War and Kamma: Ven. Thanissaro and Ven. Bodhi's essays

The Watercooler
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I do not.

Let’s just stop right there shall we. Here’s what the Human Rights Watch had to say about Ukraine under the current government before the invasion. Shockingly, it turns out, governments are not perfect but sometimes they try to do the right thing.

  • After taking office, Zelensky demonstrated commitment to carrying out anti-corruption reform and ending the armed conflict with Russia.
  • Violence by far-right groups continued.
  • In September, Russia and Ukraine exchanged a total of 70 prisoners. … Another major prisoner exchange between Ukraine and Russia-backed armed groups took place in December 2019. Ukraine turned over 124 people and the armed groups released 76.
  • Ukraine became the 100th country to endorse the Safe Schools Declaration, an international political commitment to make schools safe during times of war.
  • Two September developments marked significant progress towards fulfilling Zelensky’s election promise to combat corruption: parliament voted to cancel immunity for lawmakers, and Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court finally became operational. In November, Zelensky signed a law on whistleblowers, providing protection and offering financial remuneration to those willing to report on corruption.
  • Members of groups advocating hate and discrimination continued putting ethnic minorities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people and rights activists at risk. In some cases, law enforcement’s efforts in countering such violence improved as compared to previous years and helped to prevent far-right attacks
  • Police successfully prevented violent attacks against participants in women’s rights rallies
  • The Equality March, held in Kyiv in June, was Ukraine’s largest-ever pride event, drawing 8,000 participants. It was mostly peaceful and well-protected by police.
  • far-right activists in Kyiv disrupted the European Lesbian Conference by trying to break through security cordons and spraying tear gas.
  • In 2016, Ukraine’s parliament amended article 124 of the constitution, removing a constitutional barrier to ratification of the Rome Statute as of June 2019.
  • Although Ukraine is not a member of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it accepted the court’s jurisdiction over alleged crimes committed on its territory since November 2013.

Meanwhile, if you can stomach it, here is the report for Russia.

  • The human rights situation in Russia continued to deteriorate in 2019. With few exceptions, authorities responded to rising civic activism with bans, repressive laws, and showcase prosecutions.
  • Officials’ disregard for public concerns about the environmental and health impacts of waste management projects sparked widespread protests, and the authorities routinely harassed and prosecuted environmental activists.
  • The government introduced new restrictions to online speech and adopted a law that could allow it to isolate the Russian segment of the internet.
  • Torture and other ill-treatment remained widespread
  • Police in Ulan-Ude used excessive force and carried out arbitrary detentions to break up peaceful, election-related protests
  • Russian authorities continued to persecute minority religious groups groundlessly designated as “extremist”
  • police in Chechnya carried out a new round of unlawful detentions, beatings, and humiliation of men they presumed to be gay or bisexual.

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Sorry Bhante I don’t think I’m getting my point across very well. I’m not at all implying Ukraine’s government is so abhorrent that they earned being invaded or anything. My point was that basically every government commits the crimes of poverty and hunger and homelessness on their population, so violent resistance against exchanging a bad government for a worse one like Bhikkhu Bodhi was advocating doesn’t seem to make sense from a Buddhist perspective. I’m not using whataboutism.

I’m from the USA where we fairly routinely commit much worse acts than Ukraine has even been accused of, let alone proven to have done. It’s just so strange to me that Bhikkhu Bodhi seems to believe that “sovereignty” is something worth killing over when the real consequences of this would “just” be more suffering and discomfort than they’re already subjected to. If you were to take that to its logical conclusion, why would violence not be justified to overthrow any government that subjects its population to suffering? How many deaths and miserable lives are the US government responsible for just in our own country because of a clearly unethical for-profit healthcare system? Studies give numbers between 25,000 to 45,000 unnecessary yearly deaths in the USA so that people that are already wealthy can have even more. I don’t see that as being more moral than what Russia is doing so you’d think Bhikkhu Bodhi wouldn’t have such extremely different diagnoses of those 2 situations.

If I may ask, why were you more critical of Thanissaro Bhikkhu’s supposed naivety than Bhikkhu Bodhi’s advocacy for breaking precepts? I hope this doesn’t come across as antagonistic, I’m just trying to understand your middle position between the 2.

