BuddhaGang Chat: talking about a recent event
Charlie Kirk was killed. Bad karma.
BuddhaGang friends were talking about it yesterday, but I was sick so I didn’t see until this morning.
A:
So I saw some posts sympathizing with Kirk...
Then I imagined Moe Hein, a military lobbyist and extreme nationalist from Myanmar, in the place of Kirk, being shot in the neck. And for me, the whole action felt justified.
P (to A):
So murder is justified? His actions create intent in others and bad acts. Please help me understand how murder is justified. Ever. Not self-defense killing, as we had discussed, but murder.
Am I missing something about Buddhism here that justifies murder?
I:
There is no justification.
A:
Murder is bad.
But some people also need to repay their karma.
I do spread metta to all beings, but if I heard the news of Min Aung Hlaing being murdered, I would be partying loud.
But of course, this is bad.
This will only lead to more suffering.
It will become an excuse for conservatives to do their stupid acts.
D:
🐝
P (to A):
It’s not up to a human to do this though, is it? Except in very rare cases of protection?
If you think someone deserves to be murdered, that would apply to you and me too, right? That’s ill will.
Karma isn’t for humans to dish out, is it? 🤔
I’m alarmed that you have it in your soul to say celebratory things about anyone’s murderous demise.
Mortal schadenfreude is morally repugnant.
Maybe I’m getting Buddhism wrong.
A (to P):
Karma works in many ways.
P:
Are you an expert?
A:
When karma wants to give a murderer, it sends a murderer.
P:
Maybe I’m in the wrong group here.
I’m not saying he was a skillful human at all — he created division and hate.
A:
Maybe I’m the wrong one.
After all these things I’ve seen and experienced in Myanmar, I won’t be sending metta tonight.
P:
What would Buddha say about Charlie Kirk’s killing?
P (to A):
Equanimity is my max on this, for sure.
A:
Even when I send, I will always omit the military.
P:
But not ill will.
A:
I just cannot send any love on it.
P:
Totally. Equanimity.
Prem wanted to catch up and bring in some more details.
It’s not justification — it’s cause and effect. Karma flows. Everything that happens rises out of causes — some of them ugly human intentions — and conditions shaped by layers of bad karma working over many generations. This is no different. We can look at the field of the world and see why someone might do this. Still, much is uncertain. We can’t see every cause. But we do know this: nothing happens for no reason. This came from many causes — some we can name, most still hidden.
This is why Alvin’s words make sense. He isn’t cheering harm. He’s pointing at the moral law of karma: results (like Kirk’s death) arise from causes. That doesn’t have to be seen as “punishment” or “justification” talk; it’s clarity about how reality moves.
The law of karma is also what we in the west often call determinism. Buddhism is not hard determinism (which suggests reality is something like a giant clock type machine) — if freedom were impossible, the Buddha wouldn’t have taught a path to freedom. Karma ripens and choice matters.
The spin, the climate, the danger
We can already see how Trump and his fascist buddies are spinning it — using Kirk’s death to justify more demonization of people who care about other beings, and more militarization in so-called “Democrat” cities, which aren’t actually “Democrat” cities. They’re cities where beings live happy with diversity — and because they aren’t afraid of diversity, they often vote Democrat. Democrats aren’t perfect. But they’re not so openly racist, hateful, and greedy. Turns out faking wholesome qualities is still better than not faking them. How leaders pretend to be shapes how the masses tend to be. When a dick-tater rises up — one who doesn’t even bother to fake virtue — the masses feel justified in letting old, ugly, racist, violent habit-energies run unchecked.
Kirk was right in the middle of this slide into fascist, sexist racism. Many see the danger. Many beings didn’t like him much at all. But not all beings practice like us.. not many know the bodhisattvayana.
Caught in loopy confusion and despair, with urgency / outrage (samvega) unbalanced by serene faith, most beings (prthagjana, ordinary, not woke beings) make bad decisions — like this, to kill.
We can understand the whys and hows if we keep watching the detials unfold carefully.
Rural America votes maga. Many there fear people of color simply because they don’t live near many. I have many of them in my family. The maga complex of greed, hatred, and delusion thrives on this deeply confused fear. Trump fed it. Kirk helped spread it. I’ve been paying attention and it hasn’t been cool. Still, I don’t and won’t celebrate the killing. I can understand it — to a degree — without endorsing it.
Some things are clearer some things are still unclear
There’s a suspect. And the “messages” on the bullet casings weren’t what we first heard. Reports now say one read, “if you read this you’re gay,” and a manufacturer engraving “TRN” got spun as “trans.” Some maga propandist inflated that into an anti-fascist trans manifesto. So dumb. So dangerous. We need to be extra discerning right now.
Confusion, delusion, fear, hatred, and violence thrives when worldly minds run hot like this. Things are tricky too tho! Kirk had become a liability for Trump — he kept calling for release of the Epstein files, and he had started speaking about Israel’s atrocities in Gaza. That gives the goons reasons to silence him. But I don’t know what happened.
