meditatio

[Ensapa]

It is pretty scary how such a sacred practice can be also used to kill others! Meditation is just a tool after all, it can be used for good and bad purposes. This is a very clear reminder that the Dharma is a double edged sword that can be used both for good and also for evil purposes to damage others and to surpress feelings. Instead of developing the mind to a positive side, it was used to develop the mind to kill more efficiently...whoa.

Anders Behring Breivik used meditation to kill – he's not the first
The Norwegian mass murderer meditated to numb his emotions. The effect of any practice depends on our values

Vishvapani Blomfield
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 22 May 2012 08.30 BST

'Samurai used meditation to develop their skills and overcome fear of death.' Photograph: Yuriko Nakao/Reuters
Meditation makes you calmer and clearer and encourages empathy and kindness … right? Not if you are Anders Behring Breivik who has told psychiatrists that he used meditation to "numb the full spectrum of human emotion – happiness to sorrow, despair, hopelessness, and fear". He still practises it behind bars to deaden the impact of his actions.

Breivik uses meditation as a form of mind control – a way to focus the mind and exclude responses that get in his way. You could argue that he is meditating wrongly, but I think his testimony shows that the effect of any practice, meditation included, depends on the ends to which it is recruited. Breivik's aims were determined by his racist beliefs and meditation didn't challenge them.

We've been here before. Breivik likened himself to a Japanese banzai warrior seeking satori – Japanese Zen enlightenment – to harden his heart. Samurai, inspired by Zen teachings, often used meditation to develop their skills and overcome fear of death. Zen's long association with the samurai bushido ethos culminated, after the Meiji restoration of 1868, in the support of virtually the whole Zen establishment for the military expansion that culminated in the second world war. Japanese Buddhists rejoiced that the Pearl Harbor attacks had occurred on 8 December, the day when they mark the Buddha's enlightenment; and leaders insisted that fighting was a patriotic and a Buddhist duty.

Established religions commonly support a nation's war effort, but the Zen enthusiasm for Japanese militarism strayed so far from the Buddha's nonviolent teachings that it raises more fundamental questions. After the war a group of Japanese Zen scholar-priests (the Critical Buddhism school) investigated how their branch of a seemingly pacifist tradition had ended up affirming war. They concluded that Zen's reinterpretations of early Buddhism had obscured its fundamental tenets.

The first Buddhist precept is not killing living beings. As the Buddha says: "All men tremble at punishment, all men fear death; remembering that you are like them, do not kill" (Dhammapada 119). But Mahayana Buddhism, from which Zen evolved, teaches that all phenomena are mysterious and ungraspable – empty of any fixed essence. So what should we relate to everyday reality in which, the Buddha stressed, actions have consequences and ethical considerations apply? The various Mahayana schools have different answers, but Zen teaches that the ultimate perspective should inform everything.

That elevates a non-dual state of mind over ethical distinctions. The 17th-century master Takuan told his samurai students: "The uplifted sword has no will of its own, it is all of emptiness. The man who is about to be struck down is also of emptiness, and so is the one who wields the sword." Later, the self-sacrifice of kamikaze pilots was hailed as an expression of enlightenment.

Westerners learned of Zen's tarnished history through Brian Victoria's Zen at War (1997), but few western Zen practitioners have seriously re-evaluated their tradition. Many like Zen's anti-intellectualism, feeling that doctrines and ethical precepts smack of rigidity, dogma and rules. But the Buddha made right understanding the first item in his eightfold path because he knew that everyone is guided by a worldview and underlying beliefs. His teachings seek to reshape those views so they eliminate attachment and support liberation. Ultimately, that includes attachment to doctrines, but discarding them too soon means that pre-existing beliefs and prevailing opinion go unchallenged.

Zen's non-dual philosophy obscured Buddhism's ethical teachings; Breivik used meditation to serve the murderous objectives of his racist ideology. Meditation, or any other practice, is just a technique. Its effects, for good or ill, depend on the system of values that guide how a person uses it.

[Midakpa]

A man's mind can influence his body profoundly. If allowed to function viciously and entertain unwholesome thoughts, it can cause disasters, even kill a being. In the case of Breivik, he used meditation to reinforce his hatred so much so that he was able to kill many people viciously.

