Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A great exploration of Buddhism as it relates to the armed services may be found here.

It attempts to answer the questions:


Does Buddhism permit the State to build and foster an Army?. Can a good Buddhist be a soldier? and can he kill for the sake of the country? What about the 'Defence' of a country.? When a ruthless army invades a country, does Buddhism prohibit a Buddhist King to defend his country and his people? If Buddhism is a 'way of life,' is there any other way for a righteous king to battle against an invasion of an army.?


Key passage:

From the above it is clear that contrary to the popular belief the Buddha has not rejected or prohibited soldiering as a profession or occupation and the right of a king or a government to have an army and to defend one's country and its people. In the contrary the Buddha has expressly recognized the necessity for a king to have an army and providing protection to the subjects of a country has been recognized as a prime duty of the king .

1 comment:

han said...

hi Armed Buddhist,

I personally support some form of gun control but found your blog most interesting. About Buddhists being soldiers, in Korea, there was a tradition of warrior monks serving kings(and others!) until the 15th century when it adopted radical Confucianism. Also the Shao Lin Temple monks did help the Chinese Emperor two times in history when things were really bad.

So being a pacifist does not mean abstaining from all combat at all. I guess it means not using violence against others, but also not allowing others to use violence against oneself!

Keep on blogging!