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No worries, thanks for the response. I am, you may have noticed, 100% out of patience for Putin apologists, so i am glad you are not one of them!

And I’m from Australia where we have dutifully followed the USA wherever it leads.

And despite all the horrors, we are still lucky to live in countries where we can complain about our governments and advocate for better policies without fear.

The context here is the Westphalian doctrine, which basically says that states get to manage their own affairs, and internal matters are never a pretext for invasion. This has been regularly blurred, for example, by the US in pretending that the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq had anything to do with improving the status of women. Even if it did, it has nothing to do with a pretext for war, even if one subscribed to a just war theory, which I do not.

What Putin is doing is another level. He wants to overthrow the Westphalian order entirely and assert his country’s right to invade other countries merely to assert dominion. That this is in fact the case has become increasingly clear over the months of the war, as Putin and his mouthpieces have shed any thin pretense of justification.

And this is why this war is so uniquely dangerous. It’s not just the nukes, it is a systematic denial of any international order based on anything other than imperial might.

(And yes, the US and its allies have a historical role to play in this, by normalizing acting outside of international norms, most prominently in the “war on terror”.)

That is a severe misrepresentation of BB’s position.

See, the thing is, moral absolutists like Thanissaro are great at taking stands that make them sound principled and rigorous. But when it comes to showing courage and sticking up for those in need, not so much. Let us not forget that it is BB who supports bhikkhuni ordination, while Thanissaro did everything he could to undermine it, and BB who actively works to build peace and justice through his global relief fund.

Thanissaro says things like,

The only way to keep yourself from getting sucked into this pattern is to have strong principles against killing

The “only way”? Really? For him, you have a rule and you stick to it and that solves all your problems. But that just isn’t how humanity works. Like, not at all. Moral behavior is complex and mixed, and is never just dictated by principles. The only way you could imagine this is if you had built for yourself a highly isolated and specialized environment where everyone around you was dedicated to ensuring that you could keep all your rules.

Bhikkhu Bodhi, on the other hand, says:

Is nonviolent resistance obligatory when war crimes are committed in plain sight and ethnic cleansing or even genocide may lie right around the corner? I don’t have easy answers to these questions

Again, I don’t agree with BB’s argument, and I am not interested in a “middle ground” except insofar as it “avoids” both approaches, which I regard as differently flawed. But BB sounds like a compassionate human grappling with hard problems in a sincere way, while Thanissaro’s only answer is to insist that we must conform to rules.

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when a training rule is laid down for my disciples they wouldn’t break it even for the sake of their own life.
This is the second thing the mendicants love about this teaching and training.
AN 8.19

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It is a cold, hard fact that monks do not have the research skills and knowledge of independent professional reporters and that their understanding of geopolitics remains limited, all the more so when they seek information from TV broadcasts or from the first few results given by Google on a given topic.

Therefore they should follow the Buddha’s advice and avoid commenting publicly on geopolitics that they don’t fully understand due to the extreme complexity of current affairs and the limited time available to monks to delve into such wordly issues. That way they would make sure that they don’t make false statements based on incomplete or biased information provided by defense contractors funded media or Silicon Valley tech giants which are caught misrepresenting the truth about war on a daily basis.

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I’d say especially for unenlightened people. We have to hold to our principles and to the Buddha’s advice, but I think we should also retain a bit of humility and generosity within that as well.

For example, the Buddha condemned suicide, yet we can also recognize the compassion of someone jumping on a grenade to save his friends. Such poignant stories can be found across Buddhist literature, starting with the Pāli Jatakas.

How is running a successful charitable organization not “an example?”

{Why-not-both.jpeg} We can both relieve suffering in this life and spread more emancipatory teachings. Those things are not at odds.

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Bhante, I’m quite confused by this. Where did the Buddha ever give such advice?

The Buddha of the Pāli Canon I know was one who was not afraid to give kings advice about how to run their kingdoms, one who spoke out against warmongering of any kind, and one who even protested the invasion of his natal republic. Of course the Buddha didn’t take up arms to defend his clan! But he didn’t just ignore the threat of genocide either. He spoke out eloquently against bloodshed and its harms to all.

