The Selfishness of Guilt and Shame

A few comments during a discussion at the zen center yesterday brought to mind the issues of guilt and shame. During the particular discussion, we were talking about the idea of praying for "buddhas and ancestors" to support us. What that meant. Whether such a practice resonated with each of us or not. And how it was different from mainstream Christian notions of praying to God or Jesus for support.

Anyway, all of that made me think about guilt and shame. (Yes, it's a bit of a leap.) And how both of them - in my view - increase the separation narratives we have that alienate us from our true natures.

In my experience, guilt is always self-focused, overly attached to a solid self that "screwed up." Feeling guilty about yelling at your kids, or stealing money from the petty cash jar at work doesn't do anything to rectify the situation. In fact, it maintains the focus on yourself. The person or group of people who have been harmed by your action confront you and you say something like "Oh, I feel so guilty. I wish I hadn't done that." And sometimes what happens here is that the other person or group of people end up talking to you about your guilt. Or they end up having to accept that you felt guilty, and that nothing else can be done about what happened. Of course, sometimes nothing else can be done, but that's not really the point.

Shame is more tricky, although I don't think in the end, it's any more helpful. For the most part, shame just universalizes a mistake or set of mistakes into a totalized view of one's self. Instead of feeling bad about a particular behavior and it's consequences, you see yourself as a "bad person" who will "never get it right."

Indulging in either shame or guilt, in other words, not only doesn't help rectify the original situation, but also creates a stickiness around the mistaken behaviors that keeps them fixed in your mind and body. You keep thinking about what happened. You create a negative image of your self around what happened. And so you end up carrying what happened, often long after others might have forgotten it.

Buddhist teachings tend to point to remorse as a more appropriate response. Remorse is tied to repentance for specific actions, which then can lead to a sense of compassion for yourself and others who have made similar mistakes. Being remorseful help break down the self-focus, and also burns through attachments to misdeeds through both the act of repentance, and also any decisions that aid in rectifying a situation.

I could write more, but I think I'll end it there for now.

What have your experiences been with guilt and shame? Do you see them as helpful or harmful?

Buddhist Thoughts on the Boston Marathon Bombing

By now, you've probably heard about the bombings at the Boston Marathon. Whomever did them, it seems pretty clear now that they were an act of terrorism. An act which no doubt will have ripple effects of suffering far beyond those immediately impacted. Half way across the world, but not unrelated, a series of car bombs killed dozens in Iraq, a place where these kinds of experiences are sadly commonplace. Our imperialist policies, as well as those of our allies, have created a living hell for the Iraqi people. And so, as we grieve for those hurt and killed in Boston, it's imperative to remember all the ways our nation's decisions bring about similar suffering in places across the globe.

Brad Warner quickly put up a post about the Boston marathon bombings. There is some understandable anger in it. I've felt plenty myself in recent months over gun violence, wars, the numerous economic violences of capitalism, and all the ways we've been destroying the planet. But what to do with that anger? How can we face it directly, and let it move through us in a way so that it can be transformed into something of benefit for ourselves and others?

I find elements of Brad's article disturbing. He's a selection.

As is typical when these kinds of things happen, the news guys didn’t really know much. They just kept repeating the three facts they did know over and over. Two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Two people were killed. An unknown number of others were injured. Nobody has claimed responsibility. And that was pretty much all anyone really knew the last time I checked in.

I remember after the gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system happened, Nishijima Roshi said that those who perpetrated the deed should be found and “removed from society.” He said this very forcefully. It was unmistakable in his tone that “removed from society” meant anything from being jailed to being executed. He made it clear that he thought that a society was in the right to take the life of someone who did such an act.

My reaction at the time was kind of typical of people who are relatively new to Zen. I was pretty shocked that a Buddhist master would condone killing people. Doesn’t the first precept say, in effect, “Thou shalt not kill”? How can a Buddhist master think it’s OK to kill even those who kill others? Isn’t it all about peace, love and understanding?

Well, yes. It is. But it’s also about facts.

One very significant fact is that Buddhism has only ever flourished in stable societies that had powerful militaries and police forces to defend their citizen’s ability to practice. Stephen Batchelor famously said something like this in response to 9/11. You cannot meditate in a war zone. Well, I suppose you can. But it’s not easy and you’ll probably be killed while you sit.

