[Buddha-l] Buddhists taking a stand against Islamaphobia

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 03-08-12 08:57, Franz Metcalf schreef:
> Quite correct as regards intention. But I wonder if here you are 
> quibbling, Richard. The intention to not kill anything else results in 
> the result of killing oneself. If that is not direct suicide, it is 
> surely self-destruction. Still, you are the philosopher; those sorts 
> of distinctions are your bread and butter and I don't mean to take 
> those away from you--you're not a Jain and can rejoice in them. 
I think you stretched the idea of killing too much, Franz. If I'm not 
steeling from others, am I steeling from myself (if I'm not a banker or 
real estate broker)? If I do not harm others, am I harming myself? If I 
do not lie to others, am I lying to myself?
> Since Richard has pulled the dogmatic chair out from under me, I'll 
> reveal that I really do feel that our own survival as individuals does 
> rest on the destruction other living things, both directly and 
> indirectly. There is simply no avoiding this--even for arahants (and 
> who has ever met one of *those*?)--unless we're willing to accept the 
> unavoidable consequence of the stopping of that destruction (in others 
> words the consequence of our deaths). But of course Buddhists don't 
> *have* to do this, because intention matters. It's the Buddhist get 
> out of jail free card.
There is another solution which I think the Buddha advocated: stop 
thinking in terms of I and not I, stop thinking in terms of existence 
and non-existence. In the case of the disrespected naughty Muslims we 
could ask ourselves: what are the conditions that make this possible and 
which have to stop in order to make this not manifest? It may not be as 
exciting as the blame game and the cry for the justice that no one ever 
gets, but it is more Buddhistic.

Erik