In the end, we do everyone a disservice if we pretend that genocide is too complicated to “fully understand” or “comment on.” The Buddha certainly didn’t want monks to become politicians, but we certainly do have a duty “to encourage others to not kill”

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They engaged in all kinds of unworthy talk, such as talk about kings, bandits, and ministers; talk about armies, threats, and wars; talk about food, drink, clothes, and beds; talk about garlands and fragrances; talk about family, vehicles, villages, towns, cities, and countries
AN 10.69

It is quite clear to me from this that talking about a country’s sovereignty or advocating for a country to maintain its previously established borders at the cost of all out war would qualify as “animal talk”.

I would think there is a difference between answering questions from a king who has physically come humbly to seek advice and putting out public statements on poorly understood world affairs.

For example, Bhikkhu Bodhi doesn’t seem to understand that providing weapons to Ukraine is a form of money laundry that hides in plain sight, where money is moved from public funds (alimented by taxes and money printing, aka legalized money counterfeiting) to war-profiteering weapon manufacturers, that would consider him as a useful dupe. Not even mentioning that most of those weapons are diverted to feed international weapons smuggling.

BB also doesn’t account for the fact that books have been written as far back as the 1990s about how the US could weaken Russia by using Ukraine the same way they used Afghanistan in the 1980s at terrible human cost, or that multiple US officials have now admitted that this is a proxy war of the USA against Russia or that there is footage of top US officials telling the Ukrainians that they fully support an offensive of Ukraine against Russia in 2016.

I don’t think there is any disagreement on this

Does this come from an EBT?

The USA used a false claim of genocide to start the first gulf war. Even now it would take dozens, if not hundreds of hours of research to “fully understand” what happened in Rwanda or Yougoslavia. Now both sides of this USA/Ukraine - Russia conflict accuse each other of genocide. The answers are not obvious and would warrant proper investigation before being correctly commented on.

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Bhante, I don’t think it is an issue of a lack of information, but in the simple fact that the Buddha never equates preferable and tranquil circumstances, i.e. a pleasing state of the world, with the knowledge of liberation. One is liberated on account of an imperturbability, not merely on account of having fashioned a world (and circumstances) that align with their own or another’s preference - that notion of what a just and good world should be. Certainly the Buddha advised kings and those with great responsibility, but he never suggested that efforts in being just, virtuous and dutiful for the creation of a more pleasant society, was comparable to the change that happens upon the gain of liberation. I disagree with the suggestion that if the monastics you are speaking about were better informed they would be sharing more beneficial information. In the end, trying to present the clearest picture of the world for inspection implies that changing the world is the highest and best kind of work. Think about it…accurate or not, fault-finding in the world implies that the reason or origin of suffering is out there in the world, but that does not seem to be the theme described in the four noble truths. Craving is the reason for fault-finding, so even if all those faults were gone, craving remains.

Just my two cents. Apologies if I misunderstood you.

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It’s fine. My argument is not that monks should be better informed but that they should refrain from putting out public statements based on gross misunderstanding of geopolitics. It is not a good image for the Sangha and it demonstrably goes against the Buddha’s advice in my opinion

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Hi Bhante, but the implication seems to be that if the statements were not based on “gross misunderstandings” that they would not be as harmful. One hot coal may not be as dangerous and deadly as a charcoal pit, but it is still going to melt my skin. A lesser amount of what is unbeneficial does not imply a benefit imo

The issue in this discussion seems to be a disagreement about priority - where exactly the Buddha advises us to apply effort and for what benefits. In the end, where we “go to work” is determined by what we prefer to change, and efforts to change the world may never bridge into an effort to change the view. I think that is very important to consider.

@moderators, since editing is not allowed in slow mode, if you could be so kind as to edit this correction into my previous post it would be greatly appreciated: “Certainly the Buddha advised kings and those with great responsibility, but he never suggested that efforts in being just, virtuous and dutiful for the creation of a more pleasant society, was comparable to the change that happens upon the gain of liberation.”

