Hi everyone,
Yes it is sad that Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, has died. It is sad that Farrah Fawcett has died. It is sad that Ed Mcmahon (sp?) had died. It is sad when anyone dies - even celebrities.
And of course their deaths illustrate the nature of old age, sickness, and death. The things that come to us all as Siddhartha's charioteer told him after he sighted the old man, the sick man, and the funeral procession. We should reflect on these deaths as things that can come to us all.
As much as those celebrities lives have contributed to our culture in various ways (meaningful or not so meaningful) I hope that we do not forget or move on from the much more important deaths of Neda and the other Iranian martyrs who died for freedom of speech and for authentic democracy (or just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time in a country whose Islamic rulers do not at all believe in the value and dignity of human life - there's is a culture of tyranny of twisted hyprocrical laws and rutheless evil - yes a true Lawful Evil regime).
Some commentors have said (quite rightly I think) that Neda is not the first woman in an Islamic country whose barbarous death has been videotaped and made available on the web - but everyone is shocked because she was young and pretty. It is true that we should not only care about the young, pretty, and cosmopolitan. Still it is a part of our biological hardwiring to care more about the healthy and attractive youth - they are the future afterall. Biology is not sentimental - it is practical. But there is another reason, I think, why people around the world are more shocked by the video of Neda's death - because she appears so much more like us - not like some tribal person or a ghost in black or a distant image of a beheading on a soccer field (like those executions of women by the Taliban when they ruled Afghanistan). It is easier to identify with her and to realize that the common urban people of Iran aren't that diffierent in their hopes and aspirations than the people of London, New York, Paris, or San Francisco, etc...
Neda's death is not like the death of those celebrities - because unlike them she was not killed in the natural course of old age, sickness, and death. She was murdered callously by a regime willing to use terror to keep its thralls in line. She, whether she intended to be or not, is a martyr in the ongoing struggle for human freedom.
Frankly, I have not had the heart to watch the video of her death on youtube, I've only seen stills from it. I don't need to see it to be outraged. As it is I am listening to Tool songs for catharsis - "The Grudge", "Jerk-Off" and so on that express my feelings of outrage and the wish that I had the power to do something for the Iranian people who are not brainwashed dupes and who are struggling for freedom from totalitarianism and religious oppression.
Yes, the death of Michael Jackson and other celebrities is sad - a testament for all of us as to the human condition.
But Neda's murder bothers me much more, and it is for her that I am chiefly mourning.
I do truly believe that there are religions or at least religious people that uphold Law and Good and I see the teachings of the Buddha as pointing to that high standard. But then there are others who use the Law for Evil ends, and unfortunately the Islamic Shariah and those who claim to be its final arbiters whether in Iran or in the mountain and valleys of Pakisan and Afghanistan seems to be in keeping with that type. I know that to those who, as in Somalia, have lived lives of Chaos and Evil, that kind of Law seems like a respite, a bit of order an meaning that is better than the arbitrary violence they have known. But it is still Evil and Evil should not be tolerated. It cannot be fought with more Evil, but is something that must be subdued, broken, and finally healed and assimilated back into its empty elements. That is a discussion for another time, but it is what both Buddha and Jesus tried to demonstrate in their own lives.
Oh, after writing the above I discovered this:
article on how to have a non-violent revolution
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
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How does a Buddhist, esp. a Nichiren Buddhist, deal with slanderous organization that misrepresent and/or persecute the true Dharma?
