[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Barnaby Thieme]

Hello, 

Sure, there are cases in which people calling themselves Buddhists have 
felt obliged to defend the Dharma with violent means. Heck, there have 
been times when ordained Buddhist Mahayana monks have violently 
suppressed other sects because they didn't like their teachings, like 
the Gelukpa suppression of the Jonangpas. Gelukpas are still killing 
each other over matters of religious hegemony, in fact, though it 
mercifully seems to be on a pretty small scale. 

http://www.dalailama.com/messages/dolgyal-shugden/ganden-tripa/the-shugden-affair-i



Did you see the recent brief exchange concerning the temporary abandonment of the precepts? What we have there are Tibetan monks putting aside their vows temporarily so they can shoot bandits when it's necessary. Then they pick the precepts up again when they're safe-ish in the monastery. I'd find that an instructive case illustrating the difference between what the scriptures say and what people who call themselves Buddhists actually do. There are countless opportunities for selflessness and heroism in deference to nonviolence in Buddhist history, but in some cases it's better to sin and repent than to simply die. 

I think it's a safe bet that the Tibetan government would not be committed to a nonviolent resolution had they been invaded by Bhutan or Nepal instead of China. Tibet seems to me to be a pretty good case in general -- those dudes have been fighting over Dharma and politics for a long time. A general familiarity with their history suggests that the religious blood count may be lower than, say, Europe in the Middle Ages, but religion is never just religion -- it's tied to politics, resource distribution, ideology, and control. The Fifth Dalai Lama unified Tibet under the Gelukpas due to a coalition of political and military power -- that's how things seem to work. I'm sure I don't need to tell you this! But I can't help myself. 

With respect to the divergence between what the sacred texts tell you to do and what people actually find themselves doing, one way to resolve this dissonance, as again I'm sure you know, is to invoke the concept of skillful means, or to assume that the guy who sure looks like they're doing bad stuff is actually, like, totally enlightened and knows best. In that sense, some Tibetans still praise the monk who killed the supposedly Dharma-persecuting king Langdarma in the tenth century. Samten Karmay makes a strong argument that Langdarma's real crime was to resist the increasing encroachment of the clergy on the central government. But a bit of hagiography and some pure appearances should clean that up. 

$.02

Barnaby~


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More than any time in history mankind faces a crossroads. One path
leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction.
Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly. -- Woody Allen


 		 	   		  
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