Last night my friend Taigen and other Buddhists and people of conscience travelled to the gates of San Quentin to protest the death penalty and specifically the execution of Tookie William, the founder of the Crips. For my part, I am also opposed to the death penalty in principle but I was not able to stand vigil there, so I did gongyo at the time he was being put to death. So now I would like to express my general thoughts and feelings about the death penalty.
To begin with I want to agree that many of these people don't just deserve to die but actually deserve much more horrendous fates if one really wants to balance the anguish and destruction of life that they themselves perpetrated. I am convined that the gruesome descriptions of the hell-realms and hungry ghost realms in traditional Buddhist cosmology were not so much the product of any literal view of the afterlife but were an attempt to both metaphorically describe the anguish and suffering that people feel in this life and also to satisfy people's wish that in the afterlife there will be a balancing of the scales. So, for instance, someone like Saddam Hussein, who is responisible for the torture and murder of untold number of people and the use of nerve gas on women and children deserves to literally fall into the hells I describe in Lotus World. In Christianity, Thomas Aquinas and others have said that part of the compensation for the just will be that from heaven they will be able to contemplate the richly deserved torments of the damned.
But all of that just deserts and comeuppance and contemplation of richly deserved torment and damnation is far away from the true spirit of Buddha Dharma and the great compassion that does not discriminate. From the Buddhist point of view all of us have the seeds of hell within us, and but for the grace of causes and conditons those seeds may come into fruition in our own actions and our own comeuppance in the course of innumerable eons of rebirth. From the traditional Buddhist point of view we have all been hell-dwellers and barring our liberation we will again become hell-dwellers. As Christians say, "there are none who are without sin" and "their hearts have been evil from the very beginning." The Buddhist teaching of the three poisons and the mutual possession of the ten worlds (whereby even those in the human realm have a bit of hell within them - but also heaven and buddhahood) is making the same point as the Christian doctrine of "original sin" - that all of us from the unfathomable beginning have been enmeshed in unwholesome attitudes, conduct, and the suffering that entails. It does not even matter if there are literal hells to fall into, or heavens to fall away from. It is an existential truth that if we are honest we feel within the depths of our lives.
So frmo the ultimate point of view it is not that some of us are deserving of death and damnation and some of us aren't. From the Christian and Buddhist point of view we all have the seeds of death and damnation inside of us - it is part of who we are. The difference between a hell-dweller and a Buddha is that a hell-dweller is not aware of this and instead is driven by it and blames everyone and everything but themselves and they feel cheated by life. A Buddha, on the other hand, is comletely aware of those seeds and in that awareness and understanding of their own depths arouses a compassion for all those who have such seeds - which encompasses all beings and their environments. So in the one case a confused and selfish anguish, in the other a compassionate and selfless awareness of our actual condition.
The Buddha did not believe that people were intrinsicially good or intrinsically evil. In fact he did not talk in terms of good and evil so much as in terms of wholesome and unwholesome causes and conditions. Causes and conditions encompass all things, but in terms of our human lives we are able to awaken to and take responsibility for the wholesomeness or lack thereof of the causes set in motion by our intention, speech, and actions. Sometimes we will water and cultivate hellish seeds, sometimes hungry ghost seeds, sometimes the seeds of humane consideration and rationality, sometimes seeds of compassion or even perfect and complete awakening. But no one is intrinsically good or evil, but all are able to change the complex of causes and conditions that compose our lives.
The Buddha believed that this human life was the most precious state of all - because it was as a human being that one was not overwhelmed by the suffering we have undergone in the hells and other realms, nor are we lulled by the false security we have undergone in the heavenly realms. So it is here and now as rational, self-reflective human beings that we can acknowledge, account for, take responsibility for, and change the complex of our causes and conditions. We do not have the right to take this precious opportunity away from anyone, nor do we even have the right to take it away from those who take it away from others.
