Fwd: A New Holy War? A Buddhist Response

seyedjavad

From: "David R. Loy"

To: Seyed Javad

Subject: A New Holy War? A Buddhist Response

Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2001 16:41:18 +0900

Dear Seyed,

In all the responses to the catastrophe, there hasn't been much of a

Buddhist voice, so I've tried to write something.

with best wishes,

David

A NEW HOLY WAR AGAINST EVIL?

A Buddhist Response

Like most other Americans, I have been struggling to digest the events of

the last week. It has taken a while to realize how psychically numbed many

of us are. In the space of a few hours, our world changed. We do not yet

know what those changes will mean, but the most important long-term ones may

well be psychological.

Americans have always understood the United States to be a special and

uniquely privileged place. The Puritans viewed New England as the Promised

Land. According to Melville, ³We Americans are the peculiar, chosen

people.² In many parts of the globe the twentieth century has been

particularly horrible, but the continental United States has been so

insulated from these tragedies that we have come to think of ourselves as

immune to them ­ although we have often contributed to them.

That confidence has been abruptly shattered. We have discovered that the

borderless world of globalization allows us no refuge from the hatred and

violence that predominate in many parts of the world.

Every death reminds us of our own, and sudden, unexpected death on such a

large scale makes it harder to repress awareness of our own mortality. Our

obsessions with such things as money, consumerism, and professional sports

have been revealed for what they are: unworthy of all the attention we

devote to them. There is something valuable to learn here, but this reality

nonetheless makes us quite uncomfortable. We do not like to think about

death. We usually prefer to be distracted.

Talk of vengeance and ³bomb them back to the stone age² makes many of us

uneasy, but naturally we want to strike back. On Friday President Bush

declared that the United States has been called to a new worldwide mission

³to rid the world of evil,² and on Sunday he said that the government is

determined to ³rid the world of evil-doers.² Our land of freedom now has a

responsibility to extirpate the world of its evil. We may no longer have an

³evil empire² to defeat, but we have found a more sinister evil that will

require a long-term, all-out war to destroy.

If anything is evil, those terrorist attacks were evil. I share that

sentiment, but I think we need to take a close look at the vocabulary. When

Bush says he wants to rid the world of evil, alarm bells go off in my mind,

because that is what Hitler and Stalin also wanted to do.

Iım not defending either of those evil-doers, just explaining what they were

trying to do. What was the problem with Jews that required a ³final

solution²? The earth could be made pure for the Aryan race only by

exterminating the Jews, the impure vermin who contaminate it. Stalin needed

to exterminate well-to-do Russian peasants to establish his ideal society of

collective farmers. Both were trying to perfect this world by eliminating

its impurities. The world can be made good only by destroying its evil

elements.

Paradoxically, then, one of the main causes of evil in this world has been

human attempts to eradicate evil.

Fridayıs Washington Post quoted Joshua Teitelbaum, a scholar who has studied

a more contemporary evil-doer: ³Osama bin Laden looks at the world in very

stark, black-and-white terms. For him, the U.S. represents the forces of

evil that are bringing corruption and domination into the Islamic world².

What is the difference between bin Ladenıs view and Bushıs? They are mirror

opposites. What bin Laden sees as good ­ an Islamic jihad against an

impious and materialistic imperialism ­ Bush sees as evil. What Bush sees

as good ­ America the defender of freedom ­ bin Laden sees as evil. They

are two different versions of the same holy-war-between-good-and-evil.

Do not misunderstand me here. I am not equating them morally, nor in any

way trying to excuse the horrific events of last Tuesday. From a Buddhist

perspective, however, there is something dangerously delusive about the

mirror-image views of both sides. We must understand how this

black-and-white way of thinking deludes not only Islamic terrorists but also

us, and therefore brings more suffering into the world.

This dualism of good-versus-evil is attractive because it is a simple way of

looking at the world. And most of us are quite familiar with it. Although

it is not unique to the Abrahamic religions ­ Judaism, Christianity, and

Islam ­ it is especially important for them. It is one of the reasons why

the conflicts among them have been so difficult to resolve peacefully:

adherents tend to identify their own religion as good and demonize the other

as evil.

