March 3, 2003

the pacifist and the soldier

In less than a week I will be bringing seven Buddhist monks to our town to help spread the message of peace. In less than two weeks my good friend (and former Buzz Radio morning show co-host) will be shipping off to Iraq. He won’t be going against his will and after arguing with him for an hour last night, I’m not convinced I know why I was arguing at all. He has learned a great deal about the injustices happening to the people of Iraq, about the politics of it all and feels that someone should stop the violence there. Someone should stand up in this global bar fight and make the guy in the corner stop beating his girl. My only counterpoint to this argument was that I’m not convinced stopping the beating for one night will stop the cycle of violence.

At around 4:30 am, I remembered this Jataka tale (Buddha’s past life stories) where he’s on this boat that the captain plans on sinking. In order to save the other 30 passengers on board, the Buddha (as a Bodhisatva — a warrior saint) kills the captain. He was positive the captain would sink the boat and it was the only way to stop it.

My friend signed up to make the world a better place, not to be some gun totting neanderthal. He’s extremely intelligent and very compassionate. I guess this is the ongoing struggle every peace-loving person must have with themselves. When is it okay? When is enough, enough?

posted @ 9:36 AM

« path of accumulation | home | never happy »