November 10, 2019 Dharma Message
Honpa Hongwanji Hawaii Betsuin 10:00 a.m. service
"Buddha’s Army?"
Let’s put our hands together in gassho:
"’All tremble at violence, all fear death. Comparing oneself with others, one should neither kill nor cause others to kill.’ Hence any form of violence is not acceptable. ‘Victory breeds hatred. The defeated live in pain. Happily the peaceful live, giving up victory and defeat.’"
– The Dhammapada, the sayings of the Buddha. Namo Amida Butsu.
Rev. Sol Kalu
Good morning, Ohayou gozaimasu and welcome again to today’s Sunday morning service. I hope you are all in reasonably good health as we approach the end of the year 2019.
Doing regular exercise and watching what we eat and losing weight are some ways to promote our good health. Now on losing weight, I have reached a plateau that I can neither gain nor lose any more weight despite trying to eat less. Not enough exercise, perhaps? Oh, far from it. I exercise a lot — my jaw muscles get plenty of exercise, from overeating. We can joke about it but physical fitness is very important to enable us to live happier, healthier lives.
Like I said before during my previous dharma message, our bodies tend to become weaker as we grow older, so it is all the more reason to stay fit through exercise and proper nutrition. I’m also scheduled to have eye lens replacement surgery on the 18th of this month so I am taking a break from my martial arts training until I regain full clear vision after surgery.
Tomorrow, November the 11th we observe a national holiday, that is, Veterans Day to honor and recognize the sacrifice of those who died or have served for the cause of defending our country from aggression and threats to our way of life. Here in Hawaii, a lot of our veterans past, present and future are Buddhists, so anyone not familiar with Buddhism may raise the question of why followers of the Buddha join a profession that is involved in hurting or killing other people. Aren’t Buddhist supposed to be pacifist, gentle, nonviolent?
Unfortunately there have been recent involvement of some Buddhists in parts of Asia with fighting wars and acts of violence against other religious groups. Yes, it is indeed happening in some parts of Asia, particularly in Burma, where Buddhist communities are openly fighting against other non-Buddhist religious groups, claiming self-defense from religious harassment and persecution. It is rather a sad thing that such things are happening nowadays in a predominantly Buddhist country.
The Buddha founded a religion based on compassion, tolerance and non-violence and this is precisely what sets Buddhism apart from the rest of the world’s major religions. The history of Buddhism is unique in that it spread from its original country, India, to Southern Asia as the Theravada tradition and northern Asia as the Mahayana branch, in a peaceful manner. The important word here is "peaceful," meaning Buddhism was propagated by the disciples and monks of Shakyamuni Buddha outside India, through nonviolent and non-forceful conversion. The early Buddhist missionaries traveled to different parts of Asia and just preached the teaching, without resorting to force, and it has become accepted by a lot of countries in Asia without bloodshed. There was no other way it could have been done, for if the early Buddhist missionaries resorted to force and violence to convert people to Buddhism, then they would only be contradicting themselves and violating the Buddha’s strict precept on nonviolence.
Apart from the Buddha’s teaching of avoiding inflicting any harm to any being, part of the reason for the peaceful spread and acceptance of Buddhism as a religion of peace and tolerance is the efforts of one king who lived in ancient India by the name of King Ashoka. He started out as a king and through conquest he became an emperor, he extended the frontiers of his kingdom called Maurya and it became an empire that stretched from modern day Afghanistan, Bangladesh all the way to South India.
It is said that King Ashoka was a wicked man of great military skill but with a violent temper, a frightening, highly skilled warrior but a heartless general. During one of his wars of conquest, he attacked a kingdom called Kalinga and slaughtered over 100,000 enemy soldiers and mercilessly deported 150,000 civilians. He even burned to death 500 of his advisers for accusations of disloyalty. It was after the battle, when he saw the many dead bodies as a result of his violence that he reflected on the role that he had played that led to the deaths and displacement of many people and a result he gradually converted to Buddhism.
Ashoka was later dedicated to the propagation of Buddhism across Asia, and established monuments marking several significant sites in the life of Gautama Buddha. " He regarded Buddhism as a doctrine that could serve as a cultural foundation for political unity." Ashoka is now remembered as a philanthropic administrator. In the Kalinga edicts, which he wrote, he addresses his people as his "children," and mentions that as a father he desires their good.
The lethal war with Kalinga transformed the vengeful Emperor Ashoka to a stable and peaceful emperor and he embraced Buddhism. This led to the expansion of Buddhism in his Mauryan empire and other kingdoms during his rule, and worldwide from about 250 BCE. King Ashoka dedicated a part of his life in the peaceful promotion of Buddhism to many parts of his empire and Asia.
However, it is not totally true that the followers of Buddhism in the centuries that followed after Ashoka lived their lives peacefully and completely free of violence. In ancient China, Buddhist monks, especially of the Cha’n or Zen sect in Japanese, regularly trained in martial arts to defend themselves from both bandits and government oppression. The Shaolin monastery is still famous for martial arts training to this day. Remember the TV series “Kung Fu” back in the 1970’s? It’s about a Chinese monk who uses his martial arts training to knock the bad guys out. During the ancient imperial and the civil war days of medieval Japan, there were monk soldiers called so-hei from the Tendai monastery in the mountains of Kyoto, who did not hesitate to do battles and kill while wearing their monk robes and carrying juzus or prayer beads.
