Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Buddhist assassin at Navy Yard prompts debate about stereotype of peaceful faith
Washington Post ^ | 9/18/2013 | Michelle Boorstein and Elizabeth Tenety

Posted on 09/18/2013 3:12:41 AM PDT by markomalley

In the aftermath of the Navy Yard shootings, gunman Aaron Alexis’s interest in Buddhism seemed at odds with conventional Western stereotypes of blissed-out meditators.

Buddhism scholars and bloggers were quick to note that Alexis’ spiritual profile didn’t fit with the image of someone unloading a gun and killing 12 innocents in a crowded military office building.

Yet some saw a chance to challenge the peaceful stereotype and unveil some topics Buddhists discuss amongst themselves. Is the peaceful Buddhist an illusion? Do Buddhists and Buddhist temples deal directly enough with the topic of mental illness? And in fact might Buddhism in particular attract the mentally ill?

“As Buddhism has spread in the West, it has put forth and maintained an image of being a peaceful religion,” Buddhist ethicist Justin Whitaker, author of the American Buddhist blog, wrote Tuesday. “This is a myth.”

Buddhism can seem particularly appealing to “mentally unbalanced people seeking to right the ship of their lives, to self-medicate, to curb their impulses, or to give them a firmer grip on reality,” Clark Strand, a contributing editor to the Buddhist publication Tricycle magazine and a former Zen monk, said in an interview.

(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...


TOPICS: Breaking News; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Extended News; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: aaronalexis; buddhism; faith; navyyard; navyyardshooting
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-99 last
To: ClearCase_guy

No history of Jihadic like conduct so don’t care.


81 posted on 09/18/2013 1:17:35 PM PDT by Lent
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy

aren’t budhists now fighting back since the muslims have been slaughtering them... perhaps this guy is just doing that... by attacking the armies of the biggest muslim sympathizer.

t


82 posted on 09/18/2013 2:32:51 PM PDT by teeman8r (Armageddon won't be pretty, but it's not like it's the end of the world.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: markomalley

Anyone who believes that Buddhists are inherently peaceful need to search on the term “Yamabushi.”


83 posted on 09/18/2013 2:34:18 PM PDT by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand-basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: lavaroise

Unlike Western religions, Buddhism thinks it is okay to practice it with another religion at the same time. Note how the Japanese combine Buddhism with Shinto, and how the Chinese combine Buddhism, Confucianism, Daoism and ancestor worship.


84 posted on 09/18/2013 2:35:45 PM PDT by Berosus (I wish I had as much faith in God as liberals have in government.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Vaquero

“does that make them NOT a Religion? all religions are in fact philosophies to a point. I don’t see how they are not a religion.”

It is a debate as old as the hills; I don;t know whether it is a religion or not.


85 posted on 09/18/2013 2:56:57 PM PDT by kearnyirish2 (The talking heads have admitted is economic war against white males (and therefore white families).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: paudio

See # 85; I guess it is in the eye of the beholder.


86 posted on 09/18/2013 3:01:35 PM PDT by kearnyirish2 (The talking heads have admitted is economic war against white males (and therefore white families).)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: shalom aleichem

#6: Agree that the media, esp. the Wash. Post, are trying to blame Buddhism for one crazy man’s actions in an attempt to cover up his mental problems.

Why tell the truth when you can make up a “new truth”?

The key issue is not his “faith” which had nothing to do with this anyway, but the breakdown in acting on warnings that he was having severe mental problems (re having a gun, CCPermit, hallucinations, a security clearance, and just behaving very strangely).

Years ago the ACLU won a major court decision which forced states to release mental patients who had been incarcerated for care without giving there consent.

Now those patients are writers for the mainstream media.

“Dr. McCoy, we have a problem”.


87 posted on 09/18/2013 4:46:40 PM PDT by MadMax, the Grinning Reaper
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: NautiNurse
What effect do you think paranoid schizophrenia and auditory hallucinations had upon the shooter's actions?

Far more than Buddhism.

But I won't pretend that Buddhists are all peaceful pacifists.

88 posted on 09/18/2013 5:13:59 PM PDT by EricT. (Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Big brother is watching you.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 43 | View Replies]

To: EricT.

