"In the Shambhala warrior tradition, we say you should only have to kill an enemy once every thousand years."
--Chogyam Trungpa
Osama bin Laden is dead. We killed him. It seemed there was no choice. We were clearly in an "us-or-them" situation, and if we didn't kill him, he was going to continue to do everything in his power to kill us.
As Buddhists, we are supposed to abhor all killing, but what do you do when someone is trying to kill you? Obviously, great theologians have pondered this question for millennia, and I'm not going to try to pile on with my point of view, which would be totally useless.
Instead, I'll pose this question: How do you kill your enemy in a way that puts a stop to violence rather than escalates it?
Strangely, I keep coming back to the same rather ordinary conclusion: the answer is in our ability to face our most intense emotions. When we know how to relate to our anger, hatred, despair and frustration fully and properly, they self-liberate. When we don't, when we can't tolerate them and therefore act them out, we create enormous sorrow and confusion.
Look at your own reaction this morning.
Was there even a hint of vengefulness or gladness at Osama bin Laden's death? If so, that is a real problem. Whatever suffering he may have experienced cannot reverse even one moment of the suffering he caused. If you believe his death is a form of compensation, you are deluded.
There has been an outpouring of misdirected jubilation, as if a contest had been won. Nothing has been won. Unlike winning a sporting event, this doesn't mean that our team has triumphed. Far from it. There is only one team, and it is us. When those of us (especially our leaders) who now foment violence choose instead to try to create peace, then we will truly have cause for celebration.
One of us is gone -- one apparently horrific, terrible, vicious person among us is gone. I don't feel regret for him or about this. I'm regretful for the rest of us who are now left thinking that this is a cause for celebration. It is not. It is a cause for sorrow at our continued inability to realize that there is no such thing as us-and-them, that whatever we do to cause harm to one will harm us all.
When we hate, we cause hate. When we think we have won by vanquishing our enemy, we have lost. In killing Osama bin Laden, "they" lose because one of their leaders is gone. But we lose, too, because we have deepened the causes and conditions that lead to more hatred and its consequences. This is not over.
So what do we do? I don't really know, but for me, rather than cheering on this day, I'm going to rededicate myself to the idea of brotherhood toward all, even those that want me dead -- and not because I'm some kind of really good person (I'm not), but because I know it's the only way to stay alive in the only kind of world I want to inhabit.
Perhaps the way to kill your enemy as a way of putting a stop to violence rather than escalating is to shift our view of "enemy" altogether. Our enemy is not one person or country or belief system. It is our unwillingness to feel the sorrow of others -- who are none other than us.
So take aim at this enemy completely and precisely. Feel your sadness for us and them so fully and completely that all boundaries are dissolved and we are left standing face to face, human to human, each feeling the other's rage and despair as our own, one world to care for.
"[W]hen you do not produce another force of hatred, the opposing force collapses."
--Chogyam Trungpa
If you'd like to try to generate such a switch, please try lovingkindness meditation. Here is audio instruction in the practice.
Follow Susan Piver on Twitter: www.twitter.com/spiver
Huffington Post: Osama Bin Laden Killed: HuffPost Bloggers React
Osama bin Laden - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Osama Bin Laden Dead, Obama Announces
Bin Laden's demise: Long pursuit, burst of gunfire - Yahoo! News
Osama bin Laden Killed by U.S. Forces in Pakistan - ABC News
It is not, in my opinion, a thing to rejoice, but neither is it a thing to grieve. It is a thing. It occurred because it occurred. I am not so manifestly omniscient that I can say with confidence that it was good or bad. Perhaps he was himself a vehicle of kharma. That does not excuse, because he had other choices. Those who chose to kill him also had other choices, and now must likewise face their consequences. The wheel turns because it turns.
Concern yourself with the thing you can change, not the things you cannot. Maybe the world will never be as beautiful as you would like - or maybe it already is. Are you certain you would know either way?
Yet when I heard about the end of Bin Laden the other night I felt numb and realized I felt sad. Why? I couldn't think of any reason to feel sad about him. Reading your words helped me to understand the sadness I am feeling. I have been brought to a level I don't want to be at even if it is a necessity I hope and pray the retaliation will not be too great.
