New Mexico, USA will Abolish the Death Penalty.

The New Mexico Senate voted to abolish capital punishment, a measure already approved by the lower House that Governor Bill Richardson must sign before it goes into effect, the Senate said on its website. Supporters of the measure argue that replacing the death sentence with life in prison without parole would save the state more than one million dollars a year. There are about 10 US states currently considering repealing the death penalty, which is applied in 36 of the 50 states in the union.

James: The death penalty has no place in civilized society and in my opinion not in Buddhism either. Consider this tale from the Rajaparikatha-ratnamala, which was advice given to King Udayi from the great Indian-Buddhist philosopher Nagajuna:

The Rajaparikatha-ratnamala or The Precious Garland of Advice for the King is a treatise attributed to the famous South Indian Buddhist philosopher Nagarjuna (2nd or 3rd century AD). In this work on Buddhist statecraft, Nagarjuna gives King Udayi of the Satavahana Dynasty advice on a variety of matters. Here is how Nagarjuna handles capital punishment:

O King, through compassion you should always< style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(102, 102, 102);">Even for all those embodied beings Who have committed appalling sins. Especially generate compassion For those murderers, whose sins are horrible; Those of fallen nature are receptacles Of compassion from those whose nature is great.... Once you have analyzed the angry Murderers and recognized them well, You should banish them without Killing or tormenting them.

Banishment or exile has been employed as a form of sanction in various pre-modern Asian legal systems. Indeed, banishment has also been employed at times in the West. Although banishment obviously entails psychological and physical hardships, it is certainly to be preferred to death. Moreover, it can protect the convicted defendant from the possible wrath of friends or family of the victim.

James: I see banishment and exile today as life in prison without the possibility of parole, which is a very humane yet punitive way to deal with murders and other serious felons. I think whether we kill prisoners or not says more about us than the prisoners. As I've said here before the death penalty is excessive and continues the cycle and energy of anger, hatred and lust for violence and revenge.

Attention must be focused upon the person having to do the actual killing of these prisoners--the executioners. It is probably nearly impossible to kill people over and over and not be negatively effected emotionally and possibly karmically. I have seen several anti-death penalty videos showing former executioners who are still tormented with the visions of a botched electricution of a prisoner or of seeing their faces before being the one to administer the punishment. In these videos many of these executioners are now against capital punishment.

The Dhammapada states:

Everyone fears punishment; everyone fears death, just as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill. Everyone fears punishment; everyone loves life, as you do. Therefore do not kill or cause to kill.

Knowing this, how can we Buddhists support state sanctioned killing in our names? Being o.k. with someone having to be the official executioner is "causing to kill." We go about our lives often not thinking of the burden that someone has of killing people in our names. Just because we don't think of it nor are we personally involved in the killing doesn't mean that we as a society are immune from heavy, less skillful karma.

~Peace to all beings~

P.S.~To the Michael who was selected from the drawing for the Enso-Zen t-shirt. I need to hear from you so that I can send it to you. If I don't hear from you by this coming Friday then I'll have to give it to someone else.

The Media and Suffering.

Have you heard about this terrible shooting in a Wendy's fast food restaurant here in the USA a few days ago? My heart always breaks and mourns when I hear about these things as there is so much suffering involved.

Obviously their is the suffering of the victims who did nothing but be in the wrong place at the wrong time. That being said, it is clear that the shooter must have been severely suffering mentally to feel pushed to do something so terrible as this.

Once again the media just focuses on the horror of the event rather than putting the spotlight on mental illness and what we can do to increase help and support for the mentally ill so that we can reduce this kind of thing that has become all to common. We never seem to use these nightmares to increase research into new and improved medicines and double our efforts to raise more awareness and educate the public on the truths and the misconceptions behind mental health problems. We need to find the positive in these events. We need to look at them as learning opportunities rather than just a salacious news story.

Today the media got their hands upon the 911 tapes of this terrible event and as usual are playing them over and over. I am always baffled why they do this because what good does this do but rub salt in the wounds of the families suffering? It isn't good to dwell on the panic and fear of those moments. It does nothing but amplify the disturbing nature of this shooting and broadens the suffering to the general public. Why would anyone want to listen to those traumatic moments?

I remember the people after 9/11 who wanted the tapes of the disaster released to the public and was greatly saddened when they did so. I think those are private materials that should be only accessible to the families of the victims. There is something really bothersome about listening to someone's last terrifying moments of their life. It seems intrusive and just waters the seeds of fear, delusion and anger. It only serves to fuel the suffering in this world. The other reason that we shouldn't air these tapes is because there are people who are on the edge of violence themselves and playing these tapes stirs up their urges to do something similar.

The other event that I remember is the Columbine massacre that occurred in my state of Colorado, USA when they released the video tapes of the killers roaming the hallways with their guns and you could see the crazy look in their eyes. It was a disturbing event in an of itself and airing those tapes was irresponsible in the least.

There is enough suffering in this world, we don't need to fuel that strong habit energy further.

I just firmly believe that somethings shouldn't be splayed out in front of the general public.

~Peace to all beings~

CSI and Other Violent TV and Film

Over the last 5 years or so I have seen a disturbing rise in interest of violent movies and television shows. Take for example the CSI franchise--yes, I say franchise because this show about fictional cases regarding Crime Scene Investigative units have three different versions of the show.

They consist of the regular CSI, CSI: Miami and CSI: New York. These shows are violent and often gory. The fact that there are three versions of this show tells me that there are a lot of people interested in watching this stuff. Then, on the same channel there is a show called Criminal Minds and Cold Case which is another show that looks into the criminal mind and their twisted actions. One another channel you can find the Law and Order franchise which includes Law and Order: Special Victims Unit which emphasizes cases regarding sexual crimes that are particularly heinous. Just the thought of such television makes my stomach churn. This is all just on TV. The movies are an even worse problem.

Whenever we go to the video store to rent a DVD we walk past video after video about some violent, serial killer style film. It seems that they are starting to crowd out the other movies on the shelf!! It is pretty rare now to find a good, funny comedy.

Have there always been so many violent, twisted and gory movies on TV and film or is our society becoming more and more violent, angry and disturbed? Why are we so obsessed with violence as a people??

I use to be able to watch such movies and shows but since I found the Dharma I no longer have a taste for such heavy energy. I'm certainly not the best moral example around though. Perhaps I'm making too much of all of this and being a bit of a hypocrite as I do still watch movies where sexuality is involved. Never the less, I find violence to be the one of the most critical issues (if not THE most critical issue) that we as humanity must face.

I hope everyone is in a safe place right now and if not--hold my hand and we will get through this sometimes difficult state of existence together in Oneness of mind, body and spirit.

~Peace to all beings~