POST SCRIPTS

something new every day. Today’s dip into the well uncovered a real jaw dropper. I found it in an article, “Imagine a Free Tibet,” by David Bueche at the American Thinker:

Gandhi -- the poster boy of non-violence -- had this to say about the Jews, and how they should properly respond to the unenlightened Nazis. ** "The Jews should have offered themselves to the butcher's knife," he said. "They should have thrown themselves into the sea from cliffs." ** Louis Fisher, Gandhi's biographer asked him: "You mean that the Jews should have committed collective suicide?" ** Gandhi responded, "Yes, that would have been heroism."

Reading the article I immediately thought of Richard Gear standing before the people of New York after the shock of September 11th.

The crowd before him included the firemen and police officers who had given so much and lost so many, both friends and family. Richard’s plea to them and the world was to turn feelings of shock, anger, and sadness into a positive expression of love. He said in essence that the energy we were about to muster in defense of ourselves could be turned and used to promote peace rather than as a catapult to war. I had to admire his commitment to the Buddhist tradition even as I shook my head in disbelief.

Of course, I went in search of more…

In an interview conducted in 1997 by Robert Thurman for “Mother Jones,” the Dalai Lama spoke about conflict and defending against ruthless attackers:

Thurman: In the current conflict in Sri Lanka between the Buddhist majority and the separatist Hindu Tamil Tigers -- a conflict that has claimed thousands of lives since it began 14 years ago -- many have found ways to justify the continuing involvement of Buddhists, including Buddhist clergy, in the violence. Essentially, the argument is that the kind of pacifism you advocate doesn't work in the real world, and that to let the enemy destroy Buddhist monuments and temples and kill Buddhists without fighting back is simply intolerable. ** The loss of your own nation to China has been used as an example of the futility of nonviolence and tolerance. When is something worth fighting for?

Dalai Lama: This is hard to explain. In our own case, we don't consider the loss of a monastery or a monument the end of our entire way of life. If one monastery is destroyed, sometimes it happens. Therefore, we don't need to respond with desperate violence. Although under particular circumstances, the violence method -- any method -- can be justified, nevertheless once you commit violence, then counterviolence will be returned. Also, if you resort to violent methods because the other side has destroyed your monastery, for example, you then have lost not only your monastery, but also your special Buddhist practices of detachment, love, and compassion. ** However, if the situation was such that there was only one learned lama or genuine practitioner alive, a person whose death would cause the whole of Tibet to lose all hope of keeping its Buddhist way of life, then it is conceivable that in order to protect that one person it might be justified for one or 10 enemies to be eliminated -- if there was no other way. I could justify violence only in this extreme case, to save the last living knowledge of Buddhism itself.

Heralded as men of peace, the Dalai Lama and Ghandi have much in common. While it may be noble and honorable to live one’s everyday life in a compassionate and loving manner, seeking to let go of attachments to the material world, is it indeed an act of love to merely watch, detached, as all others around you are murdered by ruthless killers? Is it likewise an act of peaceful tolerance to suggest that mass suicide is somehow holier than taking self-defensive measures? When placed in the context of evil acts being committed on the world stage, this immovable attachment to the principles of detachment, love and compassion begins to sound like self-involved pap; likewise, the unyielding adherence to peace as espoused by Ghandi.

It seems to me the only way to give peace a chance is to make sure everyone fully understands that violent unprovoked attacks will not be tolerated.