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ca. 563 BCE—ca. 483 BCE

Nonviolence and Enlightenment

Prince Siddhartha, born into the powerful warrior caste in what is now Nepal, had a protected and pleasure-filled childhood. His father, hoping to insulate the boy from life’s miseries, kept him a virtual prisoner inside the extensive palace grounds. But young Siddhartha, increasingly curious about the outside world, finally persuaded a servant to take him beyond the palace gate. Once outside, he encountered scenes that shocked him to his depths: hungry and emaciated children, ill, lame, and aged people, and corpses being prepared for cremation. In one fell swoop he realized that life is full of suffering. Shaken to his roots, he fled the palace in the dead of night and retreated into the forests to search for meaning. He finally discovered it—his title, the Buddha, means “the enlightened or awakened one”—and shared his insights with the world.

The Buddha taught that the world’s suffering is the result of unfulfilled craving. Our desires upset the equilibrium of our minds, giving rise to thought patterns that create artificial polarities such as mine/yours, desirable/undesirable, and love/hate. This fragmentation of our awareness of the world encourages a fixation on self, which the Buddha argued is itself an illusory construct created by craving, and this in turn breeds animosity toward those whom we fear pose a threat to the self’s satisfaction. Violence, then, springs from self-deception spawned by the failure to control craving. It’s a habit of thought that risks becoming so engrained as to seem natural.

To shed the delusional tendency to violence, the Buddha recommended a regimen of behavioral therapy: gradually rid oneself of craving by recognizing that desires only enslave and that it’s better to be free, and practice behavior that encourages the letting go of craving. The Buddha summarized this teaching in the Four Noble Truths, recommendations for cultivating inner equilibrium and a right relationship with the world.

One of the central principles in the Buddha’s teaching is the importance of nonviolence, or ahimsa. If we control our cravings, we control the fear, ignorance, egoism, and self-deception that create violence. Not wishing to suffer ourselves, we recognize that it’s wrong to inflict suffering upon any living thing. One of the most eloquent expressions of this commitment to nonviolence is in the Brahmajala Sutta, a summary of Buddhist ethics from the Theravada tradition. In it, the Buddha instructs his bhikkhus or monks by using himself as an exemplar. He tells them that he “abstains from the destruction of life. He has laid aside the rod and the sword, and dwells conscientious, full of kindness, compassionate for the welfare of all living beings.” He has laid aside all weapons, mental as well as physical, doesn’t take what isn’t given, blocks his ears to idle chatter or hurtful words, doesn’t start or end quarrels, and strives to be trustworthy by refusing to utter falsehoods. The Buddha’s point is that nonviolence, the mastery of craving which too often leads to rancor and strife, is both the path to and the fruit of enlightenment.