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As an asside, @moderators, I wonder if the no-editing feature of slow mode could be turned off. I understand that people could edit their posts in a malicious way, but I think in a slow mode situation it is just as important for people to have the chance to correct misstatements they have made.

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@SDC Edited

@Snowbird unfortunately that is not possible from our side, to the best of our knowledge.

With Metta,
Ric
On behalf of the moderators

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I agree. It is the most consistent choice if you wish to live according to the Dhamma.

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Hi SDC, it seems that there isn’t too much fundamental disagreement here, except that the position you ascribe to me is in contradiction with my earlier statement in this thread, so let me refer you to it.

It is true however that I could have worded the statement you are taking issue with in a way that would convey my argument more comprehensively, so let me rephrase it slightly:

My argument is not that monks should be better informed but that they should refrain from putting out public statements about geopolitics, all the more so when they are based on gross misunderstanding of the subject matter.

In other words, my argument is that it is bad enough that a monk should issue a public statement about geopolitics, it is even worse when they do so incompetently, and worse yet when it is to advocate for compromising what is probably the most basic precept of the Buddha’s teaching.

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Understood, Bhante. Thank you for the clarification.

Overall, great care should be taken when discussing these matters, as you suggest, but even more so when making a statement from a position of great influence. Again, there is no doubt that the Buddha sat down with kings, people of great esteem, with great influence, and with much responsibility, but he never implied a blending of different directions - a conflation of different gains - that are available on account of efforts. There is much value to maintaining a just, fair and prosperous society, and the Buddha advised those who were committed to that end, but there were obvious limitations to remaining in the lay life, intent on maintaining those circumstances. So, right there, is a goal that aligns with the noble eightfold path only to the extent that it does not compromise that ideal of the society. What that meant was that a monarch had to approve of the practice of warfare and a justice system, which implies the potential for the taking of lives (not to mention a myriad of practices not aligned with “right livelihood” that would have to be allowable for commerce). More than trying to say such things were conditionally approved or encouraged by the Buddha, I think it would be more accurate to say that the Buddha was simply being practical regarding the matter he was asked about - as if to say, go ahead and make circumstances comfortable for your people, but for those who support those efforts by breaking precepts (live in unwholesome ways), do not get a special pass. It is a compromise to protect the world and circumstances. It is implied in most every conversation he has with a king as they often depart because they have many things to attend to - they don’t come to the Buddha to ordain or to be convinced to no longer rule.

The distinction between those meritorious efforts to make a prosperous and safe society and those made towards the gain of liberation must be emphasized. This means choosing our words very carefully. I think it was recently in another similar topic that I said, it seems the gain of liberation is often treated as a figurehead of Buddhism that gets the obligatory honorable mention, but there is less and less effort to prioritize it. This blending of different themes is totally unnecessary. If a monastic wishes to make a statement about the world, just as the Buddha did when asked about these matters, there can be a careful effort to make this distinction: make it clear that it is a unambiguous compromise to prioritize worldly circumstances, that it is not part of the noble path despite certain alignments, and also, just ensure the general tone of the discourse elevates the path above all else. That can be a win win, and there is less risk of watering down the goal of the path and legitimate

Unfortunately, the prevailing assumption seems to be that this distinction “goes without saying” and of course liberation is the highest and best goal, so, therefore many prominent Buddhists choose not to take the time to clearly and firmly emphasize it. That is the lasting harm imo.

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This is a nice ideal, but is it realistic? Light (or bright) actions lead to rebirth in the brahmā realms:

And what are bright deeds with bright results? It’s when someone makes pleasing choices by way of body, speech, and mind. Having made these choices, they are reborn in a pleasing world, where pleasing contacts strike them. Touched by pleasing contacts, they experience pleasing feelings that are exclusively happy—like the gods replete with glory. (MN 57)

The implications seems to be that light results (“gods replete with glory”) come from kamma performed by an entirely pure mind, that is, where the hindrances are completely absent. This sort of mind state is not available for the vast majority of people, which means they will have to be content with doing dark and light kamma leading to dark and light results.

