Askold Melnyczuk: I Was a Pacificist—And Then They Came to Kill My Family

I've finally come to understand some of the evils my parents lived through.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with his troops on a working trip to the Donetsk region, Dec. 20, 2022. Photo courtesy of the Ukrainian Presidential Office.

By Askold Melnyczuk

As a Buddhist practitioner for decades, I’ve had the privilege of studying with many remarkable teachers, including the Dalai Lama, as well as with monks who’d been imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese military. Their gentleness, always deeply moving, was an essential part of their teaching. One monk said that what worried him most as he was being tortured was the possibility that he might feel anger toward his torturers.

Could you live with yourself if, hearing family and friends pleading for help, you chose to walk away? Their voices would haunt you forever.

This is indeed what pure pacificism looks like. His is a credible and appropriate stance . . . for a monk—that is, for someone for whom “detachment” is a primary virtue. A monk, after all, is someone who forswears family ties and “intimate” physical …