[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Curt Steinmetz]

I believe the two key passages in Faure's "Afterthoughts" are:

1. "The claim that Buddhism is a tolerant religion is based on the fact 
that Buddhist history does not show the kind of fanatic excesses 
familiar in the histories of Christianity and Islam. Opponents of the 
Buddha may have been labeled as 'heretical masters,' but (in part for 
lack of an ultimate authority) the accusations of heresy rarely led to 
physical purges."

&

2. "But these cases are the exception that proves the Budhist rule, and 
they underscore the contrast with the practices of Inquisition in 
Christianity."

The second statement occurs after Faure has listed a variety of cases of 
intolerance and even violent persecution that have occurred in the 
course of Buddhist history.

To be blunt, Faure is directly contradicting Jerryson and Jurgensmeyer's 
claim that the distinction between Buddhism and Christianity (and Islam) 
is a "social imaginary".

As far as the specific issue of "defending the faith" goes, ultimately 
the Dharma itself requires no defense -- by arms or by any other means. 
Then again, the Dharma does not require Buddhas or teachers or students 
or practice or Sutras etc etc etc.

In purely pragmatic terms, however, whatever there is of worth in 
Buddhism would have vanished as soon as it appeared if the Buddha had 
been a pacifist, because any community that does not defend itself 
quickly vanishes from the face of the earth -- unless someone else 
defends them. The Buddha appears to have accepted not only the economic 
largesse of powerful allies, but also their physical/armed protection. 
If the Buddha himself did not do this, then it happened very soon 
afterwards because the theme of political allies militarily protecting 
Buddhism is in the Pali Canon as far back as one can go.

In all of "Buddhism and Warfare" there is no mention, not even in a 
footnote, of Matthew Kosuta's excellent study "The Military in the Pali 
Canon", in which Kosuta concluded that "in a mundane perspective, the 
military is ever present, of high prestige, and even necessary in some 
circumstances for the protection of Buddhism."

Here is a link to Kosuta's paper:
http://www.urbandharma.org/udharma6/militarycanon.html

Curt Steinmetz

andy wrote:
> OK,  I have finished the recently published "Buddhism and Warfare",  and I 
> have several questions to pose to Buddha-l.  (And besides, seems quiet here 
> lately.) 
>
> First, Faure's concluding remarks are acceptable, but non-commital.  We seem 
> to be faced with a distinction between a posited Universal Buddhist Ethics 
> that is maintained by Victoria, and either a contextualism that says that 
> Buddhism is what it is in any particular cultural milieu, or a suggestion that 
> the underlying metaphysics of Buddhism is, as Faure puts it, violent and 
> sacrificial? 
>
>
> "could the dharma, or ultimate reality, be intrinsically violent? Would that 
> not explain figures such as Vajrapani and the "Bright Kings", emanations of 
> the cosmic Buddha, who are represented as fierce beings bent on destroying the 
> gods or demons they were supposed to convert or tame? " p. 223
>
>
> So Secondly:  what support is there in Buddhism for the notion of the  
> "defense of the faith"?   I have multiple reservations about any claim that 
> there is such, outside of the normal institutional motivations. That would 
> only be contextual Buddhism.  
>
> The co-option of indigenious divinities makes sense, politically, but is there 
> an imperative to protect the dharma by violent means?  This seems to 
> contradict the very nature of Buddhism, regardless of the cultural context it 
> finds itself in. 
>
> I teach military ethics, and one of the main points I try to get across to my 
> students is that violence never settles political issues, and so the only 
> possible justification for it is that it makes possible the political (or 
> preferably, intellectual) resolutions of differences.  Buddhism has always 
> seemed to me to be the one religious tradition that recognized that.  Am I 
> going to have to change my mind?   
>