Wisdom Quarterly: American Buddhist Journal: Israel, I'm setting myself on FIRE: Get out!

Tuesday, February 27, 2024

Israel, I'm setting myself on FIRE: Get out!

Jon Farina (Status Coup News, 2/27/24); Robby Soave, Briahna Joy (The Hill/Rising); Pfc. Sandoval, Ashley Wells, Shauna Schwartz, Dhr. Seven COMMENTARY, Wisdom Quarterly

VIDEO: US military veterans burn their uniforms in solidarity with Airman Aaron Bushnell

(Status Coup News) Jon Farina is on the ground at Pro-Palestine, Anti-Genocide demonstrations as they occur, keeping an eye on Zionist-Jewish Israeli genocide troops and the Americans complicit in their war crimes.

(Rising) Aaron Bushnell memorialized by #FREE PALESTINE left

Look at the face, completely calm by dispassion

It's a terrible thing to set yourself on fire to get Netanyahu and his War Cabinet to notice you.

Will it move Zionist Jews to compassion or tolerance for the neighbors they have been abusing, raping, murdering, maiming, displacing, arresting, detaining, lying about, and discriminating against as they dislocate and dispossess them of their land in a "settler colonial project."

We're exterminating them. It's a final solution.

But as bad as all those things are, made worse by U.S. complicity, military funding, and diplomatic cover, ritual suicide is not the answer. Though one makes this a hell on earth for oneself in sympathy with the human beings of Gaza, the West Bank, and all of Palestine (all the Zionist-occupied land), it won't send Bibi, Genocide Joe, or their Ashkenazi and fundamentalist Christian cheerleaders there any sooner. Self-immolation is never a solution.

How to unsafely set yourself on fire

Who's worse, Genocide Joe or lying Trump? Even RFK is pro-CIA money for genocide.

Come into the present (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Become a Buddhist monastic.
Practice meditation after ordination.
Develop "trance" (jhana, absorption).
Take up insight practices to let go.
Directly perceive ultimate body-mind.
Attain enlightenment (awakening) and nirvana (slaking all craving) by knowing-and-seeing things as they really are thereby becoming disenchanted and dispassionate, a Buddhist "saint."
Form the intention to show everyone how detached you've become: "Look, everyone, look how not attached I am to this body! And, politicians, please stop your mass killings."

It's this last one that's the problem. Will unenlightened, undetached, unabsorbed "ordinary uninstructed worldlings" see you and follow suit, ending up in a terrible rebirth for (self) murder, dying full of revulsion for the Mossad, Israel, Netanyahu, Biden, Pentagon, Shin Bet, CIA, and hypocritical genocide-defenders and apologists in the mainstream media.

Light candles, not human bodies

Instead, be safe. Protest but bring lots of water. One need not ruin oneself to rage against the machine or call the world's attention to war crimes, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansing, and internationally-recognized genocide. Why? The slightest criticism already earns one the hateful labels "blood libel" and "antisemite," "self-hating-J," "baby beheader." Hypocrites have many kneejerk responses, reinforced by endless repetition on the TV, at their disposal.