O Samsarians! Read and weep of your folly. From a book review of "The New American Militarism: How Americans Are Seduced by War," by Andrew Bacevich:


"Reeling from a newfound sense of American weakness, military officers seeking to recover lost prestige and autonomy, neoconservatives enthralled by Wilsonian rhetoric, and religious leaders transfixed by an apocalyptic reading of the cold war reached the same conclusion, namely that American military strength had to be restored, and once restored multiplied several fold. The culture industry followed, with 1986's Top Gun representing the apotheosis of Hollywood's newfound love affair with the American fighting man. (Lengthy discourses on Top Gun and Rambo: First Blood Part II make for some of the most entertaining moments in an unfailingly serious work.) These currents redounded to the advantage of a small clique of defense intellectuals, several of them associated with the RAND Corporation, others high-ranking civilians in the Pentagon, who had envisioned new forms of war fighting that promised to transcend the cold-war stalemate. Taken together, the result has been a vastly more expensive, more celebrated, and more frequently deployed military."

Public acceptance underlies this increased use and stature of the military. While all organized societies require self-defense, things have gotten just a little ridiculous.

from A Journey in Ladakh, by Andrew Harvey, at p.41 (the author recounting a converstation with a fellow traveler):

"It is strange for a cynical psychologist to spend every day with people that seem, as far as I can judge, to have little interest in deceiving or impressing you ... And it is strange for me too to be among people who for the most part are happy. Don't get me wrong -- this is a harsh land. It is hard to get the crops to grow here on the rocky mountainsides, it is had to survive the solitudes of the winter and the lonely places ... But most of these people live simply and unsentimentally, they live with few needs, few prides, few vanities. They are tolerant to their old people, to their children, to each other. You know what they are taught by their priests? They are taught that every living thing has been their mother in a previous incarnation, and so they must respect it as their mother. I have seen very little cruelty. ..."

It is easy to idealize life in traditional, pre-industrialized societies, yet there seems to be something to this. Buddhism seems to be the key to creating such a content and kind society, but I suppose that Christianity (at least real Christianity, not what passes for Christianity in the U.S.) would produce the same results. Be content and frown upon pride and vanity. Treat other people and living things well. Pretty simple rules but they depend upon a rational and calm mind. Living here in the "land of the free", it is hard to imagine that an entire culture could ever achieve such a thing.

What we need is a good Buddhist bumper sticker. Like me, you probably get a good chuckle from the various Christian messages you see pasted on the rear ends of cars and trucks chugging around town:

"Don't Let The Car Fool You - My Treasure Is In Heaven"

Now this one strikes me as a little smug, and certainly over-confident.

"My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter"

I assume this is a reference to Jesus. Personally I'm a little turned off by such an unapologetic recognition of a higher authority over my person and spiritual destiny. I do like the positive image of a humble manual trade such as carpentry, however.

How about:

"My boss is a 2500 year old Nepalese wandering holy man." Not very catchy.

Not surprisingly, you can actually purchase Buddhist bumper stickers. Here is one that catches my eye:

http://www.palyulproductions.org/May_all_beings_Bumper_sticker.jpg

It beautifully catches a central theme of the Buddhist, while wrapping it in the obligatory patriotism necessary for the U.S. bumper aesthetic (and, no, I don't have any financial stake in above-mentioned bumper sticker).

Being a soldier isn't really an honorable thing. After all, it is all about be trained to kill other humans, and being willing to do so. The U.S., an alleged Christian nation, puts the military on a pedestal, only confirming that most people's religious beliefs are shallow.

Which leads me to this news story, which I find rather striking:

"As an 18-year-old soldier in Vietnam, Claude Thomas was good at his job.

Ordered to kill, he did it. But in the end, the killing destroyed him.

Years of drinking, drugs and violence would go by before he found Buddhist meditation, and eventually, life as a Buddhist monk.

...

"My job in Vietnam was to kill people," writes Claude Anshin, as he prefers to be called. "By the time I was first injured in combat (two or three months into his tour), I had already been directly responsible for the deaths of several hundred people. And today, each day, I can still see many of their faces."

Claude Anshin was a crew chief on assault helicopters. By the end of his tour in Vietnam, he'd won 27 Air Medals, a Distinguished Flying Cross and the Purple Heart...

Eventually, post-traumatic stress disorder and the accompanying addictions landed Claude Anshin on the streets. It wasn't until the early 1990s, when he heard Buddhist monk and author Thich Nhat Hanh speak at a retreat in upstate New York, that Claude Anshin was able to directly address the pain of both Vietnam and an abusive childhood.

In a telephone interview this week, Claude Anshin said he now travels to share Zen practices and help others understand both suffering and healing.

"How the roots of war and violence exist in all of us, and we are all responsible," he said. "What I do is share the tools that supported me: meditation practice, no intoxicants and a desire to live differently."

(from The Ann Arbor News).

Claude Anshin has put this experience into a book, "At Hell's Gate: A Soldier's Journey from War to Peace."

Turn the clock forward: if he were returning today from Iraq with the same combat record he would be greeted with a flag waiving parade and honored for "fighting for our freedom." And so it goes.

The articulation of the ultimate reward is a hurdle for the spread of Buddhism, as the human mind is conditioned to seek what is pleasurable and enjoyable in our daily existence. The rewards of "heaven" are easily grasped by people: a happy place in the sky where we see family and friends again, sit at the side of God, and have peace and contentment. Comforting myths are an easy sell.

But striving towards enlightenment? The discipline and self-restraint of the path will be rewarded by the self being "extinguished?" The ultimate reward is hard to express in language and hard to appreciate when our existence is so tied to our material world. Alas, will true Buddhism always be an "elitist" path?