The identified shooter appears to be a Mormon kid — not likely the caricature they wanted to sell. I know that world; much of my family is Mormon.
We can hold this with bodhisattva-sīla in real time
“Sly as snakes and innocent as doves,” like Jesus bodhisattva urged.
Things are tricky and complex, and feelings are running hot. Intense feelings can cloud the thinking mind — exactly when we need that kind of clarity most. So we can do ancient Buddhist psychospiritual judo: look deeply and flip what sucks into the path — just like the old Mahamudra manuals teach. Breath as anchor. Attention wide and deep. Causes and conditions realized and named. Kusala action chosen and akusala karma chosen to be neutralized by compassionate action in “the world”. We can let the disappointment feed the force of the bodhisattva vows, not worldly resentment. Bodhisattva-sīla in real time! Engaged Buddhism. Same difference.
Fascism
But this is how fascists move: chaos, fear, confusion, then more violence to justify more fascism.
Karma in worlds like this is complex and messy. Bodhisattvas strive on to attain “all-knowledge.” It’s not always easy or fun tho.. knowing what is happening here and now can be painful.
Causes and results ripple out and in, multidimensionally. Beings get caught in the net after becoming intoxicated by taking more and more of Mara’s bait. I’m thinking our task as bodhisattvas — from what I’ve seen, heard, practiced, and realized of the bodhisattva teaching (aka engaged Buddhism) — isn’t to justify bad karma. And I don’t think Alvin was doing that. Our task is to see clearly and to name both the conventional and the ultimate reality in what we see.
Naming is essential for communicating, and for teaching — names are fingers pointing to the moon’s reflection in water. The wise won’t stare at the finger, or the reflection in the water, but they’ll look up to see the moon. Teaching, in this world (and all worlds where bodhisattvas appear), is about transforming greedy, hateful, deluded minds into generous, loving, wise minds. Sometimes it’s not fun or easy. It’s not fun to know what sucks, how and why it sucks. It’s not easy to help change things. But this is all about other beings!
Naming is useful when communicating with beings
Naming the realities of the law of karma isn’t hate. We know “other” beings are not truly other, so we care deeply. Mahakaruna is the backbone of the bodhisattva — great compassion.
We can’t do another’s karma for them, but we can help them all by always planting good seeds, nurturing the good seeds already planted, and we can do it as a team. Adaptive eloquence and skillful means — sly as snakes, innocent as doves — always as love in action (which is also the title of an awesome TNH book).
We care a lot. There’s urgency and outrage. That’s samvega. Samvega can get intense and unpleasant, so we also cultivate serene faith to balance it. We can study the teaching and implement what makes sense — through meditation and ethical discipline — so knowledge becomes gnosis, direct experiential understanding, which is another name for truest, most potent love. We care — deeply — and it hurts. But unlike untrained, ordinary prthagjana beings, we won’t try to twist our caring into justification for more bad karma.
These are tricky times, and Buddhism is a vast ocean of teachings and methods.
There can’t one single “Buddhist position” that fits the reality of beings in the moment.
Different bodhisattvas will bring different gifts, vows, understandings, and powers. So yeah, we can’t do others’ karma for them, but we can definitely play a potent role in changing their minds which will help them wake up and live woke.
I’ve seen Pali suttas where the Buddha was told, “No one can help another to awaken.” He showed how it was wrong — he had already taught and watched others awaken. He had direct experience of this and so he understood the wrongness of the assertion. There is a way to help others wake up. It can involve skillful thinking and words. It’s always about waking up all beings.
Bodhi and Wokeness
The Buddha explained how bodhi is skillful attention ripening into practice, understanding, and truer love. Words, practice, and example — that’s how one person helps another toward perfect wokeness. It isn’t always easy. It isn’t always pleasant. But it works. The Buddha also explained beings. Some individuals and groups of beings are like soggy wood — not easy to light up. Other individuals and groups are like dry wood — quick to catch flame. So let’s keep implementing the teaching of the inexhaustible lamp, with discernment and some understanding of the audience (they don’t often understand the mechanics of the karma science here).
It’s all about making perfect wokeness go viral.
One bodhisattva shines bright and lights up ten others, and each of them lights up ten more, and the process goes on until the whole world blazes with the brightness of bodhi — perfected wokeness. Exponential growth. What people now call virality. Jesus Bodhisattva said, “I have come to set the world on fire.” That seems relevant here.
Be discerning
So we keep discernment sharp — clarity about the specifics and complexity of karma — grounded in study and implementation. That’s what Alvin was doing with his comments here. I can see how they might be taken differently, but I know Alvin knows the sources, so I have a sense of what he meant. And like Alvin does here, let’s keep dismantling the systems of greed, hate, and delusion that keep producing this sad samsara — by being upfront about the basics of the Buddhist law of karma.
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Infinite blessings,
All the love,
Much respect
— Prem
