Ardha, I'm not rationalizing. I've spent something like 30-35 years doing martial arts at the lowest possible count. I've also had time to reflect on the effects of it on myself and others during periods where I wasn't, or couldn't train. I almost quit at one point, based on precisely these kinds of arguments. I've examined this question pretty closely. I've been around a wide variety of practitioner, personalities, and takes on the subject - including teaching. None of what you are claiming is remotely new to me.
I'm speaking from a level of experience that most people here don't have in this stuff, as far as I know. I'm not an amazing martial artist, but I know of what I speak. I also have enough direct experience of violence to understand the huge gulf between martial arts, combat sport, and violence.
Like I said, what is medicine for some is poison for others. People are welcome to make these sweeping pronouncements about it of course. There are places for all of us where we
need hard and fast rules, and we need to be puritans with ourselves because our condition simply requires it. An example: I cannot drink aclohol normally, I have no choice but to treat it pretty puritanically, because I know from experience that if I tell myself it's ok to have a drink weekly, that drink turns into a drink daily, twice daily, etc...and it continues to escalate from there.There is nothing wrong with having to apply complete renunciation towards a given object, and that approach is part of the "ground floor" fundamentals of Buddhism.
There are also points where we need to be our own light, ask ourselves these questions, look directly at our own condition, and spend years answering them (like I have) to even have a
provisional answer *for our own lives*, much less a definitive answer that we think should apply to everyone.
As I said, when someone has way less experience and first hand knowledge of a given subject, they are just in no position to be lecturing about how others should approach their own condition and circumstances.
Now, if Grigoris ( a well known user here) was here making such arguments, I would be more likely to listen to him, because he has genuine experience. I think he has a different take than I do on this too, and is probably more restrictive, despite having gone deeper than I into the combat sports world.
Trying to lecture on the morality of it
for others though? Naw.
SilenceMonkey wrote:With training, people may become skilled in taking the path of least harm. A la aikido or taichi.
Taiji is plenty violent, the traditional art at least, just as violent as Karate and containing plenty of the same strategies and tactics. Chen being the first incarnation. Look up the Cannon Fist they used to teach sometime. Those dudes used to beat the tar out of each other and toss each other off of Lei Tais. Chen was transformed into Yang who taught it to aristocracy, and the martial bits were removed. That's is what made it so ripe for the mostly health thing it is today. I'm not putting that down, i do it myself and think it's a wonderful thing to do, but the way it's taught today seems "peaceful" simply because the martial part is usually not being taught.
Aikido was developed from battlefield Jujutsu techniques systematized into something decidedly non-martial by Morihei Ueshiba, partially based on his religious/spiritual ideas. When removed from the ceremonial and impractical way they are practiced they are mostly specialized techniques designed to break or injure limbs that are holding implements (i.e. weapons), as well as pain-compliance come-along techniques that would have be utilized to basically bully people into doing something.
There is no "nice" way to counter violence other than talking your way out, running away, or not being there in the first place. If someone is actually trying to seriously injure you you have to either do the same enough to incapacitate at least long enough to escape, or just avoid and escape -which of course, is *by far* the most important skill, and the one that should be prioritized if someone is interested in self-defense training. The trouble is that almost nowhere actually teaches self-defense, not the traditional schools, not the combat sport schools. Actual self defense material is boring, mostly information rather than techniques, doesn't sell well, and doesn't stroke the ego as well.
The "self defense" portion is actually the most compatible with Buddhism, because it runs on the assumption that you will only hurt someone when it is absolutely, completely necessary to protect yourself or others, and will have a whole stack of strategy and tactics to use long before it gets to that point. I grew up doing Okinawan Karate and it is what I am authorized to teach. It has it's impractical and silly side, but I will always be grateful that it generally teaches these ethics by default. If I did not have grounding in these ethics, then I think I would indeed need to quit training, and it would be much more harmful to my psyche.
Anyway, I would say that for "self defense" the most important things are de-escalation, the levels of awareness, victim profile, types of predatory/violent behavior, cues of violence, and things of this nature, and only then worry about whether it is necessary to learn actual physical strategies and tactics, which are (or should be) things that are only needed when everything else has failed. Physical skills don't do anyone any good unless they are kept pretty sharp anyway.