I hope I am not being off-topic but are there verses for a nuclear apocalypse? I am seething in helpless rage and it is not the most useful of mental states.
Hereās my recent comment on reducing that fear/worry about nuclear war.
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Oh I can relate very well to the state you are in! For me it was not so much rage, but for some days I felt like paralyzed.
The thought that helped me out of that state of inner freeze was something along the lines: Itās not within my power to stop a nuclear war from happening. But what is within my power is what I do until this happens. I can make bad choices or I can make good choices. I can act in selfish ways or I can act in compassionate ways, on any occasion that may arise. So I am not powerless!
Realizing this makes me feel much lighter inside, I even find back my smile. 
And ā¦ as to verses for a nuclear apocalypse: The context is somewhat different, but try the Sutta on the seven suns, AN 7.66. Itās definitely apocalyptic. Itās about the impermanence of conditions.
Or just read the continuation of Snp 4.15, the part of the poem that is not quoted in the OP above. It explains how to pull out that subtle dart that is stuck in the heart and that makes us suffer when everything is in turmoil. Itās not an easy comfort. Itās deep, very demandingāasking you to give up everything. The Buddha never claimed following his path is easy. Itās demanding, but as far as I can see itās the only possible way out.
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Obviously, they have not pushed enough weapons to deter the attack. Ukraine got rid of their nuclear weapons and got a āpromiseā that their borders will stay intact. Had they the nuclear weapons they would probably not be attacked.
I donāt see any reason why sovereign nation canāt join military alliance, with this war showing that it would be better if they where in NATO. Putin didnāt attack Estonia - rather easy target but precisely the country that was vulnerable.
I live in Poland and when I was born, Poland was part of the eastern block. After decades of military occupation by Russians eastern countries do not want to be part of Russian authoritarian political sphere. Same with Ukraine.
I thought that the āappeasementā strategy backfired enough in 1939 not to be repeated in xxi century.
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Nobody knows, but if they hadnāt given up their nuclear weapons and if the Russian president was absolutely mad, then where would we be now
If the alliance was there before it started to heat up, then yes, that might be enough to make sure that this situation couldnāt arise.
But it is another reality now, and everybody seems to think that the best way to solve this problem is to send in more guns, but I donāt think its the wisest way to go, because its the same way we always goes, and it leads us most probably to the same place this time around.
We want to help you to defend yourself, and that seems right and compassionate, but to the human being on the battlefield, those guns are there to kill him or her, so we in the West are helping you to kill other human beings, and that can never be the right thing to do.
And I was born in the freedom of the West and came under indoctrination to hate and look down upon you in the east, because we were on top, free and jolly, - which in my experience is āfree to let the market forces prey upon my soul, and become a slave to greed and lustā, which destroyed my spirit and ruined my life.
What started the madness with a single act of rage, the bullet in Sarajevo, has been going on until now. The wars have been hot and cold, the fighting has been moved in and out of Europe, even into space, so now maybe it has come home again, like a circle, and all the time itās the same force that lays underneath the surface, power and greed.
And parents have been sending generation upon generation of young people out into the trenches, and their loss and grief have been piling up, making the agony so high that it naturally leans forward into where it all came from, the powers of hate and revenge.
The Ukrainian president has received unison positive feedback from us on how he is standing tall in the face of barbarism, making a new story about how it should be done, a good reason to die for in the future.
I would think he could do even better if he said this: Donāt lift your hand either to assist or hurt the Russian brothers and sisters and to the rest of the world: Help us the wisest way you can but donāt kill our neighbours. We will show you where real bravery comes from, it comes from the heart, and itās indestructible, so come on and join hearts together.
It started with a single bullet in Sarajevo, and it set the world on fire, so could an opposite act, like the one I described, start a cooling down of the fire that never has run out of fuel that is so easily produced out of the fact that we all are totally deluded?
Now, that would really scare any demon and devil.
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But it makes western countries and UN a hypocrite
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I agree with you that the Ukrainian government decided not to accept Putinās demands. That in my opinion, does not warrant invasion, war, killing etc. even if you are of the opinion that the change will somehow be better for them. The end goal does not justify the means.
Iām not sure how you could prove this generalization, as I know many Russians that are against Putin, against this war and feel close to the west. And Ukraine is a very diverse country, some parts of which never belonged to the Russian Empire. The concept of nationality does not correspond exactly to a personās individual condition.
So your point is that it is okay to invade Ukraine bomb civilians and do lots of killing because Western countries are hypocrites?
No. I want to say that same restrictions should be applied to US as are bwing applied to Russia
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So do you think the invasion of Ukraine is wrong?
In Buddhist lens, any act of killing is unwholesome.
Donāt get too caught up in superhero lens/morality thinking which labels good or bad to actors and justify doing bad to the bad.
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Yes its wrong. And economic sanctions on russian citizens and paralympics who have nothing to do with the war are also wrong. Either tou have economic sanctions on all countries like Israel , USA, Saudi arabia who indulge in wars or you donāt have them on any of them
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It does not warrant an invasion, but worse, it led to one.