I can only think of one group that fits into your statement that is the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam. They like to target Hindu’s mostly


89 posted on 09/18/2013 7:53:11 PM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric Cartman voice* 'I love you, guys')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: Little Ray
Yamabushi are Shugendō which is primary based on Shinto. They all came from Buddhist originally but they are not the same.
90 posted on 09/18/2013 8:05:50 PM PDT by Steve Van Doorn (*in my best Eric Cartman voice* 'I love you, guys')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 83 | View Replies]

To: kearnyirish2

Yeah, but the classification does have an impact. Like I mentioned before, in a society where the understanding of ‘religion’ is more restricted to the presence of deity (not just concern about after life), those deity-base religion would find themselves in a more disadvantageous situation.


91 posted on 09/18/2013 8:47:36 PM PDT by paudio (Liberals teach Whites about guilt and shame better than Christian churches do...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 86 | View Replies]

To: Steve Van Doorn

Yamabushi were Buddhist warrior monks and a major power during the Warring States Period.


92 posted on 09/19/2013 4:14:24 AM PDT by Little Ray (How did I end up in this hand-basket, and why is it getting so hot?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 90 | View Replies]

To: BuffaloJack
"Well you know son you just can't figure,
first thing you know you're gonna pull that trigger
and it's no wonder your reason goes bad,
jelly roll will drive you stone mad"

from - Dupree's Diamond Blues by the Grateful Dead

93 posted on 09/19/2013 6:07:06 AM PDT by WayneS (Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies]

To: ClearCase_guy
Quick! Everybody!! This guy belonged to one of those weird religions! Let's attack that faith!

The media's knowledge of religion, any religion, is less than a micrometer deep.

94 posted on 09/19/2013 10:39:52 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("Remember... the first revolutionary was Satan."--Russian Orthodox Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: shalom aleichem
Media is just trying to trash Buddhists in an attempt to show that “they all do it” to give cover to Muslims being such hotheads and animals.

Exactly! I, for one, am not going to play their game. A black American who experimented with Buddhism probably experimented with Islam too. I don't think a black or white American is representative of Buddism.

Another thing, black Americans are not the stereotypical American "mass murderer". We had the DC snipers but they were driven by a religious ideology AKA Islam.

Another non-white mass murderer in my lifetime was the Asian liberal who did the shooting at the college. His rant was all liberal agenda stuff.

I'm tilting toward this black guy having a mental illness rather than terrorism and there are already laws on the book against him having a gun. Somebody dropped the ball twice on this guy.

It's not the first time the ball has been dropped under the Obama administration. Nearly all the mass murders were unnecessary as their own restrictions should have prevented them from happening. Makes me wonder if somebody high up in the US government is turning a blind eye with the objective to turn American opinion against guns.

Clinton once said he would be willing to accept a certain number of murders if it would help with his anti-gun agenda.

This man's race does not fit the stereotype of a mass murderer. Personally I think race has no part in it but it's just odd that this happens to be the time for it to be the first one.

The US government is turning a blind eye like they did with fast and furious, the Mexican borders and who knows how many of these recent shooting under Obama.

95 posted on 09/19/2013 10:42:53 AM PDT by tsowellfan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: shibumi
This guy was about as much of a Buddhist as the Westboro Baptists are Christians.

Atheist reporters (not to repeat myself) typically think that religion is a magic spell: you say you're one (Buddhist, Christian, etc), and then you magically embody all your religion's ideals, good points, bad points and every act by a co-religionist throughout history -- until you do something politically incorrect according to the Marxist faith. Then you're fair game for media scolding.

They also think all religions are exactly the same.



Morons.

96 posted on 09/19/2013 10:44:31 AM PDT by Albion Wilde ("Remember... the first revolutionary was Satan."--Russian Orthodox Archpriest Dmitry Smirnov)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: markomalley
"See, they ALL do it, not just crazy muslims!"

Yeah, this guy is about as Buddhist as Obama is American.

97 posted on 09/19/2013 10:47:07 AM PDT by Trailerpark Badass (There should be a whole lot more going on than throwing bleach, said one woman.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: EricT.

Navy Yard murderer Aaron Alexis created webpage with name “Mohammed Salem”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3068741/posts


98 posted on 09/19/2013 10:50:51 AM PDT by tsowellfan
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: tsowellfan

I believe both Obamas have also validated the victim mentality of a large number of Blacks who attribute their lack of progress and success on Whites or simply “racist America”.

I saw a quote from this Alexis that he was not wild about America, or something to that effect.

The Obamas have made it fashionable to hate our way of life, and they have paid no price for that, nor have they been blamed for the set-back in race relations and the increase in Black on (fill in the blank) crimes.


99 posted on 09/19/2013 1:35:34 PM PDT by shalom aleichem
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 95 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-8081-99 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson