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Love and hypocrisy
I feel sick to the stomach tonight.
I read the newspaper and it was slaying Afghan refugees for 'sneaking into Britain" THEY HAVE NO HOME. All of the pomp about sending 'our' young men out there to liberate the Afgan people, sacrificing our freedom and putting lives in danger... And we can't even welcome them to a new, safe home.
A Polish lad I recruited today told me about the last restaurant he worked at here in SW UK. He was paid below the minimum and tips were shared out under his nose. He was told to shut up and put up or he'd be deported and as he spoke bad English (then) and had no UK bank account he was advised to keep schtum. The restaurant owner? Oh, she was Polish too apparently. Terrible.
Tonight I watched the news where a mother described how her daughter had been killed by her controlling boyfriend, stabbed with a kitchen knife. She was holding it together and then every couple of seconds her face would contort as though she were positively possessed by sadness!
And those interminable images of young lads being brought back from war zones in boxes, the pompous ceremonies and speeches and tears that accompany their last few miles.
I feel so sad that we are all (oh goodness, myself included) so caught up in silly romantic notions of fake-love that is really attraction and life is built on rediculous pairings of people for money, attraction, a whim.
And yet, on a basic human level we have no idea of what love it.
I wish we could concentrate on that. I wish we, as buddhists, could help people to see how powerful love is and how much it can heal.
I wish... I wish... But that too is self-indulgent.
Just wanted to share with my NB friends
I read the newspaper and it was slaying Afghan refugees for 'sneaking into Britain" THEY HAVE NO HOME. All of the pomp about sending 'our' young men out there to liberate the Afgan people, sacrificing our freedom and putting lives in danger... And we can't even welcome them to a new, safe home.
A Polish lad I recruited today told me about the last restaurant he worked at here in SW UK. He was paid below the minimum and tips were shared out under his nose. He was told to shut up and put up or he'd be deported and as he spoke bad English (then) and had no UK bank account he was advised to keep schtum. The restaurant owner? Oh, she was Polish too apparently. Terrible.
Tonight I watched the news where a mother described how her daughter had been killed by her controlling boyfriend, stabbed with a kitchen knife. She was holding it together and then every couple of seconds her face would contort as though she were positively possessed by sadness!
And those interminable images of young lads being brought back from war zones in boxes, the pompous ceremonies and speeches and tears that accompany their last few miles.
I feel so sad that we are all (oh goodness, myself included) so caught up in silly romantic notions of fake-love that is really attraction and life is built on rediculous pairings of people for money, attraction, a whim.
And yet, on a basic human level we have no idea of what love it.
I wish we could concentrate on that. I wish we, as buddhists, could help people to see how powerful love is and how much it can heal.
I wish... I wish... But that too is self-indulgent.
Just wanted to share with my NB friends
0
Comments
Hate never yet dispelled hate.
Only love dispels hate.
This is the law,
Ancient and inexhaustible.
Namasté
I'm sure you've heard it all before
but, there can be no love in a world like this, it's a sick dark place.
I've just recently realized all the people or things, "I" love , is for a reason..
a sick dark logic...
this logic is flawless and it feels "REAL"
...love is a word of samsara im afraid,
nirvana has no such thing..
What im afraid is nirvana is beyond love (or hate)
beyond good and bad all together, it seems foreign to me, but i have to get used to it..
basically if only we could all love....
the problem is we do all LOVE, I love my country(not), I love my GOD,(i dont) so I will suicide bomb ur fuckin face ( i wont lol)
<<<<
sry forgive my language, its how i talk, and its how i will connect to u guys more honestly.
>>>>
but for real, love is like....I love the idea of being a self, I love the idea of having a soul, i love the idea of doing whatever it takes to preserve my self, u know...
its like .... I KNOW u will say well, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE is what we're talking about....but i've never felt it or seen it.
maybe the best example is between mother and child...
my mother actually right now is my haven .im a mamas boy,
she takes care of me, she puts up with me , im already in my 20's (23) and she supports me (not financially) but every other way.
the thing is im afraid its because of motives, u know, so
basically i'm looking for this LOVE , i cant find it , it's really holding me back in my practice, u can imagine,
I don't not kill a spider or person because, of LOVE- its because im afraid of what karma might make,
same with good deeds, im afraid.
the closest thing to love i can figure is empathy,
the only reason i dont murder people in horrible ways,
is because i feel like "hey i wouldnt want that to happen to me"..