What goes against worldly ways works in its favor. If we are not to generalize about what the Ukrainian people want, then Putin is right by supporting the independence of eastern provinces. How about we divide Ukraine into smaller bits and pieces to allow for as much diversity of views as possible and to eliminate generalizations.
On the other hand, similarities between Chinese and Taiwanese in terms of look, customs, language, history ā¦etc seems to have more in common than with the west. Same thing can be said about Ukraine and Russia.
I think the complexity of cause and effect is too large to point just to the Ukrainians being at fault.
This is precisely one of the possible outcomes of this war, a partition of the country. My point is that we are creating these conflicts based on where we drew borders. Iām pleading for not being so attached to these concepts as to start a violent conflict.
Iām not sure if people think Ukraine is or should be western, at least, Iāve never heard that in Europe. Actually before this war, the consensus was that there would be no more eastern expansion of the EU, at least not for a long time.
I am not blaming the Ukrainians in the legal sense. I was referring to de facto situation. I think emphasis on de jure truths rarely lead to peace.
Obsession about joining the NATO and EU is equally an attachment. I doubt that Russia want to annex Ukraine in the old colonial sense. I guess they seek to topple the current leadership. I doubt Crimea will be returned to Ukraine even if an agreement is reached. Not sure about Donetsk and Luhansk, but they better return to Ukraine if a less hostile leadership (from Putinās perspective) become in charge.
The EU rejected Turkey to join the bloc until the Turks themselves somehow gave up and embraced their own identity. Same thing can be said about Anglo Saxons taking into consideration Brexit and AUKUS. After decades of having secularism and economic interests as drivers to unify people, people seem to be preferring the more traditional way.
Putting too much hope on a state or in legal or political agreements is not a good idea in my view. Relative stability and basic needs are conducive conditions for us to learn and practice. I am not against democracy nor authoritarianism if the above is secured. People with ambitions seek more than that, and we are recently having more actors (literally) as politicians and heads of states, Trump and Zelensky come to mind.
It is sad when people are dying for this!
To have a blanket experience of stability and fulfilment of need, I would argue that human decency is what is required, which will be rooted in a compassion that even extends to people with traits that can be argued to harm society such as inability to work (economic health), live peaceably with others (e.g. mental health) or fit in with others (various forms of prejudice).
Democracy currently has a hard time delivering on this blanket experience. This is because the majority can easily be sold on a status quo which benefits the majority stakeholders the most, leading to the acceptance of a lack of equity that hurts people who are seen as not in that majority group.
Is there a credible example of an authoritarian government that has produced anything near this outcome? As far as I know within living memory, authoritarians tend to be populists who enrich the chosen group with the reward of hatred against anyone different. And that, to me, does not fulfil the conditions needed for learning and practice: neither for those included in the āsuperiorā group, nor those outcast into āinferiorā designations.
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I was on a panel discussion at my university Wednesday evening on the topic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In my opening comments I observed that scholars are still arguing over the causes of World War I and we are far too close to current events to be able to arrive at a definitive explanation for why the situation has unfolded as it has. There are many plausible explanations for why Russia invaded Ukraine and we need historical perspective in order to make sense of them. It is way too early to offer definitive answers.
With that in mind, and with regards to those individuals who would argue that Russia had no choice but to invade Ukraine because of the actions of NATO and Western governments, I would offer this thought experiment: If all else remained constant, and there were a different leader of Russia, would the invasion still have taken place? I donāt known the answer, but this is the sort of theoretical exercise that can be helpful in narrowing down a range of plausible explanations for events.
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Brunei? The king there is authoritarian and corrupt to the teeth, and yet, his people enjoy high standards of living. Same thing can be said about Arab Gulf oil rich nations. No human decency is needed. More often than not, decent people would avoid leadership at all costs.
When people reach a certain equilibrium and have little complaints, it is counter productive to promote ideological reforms. The fragility of us as human beings includes vulnerability to suggestions and propaganda. Any utopian vision of the world is easily saleable under such circumstances and it is quite unfortunate that when we keep falling for it. Politicians are quite skillful in manipulating that, and that includes the so-called rebels, freedom or social justice fighters.
Had these things been solvable in a satisfactory way, knowing Dukkha would not be a noble truth. Relative stability and basic needs within this context are conserving time and effort to what is essential to the holy life, especially to lay practitioners.
There are Buddhist practitioners in both Ukraine and Russia who were needless of this war, let alone the larger population. Let us hope that whatever happens, they will use it in a way beneficial to their practice.
Iām convinced that Putin invaded Ukraine simply because since becoming president he has decided for himself that part of his legacy will be to reunite as much of the former Soviet Union into Russia as he possibly can. I think he has delusions of grandeur or a sense that he is a historical figure that needs to demonstrate and preserve a deluded Legacy. I think what heās realizing now is how out of Step his approach is and how so many of his Russian citizens who want a better life for themselves are going to rebel against him in the aftermath of this war