Death Penalty, II

There's an essay regarding the death penalty on a buddhist website called Fraught With Peril. Written by Rev. Ryuei, a Nichiren buddhist, the essay expresses more eloquently than I can a buddhist perspective on the death penalty. By the way, not all buddhists agree about the merits of the state-sponsored executions, but since I agree with Ryuei's viewpoint, I offer some selective, if rather lengthy, quotes:

From the Buddhist point of view all of us have the seeds of hell within us, and but for the grace of causes and conditions those seeds may come into fruition in our own actions and our own comeuppance in the course of innumerable eons of rebirth. From the traditional Buddhist point of view we have all been hell-dwellers and barring our liberation we will again become hell-dwellers. As Christians say, "there are none who are without sin" and "their hearts have been evil from the very beginning." The Buddhist teaching of the three poisons and the mutual possession of the ten worlds (whereby even those in the human realm have a bit of hell within them - but also heaven and buddhahood) is making the same point as the Christian doctrine of "original sin" - that all of us from the unfathomable beginning have been enmeshed in unwholesome attitudes, conduct, and the suffering that entails. It does not even matter if there are literal hells to fall into, or heavens to fall away from. It is an existential truth that if we are honest we feel within the depths of our lives.

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The Buddha did not believe that people were intrinsically good or intrinsically evil. In fact he did not talk in terms of good and evil so much as in terms of wholesome and unwholesome causes and conditions. Causes and conditions encompass all things, but in terms of our human lives we are able to awaken to and take responsibility for the wholesomeness or lack thereof of the causes set in motion by our intention, speech, and actions. Sometimes we will water and cultivate hellish seeds, sometimes hungry ghost seeds, sometimes the seeds of humane consideration and rationality, sometimes seeds of compassion or even perfect and complete awakening. But no one is intrinsically good or evil, but all are able to change the complex of causes and conditions that compose our lives.

The Buddha believed that this human life was the most precious state of all - because it was as a human being that one was not overwhelmed by the suffering we have undergone in the hells and other realms, nor are we lulled by the false security we have undergone in the heavenly realms. So it is here and now as rational, self-reflective human beings that we can acknowledge, account for, take responsibility for, and change the complex of our causes and conditions. We do not have the right to take this precious opportunity away from anyone, nor do we even have the right to take it away from those who take it away from others.

…Piling unwholesomeness atop unwholesomeness does not create a wholesome situation. Rather the seeds of vengeance, bitterness, hatred, and anguish are simply cultivated all the more by unnecessarily killing those who kill. Furthermore, from the point of view of Buddhism we are not dispatching people to a final just judgement because in Buddhism the judgement happens in each moment of karmic unfolding - that means right here and now. So killing a murderer is in a sense the just fruition of their karma, but they simply go on to another life where they simply continue their ignorant, selfish, and destructive patterns; whereas we have now watered our own hellish seeds in order to strike back at them. So they go on as they were and we become worse.

…The Buddha did teach that we could go mad trying to guess another person's karma, in other words what they do or do not deserve, but that it is always in accord to pay respects to the Buddha-nature of all beings. In the case of dangerous criminals (and dictators) they do need to be incarcerated and prevented from doing any harm, but once rendered harmless if we are not to sink to their level we should not be seeking vengeance nor should we seek to torment or harm them but rather to find a way to awaken their humanity if not a more complete awakening. In fact, to harm, torment, or kill just confirms them in their own brutal way of relating to the world …

In the life of Shakyamuni Buddha it is said that he encountered a serial killer named Angulimala. In fact, Angulimala had killed 999 people in order to present a gift of a 1,000 finger-bone necklace to an evil guru. So Angulimala was actually a religious terrorist and no mere gangster or thug. He was even going to kill his own mother because he could not find the 1,000th victim. But then the Buddha came along and Angulimala tried to catch him. But Angulimala could not reach the Buddha no matter how fast he ran, and regardless of the Buddha's dignified steady pace. Finally Angulimala yelled "Stop! Stop!" The Buddha turned to face the killer and said, "I stopped long ago. When will you stop?" Faced by the fearless dignity and composure of the Buddha, Angulimala stopped stunned. Realizing the Buddha was a spiritual teacher he then realized that "stopping" the Buddha referred to was the cycle of unwholesome deeds, suffering, and anguish leading to more unwholesome deeds. Right then, it is said, Angulimala realized that he had found a true friend and a true teacher. He renounced himself and not just his murderous deeds and ideology. He became a monk, and on the Buddha's testimony was given a reprieve from King Bimbisara. The people, however, lynched him all the same, but he died realizing that he had transformed the seeds of hell inside himself and that being lynched was actually getting off easy compared to his misdeeds. He died a liberated man, but those who committed the lynching had unknowingly killed an arhat (an awakened saint) - one of the five heinous deeds which leads directly to the Avichi (Uninterrupted) Hell in the next life, whereas if they had let go of their bitterness and vengefulness and aroused patience and compassion instead they would have entered the path of bodhisattvas and attained the Pure Land in their hearts right there and then.


To read the entire essay, go to Rev. Ryuei's section of the website www.fraughtwithperil.com (note to self: must figure out how to link!)