....help me out here
I understand what you're saying and all, but I wouldn't go so far as to call it hypocrisy. That word is thrown about to basically describe any kind of behavior that is objectionable. But I don't really see the hypocrisy in your examples.
Most of those lads coming home in boxes from the war are not hypocrites. Most of them fervently believe in what they're doing and love their work. To say that it is hypocritical to overthrow a thuggish regime and then mourn the loss of the soldiers who gave their lives to do so just doesn't make sense.
I'm not sure it's so simple either to say that most problems in the world would go away if we only loved. I happen to think the world would be infinitely better if people just left other people alone to their own business.
Yes, I agree with you and Sara that many forms of what we call 'love' are actually ego sustaining exercises. This can be especially true in romantic relationships. That's why they so often turn obsessive and destructive. They are ego fueled and nothing causes more suffering than ego drama.
The love the Buddha is talking about is something different I think. He is talking about lovingkindness and compassion for ones fellow being not because of what they can do for us or how good they can make us feel about ourselves but because we feel empathy for them and their suffering, just as you mentioned. We also understand the interconnectedness of all things and all beings and that means we're not as separate from others as we think we are.
Compassion, empathy, and lovingkindness are characteristics that need developing in most humans and their developing continues throughout ones life. His Holiness the Dalai Lama still does metta (lovingkindness) training. For many Buddhists it's the cornerstone of their practice.
But one doesn't have to be a Buddhist to want to develop these qualities. One of the best reasons to do so is the reduction of our own suffering that comes with a more developed sense of selfless love, compassion, and empathy for others.
The differences between selfish love and selfless love are for you to work out for yourself and to your own full satisfaction. I'm 42 and I only really started working on it and thinking about it 3 years ago. I have a ton of work to do on it. But I can tell you that whenever I remind myself of the interconnection of all beings and to love someone just for themselves and not for what they can do for me or how good they can make me feel, the freer and healthier I get in every way. I backslide a lot. Learned and habitual ways of thinking are easy to fall back into. So I understand it's something I'm going to have to do as often as possible for the rest of my life. But I'll get better at it and eventually I'll move into a deeper understanding of selfless love and how I can generate it.
Don't forget that Buddhism is a training in a set of skills. We're not born with these skills fully developed. We have to work for them day in and day out for the entire length of our lives. It takes a lot of effort and patient endurance. But the return is astonishing.
We send youngsters off to fight a war for no good reason.
We brainwash them, put them out to fight and then mourn them.
So pointless!
I say "we" because we are all one.
And TF, I am not keen on seeing bad language - I also express myself with the odd 'f' word but on here, well it sort of looks outa place.
But then, I do like your raw, almost violent honesty.
Personally, I do not love for the good kama it brings me. I love because it's in my nature, I feel in sync with my true person and because it opens up communication with others and with myself and brings me the stability of finally grapsing things.
Well then we disagree. I'm a youngster who volunteered to join the service. I wasn't brainwashed into it. It was of my own volition because I happen to believe that this war is for a good reason.
I could in theory say the same thing about firemen. I have no intention of ever running into a building that's on fire. But if my house is on fire, I expect braver men than me to run in and risk their lives to put it out and help anyone inside. I don't think it's hypocritical to expect this just because I would not do the same thing. I expect them to do it because they volunteered and it's their job to do it. If a fireman dies in a fire, we mourn them especially because they died doing something that most other people wouldn't.
The same thing is true of soldiers. Most people would not willingly shoot someone or diffuse a bomb, but we expect them to anyway because it's their job.
The profound difference between a soldier and a fire-fighter is that one is trained to kill, the other to save lives.
The training of our armed services and action on the battlefield have a specific effect on the psyche, a damaging effect. This is best understood when you consider the high rate of violent crime and suicide by ex-soldiers, higher than in the general population.
This is what we (and I agree with the "we") are doing to our young: we train them to be brutal killers and then are surprised when that is what they are. Jesus pointed out the resuitls of doing such things to our little ones.