Our societies have to be stable before we can engage in our practice. This is an absolutely necessary prerequisite. That means we have to be able and willing to defend our societies against those who would disrupt them.

First off, ask Thich Nhat Hanh and other early members of the

Order of Interbeing

about meditating in a war zone. Long before the smiles and flowers Zen of the current Thich Nhat Hanh, there was the Vietnam War days, filled will practice and social action in the heart of a war zone. Hanh, Sister Chan Khong, and others regularly found themselves in trouble with one side or another, sometimes to the point of their lives being threatened. Although I wouldn't wish these conditions on anyone, some might say they were a powerful container for practice. A place of no escape beyond anything we might manufacture.

Secondly, it's a little too easy to go there. To make the leap from soft interpretations of the first precept to "we should kill people who commit terrorist acts." His desire for punishment is, again, understandable. A pretty human impulse certainly. And yet it's also so Old Testament God. Or a really raw and unprocessed sense of karmic justice that screams Buddhist fundamentalism.

In addition, this who thing about having powerful militaries and police forces so "we" (whomever we are) can practice seems like a nice excuse for fascism. For "just" wars in "terrorist" nations. And for continued oppression of anyone here, in the U.S., who is deemed to be "disruptive" or "potentially" disruptive. Our government, regardless of the political party in power, is quite fond of pre-emptive strikes, "precautionary" measures, and the like. Not that they give a shit about meditation practitioners really. That's really not what they're concerned with. And it wasn't what the governments in medieval Japan were concerned with, nor the various royal factions in India during Buddha's time. Whatever space they "provided" for "safe" meditation practice and Buddhist study was a byproduct of power and resource control. Of oppression of one group by another. Of bloodshed and ecological destruction.

Desiring the kind of "protection" we modern humans of the past several thousand years have grown accustomed to means desiring a certain level of murder, oppression, and environmental damage elsewhere. Maybe even right down the street from you. Watching the police smashing that young African American man's face into the ground around the corners gives you a sense of safety perhaps? It sure as hell doesn't for me. But I see that kind of thing all the time, and know damned well that for some folks, this is treated as a positive. A black and white case of a bad guy got caught and now we can go back to our regular lives kind of moment.

I totally understand the desire for safety. It's human. We all have it. And if I've learned anything from Buddha's teachings it's that safety is a delusion. It's a long winded story we have about staying alive for a long time because conditions appear to be in our favor. When the reality is we have no idea for sure. You can die quickly under the best of conditions, or live to 100 under seemingly the worse of conditions.

I'm sort of tired of revenge narratives as well. Yes, they're human too. Part of the fabric of our psyches. The stuff of ancient and modern tales. There's a certain satisfaction of getting back at those who have wronged you. Of taking them down the way they took you down. I get it. I've felt it. But getting even - the whole eye for an eye thing - again, it's so Old Testament. Actually, older than the Old Testament. Some might say this is just how humans are. We're petty and aggressive and selfish. But that's just a cop out. A nice justification for not putting any effort in to imagining something different, practicing that something different, and doing something to bring about that different way of being in the world. If anything, humans are too quick to give in to the current conditions, thinking they are permanent. Or the best it could possibly be.

The other thing about revenge narratives is that they tend to hold the wrong people responsible. Tend to fail to get at the roots of suffering, ours or anyone else. Some guy gets laid off from his corporate job and he goes back with an assault rifle and shoots up his boss and co-workers. He gets the immediately release he desperately needs, but it costs lives - his and others. And does absolutely nothing to address the predatory nature of our economic system. Which is much more the root cause than the owned boss who executed the order to end his job.

Although the death penalty is slowly getting overturned in some states, Americans on the whole still like a good execution. Just as we like a good war against terrorists. Or Communists. Or Indians. Or Southerners/Northerners. Or the Mexicans. Or the British. Or more Indians. Are you tired yet?

The way I see it, Buddhist practice - or spiritual practice of any kind - is garbage if it just leads us to the same old conclusions. The same old stories about how to deal with the challenges that face us in life.

I don't really have a good answer for what to do with the particular people who planted the bombs in Boston. Or in Iraq. Or anywhere else. The causes and conditions are so much greater than any one person or small group of people. How can we - as communities - both hold individuals responsible and also hold the structures of our communities responsible as well? And even further, move beyond just seeking responsibility to making an effort towards a more just, enlightened society where the desperation and hatred that leads to such awful acts isn't so common in the first place?

