LOTS.
Hawkeye mentioned in a response to my last thread that he thinks
that the NIU shooter deserves "forgiveness."
Hawkeye (and whoever else holds this view) whatever forgiveness
the shooter should get, is that which his victims are willing to give
him (to the extent that they are capable of forgiving, they're DEAD
after all) or the victim's families should give him. And they (victims OR family members) should only be expected to forgive, if they WANT to
forgive.
(If the law allowed it, I'd say they should be able to sue the shooter's mother for giving birth to him, or ENSLAVE her if she couldn't pay them in money - but that's another issue.)
If I were murdered, I would NEVER forgive the perpetrator (assuming
I still existed after death.) I would declare ETERNAL WAR on this
individual, as he had robbed me of everything that makes conscious
existence worthwhile.
He would have taken my POSSESSIONS from me...
He would have taken DRINK, and FOOD pleasures away from me...
He would have taken SEX away from me forever...
He would have taken away any chance I'd ever have, to
GET RICH and enjoy the glories of physical wealth...
And I would be sentenced to exist forever in an ethereal, ghostly, gassy, farty, wispy immaterial "spirit world" THANKS TO HIM. Forever robbed of what makes existence worthwhile to me, on account of HIS stupid problems, whatever they were.
...and I am supposed to be FRIENDS with him when he dies, and we meet again? Am I to be expected to reconcile with
him..? To be NICE to him...
To FORGIVE him???
I think not.
He wouldn't DESERVE it. It would DEMEAN me, not to spend the rest
of eternity getting EVEN with my murderer.
And so, the NIU shooter shouldn't be forgiven. And since you
WEREN'T his victim, what right have YOU (Hawkeye and others) to "forgive" him anyway?
You weren't "there" as they say...

B-man

There are many personal reasons that I can list as reasons to forgive, but your last comment indicates that you are seeking a more impersonal response, one which could be applied to anyone. Any reasonable example of forgiveness can be seen as a demonstration of an act which will benefit the forgiver in some way.

It is a heavy burden on the human heart, and others who bear witness, for resentments to play a starring role in our existence. Also, how can we know when we have put those grudges away? They often seem to have nine lives, just like cats, returning again and again. These resentments, no matter how important to us, can slow us down in many ways. Personal energy is required to experience and, if chosen, act on these resentments.

If a person is conscious enough, this burden can be examined. We ask, why carry this burden? At any juncture, the thought may arise, do I really need this?

Do I really want to carry this?

Angry thoughts may be put down, just exactly as if they were a heavy bag which has been slung over our shoulder during a long walk.

I think the human mind strives towards balance.
It is flexible on how to achieve it.
There is no reason to limit our options.
Forgiveness is one option.
It carries no weight.
It carries peace.

When we are ready to let go, we can choose forgiveness.

Who chose this war, we wonder; how did this happen?
Now it is our turn to choose.

If there is a time for war, there is also a time for peace.
This can be the time.
We say the word peace to ourselves.
It sounds good, better than it has in a long time.
We say it again.
Before we know it, there is peace.

Mitsuo Fuchida grew up hating Americans for their harsh treatment of Asian immigrants.   He became Japan’s top fighter pilot and led the epic raid on Pearl Harbor that engulfed us in WW2.  In fact it was Fuchida who shouted the famous code words “Tora, Tora, Tora,” that signaled the raid’s success and became the title of a Hollywood classic.  

Jake DeShazer was a member of the famed Doolittle raid, the first retaliatory strike on Japan.  He was shot down and captured by the Japanese as a POW.   During his captivity, Jake became a Christian and softened his harsh attitude towards the Japanese.  After his liberation, he wrote a widely distributed essay, “I was a Prisoner of the Japanese,” detailing his experiences of capture, conversion, and forgiveness.  Fuchida’s heart melted when he read this essay.  At his meeting with DeShazer in 1950, Fuchida converted from Buddhism to Christianity.  He later became a Christian evangelist in Japan.  Forgiveness can be a powerful agent of spiritual transformation.

B-man is right about one thing.  We cannot forgive others for the wrongs inflicted on others; we can only release our resentment of the culprit.  Forgiveness can only be offered by the offended or injured party and God.  Refusing to forgive traps the victim in his victim act and its accompanying bitterness.  Do you really want to give the offender that much power over your psyche?

Don

[quote author=Berserk2 link=1203153713/0#2 date=1203203109]Mitsuo Fuchida grew up hating Americans for their harsh treatment of Asian immigrants.   He became Japan’s top fighter pilot and led the epic raid on Pearl Harbor that engulfed us in WW2.  In fact it was Fuchida who shouted the famous code words “Tora, Tora, Tora,” that signaled the raid’s success and became the title of a Hollywood classic.  

Jake DeShazer was a member of the famed Doolittle raid, the first retaliatory strike on Japan.  He was shot down and captured by the Japanese as a POW.   During his captivity, Jake became a Christian and softened his harsh attitude towards the Japanese.  After his liberation, he wrote a widely distributed essay, “I was a Prisoner of the Japanese,” detailing his experiences of capture, conversion, and forgiveness.  Fuchida’s heart melted when he read this essay.  At his meeting with DeShazer in 1950, Fuchida converted from Buddhism to Christianity.  He later became a Christian evangelist in Japan.  Forgiveness can be a powerful agent of spiritual transformation.

B-man is right about one thing.  We cannot forgive others for the wrongs inflicted on others; we can only release our resentment of the culprit.  Forgiveness can only be offered by the offended or injured party and God.  Refusing to forgive traps the victim in his victim act and its accompanying bitterness.  Do you really want to give the offender that much power over your psyche?

