This topic arises as we joined together last night for my Buddhist meditation class and one member asked our teacher something along the lines of "how do you treat all humans with compassion in light of the recent terror events" (in the past couple weeks we've seen shootings in Paris and Beirut, at a Planned Parenthood in CO, and in San Bernardino).
This is an important question.
I had already thought about this some previously. I found a way to humanize people who perform such violent acts by contemplating their life as a human. I realize they were not born terrorists. No one is. Everyone you read about spraying bullets in a crowd was once a child. Picturing them as an eight year old running around a soccer field helps me to see them as fellow souls who have lost their way. The turn of events in their lives to lead to such radical behavior is difficult for many of us to comprehend, especially for those of us who live in suburbia America. But we haven't had generations of wars destroying the world around us, uncles being murdered because you family's religious practices are a minority sect in that part of the world. So that's one way I've thought about this - all terrorists were born as innocent human babies.
Our teacher shared a couple other possible ways to look at this.
These radicalized men and women are just seeking happiness like the rest of us. Now, from our perspective, we know you can never find lasting peace through violence. Yet Most violence in the world is motivated by personal morality. So yes, their world view has become so skewed that their justification of their actions exists on a plane of morality that we find difficult to comprehend. By using compassion and empathy, it is possible to see yourself drawn into a society with different teachings where the ends justify the means. And the ends one seeks is to find eternal happiness. So indeed, terrorists are human too.
Next if one has faith in Karma (and by that I mean the Buddhist view of karma, not the belligerent Facebook posts about someone stealing your parking space at the mall), you can use this understanding to help empathize as well. By committing these acts of terrorism, the perpetrators are heaping loads of negative karma upon themselves, and will be suffering in future lives in ways well beyond all the combined suffering they have caused here on Earth through their actions. In feeling compassion for all living beings, I wish no others to experience such horrendous suffering and wish that they had never taken on those actions. I wish all living beings to be forever free from all suffering, including terrorists.
There is another way as well I thought about later. Buddha teaches that all human beings have a seed within them to achieve enlightenment in this very lifetime. We all have that potential, and thus we should see that potential in all other living beings. This is challenging. It would seem that you need to be a Buddha, or at least a Bodhisattva, in order to see this special gift in those who perform unspeakably violent acts. But that seed is there because terrorists are human too.
To wrap up and bring back the opening statement, I in no way condone the violent actions of other human beings. However, if we demonize them, either as individuals or as a group, we are doing a disservice to all living beings. Only by treating all living beings with loving kindness can we individually travel the path of enlightenment. There are no exceptions. Even humans who have sadly not been touched by Dharma in this lifetime and have succumbed to the delusions offered by other delusional humans deserve our compassion.
A man who conquers himself is greater than one who conquers a thousand men in battle.
-- Buddha
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