It is instructive to notice the difference in Rudyard Kipling's work and attitude after his son died in the trenches!
While I don't know about the suicide statistics, the "higher rate of violent crime" is simply not true.
Last year, the NY Times reported of 121 potential murders committed by returning servicemen since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan. But as is reported here...
http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=news.newsDtl&did=4416
It's bogus to say that veterans are more likely to commit murder.
Sarah Palin, John McCain, and Joe Biden all have children that are either serving or have served with the military overseas in Iraq.
As one who was in uniform our training was about the use of weaponry plus a lot of drill. Upon being exposed to fire our real training began. That is how to stay alive. I can't recall anyone that I would class as a brutal killer.
In combat everyone on the opposing side that you render ineffective is unable to harm you or your buddies. That's what frontline soldiers do. Its not pretty or nice. "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it". William Tecumseh Sherman.
grackle
I have known soldiers with PTS syndrome and seen what having a mind that's shot to pieces does - frankly I can't believe these poor souls are left to integrate into society like that without the right help.
I cannot believe either, that other members of society are put at risk in that way.
I agree with Simon about being trained to kill. I know a soldier would say that no, they are trained to protect, but they are trained in a very proactive method of defense - that of the gun.
Are soldiers taught philosophy - what human life is? To formulate their own ideas.
Are they allowed to read the press whilst on a mission?
Are they taught diplomacy and international human rights laws?
I rest my case.
There are special units in all armies that act as hunter/killer teams. Their mission is to bring back the target. Failing that to kill the target.
Those who have not been under fire do not know how terrifying and confusing the battlefield is. Try being in a squad and see bits and pieces of your friends go flying. Listen to the screams of the wounded. It is a hell of a very special kind.
grackle
I think that too many people today really dont understand the true meaning of love.
The kind of love we are used to is really an illusion. Its born out of attachment or a desire for gain on one level or another... its syrupy sweet, made of flowers and cliches and its essentially selfish...
you see a lot of activists these days, passionatly fighting for one cause or another, claiming to love it so much they would be willing to die for it. But it seems to me that often people like the uniform, they like wearing the badge, being part of the tribe, filling the gaps where real love should be ... the cause is all to often a conveniant excuse...
This thing with refugees is just the same... people ''love '' thier countries so much they want to keep others out of it... and then others love the refugees and the outcasts so much they are willing to die or fight for them... it seems to me though that what they truely love is an excuse to make war or to gain power over another group of people. ..
but all this ''love'' is not love at all.. its pride and envy and greed and anger in disguise and a conveniant excuse not to take a good look at themselves...
I read in the Dhamapada a passage that says something like '' better than winning a thousand battles is to conquer oneself'' and i think its true..
we have to love others and to try and help them, but if that love is not done without any sense of pride or gain or ''winning'' then its kind of pointless i think...
I think that if more people tried to follow Buddhas teachings and correct their own behaviour , the desire to help others out of love would come naturally and there would be no need to ever have disputes about who owns what land or refugees etc ...
You cited one example. There are hundreds of thousands of other young men and women who you will never hear about because they don't do anything like this. They go on to lead productive, peaceful lives after their service. By all means give some statistics that show how more prone military personnel are to being indicted for crimes than civilian counterparts.
I think you may find that the statistics are not on your side.
This is all well and dandy if the people you disagree with on an international scale are as calm and reasonable as we are. I don't see how something as vague as "love" works against loons who believe in gender apartheid, stoning women, murdering apostates, executing homosexuals, and a whole gamut of medieval barbarisms. We in the West have the luxury, far removed from such evils, to envision utopian societies where violent savagery does not exist. But that doesn't change anything.
I understand your point. Its a difficult situation and there really is no easy solution. Im not saying we should all just sit around and meditate and love everyone senselessly while others go on killing and doing evil things at will but i think you have to look at the choices we have.
Politics and utopian dreams aside, if you strip these actions down, what you really have is hate, and a passion and desire for dominance and power that so often gets confused as passion or love for a cause or country etc...
Doesnt Buddha teach in the Dharmapada that hatred against hatred only brings more hatred ? and that one should return hatred with kindness ?
