"In the Shambhala warrior tradition, we say you should only have to kill an enemy once every thousand years."
--Chogyam Trungpa
Osama bin Laden is dead. We killed him. It seemed there was no choice. We were clearly in an "us-or-them" situation, and if we didn't kill him, he was going to continue to do everything in his power to kill us.
As Buddhists, we are supposed to abhor all killing, but what do you do when someone is trying to kill you? Obviously, great theologians have pondered this question for millennia, and I'm not going to try to pile on with my point of view, which would be totally useless.
Instead, I'll pose this question: How do you kill your enemy in a way that puts a stop to violence rather than escalates it?
Strangely, I keep coming back to the same rather ordinary conclusion: the answer is in our ability to face our most intense emotions. When we know how to relate to our anger, hatred, despair and frustration fully and properly, they self-liberate. When we don't, when we can't tolerate them and therefore act them out, we create enormous sorrow and confusion.
Look at your own reaction this morning.
Was there even a hint of vengefulness or gladness at Osama bin Laden's death? If so, that is a real problem. Whatever suffering he may have experienced cannot reverse even one moment of the suffering he caused. If you believe his death is a form of compensation, you are deluded.
There has been an outpouring of misdirected jubilation, as if a contest had been won. Nothing has been won. Unlike winning a sporting event, this doesn't mean that our team has triumphed. Far from it. There is only one team, and it is us. When those of us (especially our leaders) who now foment violence choose instead to try to create peace, then we will truly have cause for celebration.
One of us is gone -- one apparently horrific, terrible, vicious person among us is gone. I don't feel regret for him or about this. I'm regretful for the rest of us who are now left thinking that this is a cause for celebration. It is not. It is a cause for sorrow at our continued inability to realize that there is no such thing as us-and-them, that whatever we do to cause harm to one will harm us all.
When we hate, we cause hate. When we think we have won by vanquishing our enemy, we have lost. In killing Osama bin Laden, "they" lose because one of their leaders is gone. But we lose, too, because we have deepened the causes and conditions that lead to more hatred and its consequences. This is not over.
So what do we do? I don't really know, but for me, rather than cheering on this day, I'm going to rededicate myself to the idea of brotherhood toward all, even those that want me dead -- and not because I'm some kind of really good person (I'm not), but because I know it's the only way to stay alive in the only kind of world I want to inhabit.
Perhaps the way to kill your enemy as a way of putting a stop to violence rather than escalating is to shift our view of "enemy" altogether. Our enemy is not one person or country or belief system. It is our unwillingness to feel the sorrow of others -- who are none other than us.
So take aim at this enemy completely and precisely. Feel your sadness for us and them so fully and completely that all boundaries are dissolved and we are left standing face to face, human to human, each feeling the other's rage and despair as our own, one world to care for.
"[W]hen you do not produce another force of hatred, the opposing force collapses."
--Chogyam Trungpa
If you'd like to try to generate such a switch, please try lovingkindness meditation. Here is audio instruction in the practice.