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ATROCITY AND KARMIC CONSEQUENCES
RACISM, COLONIALISM, ULTRA-NATIONALISM, WAR, GENOCIDE, ATROCITY AND THEIR KARMIC CONSEQUENCES
We were discussing atrocities during the Second World War on the thread about the Buddhist “swastika”. That thread has been closed ( and we were off topic there anyway). But some issues were brought up there that I hope we can now address here. One reason I still think this is an important topic to discuss (despite the risk of developing a dispute) is that powerful nations are still involved in enforcing their view of things on smaller nations or peoples, and if nations cannot acknowledge the errors of the past (and present) they may be doomed to repeat them, thereby creating more and more suffering for sentient beings. This is what many people fear today in regards to Japan, and not without good reason. But I also fear it with regards to my own country, the U.S.A. Another reason I think this an important topic is that each of us follows Buddhism according to a school having its roots in the soil of one Asian country or another, and I think that not only can we easily fall into the trap of thinking “my sect of Buddhism is better than your sect” but also we may even be tempted to think at times that “the Country/Nation/Culture from which my brand of Buddhism comes is more authentically Buddhist than the Country/Nation/Culture from which your brand of Buddhism comes.” I am concerned that any one of us might sometimes give in to the temptation to denigrate other forms of Buddhism, or other cultures and religions, and such sectarianism or nationalism I take as being contrary to Right Thought and Right Speech.
What is it that draws us, as Westerners, to the Buddhism of one particular country or another? It isn’t exactly our choice, I think, but depends on causes and conditions (as we’ve discussed on another thread), or in other words on a karmic connection. I happen to like Japanese Buddhism, then, not because it is actually any better than other forms of Buddhism, but because for me there is a karmic connection to it. That doesn’t mean that I have to have been Japanese in a previous life, only that some sort of connection was established in the past. Now perhaps I am wrong, but is seems to me that the connection might be positive or negative in character. I have been influenced in my thinking on these matters by my reading of English translations of classic Japanese dramas of the Nō tradition, which often deal with the karmic bonds stemming from past actions such as killing one another in battle. So it seems to me plausible that what draws us to or repels us from something inexplicably in this present life might be the result of things that happened in a previous lifetime. Most of us on these forums were born in Western nations. Where were “you” before you were born? Where were “you” during World War II? Maybe you were there. Maybe you did something terrible. Or something great. Who knows? The past may be gone, but the karma isn’t (not yet anyway, or we’d all be in Nirvana by now, wouldn’t we?) I think Phillip Kapleau was right when he wrote in his book on the Zen of living/dying that it is probably for the best that most of us cannot recall our past lives.
I think I noticed on the other thread that many of us, myself included, seemed to have a good deal of emotion about these issues concerning nationalism, bigotry, war and peace, atrocities and so on. The other discussion seemed to be going nowhere, however, perhaps because it’s difficult for all of us to let go of our attachments, again, myself included. But I think most of us are agreed that letting go of attachment is rightly called Noble and so I bring up this topic again not to cause additional suffering, but in the hope that we can help ourselves get a little more free from the karma that we have not only as individuals but also as groups or nations (the national collective karma mentioned by Palzang on the other thread).
I was challenged by Xrayman to support my mention of Australian atrocities and I promised to find documentation. I said it would take me some time, but I have found the book where I first read about this (standing in the bookstore skimming and scanning), I’ve now bought it and read it from cover to cover and would like to report some of what I found. I want to emphasize that I have no axe to grind about Australia in particular. But it was concerning Australian atrocities that I was asked for documentation and that is what I promised to find. If I seem to be “pointing the finger”, please understand that as a American follower of Japanese Buddhism, I feel I am pointing the finger at myself as well.
Let’s hold in mind the following thought from a Buddhist liturgy as we go on:
ALL THE EVIL KARMA EVER COMMITTED BY ME SINCE OF OLD,
ON ACCOUNT OF GREED, ANGER, AND FOLLY,
WHICH HAVE NO BEGINNING,
BORN OF MY BODY, MOUTH, AND THOUGHT—
I NOW MAKE FULL AND OPEN CONFESSION OF IT.