There's entirely too much outrage at symptoms and entirely too little outrage at root causes. Not that outrage will bring us too a better place per se. But it can bring us to a place of right attention. Shift us away from the dulled sense of security that occasionally gets punctuated by bomb blasts, school shootings, and the like. Move us more towards the awareness of the everyday violence right under our noses. The police brutality. The military/corporate rape of the planet. The prison industrial complex. The sweatshop labor behind our "cheap" goods. The compulsory levels of poverty and economic struggle that capitalism thrives off of. The commodification of everything, right down to the very water you drink, and the very breath you take.

Zen Master Ikkyu once wrote, "I'd love to give you something, but what would help?" That seems to me to be the predicament we all face. Not just when confronted with gross level violence like today's bombings. But everyday. Every moment.

Too many of our "solutions" are gifts that don't help at all. Perhaps it's time to learn how to do zazen in a warzone. Practice in a warzone. Because we're already there anyway. It's just a matter of degrees. A matter of the level of imminent threat each of are facing.

A Short Meditation on Spring Arriving

There are all kinds of ways to avoid the natural environment. To act like you aren't part of the earth. But even so, you can't escape it: we are all, still, just mud and clouds.

This time of year, when winter is disappearing and spring is stepping forth, often feels unstable. ,One hour, you're slipping on half melted dirty ice and getting honked at by some woman in a grungy car, and the next you're marveling at the beauty of the first opened flower, the miracle of breathing, just being alive together.

Some of the plants in my apartment window have suddenly started sprouting little clones of themselves. Tiny sage bushes, strands of mint, leaves of lemon balm. A few others have sections which have suddenly dried up, as if the life that was there was borrowed to make the new life in a neighboring pot.

Seasonal transitions aren't given their due in modern culture. We wake up with a cold, and shrug it off or complain about it. We feel a new calling or interest, and fail to connect it to the ways the Earth is shifting.

The fleeting, ever shifting nature of life is more apparent right now. And whether you choose to honor it or not, the sometimes dramatic nature of change is never too far away. Step on the wrong sheet of ice and you're gonna fall through. Overturn a loose stone and find the ground below has been colonized by weeds.

We are the seasons and the seasons are us. As spring unfolds all around you, pause and remember. Taste the sun that stands higher in the sky now, bringing forth new life.

You Haven't Loved the World Enough to Let it Go

I saw an article about the recent spill in Arkansas this morning with photos of oil covered birds in it. Every time I see oil covered birds, I think of the Exxon Valdez. Pictures of oil soaked, choking birds from that spill turned me into an environmentalist. At age 13. And I never turned back.

Last year, there were 364 oil pipeline spills in the US alone. One a day, and that's only the reported ones. It's been normalized, the destruction of the planet in the name of profit and human fuel "needs." Most of us don't even blink anymore at photos like the one above. Oh, the poor birds. A twinge of pain before you get into your car to drive somewhere, anywhere away from thinking too hard about what photos like this really mean.

People who have lived through the devastating effects of oils spills tend to be more awake. Perhaps I should just hope for a doubling, tripling of spills. Maybe then there will be a mass ready to break the cycles of addiction and greed that have driven us to this place we call modern, American life. This blip in the historical record that has done more damage than anything else humans have done since our beginning.

I don't find a hell of a lot of solace amongst Buddhist circles either. The teachings may help me relax my outrage and concern a bit, but beyond that, it's just something I get to struggle with. We get to struggle with. Because this is our collective grief. Seeing bees and monarchs disappear so rapidly it's hard to even imagine. Recognizing that the water is poisoned to undrinkability in places all over the world, even large numbers of communities in a supposed "First World" nation like the U.S. Watching the learned helplessness of the majority of people who have been indoctrinated that this way of living is the "most evolved, never mind it's flaws," and who can't imagine an alternative worth making the effort to build. Recognizing that Buddhism can be just as much of an "opiate" or escape as any other religion or spiritual program. That humans are as much an invasive species gobbling up everything in our wake as we are interdependent, loving and compassionate. That some of us place 100 fold the amount of time and energy on fighting for the rights of unborn babies as we do on taking care of the planet. Which is ourselves.

