Buddhism and Violence (video)

Wisdom Quarterly

Buddhist novices (not monks) or temporary trainees in Southeast Asia play with toy guns because "Boys will be boys," in the opinion of the photographer (Woutertje010).

It was enchanting to see novices in rural northwest Thailand, having girded their loins, playing kataw (jungle soccer-tennis-volleyball). Pulling out a camera to capture their joy, they immediately stood at attention, arranged their robes, and bolted away. Hiding and waiting, hoping they would come back, but the scene had been ruined. They looked like "little monks," which is what samanera ("novice") means. They are innocent and extraordinarily well behaved throughout S.E. Asia.

(TP) Buddhist novices bang the gong at a temple in Sisaket, Thailand. Ninety-five percent of the population is Buddhist. Young boys often ordain as Ten Precept trainees at a temple for a few days or weeks to get a taste of what monastic life is like in this Southeast Asian, predominantly Theravada country. Some will go on to ordain later in life (when they come of age at 20 and can take on all 227 monastic observations), most will not.

A Better Way to Communicate

Buddhism is the antithesis of violence. That is not to say that there is no violence, particularly verbal wrangling.

• There is a creation story that says chess was invented by Buddhist monks as a way of competing in a friendly and civilized way.
  
• Tibetan monks trained in monastic college take disputation to wild gesticulation.

Even in the days of the Buddha when the Buddha oversaw the Sangha, he could not prevent disputes among the monastics. And to calm them he sometimes had to resort to leaving, which would eventually have the effect of bringing them to their senses -- often because lay followers were upset and let the monastics know it.

The same strategy was employed by the plebeians (the commoners, part of the 99%) against the patricians (the elite 1%) in ancient Rome. If the people did not get their way, they left town, headed for encampments in the hills, and refused to participate. The patricians would quickly cave with no population to rule over.

Siddhartha had a white pony (Kanthaka), so why not let rural Cambodian novices use horsies for always alms round to distant villages?

The Quarrelsome Monks of Kosambi

KOSAMBI, ancient India - Nine years into his 45-year wandering mission, the Buddha was staying at Kosambi. A quarrel arose between two factions of monks. One consisted of experts [chanting it by memory] of the monastic disciplinary code (vinaya); the others were experts of the discourses (suttas). The Buddha tried in various ways to settle their disagreement, which is said to have been about pots of water. But caught up and clinging to their views, they would not agree, even threatening to strike one another. So the Buddha left them without a word, going with bowl and robe into Parileyyaka Forest.

The Beginnings of the Dispute

Kosambi was the capital of the kingdom of Vamsa. It was here that the first serious discord within the monastic Sangha arose. It shows that no mundane community, even one under the Buddha, is free of human frailties such as bias, egoism, stubbornness, defensiveness, or self-righteousness. [The Arya Sangha, or community of accomplished ones, is free of these defects.] More important is how the Buddha successfully dealt with it. More