Creating Potentials for Liberation: More Notes on Osama Bin Laden's Killing

Over at Barbara's Buddhist blog is a post continuing the discussion about Osama Bin Laden and Buddhist practice. One of her main points was that those who are out there judging other Buddhists' emotional reactions are missing the boat on practice. And I totally agree. Whether someone felt horribly sad, http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifoutraged, or elated upon hearing of bin Laden's death, all of those are passing human emotions, nothing more or less. If you were like me, you probably watched a whole stream of these emotions running through you around this particular event. I still am, days later.

Here are the further comments I made, partly in response to Barbara's post, but mostly in response to the combined offerings I have read around the Buddhist blogosphere this week.

What I have noticed, though, amongst folks who clearly believe the killing is justified – including some Buddhists – there is an interesting set of patterns that underlie their responses.

1. As long as Bin Laden was alive, he was an imminent threat to the U.S.

2. The killing was a manifestation of self-defense, and thus justifiable.

3. Bin Laden was like Hitler, Pol Pot, and other historical dictators responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands or even millions.

4. Bin Laden’s death was “needed for closure to come,” and that the celebrations in U.S. cities were more about closure and hope than about rejoicing in bin Laden’s death.

And finally, 5, that there are “evil people” in the world, and so we have to be “prepared” to deal with them.

Now, I personally greatly question all 5 of these conclusions. But mostly, I’d like to say something about “being prepared” for “evil.”

I don’t believe in evil people, but I’d say we could easily label many of bin Laden’s actions as evil. However, what I see missing in a lot of the Buddhist posts and discussions where people are either justifying killing bin Laden, or saying it was wrong, is this:

Even if the ultimate outcome is that someone is harmed or killed, a central theme of Buddhist practice is aiming your life towards non-killing and non-violence. When someone chooses to train themselves, “prepare” themselves through deliberately seeing the seeds of violence and destruction within, and deliberately working to grow the seeds of non-violence within and without, then how they act – even in a highly volatile, violent situation – is markedly different from someone who doesn’t.

So, my main point here is that once any of us accepts the narrative that killing is justified, it’s quite easy to use that as an excuse to ignore the seeds of violence within ourselves.

I honestly figured that bin Laden wouldn’t make it out alive if he ever got caught. But I see that killing as the result of numerous people, including bin Laden himself, having internally justified killings in some form or another before the actual killing occurred.

Another thing I have noticed is that there is - in my view - a false dichotomy that comes up amongst Buddhist writers that appears nearly every time some majorly violent act happens in the world to cause us all to reflect on out practice.

On the one hand, you have a subsection of practitioners who offer a sort of soft pacifist stance, saying things like people just need to do more lovingkindness meditations and the like. The lack of nuance to these positions leads me to suspect that they are coming from quite privileged places, where threats of frequent, imminent violence and/or oppression aren't experienced.

On the other hand, there is another subsection of practitioners who think that any talk of non-violence is basically the stuff of 60's counterculture hippies and idealists. That there is such a thing as "just warfare," and also that some people are "evil," and must be treated as such. There's a lack of nuance to this kind of position as well. It creates a split between good and evil which isn't part of Buddha's teachings. It justifies a kind of pre-emptive murder based on one's previous actions and the possibility that they will do the same again (as opposed to killing someone in direct, real time self-defense.)And furthermore, it creates images of people that are fixed, instead of the fluid reality in which we live in. Bin Laden was evil, a bad man, end of story. Oh really, that's news to me!

Take the flip side. People going wild over the Dalai Lama's recent comments, which suggest that he wasn't against the murder of bin Laden. Whether or not the Dalai Lama supported killing bin Laden, I'd argue that a lot of the negative reactions towards his statements were coming from a fixed view of the guy as "a good man, always." This is one of the major problems that appears in the "soft, pacifist" narrative I mentioned above.

Both of these narratives strike me as exercises in confirming the views one has always had, or long held - as opposed to working practice. When I was younger, I fell more into the soft, pacifist camp side of things, but the longer I worked with my own heart and mind, studied the teachings, and probably most important in my case - spent large chunks of my life actively engaged with people from oppressed and marginalized groups - I began to realize that the most important thing is working deliberately, unflinchingly with the seeds of violence and non-violence within yourselves, and then figuring out ways to spread that kind of work to others.