From the Buddhist point of view, two wrongs do not make a right. Piling unwholesomeness atop unwholesomeness does not create a wholesome situation. Rather the seeds of vengeance, bitterness, hatred, and anguish are simply cultivated all the more by unecessarily killing those who kill. Furthermore, from the point of view of Buddhism we are not dispatching people to a final just judgement because in Buddhism the judgement happens in each moment of karmic unfolding - that means right here and now. So killing a murderer is in a sense the just fruition of their karma, but they simply go on to another life where they simply continue their ignorant, selfish, and destructive patterns; whereas we have now watered our own hellish seeds in order to strike back at them. So they go on as they were and we become worse. This judgement happens right here and now in the depths of our lives and its ramificiations extend into all future lives and the life of society and the environment.
From the point of view of the Nirvana Sutra, authorized lay people (rulers and peace keepers) have the duty to maintain the peace, and can use weapons but must do their best not to use them lethally. See the section called "Should Slanderers be Put to Death" in my Rissho Ankoku Ron commentary for more on that. But there is an even deeper and more Dharmic duty to ackowledge that even the worst of us have the nature of buddhahood and given the opportunity (which killing takes away irrevocably) can awaken to and express that nature. The Buddha did teach that we could go mad trying to guess another person's karma, in other words what they do or do not deserve, but that it is always in accord to pay respects to the Buddha-nature of all beings. In the case of dangerous criminals (and dictators) they do need to be incarcerated and prevented from doing any harm, but once rendered harmless if we are not to sink to their level we should not be seeking vengeance nor should we seek to torment or harm them but rather to find a way to awaken their humanity if not a more complete awakening. In fact, to harm, torment, or kill just confirms them in their own brutal way of relating to the world, but to see to awaken humanity is to seek to awaken conscience and true remorse and true accountability (which, btw, was the overarching theme of Joss Whedon's show "Angel").
In the life of Shakyamuni Buddha it is said that he encountered a serial killer named Angulimala. In fact, Angulimala had killed 999 people in order to present a gift of a 1,000 finger-bone necklace to an evil guru. So Angulimala was actually a religious terrorist and no mere gangster or thug. He was even going to kill his own mother because he could not find the 1,000th victim. But then the Buddha came along and Angulimala tried to catch him. But Angulimala could not reach the Buddha no matter how fast he ran, and regardless of the Buddha's dignfied steady pace. Finally Angulimala yelled "Stop! Stop!" The Buddha turned to face the killer and said, "I stopped long ago. When will you stop?" Faced by the fearless dignity and composure of the Buddha, Angulimala stopped stunned. Realizing the Buddha was a spiritul teacher he then realized that "stopping" the Buddha referred to was the cycle of unwholesome deeds, suffering, and anguish leading to more unwholesome deeds. Right then, it is said, Angulimala realized that he had found a true friend and a true teacher. He renounced himself and not just his murderous deeds and ideology. He became a monk, and on the Buddha's testimony was given a reprieve from King Bimbisara. The people, however, lynched him all the same, but he died realizing that he had transformed the seeds of hell inside himself and that being lynched was actually getting off easy compared to his misdeeds. He died a liberated man, but those who committed the lynching had uknowingly killed an arhat (an awakened saint) - one of the five heinous deeds which leads directly to the Avichi (Uninterrupted) Hell in the next life, whereas if they had let go of their bitterness and vengefulness and aroused patience and compassion instead they would have entered the path of bodhisattvas and attained the Pure Land in their hearts right there and then.
But this is all a deep teaching and a tall order. It is much easier to want to identify with and act out the part of the Lord who says "Vengeance is mine," but in our case the Lord is not even the just tribal deity known as Indra, but rather the Lord Ego who serves Mara the Tempter.
Regardless the State of California, and therefore all of us, have put to death a man last night. Was he a liberated arhat, a hell-dweller turned prison-bodhisattva, or an unrepentant icchantikka (a person of incorrible disbelief) or just another being like ourselves with hellish seeds and enlightened seeds either of which can be watered and cultivated given time and the right circumstances?
The choice I think we all face now is whether like the Buddha and Angulimala we will choose to stop the unwholesome cycle, or whether we will follow the way of perpetual mutual destruction in the way of the village lynch mob?
