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I’m at a study weekend for my course and just had a challenging discussion with a woman who identified herself as a Tibetan Buddhist. The main point of contention was that Buddhists who appear to do bad things like the various Japanese Buddhist leaders who endorsed and supported the military dictatorship in Japan in early Showa times (to 1945) are doing them for the right reasons if they’re (as far as I could tell) Buddhist. Nothing would shift her from this position – right or wrong were irrelevant, something done in the Buddhist way would work itself out. Oh, and intellectualism (”I said intellectual discernment, actually,”), intellectualism just led people up their own arse. How we got to that point, I’ve lost track of but it was undoubtedly my fault.
Not a conversation I should have started. But how can you decide whether an action is right or wrong, is the right compassionate path to take, is the thing that will do least harm without discernment of some kind?
Oh well. Back into the next class. Doubt we’ll sit next to each other. I really have to learn to be more tolerant of people who disagree with me! Or at any rate, to back off and not argue the point.
Filed under: Buddhism, personal, religion | Tagged: Buddhism, discernment, personal, religion
I wonder how you managed to do that. You are one of the most tolerant people I know. Believe me – I am not flattering you.
Believe me – if I was that tolerant, I wouldn’t have started the argument in the first place but having just read a fairly shocking book about the Japanese Buddhist hierarchy’s complicity in so many horrible events, my head was rather full of it. Or perhaps I was in general?
Or you could just give her a puch up the bracket. Either way is good.
That should have been punch of course.
“I really have to learn to be more tolerant of people who disagree with me!”
You’ll only learn through experiencing more conversations like this, no matter how frustrating it may seem.
I like to tell myself that most “mistakes” are actually mininterpreted lessons. (Works for me! ;))
Good morning …
I found your blog during a search on “tantrums” … Yes, “father of a four-year-old” here trying to figure out the best way to talk about the melt-down once things have settled down. I know from experience that little is gained from trying to talk about it while the tantrum is going on – but the thing I haven’t yet sorted out is when and how to break it all down for him later in a way that makes sense – to him.
My quest continues but I did want to say I enjoyed reading your blog and all the best with your second child.
Funny, I was just doing some light reading : ) this morning after breakfast about karma and reincarnation. Steiner was saying that even “bad” things happen for reasons set up by our karma (and this could be for groups of people, not just individuals) and that therefore they could be seen as “right”. I can see how that could be true, but that certainly doesn’t remove the need for personal morality or discernment.
Now, there are cases where acting in a seemingly violent or destructive way could actually be beneficial. My kids just asked me yesterday: was Jesus ever angry? I responded that one time he chased all the moneychangers out of the Temple because it was wrong for that to be happening in a sacred space. So perhaps there can be righteous “wrongness”. But I somehow doubt that supporting a brutal oppressive regime, for example, is righteous even if you’re being “Buddhist” about it!
Bad time, I know but I couldn’t resist tagging you. Hope it cheers you up!
http://achelois.wordpress.com/2008/02/10/book-meme-yippee/
Dan, you can’t punch girls. Even if they come from Glasgow and look scarily capable of punching you out. Actually, especially if they come from Glasgow and look scarily capable of punching you out.
Michelle – that turned out to be the first icily polite fight of the day – though the next one involved twelve people and was started by someone else. I’ve had all the lessons I need for one weekend!
Hi Richard – I’ll have to check out your blog. Search on tantrums and you’ll find little except similar frustrations! About all that works is hardening your heart and walking away – I don’t think there’s anything rational about them, if if there’s an ostensible cause. i think of tantrums as being a safety valve tripping.
Henitsirk – I’ll be writing about the book in question – but I’ve heard of Steiner’s view on this. Good point about Jesus – though it isn’t recorded as to whether he decked anyone.
Achelois, hmm. Maybe tomorrow :)
“right or wrong were irrelevant, something done in the Buddhist way would work itself out.”
I think she borrowed that train of thought from the folks who brought us the Crusades and the Spanish Inquisition…
“But how can you decide whether an action is right or wrong, is the right compassionate path to take, is the thing that will do least harm without discernment of some kind?”
What’s ‘right’ for one person, will always be ‘wrong’ for someone else.
Your comment made me look up ‘discernment’ as it was one of those words I have the general gist of, but needed to check what it really means! My not particularly brilliant dictionary has it as: The ability to judge well. I suppose that means discernment is also subjective? (How do we know we are judging well?)
But I don’t think any label (of faith) can justify brutality, or the condoning of it.
Excellent question, excellent post! Thank you, as usual, you have made me think.
I don’t think the conversation was the problem (sounds like it would provoke some very interesting debate) but rather the person you were conversing with.
Sorry to hear you had a difficult weekend, at least it should be the last one!
:o)