On Violence and Non-Violence

Non-violence, ahimsa, was the starting point of the Buddha’s journey. As a bodhisatta, Siddhartha Gautama, craved a way to alleviate violence, both in his life and the lives of sentient beings. In autobiographical passages he said violence dismayed him. It was all around him like a disease gone wild.

Wanting a haven for myself,
I saw nothing that wasn't laid claim to.
Seeing nothing in the end
but competition,
I felt discontent.                           And then I saw
an arrow here,           
so very hard to see,           
embedded in the heart.

Samyutta Nikaya 4.15

In 2011 there were 31,940 deaths by firearm in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control. When combining the statistics for the 23 richest nations, he United States accounts for 83% of all gun deaths. Since September 11, 2001, American firearms have killed about 320,000 Americans. We have a “war on terror” but only a sigh for gun violence. Something seems strange about our priorities. Not much has changed since the Buddha’s day, except maybe, we’ve become much more efficient in the way we kill each other.  Maybe we aren’t nearly as civilized as we thought.

Not by harming lifedoes one become noble.
One is termed   noble           
for being  gentle
to all living things.

Dhammapada verse 270

The Buddha did not try to create a religion. He wanted to create a culture. The culture he foresaw was one of peace and harmony. It is built into the teachings of magga, the Way, aka Eightfold Path, under the heading of Right (“harmonious” or “appropriate”) Resolve.  What is Right Resolve? "Being resolved on renunciation, on freedom from ill-will, on harmlessness: This is called right resolve." (Samyutta Nikaya 45.8)

The resolve to be non-violent is difficult in our culture. We praise emotion over logic. We believe our opinions are reality. We rarely examine our experiences but take how we think about our experiences as the truth. It is hard to be unattached to our “feelings” when they are so highly prized.  The prizing of our thoughts and opinions leads to a needs to defend these thoughts and opinions. This leads to a process called papañca (prapañca Skt). It is why we believe our opinions are important and somehow representative of reality.

There is no English word for papañca. It is used in Buddhist doctrinal studies to describe expansion, differentiation or the kaleidoscopic way the world manifests itself. The term can also be applied to describe the phenomenal world as well. It also sometimes refers to the mental attitude of worldliness. Many teachers use the term to mean “proliferation of thought” and oddly enough, the State of California calls it the leading cause of traffic accidents. It is also the leading cause of violence in our society.

In Anguttara Nikaya 4:173, it is said: "As far as the field of six-fold sense-impression extends, so far reaches the world of diffuseness (or the phenomenal world; papañcassa gati); as far as the world of diffuseness extends, so far extends the field of six-fold sense-impression. Through the complete fading away and cessation of the field of six-fold sense-impression, there comes about the cessation and the coming-to-rest of the world of diffuseness (papañca-nirodho papañca-vupasamo)."  While we think of five senses, the ancients saw six senses because they included the mind as a sense.

The Buddha tells us that "This Dhamma is for one who delights in non-diffuseness (the unworldly, Nibbāna); it is not for him who delights in worldliness (papañca)." - For the psychological sense of 'differentiation', see Majjhima Nikaya 18 (called the Madhupindika Sutta, “the Ball of Honey” Teaching): "Whatever man conceives (vitakketi) that he differentiates (papañceti); and what he differentiates, by reason thereof ideas and considerations of differentiation (papañca-saññā-sankhā) arise in him."

When considering violence this proliferation of thought causes fear to arise within our mind. Fear is what underlies anger. It is the fear of loss, either “real” or perceived, well, always perceived. The person who feels anger also feels that they will lose something, even if it is only the chance to have something. With fear and anger there is resentment. There is an object of that resentment. That object is another that is seen as the cause of the anger. The fear is supplanted by anger.

Fear, anger and resentment are the combination of factors that lead to violence. What is violence? Violence is that which abuses another.  We abuse each other in a thousand different ways everyday. It is easy to do. We have a basic problem that goes beyond sheer ignorance.

In a striking piece of poetry (Samyutta Nikaya 4:15), the Buddha once described the sense of samvega, that is, terror or dismay, that inspired him to look for an end to suffering.

I will tell
of how
I experienced
samvega.
Seeing people floundering
like fish in small puddles,
competing with one another–

as I saw this,
fear came into me.

The world was entirely
without substance.
All the directions
were knocked out of line.
Wanting a haven for myself,
I saw nothing
that wasn’t laid claim to.
Seeing nothing in the end
but competition,
I felt discontent.

Instead of making an effort to solve the problem by looking for a larger puddle for himself or his fellow fish, as one would logically have proceeded, the Buddha counter intuitively looked inside to see why people would want to be fish in the first place. What he found was an arrow embedded in his own heart.

And then I saw

an arrow here,
so very hard to see,
embedded in the heart.
Overcome by this arrow
you run in all directions.
But simply
on pulling it out

you don’t run,
you don’t sink.

The Buddha actually uses the word papañca in the Pali Canon. He doesn’t describe papañca as an impediment to progress; he discusses it instead as a source of conflict and pain (Majjhima Nikaya 18; Digha Nikaya 21). The problem with papañca is not so much the amount or abundance of the thinking, as the type of mental labels, categories and perceptions, it makes use of. This is a point that the Buddha makes over and over again. The categories and perceptions of papañca are what cause conflict. The answer to the problem lies in the Buddha’s explanation of what it means to be a being. The act of taking on the identity of a being is a mental act. It is because we have passion, desire, delight, or craving for something that we identify with it (Samyutta Nikaya 23:2). In identifying with it, we become tied to it. That is what makes us a being. Our choice of what to desire defines the type of being we are. This process happens both on the macro level, those events leading from death to rebirth, and also on the micro level, as one sense of identity is shed for another on a moment-to-moment basis in the mind. The more we identify with violence the more violent we will become.

Sometimes it is a matter of being afraid to look at reality. Reality is not out there somewhere. Our illusions are our reality. If we become afraid of losing our illusions we reinforce our illusions. We do this because we are afraid to give up who we think we are, who we want others to see when they look at us. So we come to fear enlightenment itself because that would mean we would have to give up our illusion of what we are.

But ask yourself, “Do I have suffering? Is there stress in my life?” If the answer is yes, then it is obvious that out illusions are not serving us well. Yet at the same time, we also say, “This is good, let’s hang on to this” even when we are suffering. We want and need things that we don’t have and do not want or need the things that we do have. Wouldn’t it be simpler if it were the other way around? Unfortunately, that would be a step toward enlightenment and away from our bias toward our illusions.

Rather than looking for reality outside of ourselves we ought to be looking within. That is where reality actually happens. It is happening right here and now. It is you reading these words, typing on your keyboard, clicking your mouse – all in this very moment. This moment is reality. Thinking you need a gun to protect yourself is not reality. That is an illusion revolving around a non-threat that might happen in the future. That is fear and the looking for an identity, even if the identity is “I am the one who has a gun and am protected because I have it. I am the one who will shoot you if I feel threatened.” That is not seeing yourself for who you are. Seeing that you have these thoughts and seeing them clearly just as thoughts and not as a reality, that is reality and a movement toward enlightenment.