I do believe that Buddha's wisdom eventually points to a certain letting go of all worries and attachments to the planet. While at the same time loving it completely, moment after moment. That seems to be the paradox that he taught, from what I can tell.

And yet, I think that most of us on the path short circuit the whole works. I've been lectured in the comments section a fair number of times by folks who claim some sort of calm detachment around social and environmental issues. That such concerns are simply trouble, and not particularly helpful in "waking up." To these folks, I'll say this:

You haven't loved the world enough to let it go. I see your words online. I hear your words in person. The many of you, those I've met and those I haven't. And frankly, you sound like disembodied liars. Perhaps you've realized something I'm still figuring out, but I seriously doubt you've touched the suffering of an oil soaked pelican. Have had your hands in the soil year after year after year, learning it's rhythms and recognizing both it's amazing resilience and also it's amazing fragility. I doubt your zazen has opened to the pit of nuclear energy and the countless grief producing realities that it represents. I doubt you've swallowed whole the life and death of the wolves being killed by sport hunters all over the Midwest. I doubt that you truly know from what and where you came from. Your original face if you will.

You are a small minority though. For the most part, what I see amongst my fellow practitioners is more benign looking. A lack of applying the teachings to how we live on the planet (beyond things like recycling that is.) Or an overall attitude that Buddhism is an individual path, and that what it's mostly about is how we deal with our individual emotions and thoughts. That it's something which happens mostly on our cushions, in pristine looking buildings far away from the mud of an early spring rain, or the toxic sledge from an overturned oil tanker. In a certain way, this it true. Our path is each of us alone. And yet it's not complete. This way of thinking that pervades the minds of privileged practitioners. Those who haven't had their lives totally altered or destroyed by environmental racism, for example, or simply by taking in the suffering of our planet deep to their core, to the point where there's no distinction - the suffering within and suffering outside of self.

To you all, my dharma brothers and sisters, I say: expand your view. Stop turning away. Be the grief that lingers within you. Let the outrage burn through you until it transforms into beneficial action.

I am not immune. I speak fiercely now, but sometimes it's all too much. I, too, am as cloudy about what to do next as I am full of ideas. There are times when I give in to convenience at times when doing so is really unnecessary. I feel like I have more work to do when it comes to intimacy with this miraculous place we call home.

I know in my heart that I have not loved this world enough to let it go in a truly liberated fashion. I would like to believe that Buddhas do not let go of their fierce compassion for all things living just because they've let go of being attached to all things living, including themselves. That the historical Buddha's numerous caring actions towards others post-enlightenment weren't just symbolic gestures on his way out of here forever. That the countless Buddhist poets and artists who have taken the natural world as their central source of inspiration and wisdom throughout the centuries weren't just using it all to get enlightened and get out. That this path is as vitally pagan as any indigenous spirituality if you look hard enough, and stop trying strip away everything that you can't explain as superstition or "cultural baggage."

When a bird is covered in oil, it's life is drasticallyaltered, sometimes forever. We are living in times where any of us can become that bird. Where the ways of living we accept as normal, even enlightened, are forms of oil themselves. Coating our wings. Destroying our hearts.

But we don't have to keep drowning. Either the birds or ourselves. It's time to learn how to love the world enough to truly let it go. This is my path. Come join me.

The Zen of Monsanto and Weeds

On the whole people might be better off if they threw away the crops they so tenderly raise and ate the weeds they spend so much time exterminating. Euell Gibbons, Stalking the Wild Asparagus

I have a fondness for weeds. For the forgotten, dismissed, and marginalized. Anyone who visits my garden in mid-summer probably wonders if I'm just not tending to it. Which is true. I'm not. Partly out of neglect, and partly out of a love of the wild.

When I saw this quote today, the first thing I thought of was Monsanto and the GMO revolution. A revolution not being televised, and one I have zero interest in supporting. Never mind the human dietary consequences, the push by Monsanto and other giant companies to control and manipulate plant life is about murder. About death to the wild diversity that brings our planet alive and makes it what it is.

Murder to the point of extinction for short term profit. It has to be one of the stupidest moves humanity's elite has made throughout it's history.

