[Buddha-l] Was Buddhists Taking a Stand Against Isllamophobia

[Richard Hayes]

On Sep 23, 2012, at 9:44 PM, "Dan Lusthaus" <vasubandhu at earthlink.net> wrote:

> Joanne and Curt had it right.

Both of them say many things. What in particular are you referring to?

> The rest of you are trying to visualize a muslim-pure-land that has never existed and doesn't exist now.

I would not characterize anything I have seen on Buddha-l in that way. What I have seen is a simple appeal to mindfulness that nothing is served by focusing on the fanaticism and destructiveness of one particular group of human beings when there are destructive thoughts and actions manifesting everywhere in the world.

> And unless you call the Muslim world to task now, it never will.

For those of us who do not live in the Muslim world, and who have had positive experiences with the Muslims we have met in the world in which we do live, might our time not be better spent dealing with the forms of greed, hatred and delusion that are making people suffer in our own neighborhoods? Quite frankly, the amount of pain and suffering that I see where I live is much more likely to be a consequence of the thoughts and actions of profit-oriented corporations and the politicians who support them within a 100-mile radius of where I live than it is to be a consequence of narrow-minded bigots in either Pakistan or Israel. Oddly enough, both my Buddhist instincts and my Quaker instincts are to act locally, while doing all I can to be aware of what is going on around the world. 

What, if anything, would you recommend that I do differently from what I am now doing?