I remember when the Taliban blew up Buddha statues in Afghanistan, many non-Buddhists were outraged, but Buddhists were just calm as usual facing that enemy. Since they aren’t attached to that statue, they can take a moral high ground. After all, those statues mean nothing to a TRUE Buddhist.
There aren't any Buddhists in Afghanistan anymore nor have there been for about a thousand years. You may think those statues don't mean anything to a "true" Buddhist but what they mean to this Buddhist is not something to kill someone for. Nor is any material ritual object. That's not passivism that's weighing objective reality with a clear mind and an open heart.
Knowing that the consequences of all actions are inevitable why would I waste a moment concering myself with the fate of those idiots who blew them up? There was an article posted here on FR not too long ago about the guy who ordered their destruction. He's worm food now. I'm sure he did something worthy of that which blowing up a chunk of rock is not.
“Knowing that the consequences of all actions are inevitable why would I waste a moment concering myself with the fate of those idiots who blew them up?”
There are a lot of ways for the “consequence” of the action to be fulfilled. But, Buddhists, specifically, would NEVER act themselves even if the action was grave to them.
The Taliban blowing up a piece of Buddhist history to oblivion and Buddhists just smirking and saying it was a no big deal and let some magical force behind take care of itself are just trying to escape reality of the whole Natural damn Order.
Humans and human behavior are part of the natural order too, how sometimes they keep ignoring that.
You have to work(perhaps it was Buddhists DUTY to defend against the direct Taliban assult, who knows) and the Taliban was left unchecked not even asked to be brought to its knees... the evil was left unchecked for the sake of some miraculous solution to the whole damn problem.
Fortunately, the Americans(bastion of Judeo-Christian culture today) decided to do something about it, although only after it was being attacked by the guests of the Taliban.
“There was an article posted here on FR not too long ago about the guy who ordered their destruction. He’s worm food now.”
Only after 3,000 more people died on 9/11.
“...blowing up a chunk of rock...”
This is exactly the mentality I’m talking about among Buddhists that led to them being massacred and wiped out off South-Central Asia. There is not even a trace of them, save for some fossilized manuscripts that keep popping up once a blue moon.