In the west, away from those desparate just to survive day to day, to say things like this may seem like we have no idea of whats really going on. But think about it ... in places like Afghanistan and Iran and Iraq people have been fighting each other for decades, and where has it got them. Only more war and even harsher conditions for its people..
If you look back at all the great teachers, from Jesus to Moses, to Krishna to Buddha, all of them preached peace, and peacefull actions, even in the face of provocation..
war and fighting hasnt worked, so while im more than aware of the realities of loonies and war ( i lived in Israel for 2 years at the beggining of the latest intefada, i lost friends and saw people killed in bombs and was nearly killed myself) I think maybe theres nothing wrong with trying to put into practise what Buddha taught on a larger scale and at least striving for that utopian dream - even if we never get there... after all - can the results really be any worse than droping bombs and fireing guns at people ?
-Elvis Costello
The notion of a "cycle of violence" sounds good, but it doesn't stand the test of history. Why is it that there has not been recurring bloodshed between the North and South in America since the Civil War? Where is the "cycle of violence" between the Union and former Confederacy? Could it be because the latter was utterly defeated and humiliated after the destruction unleashed upon it by the likes of Sherman? If anything, his relatively bloodless, though horrific swath did not perpetuate, but instead ended the supposed cycle of violence.
And why is it that France and Germany have not been fighting each other in the past 65 years? Could it be because, once again, the latter was utterly destroyed through the use of violence and its evil government was humiliated? If we accept the idea of the "cycle of violence", shouldn't we expect the two to still be fighting? Why would it have stopped so suddenly in 1945?
Whatever your thoughts are on the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there is simply no moral equivalence between the Western powers and the likes of the Taliban or Al-Qaeda. We believe in gender equality; they throw acid into schoolgirls' faces. We believe in sexual liberty; they believe in murdering homosexuals. We believe in religious freedom; they believe in executing apostates. Whatever the foibles of America, there are true and clear differences between the two opponents. Not all combatants in a war are simply interested in power or money. There are real ideological differences sometimes.
What you say makes entire "common sense" and points up the central problem for those of us who follow a path of peace.
In terms of the Buddhist Dharma, I suggest that your view is that of the First and Second Noble Truths. The Dharma, however, tells us that there is more: there is a way out of the apparently inevitable stress and suffering, even though history suggests otherwise. And, of course, this is not limited to the teaching of the Buddha: in my own lifetime (altho' before you were born) the Mahatma Gandhi brought an end to violence in the struggle for Indian independence - as we remember at midnight tonight.
The truth is that refusal of violence is not an easy option. It is often more painful than to take up weapons.
Let me ask you this: if you truly believe that "ideological differences" should be settled with guns and bombs, how does this impact on your Buddhist practice? I ask because I cannot see how to reconcile such a view with the teachings of the Buddha, the Christ or the Mahatma.
I think there's a big difference between mustachioed, British imperialists who are beholden to public opinion and thugs who chop of peoples' fingers for smoking, as al-Qaeda has done in Iraq. Gandhi's non-violence CAN in fact work against moderately reasonable, easily-embarrassed oppressors, but how does it function against people who want to establish theocracies or gas millions of people to death? It doesn't.
The United States had to sacrifice over 300,000 of its young men in order to destroy the slavocracy of the South. All the abolitionists and fire-breathing preachers of the North could do almost nothing to end slavery. Blood and treasure did that instead.
Well of course it's more painful because refusal of violence is suicidal when you're dealing with extremely unreasonable people.
I don't believe that all differences should be settled through force. But there are some ideologies that simply cannot co-exist peacefully. Gender apartheid and sexual equality cannot co-exist. Religious liberty and murder for apostasy cannot go hand-in-hand.
Of course we can't make the world perfect and create a utopia out of tyranny. But the perfect is the enemy of the good. A liberal, democratic Japan is better than a murderous, imperial autocracy. A shaky consensual government in Kabul is far better than the austere, medieval torturers from the Taliban. And a de-fanged, battered, emancipated Dixie was better than the servile aristocracy before it.
As for reconciling such a view with Christianity, the Catholic Church has for the past 1600 years roughly, had a concept of a "just war" that it has repeatedly analyzed, debated, and reanalyzed.