I have written my thoughts about that elsewhere, but what I want to share here is my thoughts relating to the problem of Islam. In many Muslim countries a Muslim can be jailed or even killed for converting to Buddhism. Islam also invaded the homeland of Mahayana (many Mahayana sutras originated in regions like Afghanistan, Pakistan and other central Asian countries) and persecuted Buddhism out of existence. Even before then the Brahmans were leading a backlash against Buddhism and there is even some evidence of violent perscutions of Buddhism. I wonder if it was because of these kinds of situations that sutras like the Nirvana Sutra and others sutras that Nichiren cited argue that the King and the designated military and police forces (the kshatriya class) were responsible for upholding the Dharma and that for them it was better to take up swords, staves, and bows and to set aside the precepts. In other words, the king and his military and police forces were responsible for keeping the peace and preserving the freedom of people to uphold and practice the Dharma. Interestingly enough the Nirvana Sutra also says that though the white robed laypeople should take up such weapons they should not use them to kill - so is it advocating a show of force for deterrance or subdual but not the actual use of lethal force?
This is a troubling claim but one that is nevertheless found in Nirvana Sutra. Should military and police force be used to preserve or to gain freedom and democracy in the face of brutality and injustice that will not be swayed by any other means (like the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge or the rulers of Myanmar, North Korea, and Iran?).
Can there be a war or a revolution that serves the Dharma? Of course ultimately all things are the Middle Way without exception, but relatively those who commit unwholesome acts will still suffer the effects. As Jesus said, "Sorrow will come into the world, but woe to those through whom it comes."
In the Nirvana Sutra a band of Brahmans comes to King Senyo to slander the Buddha Dharma. He kills them all and thereby attains buddhahood. But actually the Chinese text says, "He cut off their root of life." This is a curious turn of phrase, and I have doubts that it means only that he killed them. The "root of life" could very well refer to the clinging and fundamental ignorance that leads to repeated birth and death. This could be a way of saying not that he killed them but that he freed them of ignorance. But it could be read either way, and perhaps my interpretation is stretching the meaning beyond what was intended.
As an ignorant being I would love it if some celestial army could come down out of the clouds and give the "what for" to the regimes of Myanmar, Iran, North Korea, and so on. And yet, there is within me the voice of the Buddha-nature that spoke through Shakyamuni, Jesus, St. Francis, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and others that indicates that this would simply perpetuate the path of the asuras and delay the true day of reckoning - the day of awakening. That day can never, I think, be brought closer by violence. Nor does it prevent violence (see the lives of Shakyamuni and Jesus), but it is a day that transcends all violence and oppression and within that day there is no beginning or end.
This day of reckoning is also, I believe, only accessible via faith.
Those without faith will be at the mercy of causes and conditions.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
I was just reading an article on yahoo about Neda, the young woman who was martyred for Democracy over the weekend. The article said something that I told my family on Friday and which I dearly hope is true:
The bloody imagery alone could have an important impact on public opinion in Iran, where the idea of martyrdom resonates deeply among a populace steeped in the stories and imagery of Shiite Islam, a faith founded on the idea of self-sacrifice in the cause of justice.
The deaths of protesters during the 1979 Islamic Revolution fueled a cycle of mourning marches that contributed to the overthrow of the U.S.-backed dictator, Shah Reza Pahlavi.
I wonder though if all of this won't just blow over the way Tienmen Square did.
There are many things that I think some American's don't understand.
One is that the USA used to back a very oppressive dictatorship in Iran. Many Iranians remember that and many do resent the fact that Americans and Europeans look down on Iran (the home of one of the oldest civilizations on Earth) as a backward third world country. Now whatever their status vis-a-vis current prosperity (or lack of it) and current standards of living and civilized way of doing things (which I won't grant to ANY fundamentalist religious tradition) - they are very wary of outside interference.
I agree - so far - with how President Obama has been handling this - a cool measured response so as not to allow the ayatollah's to link Mousavi with American provocation. That will not help their cause.
I am glad and I do think it appropriate that our Congress had condemened Iranian actions.
On the whole our government has to be careful here - as much as we might like to be able to free the Iranian people and we should show our support - gone are the days when we should be inciting riots and guerilla warfare in other countries.
Not that I don't think the ayatollah's aren't villains. I do. There may be some moderates and even sincere good hearted ones (maybe - perhaps) but on general principles I think that a fundamentalist theocracy of any sort is one of humanity's evils - like slavery or warfare or genocide. I agree, at least in sentiment, with Diderot who said, "Mankind will not be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."