I had a poem about Monsanto published recently at Turning Wheel Media. One of the things it speaks to is our human desire for comfort and ease, and how giant corporations like Monsanto thrive on that. In fact, some of us become to attached to their products that it's akin to having another lover in your life. I recall the mother of my sister's childhood friend who drank a case of Diet Coke daily. You read that right. A case. Maybe not a full a case everyday, but she probably averaged that over the long run. She didn't live to 50. And I'm guessing that even after she found out about the negative health impacts of soda pop, she kept on drinking it. Wedded to it, and the company that makes it.

Weeds are the antithesis of ease and comfort. In the practical sense, their appearance mucks up uniform lawns and tenderly raised garden beds. Psychologically, weedy thoughts can stir up all sorts of emotions, from confusion to perverse desire. Spiritually, it is the lowly weed that frequently blows through the seemingly perfect answer we offer to life's deepest questions. How often have you thought "I've finally got it," only to have some simple and forgotten thing appear right along side the answer, almost as if in mocking.

The lowly dandelion, with it's bright yellow head, can grow in almost any soil, thriving in some of lousiest conditions imaginable. Every spring, I'm amazed at it's early appearance here in Minnesota, when the weather is still up and down, sometimes even poking through fallen snow from the tiniest cracks in sidewalks.

Eliminating weeds means destroying our toughness, tenacity, and flexibility. Whether we do it for profit or out of a mistaken sense that the best food comes from weed free conditions, the results are the same.

When I look back at the history of Buddhism, its best teachers might be considered weeds. Wild and unruly. Their ideas spreading in all directions.

Who the hell could tame someone like Ikkyu or Milarepa? You might, like the best of gardeners, manage some of the mad growth of their life stories, but that's about all.

Apparently Milarepa was fond of drinking nettle tea. So much so that his skin turned green in some accounts. You might wish to prune that detail away. Seems like anything bordering on supernatural or unexplainable is being pruned away by a lot folks these days. But there's no doubt in my mind that regular consumption of weedy teas changes you. Just as drinking diet Coke changes you.

Weeds remind us of this. They get in the way of our notions that we're separate. That we can keep out anything we don't want to deal with. If Monsanto or some giant oil company poisons the soil 1000 miles away, it impacts all of us. There's no escape.

I've tried cultivating weeds in my garden. Deliberately up-earthing them and giving them a specific home. The only ones that ever survive are the ones replanted in a mess. They respond to uniformity by shriveling up and dying.

If we keep giving in to the push for uniformity, comfort, and ease, we'll go the way of the House of the Hapsburgs. Liberation is a dandelion splitting though the spring soil. Bend down and touch it, breath in the bitter sweet fragrance. This is what you are truly longing for.

Sex, Consent, and Buddhist Right Action

With the verdict in the Steubenville case has come a lot of discussion about rape and sexism, and the state of culture in our supposed "post-feminist" America. I say supposed because like those who speak of a post-racial America, folks who say frameworks like feminism have outlasted their use are either woefully unaware or deliberately trying to reverse the gains made during the second half of the 20th century. At the same time, every framework or set of frameworks has its limits. Which is why I'd like to take up this interesting post from the IDProject blog on Right Action and consent.

Caroline Contillo, the author of the post, argues that Buddhist teachings around sexuality point towards the creation of a culture of consent. The term "enthusiastic consent" was hot stuff back in my college days (mid-1990s) and has returned to the forefront in recent years to address a diverse range of sex scandals, including Steubenville. While I agree with the principle behind enthusiastic consent, it's always felt a bit too black and white of a response to what is decidedly a not black and white world. People consent to sexual contact, as well as many other forms of action, in a wide variety of ways. In addition, people make rejections in a wide variety of ways, which is why the focus on verbal rejections in rape and assault cases is problematic at best, if not a great way to privilege the rights of the accused over the rights of accusers.

There's a lot more I could say about the intricacies of consent, but what I want to dig into goes beyond that. Here's a selection from Contillo's post:

The emphasis in all three aspects of Right Action is consent. The need for another sentient being to agree with your intentions and provide you with an emphatic agreement. To take a life, to take possessions, or to force sex upon another human being against their will is unwise and "wrong" because it is selfish and creates suffering for all parties. Right Action is about using our intention and mindfulness to encourage a culture of consent.

