whispered lineage

Published in Journal of Buddhist Ethics # 16, 2009: http://blogs.dickinson.edu/buddhistethics/2010/05/10/violence-and-non-resistance-buddhist-ahi%e1%b9%83sa-and-its-existential-aporias/

A long essay looking at an episode described in Alan Clements’ book Instinct for Freedom. I consider the Buddhist ethical grounds for Burmese former monks taking up arms against their own military oppressors in the long resistance against the regime of General Than Shwe (and his predecessors). Derrida and Levinas provide non-Buddhist ethical perspectives which underpin my otherwise Buddhist discussion of the philosophical implications of a non-dual ‘ethics of emptiness’.