A Buddhist Perspective on the War in Ukraine
Hawaii Association of International Buddhists Online Presentation
April 24, 2022
“Compassion changes everything. Compassion heals. Compassion mends the broken and restores what has been lost. Compassion draws together those who have been estranged or never even dreamed they were connected. Compassion pulls us out of ourselves and into the heart of another, placing us on sacred ground where we instinctively take off our shoes and walk in reverence. Compassion springs out of vulnerability and triumphs in unity.”
Judy Cannoto
On February 24th, 2022, Vladimir Putin initiated an unprovoked, vicious and criminal invasion of Ukraine. In the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt, it was a “day of infamy”. In the roughly two months since then, over seven million people have been internally displaced within the country, more than five million refugees have fled to surrounding countries, tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed, and major cities of the country have been totally destroyed.
These events represent a catastrophe of global dimensions that is already fragmenting the world as we know it, drawing us back to the horrors of the Second World War, and reinstituting the tensions of the Cold War of the 1960s to 1980s.
As practicing Buddhists, we find ourselves challenged as never before to understand these circumstances within the context of the Dharma, our commitment to ahimsa, or non harming, and the First Precept against the taking of life. We find ourselves challenged to find a sense of agency in these circumstances, to support and assist those in suffering and not fall prey to despair, helplessness and cynicism about the condition of humanity today.
To understand the war in Ukraine, I think it is helpful to understand the historic relationship between Ukraine and Russia. The Ukrainian and the Russian people have experienced an ancient and complex history of struggle over thousands of years. From the time of the birth of Russian culture in Kiev in the 12th Century, the rise of the Russian Tsars, the tragedy of the Second World War, and the post Soviet-era struggle for Ukrainian independence, what is clear is that Ukraine has always struggled under the oppressive yoke of Russia, whether under the Tsars, Stalin, or, more recently Vladimir Putin. What has become clear to the world is that the struggle of the Ukrainian people is a struggle for independence and freedom, not only as a nation, but as a culture and a people.
But what is also clear through all of this is that the Ukrainian struggle is but the latest episode of the history of colonialism and the struggle of the colonized to free themselves from oppression.
From the time of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century and the rise of the western powers, the history of the world has been marked by the struggle of the strong against the weak for resources, labor, or empire. At the same time, the legacies of the colonized countries have been marked by decades and centuries of oppression, suffering, struggles to regain a sense of national, ethnic and cultural identity, and a sense of economic and social development and equality.
I can relate to that struggle in a personal way. As an ethnic Korean, I am aware of the centuries long oppression that Korea experienced under its more powerful neighbors, China and Japan. The name for Korea in the Korean language is often interpreted to mean the land of suffering. My father grew up in a Korea that was a colony of Japan where he was forbidden to speak the Korean language. My mother spent most of her early life fighting for Korean independence. They fell in love and married because of their common dedication to Korean independence. I also have relatives, aunts and uncles who suffered during the ensuing Korean War. A number of them were killed.
So, as a species, we as human beings have far to go to overcome the kind of greed, hatred, and delusion that has created so much of the suffering we continue to experience to this day. The legacy of colonialism has always been the legacy of denial, abuse and suffering.
So, as Buddhists, the question is: how do we relate to what is happening in the Ukraine today? How can we find a sense of meaning in their struggle, a sense of agency to stand in support of the people of Ukraine, and a sense of moral efficacy in the face of our commitment to ahimsa and the First Precept against the taking of life?
To help us in this dilemma, I would like to turn to the teachings of the Venerable Bhikkhu Bodhi in an essay he wrote in Inquiring Mind entitled: War and Peace: A Buddhist Perspective”.
We know from history that the Buddha lived during a time of tremendous warfare and upheaval. He writes how “men take up swords and shields, buckle on bows and quivers, and charge into battle…where they are wounded by arrows and spears, and their heads are cut off by swords…and they are splashed with boiling liquids and crushed under heavy weights.
Against this backdrop of social chaos, the Buddha propounded an ethic of harmlessness that rejected violence in all its forms. He rested this ethic on the appeal to empathy, the ability to imagine oneself in the place of others: “All beings fear violence, all fear death. Using oneself as a criterion, one should not kill or cause death”. The First Precept calls for abstinence from the destruction of life. The earnest follower “puts down the rod and weapon and dwells compassionate toward all living beings”.