Don
*****************
In the afterlife, where I would presumably meet the perp after HE
died, it would be cool if I had the option of making him my personal
a$$-kicking toy for a few hundred million years (or at least, do my very utmost to make him so!) Why should I allow
him to be HAPPY, after he'd confiscated the BEST part of my eternal
existence (i.e., the physical one???)

B-man

Hi,

Fubar,

You get credit for being your own man and being honest and one can work from such a platform

alan

Hi F.B.,


Hmmm, those initials also stand for 'Faustian Bargain'.
I'm sure that is a meaningless coincidence.

You can get exactly what you want.
All you have to do is apply sufficient energy to your chosen vision.
Just decide what you want:
To kick someone's a$$, or
To have your own life without someone kicking yours.

It all begins right now.


- u

:'( Failure to forgive is it seems another of those ways we in a wholly practical and external as well as internal ways we bring suffering on ourselves and others. We somehow get sucked into thinking that we're different - that if we give in to the urge we won't afterwards feel bad about it, or won't be pursued by others intent on giving us an even larger piece of what we gave them.

It's perhaps worth pointing out that that Japanese gentleman above while stated as being Buddhist was in acting the way he did wholly at odds with the most basic of Buddhist teaching....

FB, The shooter does not need your or any one elses forgivness. Only his own. Thats the only way he will heal himself of what effect he has had upon these other souls. I would think that the ones he killed have forgiven him already.  Where you and I hold some what of a similar ideas are about the church. I don't need Jesus to forgive anything that I have done that might be disagreeable to what is portrayed as his beliefs. I only need to forgive myself and to except the responsibility of what I have done, or do, upon others. I was more concerned about your need to express a desire to kill others who have done nothing to you or yours. Sound very twisted and immature to me. To me it sounds like you are in some kind of need to create an effect when you say thing like this. Perhaps more acknowleddment when you were younger, when you spoke or had ideas, could have helped. Such an angry young man.
Joe  

Hi B-Man-

I'm basically very self-serving. The process of carrying hatred means that I would have to adjust my internals so as to delete a general feeling of goodwill and a bearable lifestyle, and in its place UI'd have to put a contingency, that life is OK if and only if the world has kept some SOB away from me, or permanently deleted him.

For someone to make me alter my naturally comfortable state once is a nuisance. The severity of the nuisance depends on just what they did to me. That seems bad enough. However, once done, it's difficult to do more than basic damage control.

For someone then to make me periodically drag out that event and look at it in order to maintain a level of rage and resentment is an additional insult. However, I can get rid of the whole mess by "forgiveness".  In this sense, forgiving does not mean that it was OK, that they can do it again, nor that I in any way am interested in havinf them in my world. It means only that I have better things to do with my life than holding a brick and awaiting a chance to whack them.

Conversely, so long as I am busy resenting and hating, I am using up energy that would far better be employed in having fun. By that kind of attitude, I'm letting them spoil more of my life, both now and into the future. Carrying a load of negativity thus keeps the unplessant event in present time.

In this specific sense, forgiveness is a self serving thing, and is the only way to get the event out of present time and to allow it to go into the past.

And this is also true if the bad guy happens to have absorbed a couple 7.62x25 Mag-Safe - except that in that case it is myself that I must forgive. After all, sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.  (I'm more inclined to be bothered if I miss.)

So forgiveness is a weapon against evil. It is counter-intuitive, but it works. I generally use forgiveness as a clinical tool by which to restore a woman's sexuality after she has had 20 years to brood over being raped by Daddy at 10 years of age, or the equivalent.

The next line to that lesson is to be practical - If a dog bites you, and if you can't have it put down or locked up, then there's no reason to put your hand back in its mouth.

dave

[quote author=dave_a_mbs link=1203153713/0#8 date=1203369932]Hi B-Man-

I'm basically very self-serving. The process of carrying hatred means that I would have to adjust my internals so as to delete a general feeling of goodwill and a bearable lifestyle, and in its place UI'd have to put a contingency, that life is OK if and only if the world has kept some SOB away from me, or permanently deleted him.

For someone to make me alter my naturally comfortable state once is a nuisance. The severity of the nuisance depends on just what they did to me. That seems bad enough. However, once done, it's difficult to do more than basic damage control.

For someone then to make me periodically drag out that event and look at it in order to maintain a level of rage and resentment is an additional insult. However, I can get rid of the whole mess by "forgiveness".  In this sense, forgiving does not mean that it was OK, that they can do it again, nor that I in any way am interested in havinf them in my world. It means only that I have better things to do with my life than holding a brick and awaiting a chance to whack them.

Conversely, so long as I am busy resenting and hating, I am using up energy that would far better be employed in having fun. By that kind of attitude, I'm letting them spoil more of my life, both now and into the future. Carrying a load of negativity thus keeps the unplessant event in present time.

In this specific sense, forgiveness is a self serving thing, and is the only way to get the event out of present time and to allow it to go into the past.

And this is also true if the bad guy happens to have absorbed a couple 7.62x25 Mag-Safe - except that in that case it is myself that I must forgive. After all, sometimes you get the bear, and sometimes the bear gets you.  (I'm more inclined to be bothered if I miss.)

So forgiveness is a weapon against evil. It is counter-intuitive, but it works. I generally use forgiveness as a clinical tool by which to restore a woman's sexuality after she has had 20 years to brood over being raped by Daddy at 10 years of age, or the equivalent.

The next line to that lesson is to be practical - If a dog bites you, and if you can't have it put down or locked up, then there's no reason to put your hand back in its mouth.

dave
*****************
Of course, my specific example had me as having been MURDERED
and therefore dead (and presumably condemned to being a non-corporeal cloud of gas in the "spirit world" - still aware, but having had everything taken from me by the perp.
What "fun" would there be for me there? To float around and look at
things, reminiscing maybe...
But not be able to DO anything?
What would there be for me, but to await the arrival of my enemy...
And plot against his happiness, so at least I'd have the knowledge that he wasn't ENTIRELY my lord and master?

