Mindfulness madness in the US military

Westernised mindfulness has good bits and bad bits, some very good, some … idiotic.

Doing Buddhist meditation before killing people

Have a look at this: US soldiers practise Buddhist mindfulness meditation to prepare for the stress of battle and killing people.

“Though its roots are found in Buddhism, leaders say soldiers do not need to be Buddhist to gain benefits from it,” the article explains, as if being Buddhist would give an even better preparation to kill people.

If you think this is a crazy deluded understanding of Buddhism, I couldn’t agree more. Unfortunately it sums up a lot of how the Western world views Buddhism. I’ll refer you to this article dealing with the Western misunderstanding of Eastern teachings by Buddhist teacher Michael Stone in Salon.

All tremble at violence; all fear death. Putting oneself in the place of another, one should not kill nor cause another to kill.
Genuine Buddha quote, Dhammapada 129

The thing that is disliked by me is also disliked by others. Since I dislike this thing, how can I inflict it on someone else?
Genuine Buddha quote, Saṃyutta Nikāya 55.7

“Your love for the other, your ability to love another person, depends on your ability to love yourself. If you are not able to give love to yourself, if you are not able to accept yourself, how could you accept another person and how could you love him or her? Thích Nhất Hạnh”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

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