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Comment by emptysongglass | Hacker News Reader

> The premise that Buddhism is anti-violence feels like a misunderstanding on itself.

Buddhism is anti-violence. I can't believe I need to make this argument here. Folks, if you're going to make statements, please do your research first. [1]

> Gananath Obeyesekere, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University, said that "in the Buddhist doctrinal tradition... there is little evidence of intolerance, no justification for violence, no conception even of 'just wars' or 'holy wars.' ... one can make an assertion that Buddhist doctrine is impossible to reconcile logically with an ideology of violence and intolerance" [2]

[1] https://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/nonviolence.html

[2] https://books.google.dk/books?id=iAy5jsBAF0oC&pg=PA181&redir...

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Christianity is also anti-violence. <insert-any-other-regilion-here> is ...

I'm not sure how you can even qualify an idea or religion as violent or anti-violent, other than by the behavior of it's adherents.

It's clear to me there are violent fanatics in all reglions, I can't believe I have to make THAT argument here.

Because Buddhism is explicitly anti-violence. It does not emerge from a vacuum. The Buddha himself explicitly, insistently, and repeatedly stressed this. It's in the very scriptures all of Buddhism is built on. Buddhism is not an idea. The existence of violent fanatics across all religions does not, in any way, invalidate this, because they are people acting in the name of a religion that contrary to their actions stresses, ad nauseum, non-violence in its foundational texts.

Most regional traditions of Buddhism allow for the use of violence with justification, just like any other religion.

Buddhism (and to a certain extent Hindusim) are treated with an orientalist view where Westerners assumes they are somehow more "peaceful" than their religions, but they ain't.

This is simply not true. Most regional traditions of Buddhism do not allow for the use of violence with justification and, regardless, the Buddhist suttas do not provide any such justification.

At least in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand, modern Buddhism adopted a number of innovations and interpretations from the Buddhist revivalist movement lead by Anagarika Dharmapala in Sri Lanka back under colonial rule, and all use the Upayakaushalya Sutra to justify their violence as for the "greater good".

When discussing religion, it’s important to not mix up three rather different things:

1. The teaching itself

2. The clerical institution, often fused with and distorted by state power

3. The practice as understood and lived by ordinary people

I disagree. It is always 2 and 3 that sets the tone of a religion because humans have a way of corrupting everything we touch.

1 always remains "highbrow" and isolated from the stresses of 2 and 3; and it's 2 and 3 that set the tone of a religion.

That's human problem, not the teaching's problem. Some monks managed to behave badly even during the times of the Buddha.

The problem of the discussion here is that some participants are claiming that Buddhism is not anti-violence which is like going around claiming that Christianity/Islam is not anti-polytheism.

You won't be able to cite anything from Pali Canon that justifies it.

The Five Precepts, starting with "I undertake the training-precept to abstain from onslaught on breathing beings," make no exceptions, under any circumstances.

Here’s a verse from the Dhammapada, the short poetic summary of the Buddha’s teachings:

    All tremble at the rod,
    all are fearful of death.
    Drawing the parallel to yourself,
    neither kill nor get others to kill.
    
    All tremble at the rod,
    all hold their life dear.
    Drawing the parallel to yourself,
    neither kill nor get others to kill.

I mean... they are in comparison, but not to the extent many imagine, it's a matter of degree.

>> <insert-any-other-regilion-here> is

Factually incorrect. Many religions are explicitly against another religions and degrade any non-believers, just like Hitler did with jews to make the general public do horrid things.

Buddhism encourages non-violence, it's not strictly enforced, but there will be consequences when they die.

Then again, just because some people's doctrine does not encourage violence doesn't give others a free ticket to bash on them for doing so.

Again, this is incorrect. I have cited direct sources of Buddhist scripture that unequivocally denounce and condemn violence in all forms. Encourages is far too weak a word to describe Buddhist scripture on the topic, which uses strong language in every case. Prohibitions against violence are enforced by the Vinaya, which is the code of ethics all monks must follow.

I've noticed you repeatedly in this thread treating Buddhism with a kind of pure scripturalism and disregard for the actual expressions of faith by the community professing it that resembles the (relatively novel even within Christianity) approach of Fundamentalist Protestantism to the Christian Bible, and I wonder if there is any basis with Buddhism itself for this or...

Not him, but you can look up what Theravada is.

Are you claiming that the sola scriptura-like approach is actually an element of Theravada Buddhism or that the positions being defended with that approach are actually the distinct tenants of Theravada Buddhism? (I mean, I get from the repeated references to the Pali Canon that the arguments—framed as general to Buddhism—are likely Theravada-focused, but that doesn't really answer the question I was asking.)

Yes, it goes as far as some Theravada traditions not giving much attention to Theravada's own commentary corpus, which was added centuries after the Buddha's life.

The "let's go back to origins" approach is not a Western invention, the existence of Chan/Zen proves it quite clearly.

Mahayana and Vajrayana are both branches of Buddhism that venerate texts most scholars of repute hold in very dubious regard. They came long after, and are stylistically distinct from, the Pali Canon.

> A. K. Warder notes that the Mahāyāna Sūtras are highly unlikely to have come from the teachings of the historical Buddha, since the language and style of every extant Mahāyāna Sūtra is comparable more to later Indian texts than to texts that could have circulated in the Buddha's putative lifetime. Warder also notes that the Tibetan historian Tāranātha (1575–1634) proclaimed that after the Buddha taught the sutras, they disappeared from the human world and circulated only in the world of the nagas. In Warder's view, "this is as good as an admission that no such texts existed until the 2nd century A.D."

I certainly do regard the actual expressions of faith by its many communities, but not all are correct, and one need look no further than to compare the actual root texts to the monstrous actions of people determined to burn the world down in its name. You are invited to do so for yourself, as the Buddha has always done, and compare the words to the actions of those who claim lineage.

> na haneyya na ghātaye

There is the Pali in a handful of words. Now you have the tools to discern for yourself: what does it tell us to do or not to do?

It's been my observation there is often not that strong of a correlation between what religious texts say and how its adherents behave, especially when it comes to matters such as this.

We can have a semantic discussion about what "Buddhism" in "Buddhism is anti-violence" means exactly (What the text says? What scholars (which?) interpret? How Buddhists (which?) behave?), but that's kind of a boring discussion.

IMHO "$religion is anti-violence" (or "$religion is violent", for that matter) is not that important.

There's branches like "Middle Way", Dzogchen or Zen where there's a line drawn. Conventional truth, where violence/nonviolence have meaning and importance, and ultimate truth where both are empty of their essence.

Of course, this does not mean Buddhism is for violence in the common sphere of human activity.

> Buddhism is anti-violence.

Then Shaolin monks have some explaining to do

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