The Power of (Non-) Violence

As I suggested in my post, “Committed Buddhism,” from July 25, 2012, the possibility of a “Committed Politics” in Buddhism hinges on role of violence: sacrificing self and relieving the suffering of others.  Buddhism’s emphasis on compassion, I argued, can offer us concrete ways that we, everyday, can make a difference in the world by relieving suffering around us.

But on further reflection, I wondered about the nature of violence.  One of the most famous political acts by a Buddhist was the self-immolation by Vietnamese monk, Thích Quảng Đức, to protest the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese Government’s persecution of Buddhists.  The fact that he contacted American photojournalist Malcom Browne from the Associated Press and others to record the event demonstrates that he knew his act would make a difference to a U.S. audience who could put pressure on the former French colony and Roman Catholic-dominated South Vietnamese government.  It worked.  Browne’s photo below won the Pulitzer Prize:

In his suicide note, Duc focus on spreading compassion through his political sacrifice:

Before closing my eyes and moving towards the vision of the Buddha, I respectfully plead to President Ngô Đình Diệm to take a mind of compassion towards the people of the nation and implement religious equality to maintain the strength of the homeland eternally. I call the venerables, reverends, members of the sangha and the lay Buddhists to organise in solidarity to make sacrifices to protect Buddhism.

I am amazed by that sentiment almost as much as I am by the photo, which clearly shows Duc’s serenity, dedication, and strength.  Reporter David Halberstam, who became known for his coverage of the escalating US war in Vietnam, wrote this about Duc’s death:  “As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound, his outward composure in sharp contrast to the wailing people around him.” To me, that is the supreme measure of fearlessness derived from meditative practice and the long-sighted view of Buddhist commitment.  More than any other historical event, this man’s courageous and solitary act embodies the political power of Buddhism. 

To be sure, focused against himself, Duc's self-immolation was a non-violent act, and it returns us to my larger question:

What does Buddhism have to say about violence?

As I suggested tentatively in the "Committed" post, it seems as if Buddhism does condone violence in certain situations, regardless of its mostly pacifist stance towards war.  That stance is encoded in many of the written texts governing the behavior of both monks and lay persons.

From the text of the Chinese Mayahana Five Precepts:

“As the Buddha refrained from killing until the end of his life, so I too will refrain from killing until the end of my life.”

From the Eight Precepts, which come from the Anguttara Nikaya text and are for lay men and women who want to lead a more strict practice:

“I undertake to abstain from causing harm and taking life (both human and non-human).”

Certainly, Duc broke these precepts when he killed himself, but his act raises the question of larger purposes.  Of course, the fact that Duc did not physically hurt anyone else besides himself makes this kind of violence distinctly different from when others are affected. 

What if we take this precept literally?

In the movie, Kundun, we see this precept dramatized to the extreme.  Because the Dali Lama and his monks have vowed to do no harm, the extend that promise to the lowest levels of visible life. We see the young prince separate two beetles locked in combat, and when the  arrival of Chinese road construction crews threatens to disturb and destroy subterranean life, we see the monks working ahead of the road crews and sifting worms etc out of the freshly turned earth. (These scenes made me wonder about how far you can take this sentiment, which is why I used the phrase, "visible life."  What about the billions of microscopic life-forms that we destroy everyday without knowing it and being able to stop it.  Are we beholding to them too through the precepts?)

Vegetarianism is another way Buddhist precepts extend the prohibition against killing to daily life.  By eating only non-sentient life, such as plants, people can avoid killing higher life-forms.  In fact, studies show that ubiquitous vegetarianism could have a massive, salubrious impact on the planet by reducing water use, burning of fossil fuels, and growing more food on pasture lands.

How can we practice this precept of non-violence on a political level? 

In my view, political non-violence as a political strategy is what marks the rise of modernity from a positive side.  Certainly the Enlightenment, with its emphasis on reason and law over brute force and superstition, created the conditions for what we call to the non-violent movement.  But the idea of non-violence as a means of resistance to power was first articulated by Henry David Thoreau in his essay, "Resistance to Civil Government (Or, Civil Disobedience)."  It may come as no surprise that he was highly influence by new translations of Eastern texts, such as the Upanishad and Vedas, that were emerging in the early 19th Century.  In Thoreau, the confluence of East and West produced a new, rational way to fight oppression and injustice.

In his famous treatise, Thoreau recounts how he allowed himself to be arrested without protest or defense rather than pay a poll tax, which he saw as supporting a government that tolerated slavery.  (He also was arrested later for not paying an obligatory Church tax).  

I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated my as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did nor for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog.

The bolded section here reflects one of the most important ideas behind the idea of non-violent political resistance: one may gain limitless strength from the fact that, though one' body might be incarcerated, one's mind and spirit are always free.  It is these that are truly dangerous to an unjust or tyrannical government.

Through his act of disobedience, Thoreau advocates a broader brand of political action through a kind of withdrawal from society: "I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men whom I could name--if ten honest men only--ay, if one HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts, ceasing to hold slaves, were actually to withdraw from this co-partnership, and be locked up in the county jail therefor, it would be the abolition of slavery in America.... Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison."  We can see here the beginnings of the contemporary anti-income-tax movement. The larger argument he makes involves prioritizing the conscience of an individual over that of a (corrupt) corporate body (like a government): "The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right." 

Thoreau's principles of non-violent resistance have been majorly influential since their publication, inspiring the work of people like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, in their search against colonialism and apartheid for independence and civil rights.

