..续本文上一页uddied in an effort to recast the Buddha in our own less than glorious image.

　　Because the Pali Canon is such an unpromising place to look for the justification of killing, most of the arguments for a Buddhist theory of just war look elsewhere for their evidence, citing the words and behavior of people they take as surrogates for the Buddha. These arguments are obviously on shaky ground, and can be easily dismissed even by people who know nothing of the Canon. For example, it has been argued that because Asian governments claiming to be Buddhist have engaged in war and torture, the Buddha”s teachings must condone such behavior. However, we”ve had enough exposure to people claiming to be Christian whose behavior is very unchristian to realize that the same thing can probably happen in the Buddhist world as well. To take killers and torturers as your guide to the Buddha”s teaching is hardly a sign of good judgment.

　　On a somewhat higher note, one writer has noted that his meditation teacher has told soldiers and policemen that if their duty is to kill, they must perform their duty, albeit compassionately and with mindfulness. The writer then goes on to argue that because his teacher is the direct recipient of an oral tradition dating back to the Buddha, we must take this as evidence that the Buddha would give similar advice as well. This statement, of course, tells us more about the writer”s faith in his teacher than about the Buddha; and when we reflect that the Buddha expelled from the Sangha a monk who gave advice of this sort to an executioner, it casts serious doubts on his argument.

　　There are, however, writers who try to find evidence in the Pali Canon for a Buddhist theory of just war, not in what the Buddha said, but in what he didn”t. The arguments go like this: When talking with kings, the Buddha never told them not to engage in war or capital punishment. This was his tacit admission that the king had a justifiable duty to engage in these activities, and the kings would have understood his silence as such. Because these arguments cite the Pali Canon and claim a historian”s knowledge of how silence was interpreted in the Buddha”s day, they seem to carry more authority than the others. But when we actually look at the Pali record of the Buddha”s conversations with kings, we find that the arguments are bogus. The Buddha was able to communicate the message to kings that they shouldn”t kill, but because kings in general were not the most promising students of the Dhamma, he had to bring them to this message in an indirect way.

　　It”s true that in the Pali Canon silence is sometimes interpreted as acquiescence, but this principle holds only in response to a request. If someone invited the Buddha to his house for a meal and the Buddha remained silent, that was a sign of consent. However, there were many instances in which the Buddha”s silence was a sign, not of acquiescence, but of tact. A professional soldier once went to the Buddha and said that his teachers had taught the existence of a heaven awaiting soldiers who die in battle. What did the Buddha have to say about that

　　 At first the Buddha declined to answer, but when the soldier showed the sincerity of his question by pressing him three times for a response, he finally replied:

　　“When a warrior strives & exerts himself in battle, his mind is already seized, debased, & misdirected by the thought: “May these beings be struck down or slaughtered or annihilated or destroyed. May they not exist”: If others then strike him down & slay him while he is thus striving & exerting himself in battle, then with the breakup of the body, after death, he is reborn in the hell called the realm of those slain in battle. But if he holds such a view as this: “When a warrior str…

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