The book I have just read is called War Without Mercy: Race and Power in The Pacific War by John W. Dower, Pantheon Books, 1986. Dower is a professor of History at MIT, is the author or editor of a number of other books dealing with related themes, and has won various awards, the Pulitzer Prize, for example. The book was a painful if fascinating read. It attempts to deal evenhandedly with the racism on both sides that accompanied the carnage of World War II, and is very well documented. I think most of us here are well aware of many of the numerous atrocities committed by Japanese forces at that time, but the fact is that Australia and the U.S.A. also committed a number of crimes during the war which have gone unpunished and basically unrepented. Many people today worry, myself included, that Japan may someday once again embark on a militarist path, in part because they do not appear to outsiders to have repented deeply enough for what they did during World War II. What I am wondering is if we people of the “West” are not also setting ourselves up for continued commission of such racist crimes and atrocities if we do not acknowledge our own negative actions of the past. (Samsara is quite literally a “vicious circle”.)
Now I quote from the book and will start with the reference to the submarine incident I mentioned before . This quotation includes the relevant endnotes to the chapter.
And this:
Incidents Dower notes from Charles Lindbergh’s diary as a civilian observer of U.S. force on New Guinea in 1944:
Ideology behind such actions:
Of course the book speaks just as much or even more of Japanese racism and its role in justifying in their minds the tyranny they brought to other nations with their so-called “Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere”. I do not wish to offend anyone and need to mention that as far as I know nothing the WWII Allies did compares with the horror of things like the rape of Nanking or of Manila by the Japanese forces that took those cities. (Although about 40 years before WWII the U.S. committed its own rape of Manila resulting in some 200,000 civilian deaths). My point is the general lack of public recognition or repentance on the part of America or Australia for any evil that we did do.
For better or worse, we Americans, we Australians, we Japanese are deeply connected, it seems to me, by collective karma which stems from the Pacific War (how ironic is that, considering the Latin root of the word pacific?).
We were discussing atrocities during the Second World War on the thread about the Buddhist “swastika”. That thread has been closed ( and we were off topic there anyway). But some issues were brought up there that I hope we can now address here. One reason I still think this is an important topic to discuss (despite the risk of developing a dispute) is that powerful nations are still involved in enforcing their view of things on smaller nations or peoples, and if nations cannot acknowledge the errors of the past (and present) they may be doomed to repeat them, thereby creating more and more suffering for sentient beings. This is what many people fear today in regards to Japan, and not without good reason. But I also fear it with regards to my own country, the U.S.A. Another reason I think this an important topic is that each of us follows Buddhism according to a school having its roots in the soil of one Asian country or another, and I think that not only can we easily fall into the trap of thinking “my sect of Buddhism is better than your sect” but also we may even be tempted to think at times that “the Country/Nation/Culture from which my brand of Buddhism comes is more authentically Buddhist than the Country/Nation/Culture from which your brand of Buddhism comes.” I am concerned that any one of us might sometimes give in to the temptation to denigrate other forms of Buddhism, or other cultures and religions, and such sectarianism or nationalism I take as being contrary to Right Thought and Right Speech.
What is it that draws us, as Westerners, to the Buddhism of one particular country or another? It isn’t exactly our choice, I think, but depends on causes and conditions (as we’ve discussed on another thread), or in other words on a karmic connection. I happen to like Japanese Buddhism, then, not because it is actually any better than other forms of Buddhism, but because for me there is a karmic connection to it. That doesn’t mean that I have to have been Japanese in a previous life, only that some sort of connection was established in the past. Now perhaps I am wrong, but is seems to me that the connection might be positive or negative in character. I have been influenced in my thinking on these matters by my reading of English translations of classic Japanese dramas of the Nō tradition, which often deal with the karmic bonds stemming from past actions such as killing one another in battle. So it seems to me plausible that what draws us to or repels us from something inexplicably in this present life might be the result of things that happened in a previous lifetime. Most of us on these forums were born in Western nations. Where were “you” before you were born? Where were “you” during World War II? Maybe you were there. Maybe you did something terrible. Or something great. Who knows? The past may be gone, but the karma isn’t (not yet anyway, or we’d all be in Nirvana by now, wouldn’t we?) I think Phillip Kapleau was right when he wrote in his book on the Zen of living/dying that it is probably for the best that most of us cannot recall our past lives.