In his book, Ethical Religion, Gandhi points out that all violence comes from intolerance, not just some animal desire to kill.  Think about that.  Only people who fear difference or strangeness are impelled to hurt others--people do not naturally act violently.  (Incidentally, I do have a reservation about this blanket statement, as I do believe that some people are "natural-born killers" who are psychotic or perhaps have a chemical imbalance in their brain or "destined to kill" who have suffered irreversible trauma themselves.  However, I don't know enough about criminal psychology to make a very informed argument on that topic.)  At any rate, one can easily agree that a government that oppresses its people does so out of fear of losing power or, in the famous case of the Nazis, because of hatred for ethnic difference.

The only viable and effective response to this fear and intolerance, according to Gandhi, is Satyagraha, which may be translated as "the insistence on truth" or "soul force."  This force may be tapped only by those who denounce violence, but it is universal and freely available to everyone (Non-violent Resistance 7).  However, accessing it is not easy and requires commitment;  only the morally strong can employ non-violent resistance: 

Satyagraha requires willingness to suffer (poverty, injury, even death), but it is a practice that can change a society:

I'm not sure Gandhi would have agreed with Thích Quảng Đức's choice to immolate himself.  But who knows?  Perhaps someone can comment if they know his views of suicide.  On the other hand, Gandhi did favor hunger strikes as a method of non-violent political protest, which is a form of killing oneself, albeit slowly.  What's the difference?

What Gandhi could agree on is that Duc's suicide required the supreme quantity of self-suffering.  And this self-suffering, by Gandhi and his followers, was the key force that led to India's independence.  In the United States, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) used non-violent resistance to raise awareness about the violence of segregation and to bring about civil rights for African Americans and other ethnic minorities in the 1960s.  

Even in the 21st Century, social media has enabled even broader and more instantaneous manifestations of non-violent resistance.  The "Arab Spring," including the non-violent protests and revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Iran, and elsewhere in the Middle East, testifies to the power of this practice to bring down despots, dictators, and immoral governments.  In fact, the peaceful revolution in Tunisia was begun by an act of immolation like that of Thich Quang Duc.  Click here to read more of the story of Mohamed Bouazizi, the 26 year-old street vendor who set himself on fire.

What does meditation have to do with non-violence?

Like non-violent political action, meditation is a discipline, a practice.  By doing it, we change, shift, and become better able to follow the precepts.  Through meditation, we get in touch with what Gandhi calls “Satyagraha,” or soul-force, which seeks truth  and love.  As I said before, if meditation does not make us better people in terms of relieving suffering of others, what good is it?

See Gandhi Non-violent Resistance pg 35 #3:

“For this exercise , prolonged training of the individual soul is an absolute necessity, so that a perfect Satyagrahi has to be almost, if not entirely, a perfect man.”

For American civil rights groups--like the SNCC, Freedom Riders and Montgomery protestors—prayer was a large part of their practice.

Any kind of reflection, or deep soul-searching, such as in prayer or meditation, is required to draw on the fortitude necessary to endure the whips and scorns of oppression and injustice. However, as contemporary history has shown, no violence could ever have achieved the kind of freedom and peace that non-violent resistance has achieved.  It is the way of change for the future.

Breath/Death

When meditate, I sometimes imagine the rising and falling of my breath in the form of a sign wave, with the in and out moving a line up and down over time.

Going up the slope of the wave, I am breathing in; going down, I am exhaling.  This graphic representation of my breathing has often come in handy to keep my awareness focused on my breath.

After much practice with this meditation aid (or mantra), I have been able to contemplate the various parts of this living, breathing graph.  And the parts of the wave that have intrigued me most recently are the peaks and troughs.

The peak of a wave is when the lungs are full to capacity--in a sense, one is holding one's breath for a slight moment--I reach the zenith of the track and am still, lungs bursting with life-giving oxygen, before the  roller coaster plunges down the slope and my lungs involuntarily, with the help of gravity, begin to deflate. I exhale.

But when the cart of the breath reaches the nadir, things get much more interesting and perhaps a bit scary.  At the bottom, it seems that I am out of life-blooming oxygen, as if I had floated to the bottom of the ocean.  Again, I am still.  Of course, the lungs are not exactly empty--we normally breath in a very small range compared with our total lung capacity, as the following chart shows:

Source: U of Miami 

Surprisingly though, in a normal breath (the darker blue band in the middle) we only use about 500ml of air and leave approximately 1800-2200ml in our lungs, far from being completely out.  Voluntarily with a little effort, we can only force another 1000ml out, leaving almost a liter we'll never be able to get out.  In fact, our total lung capacity is almost 6000ml for men and about 4200ml for women.  So as you can see, we are full of a lot of hot air.

But tell all of that to a drowning man or a person suffocating in a fire.  When we have exhaled our last breath, we are out of usable oxygen, regardless of our lung capacity.  So too when meditating.  When the sine wave reaches the bottom, I can't really get any more oxygen out of that breath.  Only the availability of fresh air around me allows my involuntary respiration to draw me again back to the surface of life.

During meditation, I contemplate the symbolic significance of the bottom of the sine wave more than I do the scientific, literal measurement of the capacity of our lungs.

If the top of the wave is life, then the bottom is death. Both are connect and contained within the elegant symmetry of the sine wave.

When I exhale and reach the bottom of the trough, it is only wishful thinking that my cerebellum will kick in and automatically contract my diaphragm and draw more air into my lungs.  But in fact, I really don't know for certain if I will draw a next breath:  I could have a heart attack, a meteor could hit the earth, a tree limb could crash in on my head, or the kid dreaming our world could wake up.  I have no way of knowing.

Although this kind of reflection may sound morbid, it is a stark reminder to stay in the moment.  Because I never know if this breath may be my last, I try to pay attention to what is happening now and to make the most of my life as it is.  Because this breath could be my last, it reminds me of my inevitable fate and offers me the opportunity to practice accepting my destiny.