B-man

The justification of forgiveness as a virtue is, well - a bit
WORDY ("soften your heart to let in the pain", "make peace
with your oppressor to make peace with yourself"(???), yadda
yadda...) These statements are also murky, and counter-intuitive
to the point of sounding like sophistries (which I suspect they are.)
Also, they make a convenient cop-out for intimidated weaklings,
or cowards. What a convenient way to "wash your hands"! Can this be a coincidence??? I doubt it.
I've found that the most profound truths, could generally be iterated
in ten words or less. (I.E. "he who trades liberty for security,
deserves (and gets) neither.") And there was no ambiguity, and
they can easily be intuitively understood by anyone. (i.e. "right - BACKED BY MIGHT - makes right!") They are also crystal clear
the first time you hear them, no mental gymnastics required...
So forgive(!) me, if I find the assertion that "forgiveness is the
best thing you can do" to fall a bit flat.

B-man

;) Sounds like we'd better talk again in 15 years.....

How about these?

If we could read the secret history of our enemies,
we should find in each man's life
sorrow and suffering enough
to disarm all hostility.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I will fight no more forever.
Chief Joseph

Peace hath higher tests of manhood than battle ever knew.
John Greenleaf Whittier

There was never a good war or a bad peace.
Benjamin Franklin

The only problem with creating a peaceful situation is that we are today in one that we have to deal with. It's the old problem of discovering that you have a tiger by the tail - Ooops!

Actually, there is excellent reason, from various kinds of reports and such, that once dead, if we have lived a life without harm to others, our next lives too will be without harm. When we look more deeply at the "peaceful Buddhists" who were mistreated by the Chinese when they invaded Tibet, we discover that they are receiving the same treatment that they gave to the Bon Lamaists when Buddhism rose to power.

In my personal case, I recall being blown up, and I have an association with poison gasses and artillery. My present life has amply given me the chance to discover these karmic connections. Try as I might, I am unable to guarantee that I will have a life of safety. So I take the posture of an armed truce with the potential bad guys.

I guess that the other two extremes would be people like Edgar Cayce, who never had more than financial worries, and a bit of health issues at times. And the antithesis, the terrorist suicide bombers who seem to feel that national pride, religious zeal, or some other superficial factor is more important than human life.

As for me, I doubt I'll be around in 15 years, Vajra, so you'll have to work this one out with Brendan.

However - I recall that a large number of unhappy souls that I've worked with, especially entities who have been terrified of letting go of their hosts,  have been uhappy because they've dragged the causes of their own deaths into the afterlife. and are clinging to them through rage and hatred, and can't figure out why things don't work so well.

It seems to me that everybody is essentially God. But some of them don't know it, and need to be "adjusted" for my own well being, That's somewhat reasonable. In my life, I've been slapped down for doing stupid things, and I suppose that I couold apply the same method, but that doesn't mean that I don't love the poor miscreants. I just believe in tough love. Just like I feel for mosquitos. (Swat!)

dave

FB, I wanted to get back on this thread as the other one is really about the girls and their problems. Where I have the problem is your need to express a desire to kill. Not that is makes a differance if you use a gun or a needle. Its still a desire to kill. You even mention a desire to penalise his mother for giving birth to him. I have hunting rifles myself. Its the hand guns that are used for killing humans. That where I have a problem. As for you having guns... well you have express your thoughts very well. I don't personaly think you should have them with your kill, kill, mentality. I would think that your just as dangerous as he was. I sure wouldnt want someone to go into your house and take what guns you have mind you. You have the "right" to own them. I bet your a collector or something like that. Knives also? Your probably ( or were) a darn good army man. (Or did they not even let you in?) You know all brain washed into the whole kill,kill. You know, a good killing man. Did ya bully in school? To me you seem like an open book. A dangerous open book. How interesting it will be for you on the other side I would imagine. I wonder if there are flies to pull the wings off over there for you to have your fun with? Or am I all wrong FB. If I am, my apologies. I could have you all wrong. I mean no harm to you. It could be that your not twisted. You could be 100% USA grade A, #1, normal.  And if so,  could you offer me your "forgiveness"? For I am a judgemental person with weeknesses of my own.
Joe
Joe

Hi Hawkeye-
I think Brendan and I come from the same background in many ways. And it is a difficult place to reconcile at times.  But I'd like to try.

Look at the mosquito for a moment, The Aedes Aegypti carries Yellow Fever, Dengue and Malaria, as a minimum, anmd is a potentially deadly threat. (I still have a recurrent form a typhus that alomost took me out from one of those wee beasties.) The mosquito plays a deadly game in which it is driven to bite us. We, on the other hand, have the choice of being bitten, trying to repel the things, or getting out the swatter. Neither I not the bug wanted this, I suspect, but Nature's way has created the situation.

The next question is how to deal with it.  I don't feel that it does me any good to be bitten and to become a sick nuisance and then die, when I have a lot of people depending on me to help them stay alive. It doesn't pay off for me either. So my choice is to repel the little guys, and the, if they won't stay away, it's "Go to God" time. SWAT!

Many of us dislike the idea of killing. This is especially true after we evaluate our world and what we have seen it do to people. However, killing and serious inury is part of the game played by many others. When a bad guy enters your home and brutally rapes your wife (rape is an expression of rage - rape is only rarely sexual), or murders you (here the rage is more clear), somehow calling for the police to come doesn't seem to set it all right again. I wish it could -but the deed is done. I offer therapy for the victims of such cases, but it doesn't really make them whole again. As a result, the "mosquito doctrine" has got to be applied.