I think I noticed on the other thread that many of us, myself included, seemed to have a good deal of emotion about these issues concerning nationalism, bigotry, war and peace, atrocities and so on. The other discussion seemed to be going nowhere, however, perhaps because it’s difficult for all of us to let go of our attachments, again, myself included. But I think most of us are agreed that letting go of attachment is rightly called Noble and so I bring up this topic again not to cause additional suffering, but in the hope that we can help ourselves get a little more free from the karma that we have not only as individuals but also as groups or nations (the national collective karma mentioned by Palzang on the other thread).
I was challenged by Xrayman to support my mention of Australian atrocities and I promised to find documentation. I said it would take me some time, but I have found the book where I first read about this (standing in the bookstore skimming and scanning), I’ve now bought it and read it from cover to cover and would like to report some of what I found. I want to emphasize that I have no axe to grind about Australia in particular. But it was concerning Australian atrocities that I was asked for documentation and that is what I promised to find. If I seem to be “pointing the finger”, please understand that as a American follower of Japanese Buddhism, I feel I am pointing the finger at myself as well.
Let’s hold in mind the following thought from a Buddhist liturgy as we go on:
ALL THE EVIL KARMA EVER COMMITTED BY ME SINCE OF OLD,
ON ACCOUNT OF GREED, ANGER, AND FOLLY,
WHICH HAVE NO BEGINNING,
BORN OF MY BODY, MOUTH, AND THOUGHT—
I NOW MAKE FULL AND OPEN CONFESSION OF IT.
The book I have just read is called War Without Mercy: Race and Power in The Pacific War by John W. Dower, Pantheon Books, 1986. Dower is a professor of History at MIT, is the author or editor of a number of other books dealing with related themes, and has won various awards, the Pulitzer Prize, for example. The book was a painful if fascinating read. It attempts to deal evenhandedly with the racism on both sides that accompanied the carnage of World War II, and is very well documented. I think most of us here are well aware of many of the numerous atrocities committed by Japanese forces at that time, but the fact is that Australia and the U.S.A. also committed a number of crimes during the war which have gone unpunished and basically unrepented. Many people today worry, myself included, that Japan may someday once again embark on a militarist path, in part because they do not appear to outsiders to have repented deeply enough for what they did during World War II. What I am wondering is if we people of the “West” are not also setting ourselves up for continued commission of such racist crimes and atrocities if we do not acknowledge our own negative actions of the past. (Samsara is quite literally a “vicious circle”.)
Now I quote from the book and will start with the reference to the submarine incident I mentioned before . This quotation includes the relevant endnotes to the chapter.