Which is all about liberation of suffering if you ask me. It's realizing that yes, causes and conditions might be coming together in a violent way and that each of us might end up adding something to the total pile of violence, but that we ARE NOT condemned to doing so. In fact, because of the months and years of watching our minds and hearts, checking out actions, questioning our motives and understandings - we might actually have a chance to shift the entire course of history through our actions. That a single person, or small group of people, or even large group of people who have built up the inner reserves and discipline to not react, but respond by waiting out the most intense conflict without resorting to maiming and murdering.

This is all about doing whatever you can to create the POSSIBILITY during a dangerous situation, as opposed to either coming in with an untrained, naive mind, or with an attitude that everything is already fucked, so we best bust some heads.

Bin Laden's dead. Instead of justifying his murder, or outright rejecting everything associated with that murder, including emotional joy and relief, how about taking some time to consider how you might liberate all of this going forward.

How might you train yourself to be able to enter a conflict - be it a simple disagreement or a life threatening situation - in a way that might open the doors of liberation, instead of close them?

I'll leave everyone with that, and offer that pat answers won't cut. I've been living with a variation of this question for most of my life. And I doubt it will be resolved anytime soon, if ever really.

Osama bin Laden's Death: A Buddhist Reaction

By now, I'm guessing most of you know that Osama Bin Laden, founder of the terrorist network al-Queda, was killed yesterday by a team of U.S. Navy SEALs. As a Buddhist and yoga practitioner, who has placed non-violent action at the forefront of his life, I was uncertain how to respond to the news when I first heard it last night.

It leaves quite a bitter taste in my mouth that this man was found not in Afghanistan or Iraq, where hundreds of thousands have been killed over the past decade, but in Pakistan. Seeing crowds of Americans cheering the man's death and singing patriot songs at the Capitol, in Times Square, and other places around the country also left me feeling uneasy.

My initial response upon hearing President Obama's speech, where he masterfully justified the War on Terrorism without naming it, equated justice with murdering a man, and generally sounded like a toned down version of his predecessor - my initial response was to stay up late and clean my apartment. Sweeping floors and scrubbing winter cobwebs from the walls, I thought of all those who had been killed. Killed under Bin Laden's twisted direction. Killed by American, British, Canadian, and other soldiers who were told they were defending their nations from Bin Laden's organization. Soldiers killed by terrorists, and other desperate people who were told to hate every foreigner to the bone.

As the reports trickled in on the BBC, playing on my ancient clock radio, I changed the sheets and swept the dust from beneath my bed. It was nearly 1 am when I finally fell asleep and by 4 am, I was awake again, there to lay in bed listening to the birds tweeting in the new morning.

I can imagine that family and friends of those killed on 9/11, or in the Kenyan embassy, or in London, Deir el-Bahri, Egypt, and numerous other places feel some sense of relief that Bin Laden is dead. Some are probably totally elated.

All I can say is that any feeling that justice has been done will be fleeting. Bin Laden's dead, but the roots of terrorism are still alive and well. The guy was certainly the international poster child of terrorism, and an inspiration to all these younger, desperate folks out there taking up guns, bombs, and the rest. At the same time, if you look at recent history, Bin Laden has been a fading figure whose ideas have spread to the point where he hasn't really been needed much anymore.

In the eyes of most people around the world, Osama Bin Laden ranks right down there with the worst of the worst in history. Besides the fact that Bin Laden was a human, just like you and I - something too many of us forget when it comes to people who commit terrible crimes - there's not much to say in his defense.

It's really hard, even for this Buddhist writing these lines and who is committed to the Bodhisattva vows, to feel much compassion for the man. Growing up wealthy and privileged, he opted to use those advantages to destroy life and inspire hatred. He warped the teachings of his religion, and spread that phoney version of "the truth" so widely that it will be generations before the stain he and his followers have put on Islam will fade. All in all, here was a man in a position to be a game changer in a region of the world in need of great leaders, and he was - a game changer in the worst of all possible manners.

Perhaps losing his father at the age of 10 had something to do with this. Perhaps what began as a struggle to overthrow an occupying giant - the Soviet Union in Afghanistan - engulfed this man to the point where he couldn't see through the power, hatred, and prestige. Perhaps witnessing the cynical way of American foreign policy under President Regan aided in turning the man's mind towards world wide terrorism.

Who knows. In some ways, it doesn't matter now because the guy is dead, and the world will be moving on to something else in the coming weeks.

To be honest, I still don't know what to think about it all. It's kind of like we killed a ghost out of belief that in doing so, the world will be a safer place. But there's no knowing if that will be the case.

And even if murdering this murderer ends up leading to a massive weakening of the world wide terrorist networks he inspired and funded, I wouldn't call it justice. Nor do I think it's something to cheer about.

