[Buddha-l] Re: Buddhist pacifism

[Joy Vriens]

Gad Horowitz wrote:

> any link in a chain, especially if it is a living being, offers resistance.
> if there were no resistance, there would be no "links".  link implies
> separation, not mere conduction of previous events.  resistance is not
> eliminable from chaining.  or to put this in more familiar language, you
> can't not decide.  nondecision is decision.

Yes this makes sense to me. Rather than resistance we should perhaps 
call it individual input, your "decision". I used resistance because in 
the back of my mind I had Hannah Ahrend's Eichmann in Jerusalem. Because 
the chains are not always projects for the greatest good of all. If the 
projects of a society were always good for all there would be no 
inclination for individual resistance, but this isn't the case and do we 
ever agree on what is the greatest good?

In many cases individual resistance, "false egos", have been a safeguard 
against collective folly.

"One who is not motivated by false ego, whose intelligence is not 
entangled, though he kills men in this world, is not the slayer. Nor is 
he bound by his actions." (Bhagavad G. 18,17)

yasya nahankrto bhavo
buddhir yasya na lipyate
hatvapi sa imal lokan
na hanti na nibadhyate