--War Without Mercy pg. 66-67 and pg. 330Some massacres of Japanese, like that of the wounded soldiers attempting to surrender on Bougainville, [mentioned earlier in the chapter] were ordered to take place by Allied officers, or at least received tacit support from superior officers after the event. A U.S. submarine commander who sank a Japanese transport and then spent upwards of an hour killing the hundreds and possibly thousands of Japanese survivors with his deck guns, for example, was commended and publicly honored by his superiors even though he included an account of the slaughter in his official report. To Navy colleagues, many of whom were repulsed by this action, the fact that the officer received high praise rather than censure was interpreted as an endorsement of such practices by the submarine high command. (94) An equally grim butchery took place on March 4, 1943, the day after the three-day battle of the Bismarck Sea, when U.S. and Australian aircraft systematically searched the seas for Japanese survivors and strafed every raft and lifeboat they found. “It was a rather sloppy job,” a U.S. major from the 5th Bomber command wrote in his official battle report, “and some of our boys got sick. But that is something you have to learn. The enemy is out to kill you and you are out to kill the enemy. You can’t be sporting in a war.”(95)
94. Clay Blair, Jr. , Silent Victory: The U.S. Submarine War Against Japan (1975: Lippincott), 384-86). The submarine was the Wahoo, and the episode occurred off the north coast of New Guinea in January 1943. One of the officers on the Wahoo, recalling the occasion, spoke of the commander’s “overwhelming biological hatred of the enemy”; George Grider and Lydel Sims, War Fish (1958: Little, Brown), 101. The submarine commander, following this mission, was awarded both the Navy Cross and, from General MacArthur, an Army Distinguished Service Cross.
95. Martin Caidin, The Rugged Warriors (1966: Dutton), 36-37. Samuel Eliot Morison acknowledged “the sickening business of killing survivors in boats, rafts or wreckage” in his official history of U.S. naval operations, but went on to describe this as “a grisly task, but a military necessity,” since the Japanese did not surrender and might have made it to shore and joined the garrison there. He then proceeded to mention that some of the survivors swam to Papua, thus providing the natives there with “open season on Nips”; History of the United States Naval Operations in World War II (1950: Little, Brown), 6: 62.
And this:
– War Without Mercy pg. 68-69As American analysts themselves acknowledged, these Japanese fears [to be shot while trying to give themselves up] were not irrational. In many battles, neither Allied fighting men nor their commanders wanted many POWs. This was not official policy, and there were exceptions in certain places, but over wide reaches of the Asian battleground it was everyday practice. The Marine battle cry on Tarawa made no bones about this: “Kill the Jap bastards! Take no prisoners!” –and certain U.S. units became legendary for living up to this motto wherever they fought. An article published by a U.S. Army captain shortly after the war, for example, carried the proud title “The 41st Didn’t Take Prisoners.” The article dealt with the 41st Division under MacArthur’s command, nicknamed “the Butchers” in Tokyo Rose’s propaganda broadcasts, and characterized the combat in the Pacific in typical terms as “ merciless struggle, with no holds barred.” Prisoners were taken primarily when it suited military needs for intelligence purposes. Thus, we learn that in a mission that rescued several hundred Allied prisoners at Aitape in 1944, a task force of the 41st Division “even took forty-three prisoners, mostly labor troops, despite the division staff officer’s complaints that they had enough prisoners already.” In a small but costly battle at Wakde Island off Dutch New Guinea the same year, “the general wanted a prisoner, so we got him a prisoner.” The reputation of not taking prisoners also became associated with Australian troops in general. In many instances, moreover, Japanese who did become prisoners were killed on the spot or en route to the prisoner compounds.
Incidents Dower notes from Charles Lindbergh’s diary as a civilian observer of U.S. force on New Guinea in 1944:
–War Without Mercy pg. 70-71On July 24, he visited a battle site where Japanese corpses had been ransacked for gold teeth, others had been dumped in garbage pits, and a cave was filled with dead Japanese who had tried to surrender but been told to “get the hell back in and fight it out.”
On August 6, Lindbergh described the blackboard in the pilot’s alert tent, with a naked girl chalked in at the bottom and a Japanese skull hung on the top. A few days later, he wrote that when the word went out to take Japanese prisoners, and was accompanied by material inducements, prisoners were brought in in great numbers, but usually there was no incentive for doing this. He reported the slaughter of all inmates of a Japanese hospital, and went on to mention that the Australians often threw Japanese out of airplanes on their way to prison compounds and then reported that they had committed hara-kiri. At the same time, however, reports of Japanese castrating prisoners and even engaging in cannibalism persuaded Lindbergh that “barbaric as our men are at times, the Orientals appear to be worse.” Another journal entry in early August mentioned a patrol unit that had taken up the hobby of making penholders, paper knives, and the like out of the thigh bones of dead Japanese. On August 30, Lindbergh visited Tarawa, recalled the terrible casualties there, and told of a naval officer who lined up the few Japanese captured, kept those who could speak English for questioning, and had the rest killed. In early September, he noted that on some Islands Marines actually dug up dead bodies in their search for gold teeth. Elsewhere they collected noses as well as ears, teeth, and skulls. When Lindbergh finally left the Pacific islands and cleared customs in Hawaii, he was asked if he had any bones in his baggage. It was, he was told, a routine question.”