(Historically, the dualism seems to have originated with the Persian

religion of Zoroastrianism, which saw this world as the battleground of a

cosmic war between good and evil, and anticipated an apocalyptic victory for

the forces of good at the end of time. The Jews probably absorbed this idea

during their Babylonian captivity, and both Christianity and Islam got this

dualism from them.)

It is difficult to turn the other cheek when we view the world through these

spectacles, because this rationalizes the opposite principle: an eye for an

eye. If the world is a battleground of good and evil forces, the evil that

is in the world must be fought by any means necessary.

The secularization of the modern West did not eliminate this tendency. In

some ways it has intensified it, because we can no longer rely on a

supernatural resolution. We have to depend upon ourselves to bring about

the final victory of good over evil ­ as Hitler and Stalin tried to do. It

is unclear how much help bin Laden and Bush expect from God.

Why do I emphasize this dualism? The basic problem with this way of

understanding conflict is that it tends to preclude thought, because it is

so simplistic. It keeps us from looking deeper, from trying to discover

causes. Once something has been identified as evil, there is no more need

to explain it; it is time to focus on fighting against it. This is where

Buddhism has something important to contribute.

Buddhism emphasizes the three roots of evil, also known as the three

poisons: greed, ill will and delusion. The Abrahamic religions emphasize

the struggle between good and evil because for them the basic issue depends

on our will: which side are we on? In contrast, Buddhism emphasizes

ignorance and enlightenment because the basic issue depends on our

self-knowledge: do we really understand what motivates us?

According to Buddhism, every effect has its web of causes and conditions.

This is the law of karma. One way to summarize the essential Buddhist

teaching is that we suffer, and cause others to suffer, because of greed,

ill will and delusion. Karma implies that when our actions are motivated by

these roots of evil, their negative consequences tend to rebound back upon

us. The Buddhist solution to suffering involves transforming our greed into

generosity, our ill will into loving-kindness, and our delusions into

wisdom.

What do these Buddhist teachings imply about the situation we now find

ourselves in? The following is from todayıs statement by the Buddhist Peace

Fellowship:

³Nations deny causality by ascribing blame to othersı terrorists, rogue

nations, and so on. Singling out an enemy, we short-circuit the

introspection necessary to see our own karmic responsibility for the

terrible acts that have befallen us. . . . Until we own causes we bear

responsibility for, in this case in the Middle East, last weekıs violence

will make no more sense than an earthquake or cyclone, except that in its

human origin it turns us toward rage and revenge.²

We cannot focus only on the second root of evil, the hatred and violence

that have just been directed against the United States. The three roots are

intertwined. Ill will cannot be separated from greed and delusion. This

requires us to ask: why do so many people in the Middle East, in

particular, hate us so much? What have we done to encourage that hatred?

Americans think of America as defending freedom and justice, but obviously

that is not the way they perceive us. Are they just misinformed, then, or

is it we who are misinformed?

"Does anybody think that we can send the USS New Jersey to lob

Volkswagen-sized shells into Lebanese villages -- Reagan, 1983 -- or loose

'smart bombs' on civilians seeking shelter in a Baghdad bunker -- Bush, 1991

-- or fire cruise missiles on a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory -- Clinton,

1999 -- and not receive, someday, our share in kind?" (Micah Sifry)

In particular, how much of our foreign policy in the Middle East has been

motivated by our love of freedom and democracy, and how much has been

motivated by our need ­ our greed ­ for its oil? If our main priority has

been securing oil supplies, does it mean that our petroleum-based economy is

one of the causes of last weekıs attack?

Finally, Buddhist teachings suggest that we look at the role of delusion in

creating this situation. Delusion has a special meaning in Buddhism. The

fundamental delusion is our sense of separation from the world we are ³in,²

including other people. Insofar as we feel separate from others, we are

more inclined to manipulate them to get what we want. This naturally breeds

resentment ­ both from others, who do not like to be used, and within

ourselves, when we do not get what we want. . . . Is this also true

collectively?

