The Korean newspapers have reports that the Korean communities all over America are concerned with the possible backlash of this horrifying incident, citing the aftermath of 9/11. Personally, I have met people of Indian, Pakistani, Arabians background who described how they were hassled in the streets, sometimes threatened with physical violence by fellow Americans just after 9/11 - as if they had anything to do with this.

Not possible here, you say!? Well, there was another thread in DU where someone was asking about the Korean culture as a major contributing factor! Racism begins with generalizations, and U.S. history has proved this time and time again - i.e. the Vincent Chin incident being just one.

I believe that we need to make everyone in America aware that the shooter's ethnicity/nationality is not relevant, i.e. it is not something inherent in the Korean cultural that caused this incident. So I ask all of you out there to make sure that the sins of one person is not applied to an entire racial group. To allow this would be a far greater crime!

It doesn't matter to the public if the shooter is an Asian, an Asian-American or not (Many of whom are over 6 feet by the way). It doesn't matter that he may or may not fit "the profile". The only thing that is clear to me here is that this was a tormented soul. How bad things were with him and how tortured was he to be able to do this?!? Can you imagine how bad things in your own life would have to be to reach such a point?

It is easy to condemn this person, but now is the time to display some compassion for the family of this shooter as well as to the families of all the victims. Yes, we can all sympathize with the families of the victims, whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But can you imagine what the family of that shooter must be going through?

So my compassion goes out to the family of the shooter, who must be feeling very responsible for this horror today!

You have chosen the religion of atheism, and your emphatic hostile tone only proves that you are quite a fundamentalist at it, as most atheists I know.

Atheism is a religion; it is a religion that "believes" that rejects the teachings of Christ, the Buddha, Krishna, Allah, and all the other teachers of past, present and future. It is the practice of not examining and investigating these teachings for oneself.

I'm not proclaiming to know what's inside your head, and quite frankly I don't care. All I am saying is that atheism tends to be practiced as a religion as much as the other proclaimed religions. Only those who are not confident in one's beliefs feels the need to make these distinctions. Those who are secure in their beliefs embrace all teachings, for they can truly see that their beliefs are in all and vice versa!

Only those who insecure will respond with such hostility and anger! At least that has been my experience.

If you truly investigate any one of the religious doctrines, really investigate them, you can see that at its core they are all saying the same thing; that which is beyond words. And because it is beyond words, the teachings of these "religions" are uniting in its own mysterious ways.

However, it is human nature to divide as a way of justifying one's existence by demeaning another. If it is not in the name of religion, it is in the name of some other ideology. If it is not religion or ideology, it will be politics, racism, sexism, nationalism, homophobia, etc...whatever one wants to use to prove that one is better than the person next to them. By justifying oneself in this way, one does not take on the responsibility of their actions and their lives.

Why is it so difficult to see this difference? Why is it that the teachings and the doctrines are thrown out with the those who have completely misinterpreted these teachings as if these teachings have no merit? Why do we assume that these misinterpretations are the truth instead of finding out the truth for ourselves? Isn't it possible to see that the interpretations are not what the teachings point to?

Buddhists define reality as only that which remains. Anything that appears and then disappears is impermanent, and therefore, this is not reality. This means that everything we see, touch, hear, and experience is only an illusion, much like a dream upon awakening. The dream may have been intense and felt real, but upon awakening is only an illusion. Awakening is reality, until then we are only dreaming.