Yet the question remains, what happens to our commitment to harmlessness when the evil of war seems necessary to deter a greater and more destructive evil? Bhikkhu Bodhi informs us that the sutras, actually, do not admit of any moral justification for war. The sutras always endorse nonviolence even in the face of evil. However, the question still remains: While adhering to nonviolence as an ideal, how should a government address real threats to its population? When a nation violates the rules of peaceful coexistence, the obligation to restrain aggression may trump the obligation to avoid violence. To resolve the dissonance between the moral idealism of the sutras and the pragmatic demands of everyday life, Bhikkhu Bodhi proposes two frameworks for shaping moral decisions. He calls one the liberative framework and the second, the pragmatic karmic framework.
The liberative framework applies to those who seek to advance as quickly as possible toward final liberation. Through the threefold training in moral conduct, concentration, and wisdom, one follows a strict regimen of non-harming. If one is confronted with the choice between sacrificing one’s own life and taking the life of another, one must be willing sacrifice one’s own life, confident that this act of renunciation will expedite one’s progress toward liberation.
The pragmatic karmic framework serves as a moral context for those committed to Buddhist ethical values, but who choose final liberation over a series of lifetimes, rather than directly. One who adopts this framework recognizes that the duties of daily life occasionally call for compromises with the strict obligations of the Buddhist moral code. This karmic framework can justify enlisting in the military and serving as a combatant, providing one sincerely believes the reason for fighting is to disable a dangerous aggressor and protect one’s country and its citizens.
A very important mitigating factor in this balance is the understanding of karma as not only action, but as intention. In this case, the moral quality of the motive determines the ethical value of the action and the karmic consequence. If the motive is territorial expansion, material wealth or national glory, the resort to war would be morally blameworthy. But, if the motive is national defense, to prevent a rogue nation from disrupting global peace, or to protect one’s family and community, the moral evaluation would reflect those intentions.
Bhikku Bodhi asks us: suppose we were living in the 1940s when Hitler was pursuing his quest for global domination. Can we say that fidelity to the Dharma obliges us to remain passive in the face of brutal aggression? Wouldn’t we maintain that, in this situation, military action to stop the aggressor is laudable, even obligatory, and that a solder’s actions can be judged morally commendable?
Hesitantly, Bhikkhu Bodhi adopts the latter position. The taking of any life is always the last choice, and a most regrettable one. But, in a morally complex world, he concludes that our choices and judgements must reflect the morally complex situations that confront us. He reflects that the early Buddhist texts simply do not cover all the predicaments of the human situation. Perhaps it never was their intention. Perhaps their intention was to serve as guidelines rather than as moral absolutes, to posit ideals even for those who cannot perfectly fulfill them. He concludes that, in such cases, we must simply do our best to navigate between them, rigorously examining our own intentions and aspiring to reduce harm and suffering for the greatest number of those at risk.
So, as we come to see the moral dimensions of the war in Ukraine, we come to that point of standing on the same ground as the Ukrainians. We come to see that while violence in any form is reprehensible, we can have great compassion and empathy for those forced to defend themselves, their families, and their way of life. We see that we are not separate from them, and in the same situation, we would do the same thing.
In that sense, to paraphrase the words of Joan Halifax, Buddhism from its very beginning has guided us to realize the interconnectedness of all beings. We have also come to know the peace that comes to all beings when they have come to a state of non-alienation and non-hatred, and the peace that nourishes courageous and liberating action in the world.
Out of this peace arises compassionate action. If we see that we are not separate from others, then we not only share in their awakening, we also share in their suffering. We are not separate from the fear and courage of the Ukranians who are taking a stand on the streets of their cities. But, we are also not separate from the suffering of those attacking Ukraine. In this state of non-separation, we are open, open to discover, to bear witness, and stand with the suffering all those involved in the Ukrainian struggle. We, as human beings who love and feel compassion, cannot hide from the pervasiveness of suffering, violence, and alienation as we bear witness to what is happening in Ukraine at this very moment.
The teachings of the Buddha tell us that there is no “other”. Yet we live in a world peopled by those who are subject to the deepest forms of alienation from their own natural wisdom, a world where whole communities see “others” who should be done away with, liquidated, eliminated, raped, ravaged, cut down, and gunned down.
Yet, at the same time, we must reach through courageously to where the suffering is most acute, sending our voice, taking a stand and nurturing peace by strengthening values, views and behaviors that are based on love, compassion and wisdom. As Buddhists, we share a common aspiration to awaken from our own confusion, from greed, and from anger in order to free ourselves from suffering. At the same time, we aspire with whatever power lies within us to help free others from suffering.