Monk Wirathu’s 969 quotes the Dalai Lama’s Kalachakra

Grurray:

October 27th, 2013 at 11:06 pm

“This sad state of affairs”
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 Do they consider collective karma a punishment? If so this is truly a group of people at war with themselves.

zen:

October 28th, 2013 at 3:11 am

Tendai and Zen Buddhism has a history of incredibly competent martial ferocity in the pre-Tokugawa period of Japanese history from the 12th century onward. Suppression of the Buddhist monasteries as independent military powers was a necessity for Tokugawa Ieyasu in cementing the unification of Japan under the Shogunate established by his predecessor.
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Zen Buddhism ( or at least certain Zen roshis and schools) became associated with the program for Imperial expansion, ultranationalism and state shinto Emperor-worship promoted by circles in Japan’s elite during the late Meiji period

Charles Cameron:

October 28th, 2013 at 3:51 am

Zen:
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Indeed — and during WWII. Here’s an overview from a 2003 NYT piece titled Meditating On War And Guilt, Zen Says It’s Sorry:

To many Americans, Zen Buddhists primarily devote themselves to discovering inner serenity and social peace. But Zen has had strong ties to militarism — indeed so strong, that the leaders of one of the largest denominations in Japan have remorsefully compared their former religious fanaticism during Japan’s brutal expansionism in the 1930’s and 40’s to today’s murderously militant Islamists.
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The unexpected apology for wartime complicity by the leaders of Myoshin-ji, the headquarters temple of one of Japan’s main Zen sects, was issued 16 days after 9/11, which gave it a particular resonance. But the leaders of Myoshin-ji — as well as other Zen Buddhist leaders who have also delivered apologies over the past two years — mainly credit a disillusioned Westerner for their public regrets: Brian Victoria, a former Methodist missionary, who is a Zen priest and historian.
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Buddhist leaders in Japan and the United States said in recent interviews that Mr. Victoria had exerted a profound influence, especially in the West, by revealing in his 1997 book, ”Zen at War,” a shockingly dark and unfamiliar picture of Zen during World War II to followers who had no idea about its history.  [ … ]
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Now, in a new sequel called ”Zen War Stories,” Mr. Victoria has dug more specifically into relationships between Zen leaders and the military during World War II.
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From its beginnings in Japan, Zen has been associated with the warrior culture established by the early shoguns. But the extent of its involvement in World War II has stayed mostly submerged until recently. Many people in the United States and Europe know Zen’s indirect traces through the poetry of the Beats or the quietist aura of contemporary architecture and clothing.
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Even John Dower, a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian of modern Japan at M.I.T., whose early interest in Japan was kindled by Zen-inspired architecture, said that Mr. Victoria’s works had opened his eyes to “how Zen violated Buddhism’s teachings about compassion and nonviolence.”

I mentioned Victoria’s book, along with Gary SNyder’s response, in a comment here. 

Charles Cameron:

October 28th, 2013 at 6:42 am

Grurray:
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The entire karmic system always seemed to me entirely too mechanical to be taken seriously, literally, but interesting as a metaphor. My impression is that the Theravadins tend to the literal, Mahayanists and a fortiori Vajrayanists to the metaphorical and paradoxical. 
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IMO, only, y’unnerstand. 

larrydunbar:

October 28th, 2013 at 7:15 pm

“too mechanical to be taken seriously, literally,”

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Mechanics is too slow for the brain? In other words, the brain can out act anything mechanical, so once inside the OODA loop of the other it has no advantages? I mean like Chet said this morning, formations are weak against something formless, but the fact that formations still exist make me think that formations do have some advantages. You’re talking a very long war here, so as Boyd said, you have to take into account time-dispersion as well as space-dispersion. If there is no time-dispersion, then space dispersion is pretty handy. Especially when it comes to form. Depends a lot on what you Observe, and how you observe it.

Grurray:

