Posted on 09/18/2013 3:12:41 AM PDT by markomalley
In the aftermath of the Navy Yard shootings, gunman Aaron Alexiss 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 didnt 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 ...
No history of Jihadic like conduct so don’t care.
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.
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Anyone who believes that Buddhists are inherently peaceful need to search on the term “Yamabushi.”
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.
“does that make them NOT a Religion? all religions are in fact philosophies to a point. I dont 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.
See # 85; I guess it is in the eye of the beholder.
#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”.
Far more than Buddhism.
But I won't pretend that Buddhists are all peaceful pacifists.
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
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.
Yamabushi were Buddhist warrior monks and a major power during the Warring States Period.
from - Dupree's Diamond Blues by the Grateful Dead
The media's knowledge of religion, any religion, is less than a micrometer deep.
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.
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.
Yeah, this guy is about as Buddhist as Obama is American.
Navy Yard murderer Aaron Alexis created webpage with name “Mohammed Salem”
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3068741/posts
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.
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