I am not advanced enough in my practice to have much personal sympathy for people who have committed heinous crimes, but in priciple I know and agree with the Buddha and Jesus that we should love our enemies, turn the other cheek instead of demanding an eye for an eye, and regardless to regard the Buddha-nature of all beings as the true face that transcends conditional judgement and condemnation.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
Ryuei:
That was a very eloquent thesis and I enjoyed it very much. However, I am in disagreement with whether certain people who committ heinous crimes should be put to death. I say this because the criminal justice system of present offers two solutions for people convicted of murder or war crimes - incarceration or execution. The arugument is that there is scant justice in letting someone who committed first degree murder live - at taxpayers expense - with more privilages than the person they killed.
The third alternative, which I believe will one day become a reality is the use of phenethylamines to change the brain chemistry of crimimals like murders, pedophiles, rapsits, and so on. Sounds like a brave new world or something out of science fiction, but these substances (which are politically taboo now and American research is suppressed) have the power and potential to change the brain chemsitry of the worst offenders.
Since phenethylamines are not an option at present, we are left with two options - life in prison or death at the hands of the State. I assimiliated the Buddhist viewpoint of the sancity of human life from the beginning of my practice, but as time has gone on, and I've seen the perpetual parade of unrepentent beasts like Saddam Hussein or Osama Bin Laden, John Wayne Gacy, and those of their wretched ilk, I can't find a single moral reason why they should be allowed to live.
The Buddhist ideal of the absolute sanctity of human life is a very noble and tolerant one, but it no longer resonates with me as the perfect guide for justice in the heinous crimes of first degree murder. In some respects, I am ashamed that my attitude has changed to one of "hang the bastards high!"
I can't be the only one struggling with this issue. It seems Tookie turned his life around and could have made a valuable contribution to take the bling out of gang life, so I am unconvinced that he truly qualified as someone who absolutely deserved the needle. But there are others now and there will be others in the future who will never have the change of heart that Agulimala had and society would be better off without them alive or sucking the taxpayers dry watching cable TV.
Thanks for the wise perspective, as usual.
Charles
Hi, Michael and thanks for another thought-provoking essay. I am thinking about this issue a lot now myself. Before my mother died, she corresponded for over 11 years with a death-row inmate who was executed just 9 days after she herself died. They had quite a deep friendship, and I'm convinced one of the reasons she died when she did was so that she wouldn't have to live to see his execution.
Anyway, this man (named Stephen Wayne Anderson) had shot and killed an elderly piano teacher during a residential burglary. He wrote a lot of poetry and essays toward the end of his life and had a lot of supporters trying to get clemency for him. I am in touch with his literary executor, and a friend of mine who does theatre directing here in LA wants me to string together my mother and Stephen's correspondences into a stage piece. Not a lot of action there - an old lady in a wheelchair and a man in a cell writing letters. We'll see what comes of it. Thanks for the essay, Michael. Best, Byrd in LA
Posted by: Byrd in LA at December 13, 2005 03:05 PMThank you so much for writing this essay. I've gone back and forth over years about the merits of the death penalty, but ultimately came to realize that abuser and abused tend to inhabit the same world, i.e., animality, the law of the jungle, kill or be killed, etc. When the state uses its power to execute, aren't we as a society simply expressing the mutual belief held both by "us" and killers that violence -- and the righteousness of violence--is the way to solve your problems, as well as a facile disregard for value of life in general? How many times do we hear about the death toll of some war or disaster and not really think too much of it, or chalk it up to an acceptable level of violence to achieve some end or other? 2,000 soldiers here, 30,000 Iraqis there. The reason I mention this aspect is that there is a through-line, in my opinion, of attitude toward life/death. I think that if our goal is to achieve a peaceful existence, it is of the utmost importance that the state demonstrate mercy. To me, society is like a family, with the state in the role of head of household, right? If that parent says, killing is wrong--except when I say it's right, is it really surprising if the kids also think that way?
By the way, for all the many executions carried about during my lifetime, I've never yet heard of any state granting clemency. Have you?
Posted by: Poi at December 17, 2005 06:17 AM