Delusion becomes wisdom when we realize that ³no one is an island.² We are

interdependent because we are all part of each other, different facets of

the same jewel we call the earth. This world is a not a collection of

objects but a community of subjects. That interdependence means we cannot

avoid responsibility for each other. This is true not only for the

residents of lower Manhattan, now uniting in response to this catastrophe,

but for all the people in the world, however deluded they may be. Yes,

including the terrorists who did these heinous acts and those who support

them.

Do not misunderstand me here. Those responsible for the attacks must be

caught and brought to justice. That is our responsibility to all those who

have suffered, and that is also our responsibility to the deluded and

hate-full terrorists, who must be stopped. If, however, we want to stop

this cycle of hatred and violence, we must realize that our responsibility

is much broader than that.

Realizing our interdependence and mutual responsibility for each other

implies something more. When we try to live this interdependence, it is

called love. Love is more than a feeling, it is a mode of being in the

world. In Buddhism we talk mostly about compassion, generosity, and

loving-kindness, but they all reflect this mode of being. Such love is

sometimes mocked as weak and ineffectual, yet it can be very powerful, as

Gandhi showed. And it embodies a deep wisdom about how the cycle of hatred

and violence works and about how that cycle can be ended. An eye for an eye

makes the whole world blind, but there is an alternative. Twenty-five

hundred years ago, the Buddha said:

"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me" -- for those who

harbour such thoughts hatred will never cease.

"He abused me, he beat me, he defeated me, he robbed me" -- for those who do

not harbour such thoughts hatred will cease.

In this world hatred is never appeased by hatred; hatred is always appeased

by love. This is an ancient law. (Dhammapada, 3-5)

Of course, this transformative insight is not unique to Buddhism. After

all, it was not the Buddha who gave us the image of turning the other cheek.

In all the Abrahamic religions the tradition of a holy war between good and

evil coexists with this ³ancient law² about the power of love. That does

not mean all the worldıs religions have emphasized this law to the same

extent. In fact, I wonder if this is one way to measure the maturity of a

religion, or at least its continuing relevance for us today: how much the

liberative truth of this law is acknowledged and encouraged. I do not know

enough about Islam to compare, but in the cases of Buddhism and

Christianity, for example, it is the times when this truth has not been

emphasized that these two religions have been most subverted by secular

rulers and nationalistic fervor.

So where does that leave us today? We find ourselves at a turning point. A

lust for vengeance and violent retaliation is rising, fanned by a leader

caught up in his own rhetoric of a holy war to purify the world of evil.

Please consider: does the previous sentence describe bin Laden, or

President Bush?

If we pursue the path of large-scale violence, bin Ladenıs holy war and

Bushıs holy war will become two sides of the same war.

No one can foresee all the consequences of such a war. They are likely to

spin out of control and take on a life of their own. However, one sobering

effect is clearly implied by the ³ancient law²: massive retaliation by the

United States in the Middle East will spawn a new generation of suicidal

terrorists, eager to do their part in this holy war.

But widespread violence is not the only possibility. If this time of

crisis encourages us to see through the rhetoric of a war to exterminate

evil, and if we begin to understand the intertwined roots of this evil,

including our own responsibility, then perhaps something good may yet come

out of this catastrophic tragedy.

David R. Loy

loy@shonan.bunkyo.ac.jp

18 September 2001

From: "Seyed Javad"

Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2001 16:20:52 +0000

To: loy@shonan.bunkyo.ac.jp

Subject: Re: Dear David

Dear David,

Very glad to hear from you and very sad that we cannot meet. Anyhow, I wish

you a good trip and hope to see you another time. However, you are welcome

to Bristol and will be glad to be your host for one day! Anyway, just keep

in touch and have a nice trip.

This is my address:

Seyed Javad

A10, Hodgkin House, 3-7

Meridian Place Clifton

Bristol BS8 1JG

England

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