If there was ever a challenge to us Buddhists to keep an open mind, I think this must be it.
In The Faster Times, Russ Wellen discusses the nuclear weapons views of Christopher Ford. Dr. Ford was the Bush Administration’s lead negotiator for the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). Russ Wellen says Dr. Ford also is a member of the conservative Hoover Institute, although he's not listed among Hoover's fellows and I found no mention of him on Hoover's website. [Update: It's the Hudson Institute, sorry.]
What is certain, however, is that Christopher Ford is a Buddhist enrolled in the Chaplaincy Training Program at the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe, New Mexico. And he has some provocative things to say about The Bomb. Primarily, Dr. Ford argues that demanding the absolute eradication of nuclear weapons is not necessarily a skillful approach to world security.
In "Nukes and the Vow: Security Strategy as Peacework," Dr. Ford argues that disarmament has become too rigid a dogma.Certainty is the “near-enemy” – the dark shadow side – of insight. If we know that our position is wholly right and that those who disagree are wholly wrong, we are part of the problem. ... And we should hold our specific policy convictions lightly enough that we do not damage real insight and clarity on the sharp edges of their seeming certainties, even as we grasp the compassionate grounding of social action with all our strength.As Russ Wellen writes, the "work" of most peaceworkers amounts to seminars, Hiroshima Day celebrations and demonstrations. One could argue (and this is my argument, not Russ Wellen's) that such activity can become a form of self-indulgence; a means to claim moral superiority that doesn't actually accomplish anything. My impression is that Dr. Ford wants us to refocus on what is practical and do-able in the real world to enable as much security as possible. Dr. Ford writes,
We cannot, therefore, be absolutists, nor “theologize” disarmament. We must remember that peace and security is the public policy objective, not nuclear disarmament per se. Weapons elimination is just one possible upaya, to be used or discarded depending upon its contribution to the goal.
You may be sputtering (as I did) that this is The Bomb we're talking about. You know, the thing than could wipe out life on this planet. So please be clear that I am not necessarily endorsing Dr. Ford's point of view. But do read his essay with an open mind. You might find yourself agreeing with him more than you think you will.
This week marks the 64th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, events we remember with deep sorrow and regret. But historians say that possibly as many people died in the firebombing, with "conventional" bombs, of Tokyo in March 1945 as died in Hiroshima in August. Yet we do not observe the anniversary of the firebombing of Tokyo.
My concern is this: For most people, the use of atomic weapons is unthinkable. Is it possible that our attitude toward nuclear weapons as led to a sense that conventional weapons are not that big a deal? When people hear about missile strikes or drones killing civilians, do they shrug it off because at least it's not The Bomb?
This is a huge topic, and I've rambled on long enough. What do you think?
If nuclear disarmamemt is not realistic, everyone should be allowed to develop nuclear weapons. It’s absurd that the guy who owns a knife and has used it should be the only guy who has the right to own a knife!
“One death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic” –Stalin.
The ultimate horror of nuclear weapons has always revolved around the idea of kill ratio. A crew of 12 or so in a B-29, could kill tens of thousands of people with one weapon in a flash of light taking less than a second in Japan. (The ultimate figures of ~ 100,000 included the firestorm, and short and long term radiation sickness). In the bombings of Dresden or Hamburg, it took hundreds of somewhat smaller planes all night to have even close to the same effect of just the prompt effects, without the latent deaths. So horror and revulsion increase with the increasing efficiency of weaponry.
The same thing happened, on a much smaller scale, with the advent of the machine gun in WWI. Killing an enemy with an aimed shot was somehow honorable, using indiscriminate fire from a Maxim Gun was thought dishonorable, at least by the British (fair play old boy, you know). The same can be say with the introduction of the exploding artillery shell in the US Civil War. And on and on… the better we get at killing, the more horrified people become.
From the Buddhist perspective, I feel that a pistol is a rifle is a aerial bomb is a nuke. Killing of another human engenders a great deal of negative Karma regardless of how it is done, as long as that is the intent. Perhaps shooting someone with a rifle has a much greater chance of just wounding him, as against dropping The Bomb, which vaporizes him and 10,000 of his buddies. But I doubt the Buddha would accept that rationalization. Killing is killing. If you do it with intent, you accept the negative karma you will receive.
I think Dr. Ford is allowing his conservative culture to cloud his reasoning. He is trying to put measurements on a weapon specifically designed to kill, based on how realistic certain objectives are. ie. “We may have to settle for a 50% reduction in nuclear weapons because 100% is not realistic.”
Non-violence is non-negotiable. As Buddhists we cannot accept killing or the instruments of those deaths. If we go into nuclear negotiations with a “realistic” objective of anything less than total disarmament, we lose as human beings and members of this universe. In any negotiations, you go in with the highest objective possible. You will get much closer to your ultimate goal, then if you go in asking for something less. That is a social law!!
How can any Buddhist accept going into negotiations for nuclear disarmament with anything less than complete elimination of those weapons?
As Buddhists we cannot expect the lay humans to go for a 100% nuclear dis-armament. They will cheat each other and lead for more distructive weapons. Instead we Buddhists should teach them how to conquer their own lay minds and become saints(Aryas).
