The Bad and The Ugly

[edearl]

Most posts on this forum are, naturally, about The Good of Buddhism. However, during more than two millennium of Buddhism, there must have been some who in the name of Buddhism did Bad and Ugly things. As a novice, I am curious about such people and events. Moreover, to have a well rounded education about Buddhism it seems necessary. gregkavarnos posted some things, see below, in the "How to spot Heretical teachings" thread, the worst of which was the Zen Buddhist participating in WWII. Have there been any big atrocities like the Catholic Inquisition or things like Jim Jones and the Jonestown, Guyana massacre?

I know, Buddhists are non-violent.

Well, it seems things are not as they appear
http://religionnewsblog.blogspot.com/20 ... hists.html
http://thepersecutiontimes.com/category ... /buddhism/
http://atheism.about.com/od/bookreviews/fr/ZenAtWar.htm
and here's something from this very site to mull over
http://dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.php?f= ... 84&start=0
ad nauseum...

Metta

[Dechen Norbu]

I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. There were episodes of religious persecution, but as far as I know nothing that can be remotely compared to the Inquisition or the Crusades, for instance. Perhaps in a smaller scale.

[edearl]

I don't know, but it wouldn't surprise me. There were episodes of religious persecution, but as far as I know nothing that can be remotely compared to the Inquisition or the Crusades, for instance. Perhaps in a smaller scale.

That is encouraging.

[deepbluehum]

I believe in Tibet there was a Buddhism suppression of Bonpo by a Tibetan Buddhist king. I don't know the specifics.

[ronnewmexico]

There are very many incidents related to the future buddha, which has been stated to be the next buddha and some find some evidence of this reference in select buddhist scripture. Though others state this scripture invalid.
I brought this up in one thread once and was informed...well these people were not buddhist as we know buddhism to be...but that is always the situation....when a religion is used inappropriately the followers always state after the fact.... well that is not real buddhism or real islam or real christianity.

Nevertheless after the fact or not............ at the time, those peoples really felt they were practicing those things correctly....as perhaps the crusaders with papal dispensation believed they were true christians even when eating the dead bodies of their just killed muslim bretheren.

So that said in China....... and remotely in some other places in southeast asia, we have the future buddha wars or maitreyan revolutions, which were revolutions of a sort useing the future buddha as rational for a change of the order of things. Many thousands I would guess in the realm of at least 100,000 died in these issues from both sides, the proponants or instigators and those that defended the established order.
Heious actions of slaughter occured on both sides but probably in larger number by the defenders of the order.

The term future buddha certainly refers to a buddhist context and is derived this notion from certain scriptures(though the validity of those scriptures is not in total considered valid. The actuality of this is that the faiths in china at the time were most probably a composite of Taoist and other religious thought to include buddhism. So yes it is not the buddhism we know or practice today for the most part.

A hundred thousand then dead as consequence...I'd rank that right up there with some crusader actions.

Basically in china back in the day things were pretty bad for certain groups of people. Did arise with various degrees of popular support various peoples claiming to be the future buddha thusly claiming the right to establish a new order.
So they killed or were killed in large number related to this....and there were several of the claimants over the years, mainly in china but other places did this occur as well.

Buddhism is not seperate from the politic.
His Holiness the Dali Lama did in fact receive a stipend from the CIA during the sixties each year(100k or so).
This was at the same time period in which that same CIA was inspiring things such as the assination of the elected socialist leader in chili Salvadore Allende and replaceing him with a man called Pinochet whose presence and surpressive policies resulted in wholescale torture and killing of thousands of innocents, probably tens of thousands. This is now known fact as the informations have been subsequently released as per the freedom of information act.
So even the most compassionate are connected in some fashion to the most heinous.

So the politic is not seperate from buddhism.
WE tend to ideolize religions....few if any can claim no corrupting influence of the politic.
Many other things existed over the years. By numbers killed... I'd say the future buddha revolutions are largest.