October 28th, 2013 at 8:47 pm

“that formations still exist make me think that formations do have some advantages”
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I’ve wondered about this also. The ‘fighter mafia’ – ‘bomber mafia’ struggle is just a small example of the greater dichotomy between centralization and decentralization. You might also draw an analogy between literal and figurative interpretations.
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I’ve wondered about it more since T. Greer’s last post about later Chinese commanders dismissive attitude towards Sun Tzu. Although, I still think the commanders were taking him too literally (not surprising since they were centralized literalists), T. Greer makes the point that dispersal is not a particularly great strategy against dispersal
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To use Chet’s analogy, the 46 zone defense was used in the 80s against tight, controlled formations. The Bears used it to perfection and were the greatest team of all time, inadvertently validating John Boyd in the process.
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However, shortly after that, the enemy (the 49er’s) implemented the West Coast Offense. To combat the chaotic dispersal of the 46’s constant blitzing, the WCO used many quick horizontal passes or passed into the void left by the blitzing linebackers in the first 10 – 15 yards, combined with a “no-huddle” tempo.
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Since then an arms race of asymmetric formations has been unleashed between offenses and defenses, such as the Cover 2 and the Spread. Aside from the Patriots, who benefited from cheating and celebrity girlfriends, there has been no real dynasty, and it has become very difficult to repeat a championship. Now an uneasy stalemate has set in, characterized by intense injuries. As the stalemate grinds on, an attrition-like style of play is starting to emerge again.
(the anomaly is Peyton Manning with a record setting year, but he’s benefited from what could be the easiest scheduling in the history of the Super Bowl era)
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So the reason why formations still stick around is because they are a component of the necessary fabric of the churning spiral. Periodically out of favor but always just around the corner after the next turn.

larrydunbar:

October 28th, 2013 at 11:29 pm

“West Coast Offense”
 
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I like the sound of that. Put more pressure on the quarter back to act, by making him stay in the pocket and throw to the tall quick guy 🙂
 
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What do you think of the Oregon Ducks. Mostly Boyd’s do two things to your guy’s one, which is also much like the up-tempo WCO. I don’t follow football much, so it is really all speculation on my part.
 
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“So the reason why formations still stick around is because they are a component of the necessary fabric of the churning spiral.”
 
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Could be, but I am not convinced.  I mean when you round that corner and a great weight falls on your head, there is something to be said positively about the  formations that are just around the corner.
 
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Also, I have the feeling Sun Tzu was speaking metaphorically about about “formlessness”. I mean at the end he said formlessness has its own form, which I agree with completely.
 
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But finally I have to say that I am glad that Zenpundit has finally got on board with this Indo-Pacific pivot. I was beginning to think that they were going to get too caughtup in this R2P thing.
 
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When COIN comes home, it is not always the well-informed that are able to see it 🙂

larrydunbar:

October 29th, 2013 at 12:51 am

“When COIN comes home, it is not always the well-informed that are able to see it ”
 
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Which is why Trotsky said to kill all the doctors first during revolutions like the Tea Pary is involved in. You don’t want to leave any implicit rule sets in the ruling class that might counter the revolution 🙂

Charles Cameron:

October 29th, 2013 at 1:36 am

Larry, I said “entire karmic system always seemed to me entirely too mechanical to be taken seriously, literally”. I certainly didn’t mean to say anything about the brain (or the OODA loop, for that matter), just that the literal interpretation of the Buddha’s doctrine of karma along the lines of “you reap exactly what you sow — and if you raped someone thirteen hundred and five lifetimes agao you will be raped by them with just the same level of violence in this or some other lifetime” is far too rigid a set of ideas for me to take seriously.
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As metaphor, “you reap what you sow” works nicely, but I don’t see any need to invoke millions of lifetimes or an exact mirroring of that kind to support it. 

Ernst Schnell:

October 31st, 2013 at 2:33 pm

Interesting in this context also the Buddhist dimension of the activities the “Bloody Baron” Roman von Ungern-Sternberg in and around Mongolia. Not quite contemporary, but still relevant and an eye-opener on the less than equanimous aspects of Buddhism. I suppose the take-away point is: if a religion really wants to go berserk, somebody will find a suitable scripture somewhere.

Grurray:

October 31st, 2013 at 3:20 pm

Other Theravada Buddhists that waged a lengthy war were the Sinhalese in Sri Lanka against Hindu Tamils
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_the_Sri_Lankan_civil_war
in a very long, bloody, and senseless post-colonial ethnic conflict

Charles Cameron:

October 31st, 2013 at 6:24 pm

Ernst:
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Indeed, Zen reviewed James Palmer, The Bloody White Baron: The Extraordinary Story of the Russian Nobleman Who Became the Last Khan of Mongolia here on Zenpundit a while back.
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At one point I was gpoing to write a book titled Landmines in the Garden — the garden being paradise and the scriptures and religions that point to it, and the landmines being particular scriptures and historical events that can be plucked from them to provide divine sanction for mayhem of one sort or another.

Charles Cameron:

October 31st, 2013 at 6:42 pm

Grurray, indeed.
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The Tamil Tigers are an interesting group.  I believe most scholars would say the LTTE were deologically secular separatists, although the Tamils as a whole are Hindu — but even so, there were LTTE rituals that clearly drew on Hindu motifs of sacrifice and martyrdom.