With any low the world could not still stop crime in any country. But when one conquers his mind he/she needs no low.
As Buddhists we must fight with our selves to become saints before making the world a peaceful place. We must take this message to the world.
The theory “whatever you do come back to you” will prevail and give punishment to those who do evil.
The Buddha declared world is your own mind and body and asked to try and win it if you can.
The more saints the world have the world will definitely become a nice place to live. Then those bombs will not explode or even if they explode then who die will be those who make them! Power of a saint is more than the power of a nuclear bomb!
No, that’s the Hudson, not the Hoover, Institute, Barbara. Here’s Dr. Ford’s bio there: http://www.hudson.org/learn/index.cfm?fuseaction=staff_bio&eid=ChrisFord
Thanks for writing about my piece. I’m familiar with Mahablog. Also, I used to sit at Empty Hand when it was in Rye. Nice to see Susan made roshi last year! Hope to go back when time and financial constraints allow.
Meanwhile, personally I plan to continue to abide at the nexus of Buddhism and disarmament.
Looking at the positive side of things; I am it is human beings that are in possession of The Bomb. Gods, Titans, Animals and Hell Beings might have wiped us from the face of the Earth many moons ago. I was born in the sixties and if the world powers (USSR and USA) were unable to contain themselves with those destructive weapons I would not have been. Gods (as we know from the book called The Bible and from other mythological tales) tend to be very wrathful (the Judeo-Christian God wiped out Nineve, Sodom and Gomorra without even possessing The Bomb). Titans (i.e. the Angry Gods) would not even flinch in wiping out the human race. Animals are ignorant and would not know the power and consequences of The Bomb. I don’t even want to think what hell Beings and Hungry Ghosts would have done with The Bomb.
Lastly; it is rather strange that the Japanese people (who are highly intelligent and knows something about Buddhism) did not realise that their actions would provoke an equal re-action. Dependent Origination! Kamikaze pilots and “fight-till death” mentality could only “create” The Bomb…in that regard the Japanese are actually the “creators” of The Bomb and their “bad” karma). Regrettably nations of the world are slow to learn from their (or others) errors and mistake.
Since everything we experience in the world originates in our minds Buddha says we must search deeply within… first begining with our views, intention, speech and such as in the Noble Eight fold path.
Achieving peace and security through military and violence itself is based on erroneous unwholesome views of life, peace and security. There can be no real security without development of inner peace through mindfulness.
Dhamma is good in the begining, good in the middle and good in the end because it is wholesome, complete, all pervading and excludes the well being of NONE. Dhamma is ‘Truth’… which is based on a deep understanding of human mind and behavior and compassion for all life.
All peacemakers must be willing to develop inner peace through practice of mindfulness, emotional intelligence and non-violent comunication.
peace
May I suggest as an antidote to Christopher Ford’s essay, “Getting the Message” by Ven. Thanissaro at http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/thanissaro/gettingmessage.html
In the Prajna Mountain Order — part of the stream of the White Plum Lineage of Soto Zen, by way of the Zen Peacemaker Order — the precept of “not knowing” is one of the touchstones of our practice.
Among other things, I understand this precept to urge upon the practitioner an attitude of non-dogmatic mindfulness, resting in the fundamentally illusory nature of all dharmas: an attitude of not clinging to ideas and of remaining acutely conscious of the harm wrought in this world by people who feel that they know The Right Answer with unerring certainty.
A practitioner of “not knowing” is — or should be — always alive to the powerful sense of moral agency and compassionate responsibility toward all sentient beings that can be found in a recognition that we are beings capable of choice in a world of ambiguous information and unpredictable outcomes. In the idiom of Buddhist psychology, “not knowing” captures the notion that it is no less an unhealthy impediment to our Awakening to become fixated upon a specific idea about The Right Answer to the problems of the world than it is to be fixated upon any other of the grasping attachments or aversions that retard our progress.
All of us involved in the contentious issues of nuclear weapons policy and disarmament should bear this in mind. It is not that one cannot have opinions. (Indeed, on charged issues of this nature I think it would be difficult not to.) I have some; so do you. But “not knowing” suggests that we should still not allow ourselves to become obsessed by our rectitude. We must not become the hungry ghosts of public policy debate — our appetite for vindicating our Right Answer always exceeding our ability to feed it in this complicated and flawed world of samsara.
Perhaps I am wrong to think that human security must be the touchstone of nuclear weapons policy debates as they are viewed through the prism of Buddhist compassion, and wrong that one cannot assume a priori that such security is under all conceivable circumstances best served by nuclear weapons elimination. But perhaps I am not. I do not demand vindication, merely that you roll your own certainty around in your mind for a while and watch it carefully.
In the Kalamas Sutta of the Pali Canon (in the Angutara Nikaya), the Buddha is quite clear that we should accept nothing on blind faith — instead seeking the confidence born of understanding that comes through carefully investigating and testing every doctrine before adhering to it. If this is true even for the Buddha’s own dharma, it is surely true for the received wisdom of the contemporary disarmament community.
Try not knowing, at least for a while, dear readers. It is a beautifully uncomfortable place to rest.