Mountain Lamp Community
Non-violence:a weapon of the spirit
October 2006
In a world where people use violent acts to pursue and promote their agendas, non-violence takes on the smell of inactivity or passivity. It is nothing of the sort.
Disempowered, and oppressed peoples have found two ways to get the attention of the world when their anguish is not heard or honored: through violence and through non-violence. Violent means of change is what we hear about most often. Yet the past century has shown non-violence to be the primary way freedom and democracy emerge from oppressive systems.
Because non-violence is a deeper truth than violence, war and conflict, it has more inherent power than the fiercest battle or the largest weapon. It is the most true expression of our common humanity.
Non-violence is an energy, a force, and a precept that arises from true religious experience. It is the way that religious people in the world are petitioned to act by their consciences and by holy and wise teachers.
Christ expressed this insight as a "peace beyond all knowing." Sages and prophets of all religious traditions have spoken about it as well. Buddha said: "Hatred does not cease by hatred at any time, hatred ceases by love alone. This is the oldest rule."Gandhi said: "We conquer not so much by power and might as by a certain bent of spirit."
Non-violence is not a passive attitude, nor is it a religious ideal or just a philosophy. A prayer for peace is not enough. We must become the peace we seek. We make peace a lifestyle, with our thoughts and emotions, and through our actions and activities.
I practice sitting meditation in a Buddhist tradition. In sitting meditation, you face the wall in silence, and rest your awareness in your breath.
Interestingly enough, when we face the wall, we inevitably face ourselves. Sitting quietly, we see how our thoughts define our reality. We see and experience our striving, our planning, our worry and fear, our criticism of ourselves and others.
When we truly pay attention to our thoughts, feelings and sensations, we see the subtle duality that pits me against you, that pits us against them.
Where in this is the peace beyond knowing that Christ spoke of? Where is the love that transcends hatred and violence that the Buddha knew?
In meditation we come to understand the root meaning of sin, which is to separate, and by letting go of the ways in which our thoughts and feelings create separation, we come to know a peace of just resting, resting in the silence of our breathing, resting with quiet in our hearts. In that deep stillness we find a peace and love deeper than any concept or notion our thoughts create.
Ideas of "you" and "me," or "high" and "low" fall away. Even "right" and "wrong" disappear, and we become free of criticizing and judging, as Christ urged us to do in the Sermon on the Mount.
In this stillness, we taste something spoken about by the Sufis of Islam, the desert fathers of Christianity, and the prophets of Judaism. Gandhi knew it. And the action that springs forth from this knowing he called "satyagraha," a Hindu word meaning holding firmly to the truth.
Martin Luther King Jr. knew it too. He preached and he practiced agape, a love that transcends the secular love of longing and belonging to melt into a love so big that it holds all humans as brothers and sisters. We find no enemies here and even fear disappears.
Please don't misunderstand me. I am not saying we are all the same, nor am I saying that all religious traditions are the same. Rather, all beings and all traditions are like waves on the ocean, each unique and special yet all arising from one essential font. We are all unique and special yet we all arise from the same life force.
Whatever we call that force, whether it be love or peace, it is the most powerful force in the world. We can embody that force in our lives and in all we do. And we can make that commitment for the sake of the world and each other. This embodiment is non-violence: non-violence in our consideration of others, and non-violence in our actions toward them.
I believe this is our sacred duty as individuals and as a nation.