We are mentally and physically  built in a manner in which when threatened we tend to defend ourselves. This is part of the reason we resist killing - we seek to defend ourselves from having death in our lives. On the other side, we are aware that what we are doing is ending a life that has become dangerous, a direct and deadly threat, both to us and to others.

One of the mosquitos that gave me typhus later flew over and bit my wife and we almost lost her as well. (About 20% mortality.) The same is true of a murderer or rapist. Is that how we should live - allowing these guys to prey on us, and then on our loved ones?

Killing is actually a part of life for all of us. Nature is red from tooth to claw. If you eat meat, you have hired a number of assassins to go forth and terminate livestock. To say that Big Macs grow on trees is obviously delusional. The knackers and butchers job is to remove the gristly bits, and to give us the tender parts to chew on. So in fact we usually kill on a daily basis, but not with gun or knife - we kill with the dollar, the ruble, the sheckel and the euro.

Personally, I'm an extremely effective hunter, with extensive practice. However, I decided that I would rather have 40 turkeys wandering through my yard while eating tofu stroganoff, than to have a barren world, as I eat its residents. This is a personal decision that all of us have to make at some time. For those of us who are willing to be responsible, possession of weapons forces us to make that decision, and to define the limits within which we will live. It is an awesome responsibility. Maybe the focus that this brings is the benefit of the Brady laws. (Although Sarah Brady's version is that one must first disarm the nation prior to creating a socialist state.)

I'm very happy to hear B-Man blustering and fussing, sending verbal fulminations out into the world about his feelings concernng mistreatment etc. He is much like the Lion fish. The Lion fish is colored red and whte, a danger signal. If you are so foolish to ignore the warning and still try to grab him, the poison of his spines will kill you. That's an excellent strategy. It means that he knows the score and is trying to communicate to the world that they should be repelled from him with respect to certain types of activities. That seems to me to be an excellent idea.

To look at all this and say that it is a kil-kill mentality misses the point. If a person has that kind of mind, we read about them in the papers as they destroy a school, or a home. The lion fish is deady from tip to tail, yet is only interested in minding its own business. It is dangerous only if you mess with it.

In the present world we are mostly insulated from the predators that lie just beyond the glimmer of the campfire. However, had it not been for a lot of people who were willing to take up arms when attacked, today you'd likely be speaking a different language. As someone put it, "A man with a gun is a citizen. A man without a weapon is a subject."

While lion fishes tend to be relatively solitary, they obviously get together from time to time - there's a lot of them - and they seem to be perfectly content to mind their own affairs. If your tastes run n some other direction, that's OK. But it might be well to keep in mind that it is because we have, as a last resort, the threat of giving death, that we are able to live, and to live peacefully.

I'm 100% with those who pray for the day that all beings can live together in harmony. But until then, we live in a somewhat perfect reality. So, if B-MAn has to go to the barricades to save some scrawny radical pacifist who fears to say "shyte" when he has a mouthful, like it or not, I'm right behind him - as should be all of us.

As for the kill-kill mentality, are you a vegetarian?

dave

To build on what you say Dave. No matter what situation we find ourselves in with people they always represent a blend of those ranging from a default goodwill position, to a default aggression position.

Most of us mix the two, are somewhere in the middle of the continuum, and respond to situations differently depending on our personal fears.

What this means is that when living in the world we have to deal with both types. And there are those out there who if it wasn't for various deterrents wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of those seemingly weak.

Even setting aside the issue of how we feel about having 'heavies' prepared to use violence to protect us (the police - a bit like your point on meat eating) we in day to day life need to project a certain degree of 'don't mess with me' to avoid being used or routinely taken advantage of too.

It's very noticeable for example that while it's well veiled (the game is lost in a sense if the bluff is called) the most effective managers manage to combine this 'don't mess' vibe with consummate relationship/social skills.

I often wonder where exactly the line lies on violence. The likes of the Shaolin monks and Zen in Japan have dabbled with quite a high degree of acceptance in Buddhism. Christianity has had its crusades, inquisitions and so on.

You could argue that exuding the above vibe and preventing violence of one sort or another amounts to skilful means, but what's the limit?

Our reality contains both yin and yang, the wrathful and the peaceful Deities. Realised behaviour must ultimately include both God made dimensions. But what if violence is permissible is realised behaviour  in this situation??? Is it something to do with the greater good?

Agape can on occasion require very tough actions -  tough love. I've on the other hand seen so called spiritual groups that fall over themselves to be 'spiritual' do a lot of harm through not confronting wrong behaviours - commit sins of omission, so to speak...

Yes Dave I do eat meat. But my eating or killing for food does not meen I hate the animal. I tend not to hold on to hate. In fact at this point I hate no person. I feel no need to. My weekness is that a pass judgment uopn others like I did with FB. In my world of beliefs there is no room to hold the anger and hate I see at times. I hate but I also let it go when I see what I am doing. I learn my own weeknesses from it. FB can feel any ways he wants to about the killer or his parents. You do what you need to to get through the day FB. I do have to agree with Dave though... You are like the Lion Fish...Poisoness, yet colorfull enough to see just what you are. Thank you, FB included, for the lesson.
Joe      

Vajra and Hawkeye-
I think that you have summed up what I was trying to express pretty well. BUT there is a little issue with the idea of hatred, at least as I've experienced it clincially.

There is not much tendency to differentiate between hatred and rage in common speech - Were I to spill my hot coffee while trying both to sip it and negociate a tight turn in my car I might say,  "Oh, bollocks, I hate it when that happens." ;-)

Yet this is imprecise, and is not what is actually meant.