Now, these aspects of Right Action have been framed as things one must abstain from doing. But what if we reversed that and created things that a Buddhist *must* do?

We must encourage life and health (perhaps by learning permaculture, perhaps by taking an interest in health-care reform), we must participate in selflessness, and we must seek an emphatic and freely-given "yes!" in all sexual situations.

I am reminded of something Acharya Eric Spiegel said during the Refuge Vow ceremony I took part in, when discussing the precepts. One of the precepts, in the vein of Right Action, admonishes the participant to refrain from unwholesome sexual activity. Acharya Spiegel made sure to explore this concept in depth. He told us that to him, even flirting your way out of a speeding ticket could be considered a flouting of this precept. "Using your personal charisma to manipulate someone into giving you something" is how he phrased it. That has always stuck with me. If we take this advice to heart, then Buddhism really is a philosophy that puts incredible emphasis on consent.

First off, I reject the notion of "must" she offers. It doesn't reflect the dynamic functioning of Buddhist teachings that are responding to the ever changing world we live in.

But what I'm more interested in is this focus on consent she's offering. I like that she's brought it in here. I don't think I've seen Right Action framed in this way before. At the same time, there's something off about it. Because people consent to things that cause suffering all the time. Either deliberately or out of ignorance. Whatever the case, though, mere consent doesn't really shift us towards a culture of lessening suffering and moving towards liberation. It emphasizes individual freedom and autonomy, but fails to uphold our wider interdependence.

An experience from my college days comes to mind. One night, I was hanging out with a pair of friends playing games and having a few drinks. The male friend of mine had a crush on the female friend of mine, but she didn't share his feelings. In fact, she was interested in me, and that entire evening, I struggled to reconcile my interest in her with my desire to not hurt my other friend. As often happens with college students, we had our share of drinks - not too many, but enough to cloud our judgements a bit. My female friend started flirting with me, while my other friend cooked something for us all in his kitchen. It was a delicate situation to say the least. Eventually, her and I went outside for a bit. It was a warm summer evening, the moon nearly full overhead. We made out for awhile in the alley about a block from his apartment. She repeatedly gave consent, quite enthusiastically I might add, for us to have sex right there in the alley. I continued to struggle with loyalties to my male friend, but continued to consent to an escalation. That is, until we were half naked and at the point of intercourse. Perhaps it was as much about not having protection as about my concerns about our mutual friend back home cooking for all of us. I'm not interested in painting my 21 year old self in a heroic light. However, what happened next - when I told her we should get back to the apartment now - wasn't just about rescinding consent. It was really about weighing the potential consequences. The upset my male friend might have felt about us disappearing to have sex. The possibility of destroying the friendship all together. Unplanned pregnancy. STDs. (I really didn't know her sexual history.) The lists goes on. I already felt guilt about the sneaking around we had done. It didn't make any sense to keep going just because we both wanted to, and agreed to.

I suppose it's possible to argue that consent contains all the rest of the stuff I spoke about. But more often than not, I don't think it does. I certainly have consented to having sex when I probably would have been better off saying no. There seems to be an assumption by the author that when folks are consenting, they're doing so mindfully, with at least some awareness of what that might mean in terms of the Eightfold Path or the precepts. But really, how often is that the case? And how often is consent mainly driven by horniness or lonliness or some other powerful emotion?

What do you think of all this? I'm especially interested in ways folks have reconciled Buddhist teachings around sexuality in our sexually diverse, modern society. Because one of the things I enjoyed about Contillo's post is that she attempted to do just that.

On the 10th Anniversary of the Iraq War

In honor of the 10th anniversary of the Iraq war, I offer this post from nearly 4 years ago. This was back when a small piece of me was still "giving Obama and the Dems" a chance to prove that they indeed wanted something different than the military industrial complex we are built on here in the U.S. That small piece of me is long dead, and truly it was only an olive branch to my liberal friends and family who wanted to believe. While most of the troops have been removed from Iraq, the fighting goes on in Afghanistan. U.S. sponsored Drone warfare is ever increasing in other nations. Our "justice" system is more likely to imprison and torture whistle blowers like Bradley Manning than the leaders that drive our foreign policy, and justify murder and environmental destruction with whatever flimsy bullshit they can come up with. Those of us who actively oppose war are more likely to be considered threats to the nation than those profiting off of death or those authorizing the draining of social safety nets to feed the war machine.

