Buddhism in a Christian World, Fighting Aggression with Non-Aggression…

The great Buddhist dilemma, or tetralemma, is how to deal with aggression. Do you turn the other cheek? But no Christian really did that, did they? Still, the goal is the goal, the difficulty of accomplishing it notwithstanding. And surely some Christians did just that, though Buddhists are probably better at it, given their cultural conditioning, just as some Buddhists are aggressive bullies, in some emulation of the Alpha Male Syndrome, if nothing else. Boys will be boys, and many of those are aggressive by nature. 

But is there a better way? Aren’t we guilty of another form of spiritual bypassing, if we avoid difficult social and political situations by simply retreating into our spiritual comfort zones and letting the world degenerate into madness? After all, is that any different from using our spirituality to avoid confronting our own emotions and unresolved existential crises? In fact it might be worse, much worse. So, yes, there is an opportunity here for someone to learn a lesson if only he or she wants to put the time and effort into it. 

But we can’t lose ourselves in the affairs of others. We can only teach what we ourselves know above and beyond question and learn from everything else. The important thing is not to react, or at least not overreact. We are all baited everyday with statements designed to inflame or instill anger when we ourselves intended no such thing at all initially and desire no such thing as result. But such is the nature of aggressive modern culture. And we are in it, regardless of whether we are truly of it or not. If turning the other cheek is to invite further abuse, then nothing has been accomplished. To simply walk away and limit future involvement with the aggressor might be a better solution.