The War in Our Heads and Hearts
I've hesitated to discuss the Iraq war very much on this blog, preferring mainly to stay on the stated topics of zen and psychotherapy. My first teacher, Matsuoka Roshi, once scornfully told me that "politics is for children." Thus, despite the fact that my major in college was political science, and that politics in general greatly interests me, my first inclination was to avoid the subject of war all together.
I now think I was wrong about this. No matter what one's personal feelings are about the war, there is something very important going on here that goes far beyond "stay the course" or "bring the troops home."
War in fact figures very prominently in the development of Buddhism. Ashoka, the great Indian emperor warrior, converted to Buddhism after walking through a burnt-out battlefield littered with the mutilated corpses of thousands of his enemies. This was the great War of Kalinga, in which at least 100,000 of Ashoka's enemies were killed. As he walked through the devastation and saw the results of his actions, he famously repeated to himself over and over, "what have I done?" To atone for his actions Ashoka vowed to promulgate Buddhism all over the world, and he did.
Today, we have Iraq. No one knows exactly how many Iraqis have been killed in the current conflict. Some say over 500,000. Thousands of American soldiers have died, tens of thousands wounded physically and psychologically. Undoubtedly, we will be paying the price for this war in a multitude of ways for generations to come.
So where is the outrage? Despite sixty to seventy percent of the American public being opposed to the war, where are the protests? My guess is that a lot of it has been internalized. We watch the latest casualty figures on TV, then we move on to mowing the lawn, watching baseball or updating our blogs. For the most part, we don't appear to feel personally affected. Many people, including myself, feel utterly powerless to stop the war. Even the most outspoken public critic of the war, Cindy Sheehan, recently gave up and went home, citing the tremendous personal toll the process had taken on her and her family.
I may be wrong, but I haven't seen or heard a lot of protest from prominent Buddhist leaders either. Where is the Dalai Lama? Where is Thich Nhat Hanh? Both of these men are political war refugees with deep and personal insight into the consequences of military conflict and political repression. And yet, I don't see them walking the protest line holding signs or engaging in hunger strikes. Why? Interesting, don't you think?
This is the lesson, I believe, that is unfolding in front of our eyes and that we must learn from seeing and feeling this war: Buddhism is all about self-responsibility and self-awareness of the suffering that we both experience ourselves and that we cause in others. The Iraq war should be no different. Our soldiers are not children or robots. They can and must speak and think for themselves. Likewise, George Bush is not a child, he can and must decide for himself what does or does not need to be done. No amount of protest, apparently, will change his mind. In the end, George Bush needs to somehow walk that battlefield that is now littered with the corpses of his enemies and our own soldiers. If he feels compelled to atone, he will atone. No one else can or should do it for him. And so the world waits.
I now think I was wrong about this. No matter what one's personal feelings are about the war, there is something very important going on here that goes far beyond "stay the course" or "bring the troops home."
War in fact figures very prominently in the development of Buddhism. Ashoka, the great Indian emperor warrior, converted to Buddhism after walking through a burnt-out battlefield littered with the mutilated corpses of thousands of his enemies. This was the great War of Kalinga, in which at least 100,000 of Ashoka's enemies were killed. As he walked through the devastation and saw the results of his actions, he famously repeated to himself over and over, "what have I done?" To atone for his actions Ashoka vowed to promulgate Buddhism all over the world, and he did.
Today, we have Iraq. No one knows exactly how many Iraqis have been killed in the current conflict. Some say over 500,000. Thousands of American soldiers have died, tens of thousands wounded physically and psychologically. Undoubtedly, we will be paying the price for this war in a multitude of ways for generations to come.
So where is the outrage? Despite sixty to seventy percent of the American public being opposed to the war, where are the protests? My guess is that a lot of it has been internalized. We watch the latest casualty figures on TV, then we move on to mowing the lawn, watching baseball or updating our blogs. For the most part, we don't appear to feel personally affected. Many people, including myself, feel utterly powerless to stop the war. Even the most outspoken public critic of the war, Cindy Sheehan, recently gave up and went home, citing the tremendous personal toll the process had taken on her and her family.
I may be wrong, but I haven't seen or heard a lot of protest from prominent Buddhist leaders either. Where is the Dalai Lama? Where is Thich Nhat Hanh? Both of these men are political war refugees with deep and personal insight into the consequences of military conflict and political repression. And yet, I don't see them walking the protest line holding signs or engaging in hunger strikes. Why? Interesting, don't you think?
This is the lesson, I believe, that is unfolding in front of our eyes and that we must learn from seeing and feeling this war: Buddhism is all about self-responsibility and self-awareness of the suffering that we both experience ourselves and that we cause in others. The Iraq war should be no different. Our soldiers are not children or robots. They can and must speak and think for themselves. Likewise, George Bush is not a child, he can and must decide for himself what does or does not need to be done. No amount of protest, apparently, will change his mind. In the end, George Bush needs to somehow walk that battlefield that is now littered with the corpses of his enemies and our own soldiers. If he feels compelled to atone, he will atone. No one else can or should do it for him. And so the world waits.
posted by David H at 4:02 PM
1 Comments:
Anytime I point my finger at anyone--there are three fingers pointing back at me.
I like to think those three fingers point to my anger, my greed and my ignorance.
Before I make plans for what someone else should do differently. I can ask myself--what in myself can I change with regard to my own anger, my own greed and my own ignorance.
When it comes down to it, that's all I'm ever going to have a chance to really do anything about. That's at least a lifetime's task, and that's plenty for me.
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