Ideology behind such actions:
–War Without Mercy pg. 71In the opening days of 1943, almost a year and a half before Lindbergh arrived on New Guinea, General Blamey gave an emotional speech to his exhausted Australian troops, who were just beginning to turn the tide against the Japanese on that same bitterly contested island. “You have taught the world that you are infinitely superior to this inhuman foe against whom you were pitted,” he said. “Your enemy is a curious race –a cross between the human being and the ape. And like the ape, when he is cornered he knows how to die. But he is inferior to you, and you know it, and that knowledge will help you to victory…You know that we have to exterminate these vermin if we and our families are to live…We must go on to the end if civilization is to survive. We must exterminate the Japanese.”
Of course the book speaks just as much or even more of Japanese racism and its role in justifying in their minds the tyranny they brought to other nations with their so-called “Greater East Asian Co-prosperity Sphere”. I do not wish to offend anyone and need to mention that as far as I know nothing the WWII Allies did compares with the horror of things like the rape of Nanking or of Manila by the Japanese forces that took those cities. (Although about 40 years before WWII the U.S. committed its own rape of Manila resulting in some 200,000 civilian deaths). My point is the general lack of public recognition or repentance on the part of America or Australia for any evil that we did do.
For better or worse, we Americans, we Australians, we Japanese are deeply connected, it seems to me, by collective karma which stems from the Pacific War (how ironic is that, considering the Latin root of the word pacific?).
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Comments
So let's try to keep our comments in perspective.
As for individual karma, we've all committed horrendous deeds and saintly deeds. Nobody is better than anybody else.
Palzang
however, thank you for enlightening me with at least some data.
kind regards,
Xrayman
Thank you for responding.
Plazang:
My point might not be clear, but the point I am trying to make is that today the U.S. does what it does or tries to do (and suffers the consequences) in places like Iraq because of the ignorance and delusion and karma we created for ourselves starting from quite a while back before WWII (notice my mention of the U.S. rape of Manila, which some believe served a an example to the Japanese). I highly recommend the "revisionist" Chalmers Johhnson, especially his pre-9/11 book Blowback, in which he basically predicted the mess we are in now.
I have recently finished reading Dower`s Pulitzer Prize-winning book Embracing Defeat about Japan during the U.S. occupation under General MacArthur. There is a very interesting discussion of the war crimes trials in that book. I really am not at all too sure that it was a matter policy to commit attrocities. If you can find the evidence for that I would like to know. Actually, all Japanese soldiers carried a code with them which officially forbade them from committing atrocious acts. It didn`t seem to have much effect, however. But a lot of people in Japan were truly shocked when they found out about the atrocities that were committed by their troops. Returning vets were often shunned by the Japanese during the immediate post-war years not only because they were loosers but because they were suspected of having committed attrocities.
You are very right in speaking about the firebombing. I, however, think that all of that together with Hiroshima and Nagasaki were indeed war crimes. I don`t hold with the idea that "undconditional" surrender was necessary to win the war. Japan was already beaten. An invasion wasn`t necessary, in my opinion. Japan has almost no natural resources with which it could have become a threat once again if it had remained isolated, sanctioned, blockaded. BTW, did you visit the peace museums in Nagasaki and Hiroshima when you were in Japan? Or have you seen the Japanese animated film "The Grave of the Fireflies" about the two young children who survived the firebombing only to fall victiom to starvation? Such things maske me feel like weeping. I think all Amercans should visit the Peace Museum of Hiroshima if they have a chance.
