Courage?

There is this thing in Buddhism called Loving Kindness Meditation. In it, you start with yourself and wish yourself happiness, health, safety, and contentment. Next you wish the same for close family and best friends. You move outward with your wishful thoughts to friends who are not as close and to acquaintances. Then comes the big leap. You wish happiness, health, safety, and contentment to your enemies and to others who have hurt you. In Christianity, this equals the plea to love your enemy.

Don’t worry. I am not a good enough Buddhist to be able to wish happiness for Vladmir Putin. But the war in Ukraine got me thinking about the opposite of Loving Kindness. Can you, personally, hate someone enough to kill them? Of course, if your life or the lives of loved ones is threatened, you would probably say yes. But in that moment, could you? Michael Dukakis famously lost his chance at the presidency partly because of his answer to the question would he want the death penalty for someone who killed his wife. He said no. He was supposed to say yes, I would like to rip his heart out personally.

Could you kill someone to defend strangers and fellow citizens? People in the military are asked to do that all the time. That’s why people in the military deserve our respect and admiration. It takes a special kind of person to do this for his fellow citizens. Could I do that? I don’t know. I had a high enough draft lottery number in 1971, that kept me out of Vietnam. I have a client who is a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. He believes we all have the capability of unspeakable acts of violence. What do you believe?

War makes you think. In the Civil War, General Sherman, after burning southern cities to the ground, famously said “War is hell”. My Loving Kindness Mediation goes out to all who are suffering in Ukraine and especially to all children in war zones. It is always the children who suffer most. Maybe today I will take the time to reread “The Red Badge of Courage”. Maybe it is something we all should read.