conflicted Buddhist serving her country

[bianfu]

Hello everyone, I'm Bianfu. Growing up in a spiritually open household, I was always drawn towards Buddhism but it has only been in recent years that I have come to call myself a "Buddhist". Buddhism just seems to click with my personal views on life. But there is one brickwall that stands between me and my continued growth. It's this inner

Comments

[dwaleberry]

Wouldn't becoming a policeman be a more viable option for serving your country? I don't see how getting caught up in the dreadful US war machine would help you gather positive karma.

[bhavanibbana]

Intent, man. It's all about intent.

[dwaleberry]

What about morally questionable actions derived from having to obey orders from your superior?

[bhavanibbana]

Same answer. Soldiers aren't required to follow illegal orders. As for morality, that's a relative matter, so I can't give a definite answer.

[dan_lian]

Alas, I do not have much "words of wisdom" for you... I considered enlisting several times (if only to selfishly take advantage of the Defense Language Institute) or looking at careers in the State Department, but each time I pushed it back because while I love my country, I cannot unabashedly support the government as those in the military must.

I wish you the best of luck in coming to terms and resolving your dilemma.

[bianfu]

Ah, so you have heard of DLI? aka Desperate Lover's Institute, haha.
May I ask what language you had been interested in pursuing? I am currently a student there.

[dan_lian]

... Anything. I absorb languages like a sponge, and when we took an old version of the entry test (the made-up language portion), I got top marks, so I was curious to see what they would have proposed to me. ;) I'm currently studying Mandarin and Spanish on my own, and brushing back up on French and German. I have several others I'm less than fluent in, or that are "odd" (Danish, Norwegian, Swedish due to a year abroad...).

I <3 languages. :)

[bianfu]

真的吗？！ 你说中文吗？你是很聪明。我也喜欢外语可是我的中文不太好。
我想国防语言学院的中文系很难，lol. 因为天天我们课是越来越快。

[sidthesquish]

hahaha, actually this is something I have dealt with a lot. I am a member of the United States Army reserve. I was deployed as part of OIF3(2004ish) in Kuwait with a signal unit. I had always had an interest in buddhism before I got deployed, read a few books attended a few dharma talks. I was very lucky in my deployment to spend the entire time in Kuwait working in server rooms monitoring networks, relatively safe. I found I had a lot of downtime and took advantage of it by reading ALOT. I took advantage of amazon.com and collected a large library of buddhist texts, which I read avidly. This is also the time period of my life where I joined this community. I found it hard at first to reconcile my duality, but I'm of the firm opinion that buddhist teachings can improve the life of any person regardless of what they do in life. If it helps than keep it up

[bianfu]

Thank you for this very insightful post. I appreciate it and will most certainly be checking out those two links.

[sevenjades]

I don't think there is any conflict between Buddhism and serving your country. What about all those soldiers in predominantly Buddhist countries? :) You protect people, you serve with honor and dignity, you dedicate yourself to a worthy cause, you save lives, live with discipline, and do something you enjoy, something you feel called to do. How is that incompatible with Buddhism

[sevenjades]

Oh, and thank you for your service!

[bianfu]

Thank you immensely for these words, they have certainly given me a more clearer image on matters.

[_kissingchaos]

Thank you for your service. The spirit of what you do is noble, even if war itself sucks. :)