Please understand that I am aware that we shall, probably, not agree (yet?) on the matter of non-violence as a solution; nor am I going (again) get riled by your disparaging anti-British comments. That having been said, I do think it is worthwhile considering the extent to which the war to bring Wester values to Afghanistan and Iraq has failed.
Already, we are seeing an Afghan administration dominated by warlords and secretly enacting, outside the deomcratic process, laws against women, a resurgent Talib movement and,just as importantly, a failure by the Western allies to keep their promises of aid. And would you consider the long struggle in Iraq where women again go in fear as a success? You quote the situation of women as the benchmark so how do you react to their worsening position?
Whilst I was, like so many, shedding tears of joy at the election of a non-white president in the US, I remain to be convinced that the situation of non-whites is magically improved thereby, either in the US or in the UK. Our prison and poor populations are still burdened with an over-representation od non-whites, non-whites have been ghettoised by the flight of the white middle classes from city centres, and organisations like the KKK or the BNP still attract members. The War Against the South did little to change the national mindset, as you must be aware, requiring a century of struggle for even the minimum of civil rights.
The facts of history that you quote suggest to me that armed struggle is, in the end, counter-productive and that it is only when opponents are prepared to talk, face-to-face, with an intention of reconciliation that a peaceful outcome can be achieved. The creation of strong and enduring institutions of good governance is more important than an army of occupation, as we are discovering in Northern Ireland.
I'm a bit puzzled. I don't know what I said that was disparaging towards the British Empire. I actually cast them in a positive light in comparison to far worse regimes. If it's because of my descriptor "mustachioed," please don't take umbrage because I admire the old-style facial hair from a by-gone age. I don't believe that British imperialists were insidious.
So you're argument seems to suggest that we are not being aggressive enough. Of course the Afghan administration is corrupt. I'd be shocked if it wasn't. And the enacting of Sharia-style law as frightening to me as anybody. But this only suggests that we need to light more fire under Mr. Karzai's feet and to be even tougher in combating a resurgent Taliban.
If indeed their situation is worse say than in 2006 or earlier, then it is a tragedy. "Fear of success" is vague though. Fear from who? Afraid of American servicemen? Or reactionary, male Iraqis? Or brutish insurgents or jihadists?
I'm afraid I don't know what this has to do with anything.
Would you deny that Sherman's devastation of the Southern aristocracy and the freeing of millions of black slaves constitute as a positive thing?
Wars that have an actual end (and not simply a delay or interruption in the fighting) tend to end when the root cause of the struggle is either destroyed or rendered powerless; a rogue government, a manic dictator, etc. A real, lasting peace is rarely made with a bellicose enemy like the Taliban, the Nazis, or any other kind of slave-society.
Perhaps the above might give you a clue.
Les
(Another British Imperialist)
Palzang
Leaving aside historical analysis, please tell me how you reconcile your view with the Buddhist approach? You have chosen to call yourself "Knight of Buddha". What do you see as the Buddhist knight's weapons? For me they are the string of beads and the empty bowl - and for you?
Well maybe it doesn't reconcile. I don't know. But is Buddhism opposed to police? I mean even the notion of a constabulary? Should police [lethally] stop someone who is murdering as many children as he can? What if a mad dog is attacking your child? Is Buddhism opposed to you killing the dog to save your child?
If Buddhism truly does oppose all these things, then it needs to be changed. If it cannot or will not change, then it is frankly amoral and I'm afraid should be tossed.
Hey, KOB. What do your "lethally" and "killing" quantifiers add to the equation of just STOPPING harm from occurring? I see no necessary correlation. To me, it's mainly negative emotional baggage. After all, killers and mad dogs can often be disabled by less precipitous action.
I'm not saying that these perpetrators can always be stopped without lethal results, but that that should be the first aim for a spiritual practitioner who knows that we're really all in the same boat and are here to help each other learn and grow and live.
Love embraces all and in so doing endures all. It is not our job to sort everything out in this life. Our job is to be there for others and to be forbearing and kind. It's just the way we're physically constituted; our arms extend out in front of us to embrace others and to feel the warmth.