Now I hope the Iranian people continue to rise up against their oppressors. My emotional side (the world of hell and fighting demons) would like to see the bullying ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guard subject to a French style revolution - their heads rolling in the streets for all they have killed over the past few decades. But the more well-reasoned compassionate side of me knows that the French Revolution was a paroxysm of chaos and evil - a cure worse than the disease. May there instead be a more peaceful revolution.
My concern, however, is that the majority of people in Iran are not middle-class students but basically poor fundamentalists in the countryside, the one's who probably make up the bulk of the Revolutionary Guard. These are the one's who buy into the Shi'ite theocracy - who believe that without them not only would there be chaos, but life would be meaningless.
One cannot underestimate the fact that poor uneducated people grab their guns and their scriptures in an insecure world - and cunning clerics use this for their own gain and power.
I wonder if the educated middle-class urban people of Iran are strong enough to rise up and overthrow the theocracy imposed by their own "red state" brethren. Or are the "red state" Iranians of the countryside too strong and their backing of the Shi'ite theocracy too strong. Ahmadinejad is, afterall, the leader and voice of these red-state people.
So I wonder if the blue-state Iranians will simply have to take their lumps and shut up.
Neda's martyrdom or no.
Let me put it in real simple terms:
On one side Red State Evil Theocracy backed by insecure uneducated rural fundamentalists who wish to reject modernity so they can live in some medieval vision of paradise and will kill anyone who threatens their worldview.
On the other side Blue State cosmopolitan educated middle-class people who wish to live in a secular democratic state (and the Iranians I have met in San Francisco hate hate HATE Islam with a virulence that really takes me aback - I guess you have to grow up in a Muslim theocracy to hate Islam that much - their hatred is genuine and well earned).
I hope this doesn't just blow over the way Tienmen Square did.
I hope it doesn't degenerate someday (I doubt today) into a French style revolution (the asura in me does slaver in anticipation of ayatollah's guillotined in the public square).
We should all pray that there is a peaceful sustained uprising that brings some form of sanity and authentic democracy to Iran and that there will be little or better yet no bloodshed.
If I were going to bet a million dollars however - I would bet this all just blows over. Remember that it took 70 years for Soviet Communism to fall, and Chinese Communism (well, that's what they call it) has yet to fall. Islam is a tougher nut to crack because people believe that without it their lives are meaningless and that it is sanctioned by God Himself.
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
One might wonder at this point, what Nichiren or his contemporaries would make of the state of Buddhism in the USA today. In this country only a small minority actually practice Buddhism. The vast majority has a passing familiarity with the Dalai Lama or Zen, and a good number of people see it as a pagan superstition at odds with Christianity. Far from being the universally respected state religion of Nichiren's time, Buddhism is very much the province of ethnic minorities (who themselves often leave it behind as they assimilate into the mainstream) and an even smaller group of converts who are unhappy or otherwise dissatisfied with the mainstream religions of this culture. Some even associate Buddhism with the taking of psychedelic drugs or even tantric sex practices that would have been unimaginable to the majority of people in Nichiren's day.
On the positive side, forms of Buddhism from all over Asia are meeting in the USA for the first time. In addition, books (even those expounding previously esoteric and/or oral teachings) are easy to get in bookstores or online. In addition, the population is almost universally literate and more or less educated well enough to understand Buddhism on a conceptual level. Until the 20th century Buddhism had never encountered such a literate, well-educated, religiously and ethnically diverse and prosperous culture as the one it has encountered in the USA. So right at this point in the Rissho Ankoku Ron we can see the huge gulf between the assumptions which drive this treatise and the actual conditions of Buddhism in our own day. This must be taken into account as we read further in the Rissho Ankoku Ron and Nichiren's writings in general.