Democrats. Republicans. Little or no difference when it comes to war. Nor big oil and energy policy, it seems.

We live in an age of false polarization, fueled by ignorance, fear and hatred. The greed that drives our nation's government and economy is so obvious now, and yet still missed by so many. What will it take for folks to wake up?

The post below is riddled with questions. I don't really know what it will take to truly bring a lasting peace to the world. Or at least a lot less war than we have now. Sometimes, I think that this is just the way our world is. A plane of existence fraught with difficulties and suffering - offering each of us a chance to experience that and move on. Whatever is the case, I have no interest in giving up dream of a more just and peaceful world for us all. Whether such a world is possible or not is mere speculation. That's the same way I view the Bodhisattva precepts as well.

Supporting War as a Buddhist?

In recent days, President Obama and his defense department team have made proposals to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and to add another $83 billion dollars in "special" funding to an already huge defense budget. This, at a time when the U.S. economy is in shambles, job losses at a thirty year high, and nearly 50 million Americans (including myself) are without health insurance. The shift in focus from Iraq to Afghanistan (again), as well as the increase in war spending, is justified as necessary in the "fight against al-Qaeda." Is it just me, or does none of this seem to add up?

I'm well aware that many Buddhists, along with millions of other excited Americans, cheered and went wild when Barack Obama won the 2008 Presidential election. And it was, indeed, a historic moment, and hopefully, in terms of race relations, another turning point in the long struggle for equality, dignity, and respect that people of color and their allies have worked so long to achieve. In addition to that, all the talk and desires of that election squarely sat on the shoulders of change. And I think in many minds, not tiny changes, but real, substantive change.

I feel it's important for me to disclose that I voted for the Green Party ticket because I continue to greatly question the politics and decisions of both the Democrats and Republicans. And yet, even I was relieved that Obama won, hoping that his win would eventually signal a shift away from the war madness, oppressive domestic policies, and sometimes wildly delusional tactics of the Bush Administration.

Given this, the calls for large sums of money and troops to go into a country (Afghanistan) which has suffered thirty years of nearly continuous warfare strikes me as not only sad, but downright inhumane. Never mind that some of the funds are going for humanitarian aid, how is devastating an already crippled nation and then handing out some food and clothing a compassionate answer to what's going on there? It frankly inexcusable to continue to use the September 11th attacks, and the hunt for a scattered band of terrorists (who may or may not be members of al-Qaeda), as an excuse to invade other nations, murder civilians, and destroy infrastructure and ecosystems.

External wars represent the worst manifestation of the internal wars we have within each of us. The deep belief in separation, which plagues most of us (even those of us who are steeped in Buddha's teachings of interconnectedness), is the driving force behind the hatred and fear that spirals into killing and war in the world.

What then should be done in Afghanistan and Iraq exactly? And how do we address terrorism? I don't think there are any easy answers to these questions, and yet, continuing to fight massive scale wars in the name of creating peace is like repeatedly sticking your hand in a fire and believing that one of these times, it won't be burned.

The escalation of the war in Afghanistan, as well as air strikes in Pakistan, is a call to Buddhists and all Americans who voted for President Obama to reflect on what they really wanted when they made that decision. Even if you were aware that Obama's plans all along included some kind of increased presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how do these decisions feel to you now knowing that our nation is in a deep recession? And how do these decisions mesh with your desire for a major change from the Bush Administration? How is fighting wars in the name of destroying terrorists any different from fighting wars against communism and communists? And of what value are teachings like the first precept of vowing not to kill, or the Bodhisattva vow to free all beings if one also supports massive war operations in other nations? In other words, can you really liberate anyone through large scale destruction?

I personally would love to be in an age where the United States is known as a nation of peace, and model of non-violent conflict resolution. But knowing this will take a very long time, if it ever happens at all, it seems reasonable to at least stand tall against state sanctioned warfare and do my best to learn about and promote other ways of thinking and acting. And even for those out there that support some military interventions, doesn't it seem insane to be increasing military spending at a time like this with all of our economic problems? Or isn't questionable to be escalating a war in a nation that fought off the old Soviet army, and fought off the British years before that?

May we all discover a way to true peace in this world.