Xrayman:
I am not trying to say it`s on the same level, but...
"Mind precedes ...." (openning of the DP)
If the U.S., and Britain/Australia had actually invaded Japan who is to say what we might have done to the civilians given the kind of rhetoric of General Blamey, and he was by no means alone in expressing a desire for the extermination of the Japanese.
If there is a lesson to be learned from WWII, it is the horrors that man is capable of, especially when the military-jingoistic mentality takes over a nation, something I fear we are sliding downwards to in the US at the present time, though Bush seems to finally have been revealed for the spineless liar and incompetent that he really is, at least to many.
Palzang
The point is how we respond to our inheritance. We are currently 'celebrating' the Act of Parliament that put an end to the British trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807. There have been 'apologies' from church people and politicians which have - to my mind quite rightly - been derided. None of these apologies has gone the full distance. Whilst I cannot see how we can effectively make amends for the horrors of the slave trade, there is something we can do. It is to get off our high moral horse.
In 1963, I went up to Oxford as an undergraduate. That was the year of the Profumo Scandal. Our Minister for War (who had been an undergraduate at the same college) had been having an affair with a prostitute who had, among her other clients, a Russian spy. Profumo lied to the House of Commons about his affair and was forced to resign. For the rest of his life, he devoted himself to working with the poor and homeless. He refused any sort of public office or honour. He understood that his actions had made anything other than amende honorable quite inappropriate. Two contemporaries of mine at Oxford, Jeffrey Archer and Jonathon Aitken, have since been involved in further scandals. Both ended up in prison. Both are now back in public life. Neither has the humility to get on with a life of obscure service.
In the same way, my nation, Great Britain, has the audacity to set itself up as some sort of arbiter of freedom, preaching (with word, guns, bombs and destruction) about democracy and good governance. Other genocidal nations are doing the same. Each has, in its past both near and far, a history that should make us deeply humble and profoundly ashamed.
I find it quite amazing that, for example, when a person runs for public office, their smallest adolescent mistakes are used as weapons to discredit them. Even a visit to a therapist to recover from the death of a sibling is seen as ruling a candidate out, whereas membership of a murderous organisation such as the ANC , the Waffen SS or the Hitlerjugend are discounted.
The question therefore remains: our "great" nations have, through the actions of those we sent to war in our name, committed atrocities of the worst kind. We (as heirs to that nationhood) carry the guilt that our parents bequeathed to us. And yet we dare to preach to, say, the Chinese, about "human rights". We would do better to admit, in the words of the Anglican General Confession, that we "have done those things that we ought not to have done and left undone what we ought to have done; and there is no health in us".
Were we to do this, in all humility, our words might have greater impact - particularly if they were matched by actions that demonstrated (as ours do not, I fear) a genuine and firm purpose of amendment.
I'd also like to remind everyone of the Buddhist teaching that states that there are no victims. If something horrible happens to a person, it is because of the causes that that person has set into motion in the past. That may sound harsh, but it's the teaching of the Buddha. Just because we can't remember the incident that created the cause - like if it occurred in a past life - doesn't mean that it didn't happen. We all have stores of negative karma from horrendous deeds that we ourselves committed in previous lives (or even this one). When it ripens depends on the appropriate conditions being present, which could, if you have been paying attention at all to what is going on in the world, could happen at any time.
Palzang
I have never been a big fan of shame. The problem here is that somehow I am supposed to feel responsible for what people did in my country before I was even born. It is not my fault and I as an individual bear no responsibility for say, the enslavement of Africans or the imperialst wars of Cuba and the Phillipines.
I would argue that I am not heir to a nationhood. Sure, people in the past still effect me in subtle and larger ways but I cannot and should not be held accountable for their actions. If the Chinese are committing acts in violation of human rights, I would denounce them from the seat of humanity, not American nationalism.