Here is the article this was taken from:
Nichiren and his contemporaries took the suras (Buddhist scriptures) to be the actual words of the Buddha. The vast majority of sutras are not in fact verbatim records of the Buddha's teachings. The Mahayana sutras in particular are the products of later followers of the Buddha who felt that the true depth of his insight and actual scope of his intentions could be better-expressed using myth, poetry, and paradox. They believed that any wisdom that was in keeping with the insights and awakening of the Buddha could be considered to be no different than the voice of the Buddha himself. In the Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom, a work which itself is attributed to Nagarjuna but may have been written by its ostensible translator Kumarajiva, four seals of the Dharma are proposed by which any teaching can be verified as the voice of the Buddha. These four seals are that any teaching must affirm (1) the impermanence of all phenomena, (2) the inability of phenomena to bring complete or lasting happiness, (3) the lack of a permanent or independent self within phenomena, and (4) that true peace is only found by realizing nirvana. As long as a teaching was in keeping with these it could be affirmed as the teaching of the Buddha.
In the Rissho Ankoku Ron Nichiren cites many sutra passages to show that the fate of Japan depends upon whether its rulers supported the true Dharma (teachings leading to enlightenment) or supported false Dharma. He did this out of conern for his fellow countrmen (and women) and because the sutras he cited seemed to be speaking directly to the situation he faced and the responsibility of secular rulers to provide for, support, and protect the true Dharma. This has led to misunderstandings of Nichiren's intent.
In the past, Nichiren’s teachings were taken out of context and co-opted by certain people in Japan who wished to use Nichiren Buddhism to promote a nationalist agenda, and several scholars outside of Japan accepted this view uncritically. However, an objective reading of the Rissho Ankoku Ron clearly shows that Nichiren was no nationalist. He was more like a Hebrew prophet calling his nation to task for not fulfilling its responsibilities.
And yet, it is a bit disturbing to see that Nichiren is basing his argument upon sutra passages that make the assumption that politics, nature, and even the course of the sun and moon are determined by which religious teaching one chooses to follow. The whole argument he makes would seem to be invalidated by modern astronomy, meteorology, and geology. For instance, we now know that the shifting of tectonic plates, not the displeasure of supernatural entities, causes earthquakes. Even in the realm of human activity, modern economics and sociology show that religion is just one among many factors (and not always a major one) that causes wars, epidemics, and famine.
I think we need to step back and not take the sutra passages so literally to see if we can find a meaning that speaks to us today. I think if the Dharma really is "the way things are" then to uphold the Dharma is to uphold the truth, to face facts squarely, to see the interdependent nature of the world, to be responsible for one's acts and the consequences thereof, and to be compassionately motivated by the view of interdependence and the selfless nature of things as they really are. To behave dishonestly, irresponsibly, callously, and blindly would be to invite disaster - to turn our world upside down in a manner of speaking. If those who govern a nation act like this - the consequences will be enormous and far-reaching. Many nations and societies have indeed toppled because of irresponsible rulers and a compliant populace. Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Fascist Italy, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, and others all came to ruin. Their fate included an impact on the natural world as well. And how many deaths have been caused by famine, earthquakes, and flooding because the government mismanaged resources, or refused to uphold certain building codes or maintain a proper infrastructure and emergency system? Human decisions can indeed lead to the exacerbation of natural disasters, and can sometimes cause them in the first place. I would not argue that failing to be a Buddhist will cause an earthquake, but I would say failing to live in accord with what Buddhism calls the Dharma can lead to personal, national, or even worldwide disaster in the long run. In this sense, I think the sutra passages and Nichiren's conclusions based on them can be taken seriously.