Wiki can be a start to a study of this but the informations can be a bit hard to find just from internet sources.
Most as the comments here are surely to shortly suggest...want to consider buddhism a religion of no fault.
IN theory it is,in actuality not. So geeneral thinking tends to shy away from that, and as general thinking or most hits is how things are qualifed on the internet this information by such process tends to become remote and hard to find.

The internet has resulted in a surpression of sorts...the surpresion of the general over the specific opinion or interest. Sometimes to benefit sometimes to detriment.
Quary future buddha that is a start.

I will, I suspect now, for stating these things, be targeted by certain individuals right here on this board in the present...Suchly is the seed of the thing that is violence of a sort attached to religion.....intolerance. Of one sort or another. It is not exempt from buddhism.
I frequent this board as low priority so no matter. But this will serve as example...of a personal sort to me.
That is the real ugly...its seed, most commonly. The exclusion, the refusal to see a thing of fault when that thing brings great happiness. A exclusion of sorts.

E...if you are looking to find a religion with least of the politic,from a intellectual viewpoint or study of scholorship.... I would suggest a study of Jainism.
I am no Jain, as they are believers in the existance of a real soul and such things which I find do not exist(hence buddhist vehicle) but there beliefs are so radical in core, no violence to any living thing basically, even to the extent of choice of profession.....they find few political adherants to their faith of the sort described. Though they often are the richest in India as the financial is considered a prefered choice of no individual harm in their religion their corruptive influence may be of the strictly monetary sort.
I have often felt most american buddhist would more appropriately be american Jainists if they knew of that religion.
Though I am no advocate of or for it...no soul exists.

As a aside I started a thread on that once not to long ago here...why not Jain. I found that thread soon degenerating into a calling out thing of violence(most now deleted by moderator) between individual proponants of opposeing schools of buddhism. Quite curious..... I found that cause to not post here for quite a while. another thread then ensued....calling one of these other schools garbage in title(also deleted) ...that was all quite curious, but true..these thing happened. Buddhism by such example is not immune from such,though it contains truth ultimately this may be misunderstood at times.
The thread why not jain is still available and reading between the lines one may see what was not deleted. Such is the seed.

[edearl]

There are very many incidents .... Such is the seed.

Thank you for your enlightening post. I also find the idea of a soul incredible. I like Buddhist philosophy, but am agnostic about unverifiable beliefs.

[ronnewmexico]

Contained within Buddhism in fact is the only way for human to find release from this prison which is found to be the self constructiion of self and other aversion and attachment.

However the bells and whistles to accompany a perhaps very subtle truth to things.... a truth which in part may be kept quite close and hidden(quite mistakenly by my view)may exceed by viability the truth.

So with the bells an whistles come the wars and killings and all those other things.The bells and whistles are the substance of other religions however.
So I am more than agnostic on those things. I find them utilizations of the demons to cause death suffering and destruction which are their meat.
Abeit however these demons may be found part and parcel of us...human.

So the bad and ugly exist and persist. In the end they say it becomes all bells and whistles...I suspect what they say is true.
Till then there is a way out..it must be worked at however to finds its location and reveal its content... such is our day and time.

all this to my personal opinion on this thing of bad and ugly.

I advocate strongly on becoming a thief first and studying well that craft of theft...but that is another matter .
There is so little time and the bardo cares not if humans here or ouselves, thought us worthy of these things or not....the bardo is quite unequivocal in us knowing these things or not. NOt and we suffer its winds.
Stolen or not...the bardo will not care we may ride its winds, not be buried by them.....again..... another matter.
My appologies if I digress.

[edearl]

So the bad and ugly exist and persist. In the end they say it becomes all bells and whistles...I suspect what they say is true.

In the end, we cannot know with certainty whether we exist in emptiness or not and whether we live in a virtual world or not, because we perceive everything the same in either case. Though the bad and ugly are inevitable, we spend most days in ignorance of such deeds until after the fact, in which case we have no power to alter them. To avoid suffering such things requires a measure of agnosticism, yet one cannot help feeling empathy.