I also must object to this use of the word "we." Althogh I personally have my shortcomings and failings, I will not accept any responsibility for atrocities in the past. Genocide, Imperialism, Segregation, Slavery. The latter two are not really an issue in the west anymore. Genocide is not really a big thing here anymore, but I think Imperialism is still an issue. Even so, are you suggesting that I somehow share blame for American Imperialism and Expansionism even if I adamantly am opposed to them?
@ Palzang.......
Are you sure? Just how particular are we about including people in this collective karma? What if perhaps I am simply an illegal alien in the country? I am not technically a part of the nation state because i have no citizenship. Does my simple existing within the borders of a nation condemn me to that nation's karma?
By this logic, there are no such thing as rape victims? As they must have done something brutal to deserve being raped? I found that much more than a little harsh. Because no one, regardless of any atrocity committed deserves that kind of suffering.
Because it would have been stupid and worse than the Nazis, which did not have the means to annihilate all Jews, Jehovas witnesses and gypsies even though hitler threatened to do so and mainstream media wants to tell us they almost achieved it.
Because the side you defend onesidedly (sorry) named their bombers liberator and their cargo ships liberty class. Because such an attitude could not be tolerated by a nation that was a light unto others in dark times. I think it is difficult to be "humane" at war, especially when you want to win.
But, come on Palzang, when did the extermination of the Jews start? Let`s be very clear about this, I am against racism, not to speak of Genocide. But do your homework and research when the Wannseekonferenz was. The Germans payed with 2 millons rape victoms or so, millioms of dead civilians and divided country for tens of years. But seriously, do you want to tell us, that Americans are not able to discriminate between Germans and Japanese? I believe in Mass hypnosis, but I do not consider it a valid reason to drop atomic bombs on big cities.
Just as a sidenote, according to the Ven Nyanatiloka Mahathera, there is no such thing as Group Karma
I am not as familiar with other traditions of Buddhism, especially in regard to how they gloss the teachings on kamma, but the idea of mass kamma or group kamma is not present within the Pali discourses. There, kamma has a very limited and technical meaning, namely intentional actions by way of body, speech, and mind (AN 6.63). Furthermore, the Buddha distinguishes old kamma from new kamma. Old kamma, he explains, is the six sense media (eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind); while new kamma, he explains, is whatever one does now with the body, with speech, or with mind (SN 35.145).
We inherit the actions of others through inheriting the world their actions have created, so it is fair to say that there is a connection to some extent. I fear, however, that using the idea of collective kamma to take on the "weight of the world" is counter-productive to these teaching's intended use in the quest to end suffering. When it comes to carrying the guilt of other's misdeeds, I think that is a self-imposed burden that we need not bear. We cannot change the past; we can only control how we act right here, right now. I believe using the past as a lesson in how not to make the same mistakes is sufficient.
Sincerely,
Jason
Well, you completely misunderstood what I was saying. I wasn't defending the Allied position, only explaining it.
Palzang
Palzang
I did not need to examine very long to find the idea of deserved karma for rape victims and abused children to be utterly repuslive.
Even today, the US is paying for past mistakes, because we put ruthless dictators in power, and supported them, to contain communism or to improve and safeguard our economy, even though these dictators operated in a manner inconsistent with American Ideals. Now, we're paying for that.
Palzang
I think a lot of things are chance occurences. Lightning bolts, car accidents, storms, and such. Wrong place, wrong time. Accidents. Not really a repudiation of past inequities. Just an unluckly combination of events that unfortunately and completely unbeknownst to you, did not work in your favor.
But yes I agree that ultimately we are the masters of our destiny. There is no master agent; a deity or spiritual force at work. No 'meant to be' or divine purpose. Just choice and the uncaring forces of the universe wrestling for control over an existence that is doomed to end.