Osama bin Laden is dead and my apartment is clean. Those are really the only two definite statements I can make about it all.

Understanding Context as a Path Towards Peace

Well, another blog post got me going this morning. Marcus, over at his new shared blog, has a quality commentary about a recent Buddhist-Christian dialogue in Korea. I firmly believe that more conversation and sharing across traditions, and beyond that, across all views, religious, spiritual, and secular, is a path towards peace. We need more shared experiences, and less boneheaded fighting, no doubt. But there are steps that must be taken to get to that shared place - it doesn't happen overnight, and it requires, among other things, deep listening to narratives that you don't want to hear.

A few comments Marcus made in his post brought forth some responses for me.

He writes:

My point is that Buddhism stands on its own three feet, and while some western practitioners automatically and instinctively look for points of contrast with Christianity, focusing on areas of convergence is a much healthier approach.

Why not just see what the moment calls for instead? Sometimes, focusing on commonalities is exactly what's called for, and sometimes the differences need to be examined.

I agree with you that there are plenty of baseless and sometimes nasty comments made about Christianity in the English speaking, covert Buddhist blogosphere. I've probably made few myself.

In contrast, many of the English-language Buddhist blogs often express a surprising degree of hostility towards Christianity. But this mostly comes from young converts with little experience of life in Buddhist countries and often with uncomfortable experiences of the Church. Such people are naturally keen to draw boundaries between the Buddhism they’ve adopted and the faiths they’ve left behind.

Maybe, although "young" might not be all that accurate. There actually aren't that many teen and 20 somethings amongst the regular Buddhist bloggers I've come across.

Also, how about the fact that you are saying all this while living in a nation that is predominantly Buddhist? I and the others from the U.S., Canada, England, Finland, etc. live in nations where the predominant religion is a form of Christianity. It's default in the way Buddhism is default in Thailand and many other Asian nations.

Why does that matter? Well, we are surrounded by people who display all manners of the Christian faith so to speak, and their actions often directly impact us, for better or worse. Nearly every elected leader in the history of my nation has been Christian, and while some have been just fine at leading without trying to impose religious views on the public, others regularly have made impositions. Our mainstream media outlets have few Buddhist representatives, and even though the Tiger Woods and Brit Hume dramas were mostly drama, they did point out the serious lack of representation in the media of people who have any understanding of Buddhism. While you can easily find devout Christians in power positions of major U.S. corporations, I can't think of a single Buddhist leading a similarly placed company. In other words, when I as a Buddhist look around, I see almost no one in leadership positions that is "like me." It is challenging, in such circumstances, to maintain "the high road" of embodying peace and compassion.

I'm not providing excuses for bad behavior here. However, the context matters. Those Christians in Korea, Thailand, Japan, etc. are in the vast minority - so it benefits them to develop kind relationships with Buddhists. If things in the country turn bad, those relationships might mean the difference between freedom and oppression. Here in the U.S., in contrast, Christians need not reach out because they already are the vast majority, and hold most of the power positions. And yet, some do. And despite what you see online, some of us Buddhists reach out to develop relationships with Christians as well. Partly, I would guess, because it benefits us socially.

You know, I totally agree with you that there are similar desires for peace, joy, and awakening that play out in these two religions, and really in all of them. There are connection points, and it's worth the effort to make those connections explicitly in our daily lives.

However, whenever I see religious-based hostility, I want to understand the social context more because people aren't acting in a vacuum. If my recent discussions with a few people about the situation in Gaza taught me anything, it is that you can't get to those commonalities between groups until you understand the threat narratives, petty gripes, and disagreements between the groups. I could point out endless similarities between the Israelis and Palestinians to my Jewish friends, for example, but it wouldn't matter - they were stuck on defense of Israel mode. And these are people who live fairly privileged lives here in the U.S., thousands of miles away from the actual dangers. It isn't all that different for most of the convert Buddhists spewing stuff at Christians, or drawing distinctions in the sand. But in my view, it's way to easy to just say these people are ignorant and inexperienced, and call it a day.

All of these people are my friends, family, neighbors - if I just use their stories as examples of bad behavior (and I do this sometimes), I'm just objectifying them for my own benefit. I feel that the only way to truly develop peace, to get to those commonalities in a healthy way, is to do my best to understand where those on different sides are coming from. To listen to the narratives I find abusive, destructive, or just plain wrong. And then to be willing to present my own narratives as honestly as I can, in a spirit of sharing.

In the end, the only real commonality might just be that we are humans sharing our stories. Can I accept that? Can you?

This might be the true peace, I'm coming to see.