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Saturday, November 21, 2015

“In the name of the Great Teacher, we will stop at nothing to unleash a firestorm of empathy, compassion, and true selflessness upon the West,”

said Rinpoche, adding that all enemies of a freely flowing, unfettered state of mind will be “besieged with pure, everlasting happiness.” “No city will be spared from spiritual harmony. We will bring about the end to all Western pain and anxiety, to all destructive cravings, to all greed, delusion, and misplaced desire. Indeed, we will bring the entire United States to its knees in deep meditation.”
  

OK, this is a spoof from the Onion, and no good Buddhists would use imagery like 'unleash a firestorm.'

Thinking about this reminds me of how many Chinese deal with the difference between Western and traditional medicine.  The traditional medicine is important for every day maintenance of health and can be used to treat routine illnesses and injuries.  But for major, immediately life-threatening trauma, they turn to Western medicine, if it's available.

I don't think many Westerners are willing to give up using violence when their lives are directly threatened, though people tell me that Jesus said something about loving one's enemies and turning the other cheek.

As with medicine, when dealing with confrontation - whether it be with nations abroad or with citizens at home - our responses should be broader than sending in drones to bomb or having police draw and shoot their guns - we should consider the wide array of non-violent alternatives that are available.

[Feeburner wouldn't take the original, so I've tried to clean up the html and repost]

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