The question of this generation's reaction to the horrors committed in the past by our parents/grandparents/etc. is, I admit, a difficult one and painful. My admiration goes out to Japan and Germany. These nations, confronting the actions carried out in their names, decided that they would not use armed force offensively again, although this unprecedented moral stance is being changed under pressure from the UK/US Axis. Despite parallel atrocities committed by the Allies, neither the UK nor the US have been prepared to act in the same moral way. It is this which I find repulsive: as 'victors', our nations have continued to prepare for and to wage war whilst preaching at other states in pure hypocrisy.
KoB: I can understand how hard it is to take on board that you live on the profits of genocide and exploitation, but you do. This is a fact. Although the policy of genocide of the Native American peoples is no longer US policy, treaties continue to be broken. Even more disgusting is the refusal of the industrialised nations to intervene in genocidal conflicts such as Rwanda and Darfur, neither of which is ancient history. Genocide is , I regret to say, a reality in today's world.
KoB, your use of the phrase "repudiation of past inequities" sounds very Christian and guilt-oriented. Karma is just the way things work, and the Buddha, while not the first to describe the law of cause and effect (it was already well-known in his day), is the one who discovered how to escape it by practicing good, meritorious deeds and rejecting ego-clinging. As for random-seeming events like being struck by lightning or whatever, I don't know. You'd have to ask Buddha about that!
Here's a little bit of wisdom from the great Mongolian master, Danzan Ravjaa, that seems appropriate here:
Leaves are not always on trees.
Children are not always together with their parents.
The dragon's call will become empty though its roar is loud.
The world's triumph will pass away though its glory is great.
Colorful rainbows will disappear though they are beautiful.
Lovely young bodies will grow old though they are now young.
Thousands of millions of dreams are empty when you wake up.
Every act of this naive life is false at the time of death.
Night comes when the sun sets.
Death comes when age ends.
Death - a strong-winged bird can't escape from it.
There is no shelter from death.
There is no wise word to fight with death.
There is no trick for death.
You can't do anything to delay death.
You can't die with your friend.
Wealth cannot be sacrificed to save you.
You can't be against death because of haughty power.
Does the wind blow in any direction?
Is there any date with death?
If death comes, nothing can help except the Dharma.
Love,
Palzang
Just as a side note, the commentarial tradition of Theravada denies that everything is the result of kamma. According to them, there are five natural laws (panca-niyamas) which operate in the physical and mental worlds. The five laws are seasonal laws (utu-niyama), biological laws (bija-niyama), psychological laws (citta-niyama), kammic laws (kamma-niyama), and natural laws (dhamma-niyama) *.
Best wishes,
Jason
Palzang
cheers!
Mr. Miyagi, er, Palzang
I think that the notion of collective karma may be able to shed some light on the events which are transpiring at the present moment within Buddhist countries, both of the Theravada and the Mahayana. I am concerned about what is ppresently going on in Thailand and Sri Lanka. And I fear a future war that could involve Japan, China, and Korea ( and which would not leave Tibet and Mongolia unaffected, either).
But even if there is no such thing as collective karma, there are still many many thousands of individuals alive today who were living (and doing action) during WWII.
Or again we can make use of Simon`s idea of inheritance. If your parents die and leave a house to you which is messy and in shabby condition, whose responsibility is it going to be to clean it up? Are we going to say, "I did not make this mess; I am not going to clean it."? People living in other houses would not see it that way. A Japanese friend of mine uses this logic to convince her young children to pick up rubbish on the beach. Her kids don`t see why THEY should do it. But she asks them to consider how the animals who live in the sea might see it. From their point of view it was but there by the humans, so any or all humans have to clean it up. It`s their responsibility, not the sea creatures`.
Asia has many difficulties. Japan, America, Britain, and France played a huge role in the past creating the conditions that in the present result in these problems. Who`s responsibility is it to do something about it? I would think it is the present Japanese, Americans, British and French who have inherited at least some of the responsibility.
I do believe that the actions of individuals towards better karma do negate some of the bad karma aquired as a whole. However, sometimes I find this quote to be quite funny in its' truth: Democracy is where 5 wolves and a sheep sit down and decide what to have for dinner. I forget who to attribute that to.