Even the Hongwanji had their own armies in those days, called Ikko-Ikki and they were initially very successful in defending their territory in that part of Japan now called Ishikawa prefecture where the city of Kanazawa is presently located. The armies of Hongwanji carried banners with Namo Amida Butsu written on them and they recite the Nembutsu before and after a battle, if they were victorious, that is. Of course, losing means no more anyone left to recite the Nembutsu. Plus, the warriors of the Hongwanji were indoctrinated that if they courageously advanced and fought the enemy, they will be assured of birth in the Pure Land and those who retreat, run away, or refuse to fight were guaranteed a one way ticket to hell without end.
In more recent times, the Buddhist institutions like Zen and even the Jodo Shinshu temples supported the government of Imperial Japan during World War II. The first time I heard about the armies of monks and the warriors of Hongwanji, I was confused and disappointed that such people associated with Buddhism would engage in violence and harming other people and beings. But in comparison to the other major religions of the world, the Buddhist wars of the olden days were not for conversion of others to Buddhism but rather for the acquisition of political power or defending territories and people from government oppression. The Christians and Muslims have a longstanding history of fighting each other for the propagation and conversion of other peoples to their respective faiths, but not so in Buddhism.
One wonders how Shakyamuni Buddha, if he were still alive today, would react to Buddhists engaging in wars, for any reason whatsoever. It will depend on the reason for going to war and killing. According to the one of the ancient Buddhist sutras called ‘chakkavatti- sihanada sutta’ (The Lion’s Roar on the Turning of Wheel) of the long discourses of the Buddha, Buddha justified the requirement of the king or ruler having an army to provide guard, protection, and security for different classes of people in the kingdom or nation from internal and external threats. Soldiering was accepted by the Buddha as a noble profession but only for defending one’s country and people and not for subjugating others or converting people of other religious beliefs to Buddhism.
Tomorrow as I have mentioned, is Veterans Day and many of this nation’s veterans both past and present are Buddhist, especially here in Hawaii. Some, no doubt, have gone to wars and have taken the lives of other people, those who we call the enemies of this nation. These actions of taking lives in no way make our veterans less Buddhist. Yes, there is no contradiction there, a person can be a soldier and Buddhist at the same time.
A Buddhist soldier, however, is one who strives for peace within because he is one who realizes the pain of his own wounds. He is one who sees the bloody destruction of war, the dead, the suffering etc. Hence his desire to bring peace to himself as well as to others by ending the war as soon as possible. He not only suffers during the war but even after the war. The painful memories of the battles he fought linger in him making him aspire for true and lasting peace within and without. This is the same realization that King Ashoka had and made him convert to Buddhism — he saw the tragic consequences that war and violence, under his direction, had brought about. In a way, we could say that King Ashoka suffered from PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) after engaging in so much fighting and killing people.
One of the things that we can reflect upon and ask ourselves is the question: "can wars and other acts of violence be totally eliminated?" My opinion, is no, they can only be minimized but not completely eliminated. It’s all part of the samsaric existence, the world of delusion and suffering that we are living in now. We may protest and say "but I am at peace now, I don’t like to think about, let alone do violence or take away another man’s life. That’s against Buddhist teachings! It is very laudable for a person to have that kind of thinking, but Shinran Shonin has said, as written in the Tannisho, that it is not that a person doesn’t kill because he is a good person but rather it is because that person’s karma does not predispose him to kill.
In other words, even if we reject the notion of killing or violence towards another human being, when the causes and conditions are there, anyone can kill a hundred, even thousands of people. For example, when a violent attack or even merely a threat is directed against us or our family, we may end up killing the attacker or hurting him severely to end his threat, repulsive though the thought may be. The potential to kill with our own hands is there in all of us because of our karmic past.
Killing and violence is like a monster that is hidden within our hearts and minds that needs to be constantly guarded to prevent it escaping and expressing itself. By constantly listening to the teachings of the Buddha, we can acquire the wisdom not to create causes and conditions that may bring about situations that force us to use violence or take another life. By sharing with others and living the Buddha’s teaching of compassion, peace, harmony, and nonviolent means of solving problems, we can help create a world where the use of force to resolve problems will be used only as a last resort when other peaceful ways have failed, in a way that is minimal and done with careful consideration for the lives of those involved.
There is no such thing as Buddha’s Army. Buddhism remains a religion of peace and nonviolence since it’s foundation some 2,600 years ago. True, some Buddhist groups in some parts of the world are acting inappropriately by engaging in wars in the name of Buddhism but overall, Buddhism remains a pacifist philosophy and way of life. If there is such a thing as Buddha’s army, then we are the soldiers, the sangha, but not soldiers to inflict pain on and conquer other people but rather to carry on and peacefully share or spread the Buddha’s timeless ideals and teachings on eliminating the source of suffering and the attainment of universal peace and harmony for all sentient beings.
Namo Amida Butsu!