Rage is a natural response for self preservation. Were I to stand on your favorite toe, whether or not by accident, you'd initially try to remove me nicely, but rapidly, as your color reddens and temperature and blood pressure rise, you soon would give me a healthy shove, or whatever else might be needed. Then, the problem having been solved, life goes on. Your toe is saved, and I learn to be more careful. That's the purpose of rage. Unless we get carried away, it's a win-win deal.

Hatred is a regenerative emotional state in which we carry the wound and keep scratching it open. With each bitter scratch we redirect rage at the perceived source. I see it in the pathology of souls who have dragged insults from prior lifetimes over into the present, and they still tear open their bleeding carcasses i order to spew venom in the direction of others. As you might guess, that causes life to become difficult.

To hate means changing the basic personality and making it contingent on hostile actions against others, whether in mind or deed. It is a deliberately acquired state. Regrettably, the English language tends to mask our participation in hatred, as we tend to say, "He makes me hate him", or the equivalent. In my clinical practice I point out that in French one says, "Je me fache de ca," which translates into "I anger myself from that." The French stay in charge.

An example, visiting a friend with an infant who is happy and gurgling and chortles as we bounce it over our shoulder. Often the abrupt result, especially after dinner, is that the infant spits up. We generally laugh, clean ourselves off, and forget it. (Also, we learn to put a diaper over the shoulder before burping the kid.)  But if twenty years later we were to embrace a friend who promptly pukes on us, we tend to react differently. There is a strong tendency to become enraged, as if the situation has brought something different. But the only difference (except perhaps for volume) is that we view things differently. The facts as we experience them are no different. In the second case we project motivation and react to our projection. The fact might be that our friend has an upset tummy, but the tendency is to project blame, and in some cases, to decide to hate that person.

Clinically, hatred thus means that we add a contingency to our lives that involves keeping a source of pain handy, and reacting to it in an unpleasant manner, so that we can rekindle the initial painful event. Whatever happened, it remains in present time through hatred. This is the problem with "rape therapy" in which the therapist tells the victim (male or female - men get it too) that they'll feel better if they can embrace their hatred. It just doesn't work - and it is often true that this is part of the projections of the therapist who got diddled back a few years in time, whch makes matters even worse. The solution is to "forgive" in the sense of letting go and getting on with life.

As we look at Tibetan deities, Mahakala is a typical wrathful deity. I occasionally have handed out Mahakala cards to kids who needed a protector to keep the ghosts out of the closet at night. But there are no "hateful" deities.

So I'm very much in favor of rage as a healthy response to thngs getting messed up. It's a great motivator. But to hate is self-destructive. It's a pity that our language so often fulfils the gloomy predictions of semanticists who claim that the words we use shape our thoughts.

As for eating meat or not - that's a personal matter. Not my department. However, I note in passing, that most of the less technological hunting societies do, in actual fact, love and respect the animal that is hunted. In many cases, even a tree is asked to understand and forgive before it is cut down. (And I've observed that there are places on the Internet where we can find a new and not necessarily desired definition of "animal husbandry".) ;-)

Hmmm - I think I've located the limit.  :-X


dave

Dave, you wrote:
______________
I'm very happy to hear B-Man blustering and fussing, sending verbal fulminations out into the world about his feelings concernng mistreatment etc. He is much like the Lion fish. The Lion fish is colored red and whte, a danger signal. If you are so foolish to ignore the warning and still try to grab him, the poison of his spines will kill you. That's an excellent strategy. It means that he knows the score and is trying to communicate to the world that they should be repelled from him with respect to certain types of activities. That seems to me to be an excellent idea.

To look at all this and say that it is a kil-kill mentality misses the point. If a person has that kind of mind, we read about them in the papers as they destroy a school, or a home. The lion fish is deady from tip to tail, yet is only interested in minding its own business. It is dangerous only if you mess with it.
*****************
Well said!
I would no sooner be a wolf; that is, a predator - than be a sheep (a helpless victim.) Although I must confess to having more respect for the "wolf", on a strictly prejudicial basis. Why do I say this? Because it is the "sheep" who are trading our collective liberty for security. America, the land of the (increasingly un)free, and the home of the fraidy-cats...
Let me be a lionfish! (Or a porcupine, or rattlesnake if you will.) Leave
me alone, and I'll leave YOU alone.
If everyone thought this way... imagine about how peaceable a world this
would be! (Just as life in the REAL Old West - far from being the violent bloodbath portrayed in countless Westerns - was peaceable to the point of being positively BORING for most people.)
Weapons ownership and know-how, is no small part of this stance. (Let
any who think they can deny it, give me their proof..!)

