient beings begins with recognizing that there are real sentient beings
in a messy world where the actions and agendas of groups as well as
individuals can have profound and devastating effects rather than reduce
everything to depersonlized platitudes.

Dan