Thursday, April 19, 2007

A Human Tsunami

In my previous post, I asked how one becomes peace without unhealthily repressing anger and hatred toward evildoing and evildoers. This morning an anchor on CNN or one of the other news channels offered the beginnings of a possible answer when he referred to Cho Seung-Hui's murderous rampage as a "human tsunami."

It is far easier to hate evil acts that one sees as freely-willed than to hate those, like such natural "acts" as a tsunami, that one sees as the inevitable effects of complex causes. As I have explained many times, I subscribe to the latter rather than the former view. And when I can apply it to an evil act or person who perpetrated it, my anger and hatred decrease and my equanimity and compassion increase.

Thus it would seem that one way to become more peaceful is not to repress anger and hatred but to preclude or dissipate them by getting better at applying my deterministic philosophy to every person and every act.

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