The original commentary on the Rissho Ankoku Ron that this essay derives from can be found here:
The origins of the sutras and role of their predictions
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei
A few years ago I considered what Nichiren saw in his surroundings when he wrote Rissho Ankoku Ron and it spurred the following thoughts:
Today, we face similar problems with drug & alcohol abuse, AIDS, violent crime, terrorism, political and social injustice, including genocide, and of course wars and famines and natural disasters that continue to sweep through the world. Basically we have just as many reasons or more to lament as the traveler. Even in the supposedly wealthy and civilized USA, walking around in many areas of the inner city at night you can hear the crack addicts shouting at each other in the street, drunkards hooting and hollering, the sound of sirens from fire trucks, ambulances, or police cars signaling that somewhere nearby is a fire or people dying of either disease, disaster, or foul play. This is dukkha, the Buddhist term for the suffering, anguish, or even simple discontent that characterizes life in this world, and not just for individuals but also on the level of the whole society, the whole world. Dukkha is part of a self-perpetuating system of suffering that Nichiren explored in the Rissho Ankoku Ron.
In Nichiren's time people practiced various forms of rituals to ward off misfortune or attract fortune, either for themselves or others, for this life or the afterlife. Today, in the USA, people look to Jesus Christ to save them, or to the sacraments of the Catholic Church, or various New Age or Neo-pagan rituals for healing or liberation. But rituals or appeals to divine saviors have yet to bring about a peaceful world, and it should be noted that one of the first obstacles to enlightenment overcome through Buddhist practice is the false belief that rites and ceremonies can bring about liberation from suffering in and of themselves. Buddhist practitioners who really begin to enter the stream of the Dharma come to realize it is a change of heart and genuine insight that brings about liberation and not just pious gestures or a complacent reliance on some deity or savior to do the inner work for us.
Zen style meditation as an attempt to perceive the emptiness of all things, is also mentioned in Rissho Ankoku Ron. Various forms of silent sitting meditation and/or yoga are very popular even today among those with the time, money, and education to participate in such practices. Though silent sitting practices focusing on mindful observation of all phenomena starting with the breath would appear to be easy enough, it is actually a very difficult task for many people to approach and sustain, and even more difficult for people to actually attain any real insight without hours of dedicated practice. This kind of meditation often involves a support system of retreats, practice halls, access to good teachers, a fair amount of leisure time, and the ability to pay for such things. As a result only a small portion of people are ever drawn to or even exposed to this kind of meditation. The practice of sitting meditation is indeed a healthy one that can lead to greater concentration, peace of mind, mindfulness and even great insight. It is not meant to be an indulgent "abiding in emptiness." It is in fact taught as a supporting practice in some Nichiren Buddhist temples and is a part of Shodaigyo meditation. Nichiren Buddhism does not, however, promote it as an end in itself, or even as the primary practice of Buddhism.
Benevolent government and the tradition of Confucian humanism are also mentioned among the many solutions Nichiren's contemporaries used to rectify or at least ameliorate the tremendous suffering they were facing. Unfortunately, even the most powerful and wealthy of governments only has finite resources, and not only natural disasters but also the deep anguish that fills life are far beyond the scope of what any government can ever prevent or adequately deal with.
The solution then must be something that strikes deeper than any of the supernatural or humanistic methods the traveler observed. All of the above methods of dealing with suffering are shown to be partial and limited in their scope. Even the practice of sitting meditation does not necessarily resolve people's suffering because the practice of silent sitting can also lead to getting lost in one's own random ruminations or perhaps stuck in a mental blankness which is not the same thing as the Buddhist understanding of emptiness (though often mistaken for it by those without good teachers).
The problem is that people have taken a false view of reality and have committed themselves to points of view that perpetuate suffering for themselves and others. They may not even be aware they are holding any particular point of view, but everyone does and the trick is to become conscious of the unexamined assumptions we base our lives on so we can determine if they are helping or harming us. Suffering is caused by ignorance and the selfish craving stemming from ignorance; and the way to end suffering is to examine and change one's life starting with the relinquishing of wrong views in order to discover and uphold right views.
The original of this article is here:
To be continued...
Namu Myoho Renge Kyo,
Ryuei