B-man

FB, I wanted to get back on this thread as the other one is really about the girls and their problems. Where I have the problem is your need to express a desire to kill. Not that is makes a differance if you use a gun or a needle. Its still a desire to kill. You even mention a desire to penalise his mother for giving birth to him. I have hunting rifles myself. Its the hand guns that are used for killing humans. That where I have a problem. As for you having guns... well you have express your thoughts very well. I don't personaly think you should have them with your kill, kill, mentality. I would think that your just as dangerous as he was. I sure wouldnt want someone to go into your house and take what guns you have mind you. You have the "right" to own them. I bet your a collector or something like that. Knives also? Your probably ( or were) a darn good army man. (Or did they not even let you in?) You know all brain washed into the whole kill,kill. You know, a good killing man. Did ya bully in school? To me you seem like an open book. A dangerous open book. How interesting it will be for you on the other side I would imagine. I wonder if there are flies to pull the wings off over there for you to have your fun with? Or am I all wrong FB. If I am, my apologies. I could have you all wrong. I mean no harm to you. It could be that your not twisted. You could be 100% USA grade A, #1, normal.  And if so,  could you offer me your "forgiveness"? For I am a judgemental person with weeknesses of my own.
Joe
Joe
*****************
*Groan*...
You're obviously a formula thinker who's taken ALL of his ideas, from
what he thought we're based on "good authority."
Since you've taken the trouble to dissect me, I'll concede a couple
of hits you made.
A. Yeah, I own a couple of pistols. So what? I happen to get pleasure from owning, customizing, and shooting them. Just as some people do the same thing with cars. (What pleasure will YOU give up, if I give up my pistols? Fair is fair...)
B. I did a stint in the Army. (I'm too much of a privacy-loving type to be happy living in the barracks, so I didn't really take to Army life. Still, I'm glad I did it, so conclude what you will from that.)
Otherwise, you missed on everything else (like me being a bully, torturing kittens, molesting babies ect.) So sorry if this hurts to hear, but if your lifelong dream was to be an FBI profiler - I'd start thinking of alternative career choices, OK?
Oh, and one other thing. I'm not a profiler (and never aspired to be one) but here's my go at dissecting YOU, Joe.
Ya ready? Here goes...
You clearly have a very authority-based view of things. Your beliefs are based on what you see as PROPER, based on what those who you believe to have "proper authority" told you. (i.e. your parents, teachers, politicians, your church, ect.) Not because you respected them based on your own ideals, but because you were TOLD to respect them, and you did because obedience is a virtue (just as you were TOLD it was.)
So let me guess...
You liked CLOWNS when you were a kid. And I'll bet
you still do. Why do I say so, you ask?
Because you overrode your natural, gut perception that they
were CREEPY (which they are!) after listening to the
big-people (your parents, maybe?) who told you
that they were funny and you were supposed to
enjoy their presence. Don't feel bad though Joe, this
is a common reaction in kids. It gets a bit more problematic
when you're still reacting the same way as an adult (although
that's fairly common too. So, you're still "normal" at least...
and I'm sure you're just as pleased as Punch with THAT.)
Hoping to have been of service to you on your journey
to "knowing thyself",

B-man

I'd say FB to just be very careful of what you perceive as a healthy 'bravery' or courage. Most of the posturing done by those espousing 'self reliance' and 'self defence' is actually at least as much fear driven as that of the politically correct 'there ought to be a law' brigade that works itself into hysteria about everything.

Most of the conventional tramlines society conditions people to think along do not work when you look closely at the reality.

You're right in one respect in that courage is at the centre of our ability to live wisely and compassionately - but it's a subtle deal. It's at the core of some of the questions I posed on acceptable violence above as well.

As ever it's the case that ALL behaviour driven by selfish grasping (a Buddhist term that incorporates both our trying to get that we desire, and trying to avoid that we feel we will dislike at the expense of others, or of our environment, or whatever) leads to suffering for both ourselves and others.

To try to offer a view on what this may mean. It seems on the face of it that the use of force to prevent an individual from acting in a way that will harm others is at least possibly a compassionate move, or for the greater good.

But it needs a lot of wisdom to get it right, because this may not be the case. Aggression has the  property (as with love  - the other end of the continuum) of escalating. For example if you clobber a guy to stop him doing something to you, you may cause his family or associates to use more extreme violence next time around. And to come after you as well. Or to go to jail for intensive training in criminality, in effect destroying his life and that of the many his subsequent crime empire will touch.

The wiser and more compassionate course of action might have been to give him your wallet, and engage him in conversation and try to talk him out of it. (a hopelessly naive sounding response to most) Or to use minimum force or other means to distract him and run. Or even to take the risk of stonewalling him and walking away.

I can't say that there aren't circumstances where carefully applied force is not the right response (the target has his finger on the button of a nuclear device in the centre of a large city), but we inevitably overdo it out of fear, or out of taking a pleasure in exercising power (how many high speed police chases truly make sense? - many pose more risk than the target and as in the case of kids joining the military are the result of an unconscious boys with toys mindset) and out of not truly understanding or caring about the consequences of our actions.

At the highest level this fear driven tendency to engage in pre-emptive violence out of fear of what the other guy is up to and an unwillingness to accept any risk or heaven forbid trust a little is the cause of most wars. Most leaders will for example out of a selfish urge to not be found wanting trigger pre-emptive action of whatever sort rather than take a risk.

I'd argue that there's an absolutely 'right' action that maximises the benefit for all in all cases, and that while for sure we won't have the knowledge and the insight to figure it 100% of the time or the courage to see it through that the ideal lies a lot close to what you might call a 'pro-active courageous pacifism' than we usually think....

I'm all for forgiveness. :) In fact, I've forgiven everybody who has ever done harm to me during this life.  What I truly am, can never be harmed by another. The same is true for everybody else. Spiritual truth "ALWAYS" has the answer.

Here's another factor:

People have vengeful feelings because they believe that things can't be settled, made right, until some form of vengeful action takes place. Once they find out that vengeful action isn't necessary in order for everything to be perfect, they will no longer feel such a need.

Think of this universe as a giant jigsaw puzzle. Until the puzzle is completed, it is hard to feel at peace. But once it is completed, you can relax. Regarding the schedule, what does it mean when it is suggested that spirit beings abide in a realm of "no time?" Perhaps everything gets settled in the same "now." During my night in heaven experience, it felt as if there weren't any problems anywhere. This doesn't mean that people don't suffer while here in the World.  However, perhaps all generations experience their suffering in the same "now."

Forgiveness is an interesting aspect of it all R. It feels so much like it's different to love or agape, yet the effect is much the same. In that if someone is aggressive trowards you and you forgive (respond lovingly) then the cycle of escalation never develops and the aggressor may in fact be inspired to stop the behaviour. (to behave lovingly)

:) A bit of as brain melter, as it says that viewed from a higher collective consciousness level that non aggression and forgiveness are both the same. Which makes sense if you carefully figure it out, but not until then because our learned sense of the meaning of the two words tends not to acknowledge this...

