Buddhism and Lifethreatening Self Defense

Hello!


I've recently been stumbling onto this question throughout the last few days, and have been trying to meditate on it.


What does Buddhism say about self defense?

For instance: say you were in the forest, and suddenly, a puma or blackbear came upon and looked like they were going to attack? Are you allowed to fight back for you life if you know it is going to kill you?


Or what if someone with a gun tried to hurt you? Is it wrong to try and hurt them to get it away from them?

Namaste and Blessings!

Jay

 

The thing about wrong in Buddhism is: There IS such a thing as right and wrong, but if you do wrong, Buddha ain't gonna smack your ass and if you do right, Buddha ain't gonna pat you on the back either. Karma is your action and the result of that action. You make your karma - no one can make it for you. You are responsible for your karma. The bear trying to eat you makes its own karma. The serial killer looking to carve you up is making his/her own karma.

So how does this tie in with self-defense? You have to be willing to ask yourself: If you allow someone to kill you, are you truly being compassionate? On the other hand, if you kill to protect yourself, are you still being compassionate?

The thing is, the situations you have posted are just hypothetical. They're not real. Of course instances like those can and do happen - but until they do happen to you (and you wouldn't want them to) you just don't know, do you?

Make a decision: your life or his. Take responsibility for it. Don't try to justify by saying, "well he was a bad man" or "he had it coming" as if to say that YOU deserve to live more than he did. It's NOT OK to kill. In an ideal world we wouldn't have to. But we don't live in an ideal world and sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where we have to choose between one terrible option and another equally terrible option.