Dear Ensapa, this type of meditation is not Dharma at all. Meditation used in this way is definitely a "tool" but it is not a "sacred practice" and Dharma is definitely not a "double edged sword".  Dharma is the Buddha's teachings and therefore cannot be unwholesome. It is your choice of words that is misleading.

When the mind is concentrated on unwholesome thoughts such as hatred, jealousy etc., it is very harmful to oneself and to others. Dharma is exactly the opposite. Dharma is controlling the mind and keeping it on the right road so that it becomes useful for oneself and for society. Dharma is concentrating the mind on right thoughts.

[Ensapa]

A man's mind can influence his body profoundly. If allowed to function viciously and entertain unwholesome thoughts, it can cause disasters, even kill a being. In the case of Breivik, he used meditation to reinforce his hatred so much so that he was able to kill many people viciously.

Dear Ensapa, this type of meditation is not Dharma at all. Meditation used in this way is definitely a "tool" but it is not a "sacred practice" and Dharma is definitely not a "double edged sword".  Dharma is the Buddha's teachings and therefore cannot be unwholesome. It is your choice of words that is misleading.

When the mind is concentrated on unwholesome thoughts such as hatred, jealousy etc., it is very harmful to oneself and to others. Dharma is exactly the opposite. Dharma is controlling the mind and keeping it on the right road so that it becomes useful for oneself and for society. Dharma is concentrating the mind on right thoughts.

But is it not shocking that a Buddhist philosophy can be used to assist someone in killing others? In harming others? As you have read in the article, Zen meditation can be used to focus on killing and to remove remorse or guilt that is associated with killing. The focus that is used can be either used to remove the delusions in the mind or to cut down a life. The method for both removing the delusions in the mind and to cut down a life is the one and same but the motivation and the purpose is different and thus they have different results. The word "meditation" is used to describe both! Of course this type of meditation is not Dharma but still the method to achieve both ends are the same.

Similarly, if we use Dharma to cover our insecurities instead of applying it, and also use the Dharma to put others down so that we can appear to be more superior, we hurt ourselves and others a lot more. It's not just on meditation, but any other Dharma practice when done wrongly will only bring suffering, from the most basic teachings to the highest teachings of tantra:

"Suppose there were a man needing a water-snake, seeking a water-snake, wandering in search of a water-snake. He would see a large water-snake and grasp it by the coils or by the tail. The water-snake, turning around, would bite him on the hand, on the arm, or on one of his limbs, and from that cause he would suffer death or death-like suffering. Why is that? Because of the wrong-graspedness of the water-snake. In the same way, there is the case where some worthless men study the Dhamma... Having studied the Dhamma, they don't ascertain the meaning of those Dhammas with their discernment. Not having ascertained the meaning of those Dhammas with their discernment, they don't come to an agreement through pondering. They study the Dhamma both for attacking others and for defending themselves in debate. They don't reach the goal for which [people] study the Dhamma. Their wrong grasp of those Dhammas will lead to their long-term harm & suffering. Why is that? Because of the wrong-graspedness of the Dhammas.

[dondrup]

Dear Ensapa, this type of meditation is not Dharma at all. Meditation used in this way is definitely a "tool" but it is not a "sacred practice" and Dharma is definitely not a "double edged sword".  Dharma is the Buddha's teachings and therefore cannot be unwholesome. It is your choice of words that is misleading.

I concur with what Midakpa had said. 

Meditation is not exclusive to Buddhism.  Non-Buddhists practise meditation too.  In order for a meditation to qualify as a Buddhist Meditation, it must incorporate the practice of Going for Refuge to the Three Jewels prior to the meditation session.  The meditation practice used by Anders Behring Breivik is a tool indeed but it is definitely not a Buddhist meditation!  Furthermore, Buddhists always generate a correct and good motivation e.g. renunciation or bodhichitta prior to any virtuous activity including meditation.

Yes, Dharma when practised incorrectly with wrong motivation becomes non-Dharma practice.  Hence The Noble Eightfold Path or the Three Higher Trainings are essential in ensuring our practices are in accordance with Dharma.

[ilikeshugden]

Meditation like all things can be used for both good and evil. In this case, this Norwegian mass murderer used it for evil. Meditation calms the body. He used it so that he can calmly murder the victim. He will not be afraid of death and the like. It is such a shame that people still use meditation in the same way the samurai barbarically misused it. If the mind is allowed to become angry and evil, then even in meditation, the body will do the same.