By Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi
In the century preceding the birth of the Buddha,
northeast India underwent sweeping transformations that profoundly
reshaped the region’s geopolitics. The older tribal states gave way to
monarchies ruled by ambitious kings who competed for dominance, leaving
behind trails of blood and tears. The Buddha’s native land, the Sakyan
state, became a tributary of the kingdom of Kosala, and late in the
Buddha’s life the cruel King Vidudabha, rogue ruler of Kosala, massacred
the Sakyans, leaving few survivors. The state of Magadha, with its
capital at Rajagaha, became the nucleus of a new empire.
The Buddha’s discourses give us glimpses into
the tumultuous tide of the era. They tell how “men take up swords and
shields, buckle on bows and quivers, and charge into battle… where they
are wounded by arrows and spears, and their heads are cut off by swords…
and they are splashed with boiling liquids and crushed under heavy
weights” (MN 13:12–13). We read of battlefields marked by “clouds of
dust, the crests of the standards, the clamor, and the blows” (AN 5:75).
Rulers obsessed by lust for power executed their rivals, imprisoned
them, confiscated their property, and condemned them to exile (AN 3:69).
Against this backdrop of social chaos and
personal disorientation, the Buddha propounded an ethic of harmlessness
that rejected violence in all its forms, from its collective
manifestation in armed conflict to its subtle stirrings as anger and ill
will. He rested this ethic on the appeal to empathy, the ability to
imagine oneself in the place of others: “All beings fear violence, all
fear death. Using oneself as a criterion, one should not kill or cause
death” (Dhammapada v. 129). The First Precept and first course of
wholesome action call for abstinence from the destruction of life. The
earnest follower “puts down the rod and weapon and dwells compassionate
toward all living beings” (MN 41:12). Right Intention, the second factor
of the Eightfold Path, calls for noninjury. The practitioner is advised
to develop a mind of lovingkindness toward all beings, like a mother
toward her only child (Snp 149).
But while the ethic of harmlessness may have
served well as a guide to personal conduct, the governance of a state
presented a moral quandary, with which the texts occasionally grapple.
In a short sutta (SN 4:20) the Buddha ponders the intriguing question:
Is it possible to rule a country righteously—without killing and
instigating others to kill, without confiscating the property of others,
without causing sorrow? No sooner does the question occur to him than
Mara the Tempter appears and begs the Buddha to give up his monastic
vocation in order to rule. The Buddha spurns Mara’s proposal with a
statement on the misery of sensual pleasures: “Even a mountain of gold
would not be enough for one.” Yet, strangely, the sutta does not answer
the question with which it began. Perhaps the question was deliberately
left hanging because the Buddha (or the compilers) did not think an
unambiguous answer was possible. Yet the omission leaves us with this
dilemma: What happens to our commitment to harmlessness when the evil of
war seems necessary to deter a greater and more destructive evil?
The suttas, it must be clearly stated, do not
admit any moral justification for war. Thus, if we take the texts as
issuing moral absolutes, one would have to conclude that war can never
be morally justified. One short sutta even declares categorically that a
warrior who dies in battle will be reborn in hell, which implies that
participation in war is essentially immoral (SN 42:3). This decree,
however, seems inconsistent with our present-day norms, which recognize
conditions under which the resort to arms is permissible. Are such norms
mistaken, then, just further proof of human ignorance and moral
fallibility?
The early Buddhist texts are not unaware of the
potential clash between the need to prevent the triumph of evil and the
duty to observe nonviolence. The solution they propose, however, always
endorses nonviolence even in the face of evil. A case in point is SN
11:4, which relates the story of a battle between the gods, ruled by
Sakka, and the titans, ruled by Vepacitti. In the battle, the gods win,
capture Vepacitti and bring him to their city. Sakka’s servant Matali
urges his master to punish his old foe, but Sakka insists that patience
and forgiveness must prevail: “One who repays an angry man with anger
makes things worse for himself; not retaliating, one wins a battle hard
to win.” The Jataka stories, too, endorse strict adherence to the law of
nonviolence, even for a ruler threatened by a foe. The Mahasilava
Jataka tells the story of a king who was determined never to shed blood,
even though this required surrendering his kingdom and becoming a
prisoner of his enemy. Through the power of lovingkindness the king
managed to win release, transform his captor into a friend and regain
his kingdom.
In the real world, however, heads of state are
hardly likely to adopt lovingkindness meditation as their principal
means of deterring aggressors bent on territorial expansion or global
domination. The question then returns: While adhering to nonviolence as
an ideal, how should a government address real threats to its
population? And how is the international community to deal with a nation
determined to impose its will by force? While absolute nonviolence may
be the rule when no contrary circumstances are
apparent, specific situations can be morally complex, entailing contrary
moral claims. The task of moral reflection is to help us negotiate
between these claims while curbing the tendency to act from
self-interested expediency.
Governments obtain their legitimacy in part from
their ability to protect their citizens from ruthless aggressors bent
on conquering their territory and subjugating their populations. The
global community as well, through conventions and the mediation of
international bodies, seeks to preserve a relative state of
peace—however imperfect—from those who would use force to fulfill their
lust for power or impose an ideological agenda. When a nation violates
the rules of peaceful coexistence, the obligation to restrain aggression
may trump the obligation to avoid violence. Thus the UN Charter sees
physical force as a last resort but condones its use when allowing the
transgressor to proceed unchecked would have more disastrous
consequences.