I'd say FB to just be very careful of what you perceive as a healthy 'bravery' or courage. Most of the posturing done by those espousing 'self reliance' and 'self defence' is actually at least as much fear driven as that of the politically correct 'there ought to be a law' brigade that works itself into hysteria about everything.

Most of the conventional tramlines society conditions people to think along do not work when you look closely at the reality.

You're right in one respect in that courage is at the centre of our ability to live wisely and compassionately - but it's a subtle deal. It's at the core of some of the questions I posed on acceptable violence above as well.

As ever it's the case that ALL behaviour driven by selfish grasping (a Buddhist term that incorporates both our trying to get that we desire, and trying to avoid that we feel we will dislike at the expense of others, or of our environment, or whatever) leads to suffering for both ourselves and others.

To try to offer a view on what this may mean. It seems on the face of it that the use of force to prevent an individual from acting in a way that will harm others is at least possibly a compassionate move, or for the greater good.

But it needs a lot of wisdom to get it right, because this may not be the case. Aggression has the  property (as with love  - the other end of the continuum) of escalating. For example if you clobber a guy to stop him doing something to you, you may cause his family or associates to use more extreme violence next time around. And to come after you as well. Or to go to jail for intensive training in criminality, in effect destroying his life and that of the many his subsequent crime empire will touch.

The wiser and more compassionate course of action might have been to give him your wallet, and engage him in conversation and try to talk him out of it. (a hopelessly naive sounding response to most) Or to use minimum force or other means to distract him and run. Or even to take the risk of stonewalling him and walking away.
*****************
In my younger days, I tried - for a time - the approach of "reasoning" with bullies, aggressors, ect. In EVERY case, I found it made the situation worse (much, MUCH worse in most cases...)
But I shouldn't have bothered to conduct that "experiment" (called being
a big chickensh!t, actually); someone (more noteworthy than myself!)  tried it about 50 years before my time.
His name was Neville Chamberlain. Ever heard of him?

B-man

If that's final then so be it B. That's the way the world goes on .....

But I'd ask you to consider the possibility that what actually happens in life is that when we (for wholly understandable reasons) in our clumsy way try to show care we're not very skilful in the way we do it.

We're anyway as a result of the fear I mentioned above usually unwilling to accept any hardship whatsoever - in absence of perceiving any reason to do otherwise we act as best we can to avoid pain with relatively little thought of the consequences.

With little thought of how effective our default strategy for this is either - it somehow almost never works, but we still cling to it.

There is in most situations a way to square the circle. One which neither relies on aggression or is driven by fear, and which at the same time avoids trouble. Showing fear (and aggressive people have a very finely tuned sense of this)  - either through appeasement, running away or whatever  - will always draw trouble.

A skilful player, with finely tuned intuition, good training and life experience will almost always find a way to defuse a situation. Or more likely by skilful positioning won't allow it to develop, or will be well placed to respond when it does arise.

Chamberlain is not a good example. He was naive enough to attempt appeasement from a position of weakness at a time when the die was already cast - having determined that as they saw it that the European powers were not ready for and had no heart for it the German leadership was already committed to war.

It's not an easy road, it requires first of all a lot of wisdom, compassion and courage, and it will contain reverses where we get it wrong while honing our skills and our view. Not to mention that in a world  where many of its inhabitants adopt the rule of the fittest it's clear that suffering cannot be 100% avoided. But even when we can't avoid it having the courage to act through love minimises the consequences for ourselves and for others.

It's no simple task, and is in effect our life's work. Try Chogyam Trungpa's 'Shambhala the Sacred Path of the Warrior' if you'd like to explore this thinking a little more.

You'd be far from alone in adopting an 'I'm well hard me' sort of attitude in response to life experience, but the hard reality that human affairs have demonstrated time and again over the ages is that when having been hurt a few of times we out of fear we mistakenly (mistakenly because there are other ways) adopt a simplistic and default one size fits all  stance of aggression it always leads to like responses and to suffering.....

[quote author=vajra link=1203153713/15#26 date=1203590671]If that's final then so be it B. That's the way the world goes on .....

But I'd ask you to consider the possibility that what actually happens in life is that when we (for wholly understandable reasons) in our clumsy way try to show care we're not very skilful in the way we do it.

We're anyway as a result of the fear I mentioned above usually unwilling to accept any hardship whatsoever - in absence of perceiving any reason to do otherwise we act as best we can to avoid pain with relatively little thought of the consequences.

With little thought of how effective our default strategy for this is either - it somehow almost never works, but we still cling to it.

There is in most situations a way to square the circle. One which neither relies on aggression or is driven by fear, and which at the same time avoids trouble. Showing fear (and aggressive people have a very finely tuned sense of this)  - either through appeasement, running away or whatever  - will always draw trouble.

A skilful player, with finely tuned intuition, good training and life experience will almost always find a way to defuse a situation. Or more likely by skilful positioning won't allow it to develop, or will be well placed to respond when it does arise.

Chamberlain is not a good example. He was naive enough to attempt appeasement from a position of weakness at a time when the die was already cast - having determined that as they saw it that the European powers were not ready for and had no heart for it the German leadership was already committed to war.

It's not an easy road, it requires first of all a lot of wisdom, compassion and courage, and it will contain reverses where we get it wrong while honing our skills and our view. Not to mention that in a world  where many of its inhabitants adopt the rule of the fittest it's clear that suffering cannot be 100% avoided. But even when we can't avoid it having the courage to act through love minimises the consequences for ourselves and for others.