::another topic::

My appologies if I digress.

Isn't that a good thing, for which an apology is not necessary?

[Dechen Norbu]

Hi Ron, can you give me some sources for me to find those episodes you talk about? The maitreyan revolutions thing. I never heard of it, but as this is the second time you talk about it...
Is http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Maitreya your source?

[mint]

Not to pick on any sect or nation as this comes from my general reading:

Some Chinese and Japanese Buddhists often appealed to certian Mahayana sutras - like the Mahaparinirvana Sutra - which permitted killing to defend the Dharma, which may have included killing those who slandered the true doctrine or even one's own sect.

According to some sources, Nichren advocated sanctioned fighting by his followers in a just cause, and may have advocated governmental withdrawal of economic resources to "heretical regions" so that the people would starve and be converted to the Truth.

Through an appeal to these sutras which permitted killing, Chinese Communists were able to collect enough money to build an aircraft carrier named 'Chinese Buddhist' which was used against Americans in Korea.

[edearl]

Not to pick on any sect or nation as this comes from my general reading:

Some Chinese and Japanese Buddhists often appealed to certian Mahayana sutras - like the Mahaparinirvana Sutra - which permitted killing to defend the Dharma, which may have included killing those who slandered the true doctrine or even one's own sect.

According to some sources, Nichren advocated sanctioned fighting by his followers in a just cause, and may have advocated governmental withdrawal of economic resources to "heretical regions" so that the people would starve and be converted to the Truth.

Through an appeal to these sutras which permitted killing, Chinese Communists were able to collect enough money to build an aircraft carrier named 'Chinese Buddhist' which was used against Americans in Korea.

[gregkavarnos]

Through an appeal to these sutras which permitted killing, Chinese Communists were able to collect enough money to build an aircraft carrier named 'Chinese Buddhist' which was used against Americans in Korea.

This sounds like utter baloney! Why would Chinese Communists appeal to a Buddhist text for the Chinese Communist state to raise money to use in the Korean war? Some sources please.

[Malcolm]

Hi Ron, can you give me some sources for me to find those episodes you talk about? The maitreyan revolutions thing. I never heard of it, but as this is the second time you talk about it...
Is http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Maitreya your source?

The phenomena of Maitreya millenialism and the vigorous violence these Chinese cults engaged in are well know to history. But they have nothing really to do with Buddhism.

N

[mint]

Through an appeal to these sutras which permitted killing, Chinese Communists were able to collect enough money to build an aircraft carrier named 'Chinese Buddhist' which was used against Americans in Korea.

This sounds like utter baloney! Why would Chinese Communists appeal to a Buddhist text for the Chinese Communist state to raise money to use in the Korean war? Some sources please.

I can't provide any internet sources, but the book source is Buddhism Under Mao by Holmes Welch. Page 278.
I read it in Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations by Paul Williams.

[Thug4lyfe]

Should we really seek out these things? It's never da Dharma dat causes deez sheet, it's always the deluded people want the "easy way out". It's much easier to join the mob and attack than cultivate one'self! It's the computer game way

Just make sure none of you homeboys is going to join Falun Gong or the white lotus society or watever anytime soon!!!

[edearl]

Should we really seek out these things? It's never da Dharma dat causes deez sheet, it's always the deluded people want the "easy way out". It's much easier to join the mob and attack than cultivate one'self! It's the computer game way

Just make sure none of you homeboys is going to join Falun Gong or the white lotus society or watever anytime soon!!!

It is time to close this thread.

I have enough info to compare Buddhist with others, and find they are, for the most part, non-violent, as expected, which is contrary to my fundamentalist Christian childhood teachings--nice. I intend to haunt Dharma Wheel pop in to say, "Hi" from time to time.

I pray everyone has good karma.

[catmoon]

Ok, it's your thread so it is locked as requested. Do drop in often, you are always welcome.