I praise the Navy Seals who undertook this mission and hope they do not lose that part of them that allows them to be sensitive to life because they had to take this one.
God bless America, all of us, and pray God show us the right path to follow through and keep freedom alive. We are examples to the rest of the world.
Thank you Ms Susan Piver for your words.
The sense on the ground and in the city at that time is very different from seeing the whole thing on TV through the lens of media hype. This piece helped me to say that. Alison
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1000762,00.html
This was the most stimulating debate I have enjoyed in a long time. Just mention peace and watch what happens. We have a ways to go. Still I prefer this path even though still a minority.
This is worth celebrating. Nobody is wrong to celebrate it. You don't have to if you don't want to, but don't you dare preach because we disagree with your oversimplified ethics.
I think we were totally justified in killing bin Laden. There was no choice. We did the right thing.
The "Should we have celebrated..." headline was not mine. The HuffPo editors wrote it and frankly I think it's a bit inflammatory. Not at all the point of my post.
I feel incredibly relieved that he is gone, mostly for the families who suffered losses on 9/11.
I totally support our right (and the need) to take military action to defend ourselves.
I believe that the only route to avoid such situations in the future is to develop compassionate relationships, even with our enemies.This is a very complex thing. It should only be attempted by grown-ups. Someone has got to go first. I suggest that we be that someone.
Most of all: I love our country. I love our President.
I desire peace above all things so that our children can live under different circumstances. Because right now, we're on a collision course for only more violence.
If this makes me a sanctimonious, arrogant, judgmental, cruel, holier-than-thou Mac user, then so be it. (Yes, one accusation leveled at me was that I am a Mac user.)
Wow, incredible, the power of supposed religious convictions to make a simple issue complicated!
bin Laden continues to divide us. I have after some thought come to the place where celebrating his death is inappropriate.
But the evil in him is with us still. We are fighting and sniping at each other all over HP. Here is a quote from John McDevitt responding to my post about the real cost of bin Laden:
"But I have better things to do than read the blatherings of old women who most likely smell of cat food and kitty litter."
And this was the nice part. The post made it to comments activity, but did not make it to this board.
bin Laden has us - again - at each other. There is no reason to celebrate this man in life or in death.
You have my full support. I understand the anger people feel (i've felt it too), but the question is, "Do we want things to change IN THE FUTURE?" If we do, we have to go BEYOND emotion, to STRATEGY. Spiritual strategies work. That is why i love the quote you put at the end of your article:
[W]hen you do not produce another force of hatred, the opposing force collapses."
--Chogyam Trungpa
I give you credit for writing an article that was sure to be controversial, in the interest of expanding the conscientiousness of everyone, with the ultimate hope of spreading peace. We know what spreading hate does. We also know Gandhi positively affected a nation using a spiritual/peaceful strategy.
Speaking Tuesday to about 3,000 students at the University of Southern California, the 75-year-old Tibetan leader says bin Laden, as a human being, may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness.
But the Los Angeles Times says the Dalai Lama added: "Forgiveness doesn't mean forget what happened."
He says it is sometimes necessary to take counter-measures.
What I appreciated most was that the president opted for a targeted surgical strike instead of bombing, because the latter would have lead to a greater loss of human life and less certainty about the mission's success. This is how I wish we'd done it in the first place, in 2002 when we knew he was at Tora Bora and wounded.
In the end, I think this was the best possible outcome. Maybe it's justice. I don't know. It can't bring back any of his victims, but if it disrupts any future attacks he was planning, then perhaps it stops him from creating more victims. That's enough for me.
However - what I felt when I heard the news was a form of "happy relief" - relief that a chapter in the hatred between East and West had been closed. Certainly the book is not finished, but again, never again with this monster have the opportunity to plan and execute more atrocities against ANY people, regardless of nationality, religion or race. And I do not accept that this feeling is in any way, shape, form or fashion "wrong".
Thank you for so aptly putting to words my complex emotions about this situation. Bravo!
Pier