It's no simple task, and is in effect our life's work. Try Chogyam Trungpa's 'Shambhala the Sacred Path of the Warrior' if you'd like to explore this thinking a little more.

You'd be far from alone in adopting an 'I'm well hard me' sort of attitude in response to life experience, but the hard reality that human affairs have demonstrated time and again over the ages is that when having been hurt a few of times we out of fear we mistakenly (mistakenly because there are other ways) adopt a simplistic and default one size fits all  stance of aggression it always leads to like responses and to suffering.....
*****************
That was all about as clear as mud, vajra.
(Especially your first/second and last paragraphs.)
And that's part of the problem I have with
pacifism, and pacifists. It is impossible make a clean, concise,
crisp non-emotionalistic defense of pacifism! And so people like
yourself end up beating around the bush
and chasing your own tail, using a ton of words
to say what amounts to... well, nothing. (Although
you're dead on about attempting conciliation to an
aggressor from a position of weakness. This is
why I do my best to STAY AWAY from a position
of weakness!!!)
I gather from your post above, that you believe
we are somehow obliged to willingly submit to
suffering. Why? Do you think you'd get a pat
on the back by "God" or something in the
afterlife, for letting yourself be used as a
doormat in C1? (I'm not saying that you are
a doormat, vajra. In fact, I'd daresay that if
I wronged you, you'd see to it that I got a door
shoved up my a$$... that's how your typical
liberal operates!)

B-man

FB, Molesting babies? Huh? Are you tring to get something off your chest or something? You know, if you are molesting babies, then there might be a use for those hand guns of yours after all.
Don't believe in church, don't especially like clowns.. now the obedience thing , thats different. When my wife says jump, I do have a tendency to step up and pay attention. A lession I have learned over time.
Joe

There's not much point FB putting words in my mouth to fit some stereotype that appeals to you, and then proceeding to take what I wrote apart as though this presumption reflected the reality.

That's the self made goldfish bowl in action again - your own head stuff, and the reason why much of humanity goes round in circles digging itself deeper into the mire.
The point is not that we have to submit to suffering. The point is that it's our unthinking adoption of fear driven aggression and the patterns of behaviour that flow from this that make life a litany of suffering. IT'S OURSELVES THAT MAKE THIS LIFE. The harder we try to avoid suffering by being tougher than the other guy the worse it gets. (quote: '....is why I do my best to STAY AWAY from a position of weakness!!!')

How can a world full of people all trying to get ahead at the expense of the other possibly result in anything other than suffering? I know.....you're different to all the rest: you'll never find yourself in a situation where you need help, where you have no money, where you or your child gets ill, old or depressed, or where another with a bigger gun, a larger army, a bigger bureaucracy, a fatter wallet or a PR line that takes you in intent on screwing you gets to decide your life.

This is nothing to do with some primitive storing up of brownie points in life so you can go to heaven on a rocket when you die. Is it like you have any choice but to reap the results of your behaviour in this life as it unfolds?

I'm not arguing, and I'm not going to waste an afternoon (when it'll probably only bring another round of abuse) explaining the nuts and bolts of how it is that wise and compassionate behaviours ('living through love') is the route to minimisation of this suffering, and why far from being some sort of blanket passivity for wimps it's the hardest path there is. True compassion is often very tough.

Be aware too that the language and view of aggression is only one of many, that there's a wholly logical but very different way of figuring out how life works.

I can't do it for you anyway - there's lots written if you care to look, but it's YOU that has to do it. That's if you can raise the wherewithal and dare to open (if only temporarily) beyond the security blanket of the usual societally conditioned tunnel vision.

And you will by the way - sooner or later having been broken down to the point where the ego starts to lose control we all eventually realise we're tired of mindlessly banging our heads on a brick wall.

It's just a matter of how much suffering it's going to take to produce some opening.....

B-man's rants are an honest reflection of his inner turmoil and the revulsion he feels, arising from his past experiences with a toxic form of Christianity.  What B-man fears the most is the possibility that God may pursue Him with such love as to transform his core desires and "energetic make-up."  I view his honest confessions as a set-up for such an ultimately transforming experience.  I would not be surprise if B-man eventually beomes a minister. ::)
Then it will be interesting to see how he speaks of forgiveness.

Don

I'd rather not start a second hand discussion on MR. B, but I guess that's to one degree or another true of most of us Don. I guess we all play from a mostly untrue but inevitably consuming world view that seeks through mental noise to blind us to the truth of our suffering. And boy do we (or at least the ego or persona we have constructed) fear having that veil removed so that we see a truer reality.

A few of us due to the circumstances of our upbringing and our particular stage on the path seem somehow to get far enough to if not wholly transcend at least partially see past parts of this conditioning - while we may live it at times of stress, we equally have a sneaky sense in our hearts that it's not the reality.

Others are unlucky enough that they don't get this far and it becomes an all consuming obsession. I saw the movie 'There Will be Blood Last Night' - a nice little portrayal of precisely this phenomenon. It even had an evangelical preacher in there getting stuck into the loving God and fighting evil thing - no wonder the hero (a rapacious oil man into swindling poor farmers out of their land on the cheap who eventually becomes an alcoholic recluse) and this guy ended up in the same space (trying to use each other and the farmers for money) by the end of the film - they both thought that to fight was the only way to engage with the world. But neither could see past this veil, and one ended up dead because of it....

At the risk of as vajra says, starting a subtopic on F.B....

Don, perhaps it does make sense what you say.
Many converts/reformed, even the most apparent hard cases often become the the most able proponents.
Plus, there is usually a bit of grandstanding provocateur in any person of the pulpit wouldn't you say? Something FB has a knack for?

Sri Aurobindo said that "An atheist is just God playing hide-and-seek with Himself"