CARITAS & HYPOCRISY? I don't feel challenged ethically here. Any love I feel is deep-seated and real. I'm a limited human being and can only bleed so much of my being into so much finite reality. However, I can be energized tremendously by the powers of love, joy, faith, and hope that drive me and pull at me. Also, intellectually I understand, as the Prayer Book says: "That all our doings without charity are nothing worth." That, my friend, serves to guide my life. I believe in love and in the power of love to heal, to guide, and to make right.
Sounds nice, but where's the beef? There really are people who would gladly torture and murder with reckless abandon, and on occasion, such odious individuals take control of countries. It's easy to embrace someone who is reasonable and compassionate in the first place. A lot harder to embrace a Stalin, a Pol Pot, or a Mullah Omar.
Again, it's very appealing, but doesn't exactly solve the dilemma about what to do with rogues who wish for nothing more than to impose their draconian religion violently on to others.
When I think of love I'm reminded that the Greeks, in their wisdom, had four words rather then our simple singular word. "Eros" which was romantic love (and where we get the word "Erotic"), Philos to be the love of an object- like when we might say "I love pizza". Agape is the so-called divine love, the love God feels for us and that we feel for God. I believe this last one is very much the same as the compassion [metta] of all Buddhas and all Bodhisattvas that labor eternally against the endless swirling tide of samsara, ever striving against the ignorance and rage the lives within the human heart and flows seemingly like a river without end.
As long as we rely on rockets, runs, bombs and arsenals of poison and radioactive metals to impose our collective wills then we are no diffeent then the apes fighting for the water hole in the first 12 minutes of the film
2001: A Space Odyssey.
As if every human conflict is over the "water hole" or resources...
And once again, this is head-in-the-cloud idealism. Don't you think there's just a bit of a difference between toppling oppressive, thuggish, slave societies like Nazi Germany or Taliban-controlled Afghanistan and a bunch of apes fighting over water? What other tools besides rockets, guns, and bombs would you recommend for getting rid of such lunocracies? Or would you not recommend getting rid of them at all?
Palzang
No. Well America didn't invade Vietnam for one. It was protecting South Vietnam from thugs that eventually took over. Perhaps millions of Vietnamese and Cambodian lives would have been saved had American politicians and military leaders been Sherman-esque enough to invade the North and take Hanoi. Far more people were murdered after the Vietnam war in Southeast Asia than during it.
You are debating the specifics of the Vietnam War from a historical perspective. I am debating no such thing...I am debating the morality of our intervention into that nation as I would the intervention of any nation into that of another with military force in relation to the teachings [Dharma]of the Buddha.
Palzang
In point of fact, we never should have gotten involved. The whole thing was a tragedy that could easily have been avoided.:nonono:
As for the hypocrisy of the ceremonies for the fallen, it starts here in the war zone. I can't stand the sound of bagpipes anymore, especially not Amazing Grace or the Marine Hymn.
Palzang
::::Validus wishes the cycle between him and Dharma Datu would break::::
What of this "cycle of violence?" Why have France and Germany not been fighting for the past 60 years? Is it because Germany was finally humiliated and conquered, and not left alone at the end of WWI? Or maybe because Nazism and opposition to the Allies came to mean certain death? If there really is such a cycle of violence, why aren't Japan, America, Germany, France, Britain and a host of others still not killing each other?
Loving-kindness is great until you deal with somebody who wants to kill you.
Well had the "teat-suckers" won the war, maybe we wouldn't have had the Cambodian Holocaust.
Sure, we could have won in Vietnam if we were prepared to commit genocide. Just as we could win in Iraq if we are prepared to commit genocide. So is it worth that just to be able to say "we won"?
By the way: what good reasons were there for invading Iraq?
Or perhaps all these countries learned how to sit down and talk with each other.
The battle stopped because the Allied forces were kind and caring enough to stop fighting. No "soil seeded with salt" See Rome in the Punic Wars. No humiliation but instead the realization that the German citizens were victims as well.
Had America followed through in Afghanistan after the soviets withdrew, if America had been a compassionate parter and provided infrastructure and education, Bin Ladins radical views may never have taken root.
I fail to see any examples where violence has ended violence. Please feel free to quote me some however! :-D