The moral tensions we encounter in real life
should caution us against interpreting Buddhist ethical prescriptions as
unqualified absolutes. And yet the texts of early Buddhism themselves
never recognize circumstances that might soften the universality of a
basic precept or moral value. To resolve the dissonance between the
moral idealism of the texts and the pragmatic demands of everyday life, I
would posit two frameworks for shaping moral decisions. I will call one
the liberative framework, the other the pragmatic karmic framework.
The liberative framework applies to those
who seek to advance undeterred as rapidly as possible toward the final
goal of the Dharma, the extinction of suffering. Within this
framework—which proceeds through the threefold training of moral
conduct, concentration, and wisdom—refraining from intentionally
inflicting harm on living beings (especially human beings) is a strict
obligation not to be transgressed through any “door of action,” body,
speech or mind. A strict regimen of nonharming is inviolable. If one is
subject to conscription, one must become a conscientious objector or
even go to prison when there is no alternative. If one is confronted
with the choice between sacrificing one’s own life and taking the life
of another, one must be willing to sacrifice one’s own life, confident
this act of renunciation will expedite one’s progress.
The pragmatic karmic framework serves as a
matrix of moral reflection for those committed to Buddhist ethical
values who seek to advance toward final liberation gradually, over a
series of lives, rather than directly. Its emphasis is on cultivating
wholesome qualities to further one’s progress within the cycle of
rebirths while allowing one to pursue one’s worldly vocation. In this
framework the moral prescriptions of the teaching have presumptive
rather than peremptory validity. One who adopts this framework would
recognize that the duties of daily life occasionally call for
compromises with the strict obligations of the Buddhist moral code.
While still esteeming the highest moral standards as an ideal, such a
practitioner would be ready to make occasional concessions as a
practical necessity. The test of integrity here is not unwavering
obedience to moral rules but a refusal to subordinate them to narrow
self-interest.
In time of war, I would argue, the karmic
framework can justify enlisting in the military and serving as a
combatant, providing one sincerely believes the reason for fighting is
to disable a dangerous aggressor and protect one’s country and its
citizens. Any acts of killing that such a choice might require would
certainly be regrettable as a violation of the First Precept. But a
mitigating factor would be the Buddha’s psychological understanding of
karma as intention, whereby the moral quality of the motive determines
the ethical value of the action. Since a nation’s purposes in resorting
to arms may vary widely—just like a person’s motives for participating
in war—this opens up a spectrum of moral valuations. When the motive is
territorial expansion, material wealth or national glory, the resort to
war would be morally blameworthy. When the motive is genuine national
defense or to prevent a rogue nation from disrupting global peace, moral
evaluation would have to reflect these intentions.
Nevertheless, if one relies solely on canonical
statements, the volition of harming others would always be considered
“wrong intention” and all acts of destroying life classed as
unwholesome. But what moral judgment are we to make when citizens
participate in a defensive war to protect their country and fellow
citizens, or other peaceful nations, from attack by a vicious aggressor?
Suppose we are living in the 1940s when Hitler is pursuing his quest
for global domination. If I join a combat unit, is my participation in
this war to be considered morally reprehensible though my purpose is to
block the murderous campaign of a ruthless tyrant? Can we say that
fidelity to the Dharma obliges us to remain passive in the face of brute
aggression, or to pursue negotiations when it’s plain these will not
work? Wouldn’t we maintain that in this situation military action to
stop the aggressor is laudable, even obligatory, and that a soldier’s
actions can be judged morally commendable? By the same token, if a
policeman, in pursuit of his duty, is compelled to shoot a killer to
spare the lives of innocent people, would we not consider his action
commendable rather than blameworthy?
Hesitantly, I would have to adopt this latter
position. In doing so, I must add that I am not seeking to condone any
of the wars in which the U.S. is currently involved under the pretext of
“defending our freedom,” or to excuse the often brutal behavior of our
hypermilitarized police force. Taking life is always the last choice,
and a most regrettable one. But it seems to me that in a morally complex
world, our choices and judgments must reflect the morally knotty
texture of the situations that confront us.
I admit that I can’t justify my standpoint by
appeal to Buddhist texts, whether canonical or commentarial. It thus
seems to me that the ethics of early Buddhism simply do not cover all
the predicaments of the human situation. Perhaps that was never their
intention. Perhaps their intention is to serve as guidelines rather than
as moral absolutes, to posit ideals even for those who cannot perfectly
fulfill them. Nevertheless, the complexity of the human condition
inevitably presents us with circumstances where moral obligations run at
crosscurrents. In such cases, I believe, we must simply do our best to
navigate between them, rigorously examining our own motives and aspiring
to reduce harm and suffering for the greatest number of those at risk.
(Abbreviations: AN = An·guttara Nikaya; MN = Majjhima Nikaya; SN = Samyutta Nikaya; Snp = Suttanipata)
Ven. Bhikkhu Bodhi has been a Theravada
Buddhist monk since 1972. A translator
of the Pali Nikayas, he lives and teaches at Chuang Yen Monastery in
Carmel, New York. He is the founder and chairman of Buddhist Global
Relief. You can read excerpts from his translations of the Pali Canon at
www.wisdompubs.org under “Teachings of the Buddha” in the Wisdom Academics collection.
© 2014 Inquiring Mind
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