[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Barnaby Thieme]

> From: vasubandhu at earthlink.net

> Second, those who are now pretending to not be the naive deniers of violence 
> in Buddhism's vicinity, need to read the book, since silly urban myths like 
> monks temporarily relinquishing vows in order to scruffle, and then 
> redonning their pacifistic ways is no more an accurate portrayal of the role 
> of violence in Buddhism (historically and up to the present), than the 
> notion that no Buddhist anywhere has ever had a violent thought.

Eh? 

The (silly?) point I was making is that if you look at scriptures you can get one picture, but if you look at what real people actually do you get another. 

I know a guy who got his face completely broken apart (still missing teeth) by monks in Tibet. He was inadvisedly on the grounds of their monastery at night, and they quietly lined up on the walls and started throwing heavy stones down at him, thinking he was a bandit. He yelled "Foreigner! Foreigner!" in Chinese until they stopped. 

Perhaps these are the only monks in the history of Tibet who displayed an immediate willingness to violently defend their turf against a rope-snake bandit. Or perhaps this business about setting down your precepts is neither an urban legend nor irrelevant to the matter at hand. Perhaps, indeed, teachings regarding nonviolence square up against the actual survival needs of people in the real world, and usually loose when push comes to shove. As the facts of the matter seem to indicate, most monks choose not to feed themselves to the hungry tiger. 

I don't say that because I think it's a subtle point, but because it seems to me to be the necessary starting place for any consideration of whether or not Buddhists will violently defend the Dharma. 

xob~


 		 	   		  
_________________________________________________________________
The New Busy is not the old busy. Search, chat and e-mail from your inbox.
http://www.windowslive.com/campaign/thenewbusy?ocid=PID28326::T:WLMTAGL:ON:WL:en-US:WM_HMP:042010_3