The following, which I find very interesting and thought-provoking, is from today's Washington Post:
ON FAITH
A Buddhist Considers the Death Penaltyby Losang Tendrol
Wednesday, Oct 26, 2011
A Buddhist considers the death penalty
On Sept. 28, Florida executed Manuel Valle after he had spent 33 years on death row. On Sept. 21, Georgia took Troy Davis’s life, despite a lack of evidence proving his guilt. On the same day, white supremacist Lawrence Brewer was killed by lethal injection by the state of Texas, despite the victim’s family’s request to the district attorney not to seek the death penalty.
According to Buddhism, everything that happens in our lives is the result of causes and conditions. Nothing happens at random. By not committing any of the five nonvirtuous actions (killing, lying, stealing, sexual misconduct, taking intoxicants), we ensure that we are not victims of murder, theft, etc. Likewise, when we do experience such misfortune, we recognize that the situations arise because of similar actions we committed in the past.
We bear full responsibility for our present and future lives, both for the positive and negative experiences.
In the words of a great Tibetan scholar, Sakya Pandita, “Howsoever anyone breaks the law, they may win for a while, but in the end, they lose.”
Karma, the law of cause and effect, is not subject to the legal system. As such, the death penalty is unnecessary because the person who commits murder will suffer the karmic consequences.
The late Tibetan Buddhist meditator Geshe Yeshe Tobden, who spent time in Chinese prisons, wrote about people who harm us: “They do not behave this way . . . as a result of free choice, and it is unreasonable to be angry with them. We should try instead to feel compassion . . . because they are under the influence of mental afflictions, of wrong conceptions, and of negative emotions that drive them to kill themselves or harm others.”
One of the defining scholars of Buddhism, Nagarjuna, wrote to a king: “Especially generate compassion for those whose ill deeds are horrible.”
Punishment should be carried out with compassion, not for retribution, since it is another name for “revenge, which implies the action is done with anger and therefore would burden the executioner with hatred and its resultant poor karma.”
The Dalai Lama signed Amnesty International’s pledge against the death penalty several years ago. He opposes the death sentence because it punishes the person and not the action.
Buddhism does allow ending the life of another when it is done in self-defense, and it could be argued that capital punishment could sometimes be seen as a society’s attempt at self-defense. But when other means are available, it would seem that the less lethal option should be favored.
Countering violence with violence only results in more violence.
Losang Tendrol is a nun in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. She teaches meditation and Buddhism at the Guhyasamaja Buddhist Center in Reston.
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