It seems to me that thinking of morality in black and white terms is generally not sensible, even for committed Buddhists. Compromise in morality is a necessary consequence of having a defiled mind. The way I see it, most Buddhists should aim at moving towards lighter shades of gray, rather than trying for entirely bright actions, at least in the earlier stages of the path.

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Hi Bhante,

You said:

The way I see it, most Buddhists should aim at moving towards lighter shades of gray, rather than trying for entirely bright actions, at least in the earlier stages of the path.

The truth of the matter is, that even if a person is perfectly restrained when it comes unwholesome acts by both body and speech, as per the 5 or 8 precepts, unwholesome acts of mind are still more than enough for dark results to loom over them.

”Mendicants, I do not see a single thing that is so very blameworthy as wrong view. Wrong view is the most blameworthy thing of all.” -AN 1.318

So, a person should be extremely cautious to think they can even find that lighter shade of gray with how they behave just on the physical level of body and speech, which seems to be the implication here.

Also good to keep in mind the lump of salt simile from AN 3.100. A person who is undeveloped could have even the most trivial act land them in hell while someone who is developed could have the same act exhausted here and now without remainder. Someone who is in the early stages could be thoroughly unqualified to know if any of their current wisdom applies on the level of Dhamma, and while the prospect of balancing out to a lighter shade of gray may seem more approachable and manageable for the ordinary person, it could have detrimental results if they never opt to move any further, which is a very common occurrence. In short: it is a risky baseline.

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All kamma is tied to either greed, hatred or delusion or a mix of these based on the situation.

When the greed/hatred/delusion is so strong that one is in fact willing to break any of the precepts: the kamma is dark and nothing but dark.

AN 3.66:

What do you think, Sāḷha? Is greed real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Covetousness’ is what I mean by this. A person who is greedy and covetous kills living creatures, steals, commits adultery, lies, and encourages others to do the same. Is that for their lasting harm and suffering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think, Sāḷha? Is hate real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Malice’ is what I mean by this. A hateful and malicious person kills living creatures, steals, commits adultery, lies, and encourages others to do the same. Is that for their lasting harm and suffering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think, Sāḷha? Is delusion real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Ignorance’ is what I mean by this. A person who is deluded and ignorant kills living creatures, steals, commits adultery, lies, and encourages others to do the same. Is that for their lasting harm and suffering?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think, Sāḷha, are these things skillful or unskillful?”

“Unskillful, sir.”

“Blameworthy or blameless?”

“Blameworthy, sir.”

“Criticized or praised by sensible people?”

“Criticized by sensible people, sir.”

“When you undertake them, do they lead to harm and suffering, or not? Or how do you see this?”

“When you undertake them, they lead to harm and suffering. That’s how we see it.”

But there are beings that do keep the precepts 100% but still obviously has greed/hate/delusion, but never to the point of ever killing, stealing or lying etc.

AN 3.66:

What do you think? Is contentment real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Satisfaction’ is what I mean by this. A person who is content and satisfied doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit adultery, lie, or encourage others to do the same. Is that for their lasting welfare and happiness?”

“Yes, sir.”

What do you think? Is love real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Kindness’ is what I mean by this. A loving and kind-hearted person doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit adultery, lie, or encourage others to do the same. Is that for their lasting welfare and happiness?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What do you think, Sāḷha? Is understanding real?”

“Yes, sir.”

“‘Knowledge’ is what I mean by this. A person who understands and knows doesn’t kill living creatures, steal, commit adultery, lie, or encourage others to do the same. Is that for their lasting welfare and happiness?”

“Yes, sir.”

Contentment/Satisfaction:

Greed is still there, but never to the point that one would ever break the precepts.

Love/Kindness:

Hatred is still there, but never to the point that one would ever break the precepts.

Understanding/Knowledge:

Ignorance is still there, but never to the point that one would ever break the precepts.

Buddhist right view regarding the afterlife and the consequences of actions is found in all other religions, so one could still be delusional/ignorant regarding some things yet still have Understanding/Knowledge about the afterlife and thanks to that never break the precepts.

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I wonder what is this strange creature with ignorance but with inability to break moral precepts? Where we can find him, apart your mind? :wink: